February 19, 2014 Devin Mathews via Fortune : How to avoid the venture capital trap

Building your company this way gives you the flexibility to make mistakes along the way without the fear of your VCs pulling the plug. Sure, this way doesn’t get much press but it comes with control over how fast you climb, where you place your bets, and who and when you add to your team. As the saying goes, revenue is for vanity and profit is for sanity. (read more…)

CATEGORY: bootstrap, resilience

April 12, 2009 Rassoul Yazdipour from California State University, Fresno : What can venture capitalists and entrepreneurs learn from behavioral economists?

In a nutshell, what this really means is that we as VCs and/or entrepreneurs may do all the sophisticated analyses, formal due diligences, and complicated evaluations and valuations on a given venture using our brain’s computer-like (rational) subsystem [...] we need to: a. Be at least aware of the inner working of our brain and get to know how in reality we as individuals arrive at a given judgment and choice; and b. Become aware of the main psychological traps and biases that continuously get turned on at and around our decision making times. We may not be fully capable of debiasing our choice process, but still this is much better than the alternative. (read more…)

CATEGORY: resilience, risk, VC

December 1, 1985 Journal of Business Venturing : The entrepreneur: A capable executive and more

This article discusses those traits that entrepreneurs exhibit at significantly different levels than do their corporate counterparts; how these factors may influence the decision to enter entrepreneurial occupations: and how these same traits have the propensity, if ignored, to have a negative influence on both the entrepreneur's organization and personal life-style. Entrepreneurs tend to be 1) tolerant of ambiguous situations, 2) prefer autonomy (autonomy may be described as self-reliance, dominance, and independence), 3) resist conformity, 4) be interpersonally aloof yet socially adroit, 5) enjoy risk-taking, 6) adapt readily to change, and 7) have a low need for support. These factors can lead to serious problems in delegation and communication, two factors of paramount importance to a growing concern. They may also cause intense stress or loneliness for the entrepreneur. Fortunately, the traits of willingness to accept change and ability to adapt to it will help the entrepreneur to accept and respond to problems that arise due to poor delegation or communication. Coping methods and a tolerance of ambiguity will assist the entrepreneur in dealing with stress and loneliness. The main problem is to alert the entrepreneur to the potentiality of these problems—which is what this article attempts to do. (read more…)

CATEGORY: leadership, resilience