Entreprenuerial Activism TV Episode #2 Motivational Rant
My first episode of entrepreneurial activism tv solicited such a great feedback from friends and my twitter followers I decided to do a follow up video about the hard work starting a company takes and some motivational words to help you get started.
Entrepreneurial Activism TV Episode #1
Hey everyone I just recorded my first episode of EntrepreneurialActivism.tv, check it out and let me know what you think!
Post Graduation – PlugandPlay Tech Cetner
I finally finished college at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.. It’s unbelievable how fast 4 years goes by when you think about it and even now 3 days afterwards the ramifications still haven’t hit me.
My parents officially cut me off financially 16 days ago and right before I graduation I was scrambling to figure out what I am going to do with my life afterwards. Some of my options were to:
- Run the summer incubator program I started here in San Luis Obispo with Innovation Quest called, IQueue
- Take my current business I’m working on, Jobshoots, raise some capital and run with it
- Work for a large corporation in the Bay Area to get a foundation and training
- Work for an incubator/VC firm in the Bay Area and continue to grow my network
- Work for a proven startup and help grow the company
It was a real tough decision to make and I asked for advice and help from all of my personal advisors, friends, and family. In particular I really want to thank three people, Carson Chen, Bob Biddinger, and Russell Bik, for helping me enormously to shape my decision and to take a step back and look at the decision from all angles.
My ultimate decision literally came to two days before Graduation and I decided to work at PlugandPlay Tech Center in Silicon Valley. It was a real tough decision for me but I chose PlugandPlay for three main reasons:
- It’s located in Silicon Valley, and if you want to do anything with high tech entrepreneurship Silicon Valley is where you need to be
- I’ve the founder of the company Saeed Amidi for 2 years and helped him form a relationship with Cal Poly
- Every time I’ve been to an event at PlugandPlay I have met some of the most interesting and driven entrepreneurs
- The one thing right now that gets me excited about life is working with entrepreneurs and being and entrepreneurs and watching the future get created right before your eyes
The job itself will be very entrepreneurial and the organization is a very flat one, which is great because I don’t think I could survive in the micro-managed hierarchy of a large corporation. What I’m going to be doing for the next 30-60 days is developing relationships with Venture Funded companies and seeing how PlugandPlay can help them in developing their companies. The next 30-60 days should be pretty interesting and a huge learning opportunity that pushes me to the edge of my abilities but no matter what the outcome it’ll be exciting.
I’ll be starting tomorrow at the PlugandPlay Redwood City office so if anyone is near by feel free to drop me and email or comment and come say hi!
Update – Sucess and Motivation
My life has been in complete and utter chaos recently (hense the non-exisit recent blog posts) and here’s why:
- I just finished my last final of Cal Poly yesterday
- I am officially graduating and walking on Saturday
- I’ve begun to focus more time on www.JobShoots.com and currently going through the patent process (can’t talk about what though since it’s pre-provisional)
- I might have got a job this morning (don’t worry its an “entrepreneurial job”
- And I’m in desperation to find a place to live before I start work in the Bay Area
I’ve barely even had time to celebrate so instead of writing a full post I highlight this article by Mark Cuban, Billionaire Entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, to everyone graduating or recently graduated, anyone looking for a job, looking for opprotunities, starting a company, and anyone in need of some motivation. Here is Mark’s recent article “Sucess and Motivation 2009“
This is the year of WTF. Yep, What the F&&&.
It doesn’t matter what got you to the point of saying it. Maybe you got fired/layed off. Maybe your company went out of business. Maybe you quit because you couldn’t take it any longer. Maybe you are just graduating from school and the prospects of living at home are far worse than cramming in with 12 roommates in a beater house or apartment you call “The Hotel”. Whatever the reason, the question is how do you turn this time into the start of something good ?
I’m here to give you your WTF To Do List.
1. Recognize that its ok to live like a student.
It doesn’t matter where you live. It doesn’t matter how you live. It doesn’t matter what kind of car you drive. It doesn’t matter what kind of clothes you wear. It doesn’t matter. Your biggest enemies are your bills. The more you owe, the more you stress. The more you stress over bills, the more difficult it is to focus on your goals. More importantly, if you set your monthly income requirements too high, you eliminate a significant number of opportunities. The cheaper you can live, the greater your options. Remember that.
2. Take Lots of Chances
If you are living cheap, and ready to find out where your future lies, now is the time to try anything. WTF time means fighting through your fears to take a job in a new industry. It means trying different things to find out what it is you love to do. There will be no such thing as too many jobs. In this type of economy getting a job is tough if not often impossible. So you are going to have bust ass to create opportunities for yourself.
