Category Archives: Uncategorized

3 Qualities Angel Investors Look for in Entrepreneur

This is a quality video about what Angel Investor’s look for in entrepreneurs.

I found that unlike a lot of the web videos these days are filled with sort of, half baked ideas of how the world should be and how because of this perception- this is what entrepreneurs look for in entrepreneurs… This insert actually evades these vague concepts and gets the opinion and view of someone who actually has commendable experience in the field and is speaking purely from just that. Facts.

Get this info in:
It’s some good shit.

#LearnAndBurn

How To Find Your First Employees

 

As I mentioned earlier, this week will be dedicated to finding enough resources from the web in order for us to determine how to construct the perfect team for our various startups, right? I find it quite interesting that Jay Adelson mentioned that the team members at first need to be “Jack of all traits and Master none”.

This view mad me think about how, as entrepreneurs, we often try to over think who we should get on the various projects. We ask: is he qualified enough to give me the right advice? Can I trust this person or will they just end up stealing my ideas and making them better? Although leading towards paranoia; these concerns are justified by the fact that our startups are essentially our lives. If we want the start up to work- we ave to eat and live our startup. If, like me, you have an entrepreneurial state of mind- you begin to make certain projections that excite you and make the Idea/Concept that much more valuable in your life.

 

I had a meeting on Monday with a couple of partners that I have for another startup I’m involved in and one that I plan on investing greatly on. Before me, I saw a group of very ambitious and intelligent set of young men. This for me is all you need from a team. A bit of hunger and some natural ability. These two traits ensure that your team can put in the long hours where their needed and also be able think on their feet when things go slightly out of plan (as they normally do with young startups). I use the term “a bit of hunger” because I’ve realised that no one’s going to want your startup to be successful as much you do. As entrepreneurs, our lives revolve around the idea that this new business, is our key to economic emancipation, recognition etc. So we have to compensate this lack of natural commitment to our startup  by using our basic understanding of certain existing human dynamics.

Jay Adelson mentioned one of the human dynamics: incentive. By offering the early members of your team parts of the company as opposed to just the usual underpaid salary, you create a need/ incentive for their hard work. They feel more like a part of the startup then just being the “help” thus increasing their propensity to deliver great work.

The Team

Unlike with most of my ideas, Zooloo is one that i came up with in solitude. I had been at home wondering why nothing had been done to solve this problem. I turned to the web and realised that indeed no one had gone out to solve this problem. Some tried but didn’t have the bigger picture in mind. Some were too far off. 

Zooloo is spot on.

Now, having this great idea be entirely mine and  living the life that I live which is mostly one of solitude and a sometimes very absent social life, means that I need to get other people as excited as I am (which is totally impossible) in order to assemble the perfect Team. 

Where do you find these people? Who are they? Do they have to be so old? Does experience out-weigh talent? How do you create the best environment to hone-in on such talent?

Throughout the next week, I’ll be posting up as many of the resoures that I’ll be using to answer these questions. Hopefully, by the end of the week I will be able to write a piece that sums up everything that I’ve received- clearly. 

Here’s to another weekend gone, and another week started.

TEDxPhnomPenh – Colin Wright – Extreme Lifestyle Experiments

 

Extreme lifestyle experiments.

The lifestyles we live, need to be conguesive to achieving whatever goal we wish to embark towards. In that to achieve our goals we need to first ask ourselves why we haven’t achieved them already. Most of the time, one has the idea and the only thing holding him away from his goal is a lack of  “resources”.

In my experience, however little it may be, I’ve found that most people who cry about their lack of resources actually just have either a lack of self belief or the lack of determination required to obtain those  missing resources. So if you ask me what seperates us from acheiveing our goals: it’s our lifestyles. Old habits that have taken years to develop and are now taking as long to part away with. The Procrastination, the excuse-making and the hours and hours of re-planning when in fact- you’re only stalling away from the real work. The work that actually gets your whole body aching and not just your fingers and thumbs.

Watching the above clip opened my eyes to something that should have been part of my life ever since I made the decision from working towards getting a University degreee to becoming an entrepreneur.

The twelve minutes I spent listening to Colin Wright begged me to answer this one vital question that I happened to have forgotten about: what is The Love?

What is this “thing” that I’m chasing? And what sparked off the passion for achieving it?

Once I got to re-answering these questions, I designed a bunch of lifestyle experiments which could ensure that the journey towards my goal (Zooloo) becomes a fluid one.

One that comes more naturally, because the love exists everyday.

I’ll be posting up a lot of these experiments throughout my start-up journey.