Creating opportunities means looking where others are not. Look outside where all your friends are looking. Make a list of jobs and businesses that are outside the norm. I know you want to follow your passions and get a job in sports, movies, tv, shooting video for Girls Gone Wild, and other things your friends would love. Why fight the crowds ? Go where people are not. Just like you never thought you would ever fall in love with someone else, you will find another industry or job that you will love as much as your first love. Move down your list to other things. Then get ready to work
In this kind of economy, it really is a numbers game. You are going to have to keep on applying for everything and anything that opens a door you want to walk through. You can never slow down. Its hard work finding a job. If you have bills you have to pay, and it means taking a night job in order to keep looking for the day job or to keep a job you want, do it. Be a waiter, a night janitor, wash clothes, sell vacuum cleaners door to door, whatever you need to do, all the while reminding yourself that it opens the door for your future.
Then when you do find a job, remind yourself again that you are winging it. Everyone always sees the bright side of the job they just took. You have to. The new job you just took that you thought would be amazing, will be amazing. Most probably it will be amazing for about 3 months. Then you will realize its not so amazing and you will need to find something else that is amazing. Thats ok. You don’t have to be right everytime. You just have to be right one time. Finding the right job is a lot like dating. Its hard until you start, then when you start, its great till its not. Then its frustrating as hell until you get it right. But when you do, it all comes together.
3. Figuring out if you are in the right job
Its really easy to know if you are in the right job. If it matters how much you get paid, you are not in a job you really really love. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t want to make more money. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t bust your ass to make as much money as possible. Thats not the issue. The issue is whether or not you truly love your job. If you love what you do so much that you are willing to continue to live like a student in order to be able to stay in the job, you have found your calling.
4. Figure out how to be the best
Once you have found out what you love to do, there is only one goal. How can you be the best in the world at it. It doesn’t matter if you are a filing clerk, an athlete, an accountant or a bartender. All that matters is that you do whatever you can to be the best. Of course “the best” is all relative. The one person who you should never believe when it comes to evaluating your abilities is you. The very worst judge of your abilities is you. Self Evaluation is never successful. When you are the best at something, the demand for your services will grow. People want to hire the best. They want to be associated with the best. In 2009, in this economy so many people switch jobs and industries and its so much easier to stay connected via social networks and other digital means, people who need you can and will find you. So rather than trying to convince people you are the best, let the quality of your work do your talking.
5. Start the day motivated with a positive attitude.
You are going to screw up. We all do. I cant tell you how many times I did and do. It happens too often. No matter what happens, every morning, the minute after you wipe away the crust from your eyes, remind yourself that you are going to enjoy every minute of the day. You are going to enjoy the 20 interviews you have. You are going to enjoy waiting in the heat for your roommate to pick you up afterwards. You are going to enjoy realizing how frayed your collar is becoming and how sick you are of your one tie. You are going to enjoy all the bullshit you have to deal with as you chase your goals and dreams because you want to remember them all. Each and every experience will serve as motivation and provide great memories when you finally make it all happen.
Its your choice. What are you going to do ?
[Source: http://blogmaverick.com/2009/06/09/success-motivation-2009/]
So get out there make shit happen and change the world!
Update on ProjectJobs_ and On Picking a Name
The last couple days have been crazy. With graduation and finals coming up next week I would have thought I’d have no time for anything else but this ProjectJobs_ I have been working on has completely surpassed any expectations I had and has caused me to step back and rethink completely what I am going to do with this opportunity. For everyone not familiar with ProjectJobs_ check out this post where I talk about the story of how ProjectJobs_ came about.
Since that post a few days ago the test run of Jobs_OC, Jobs_Sac, Jobs_BayAreaSF, Jobs_LosAngeles, Jobs_SanDiego, and Jobs_Fresno went so incredibly well I decided to open up twitter accounts for the top 50 cities in the world including:
- Job_Boston
- Jobs_FortWorth
- Jobs_Tokyo
- Jobs_MexicoCity
- Jobs_Dublin
- And 50 more accounts similar to these
And the results in just a couple days has been overwhelming. On a daily basis I am creating about 4,000 pieces of content or jobs listings from 5 separate sources, each of which are being clicked-thru on average 10 times, which on an annualized basis is more than 14,000,000 click-thur’s annualy!! These aren’t just people looking at the content I am creating these are actual people taking the effort to look at the job postings and click through the link to the various job postings sites I am referring to.
My goal with ProjectJobs_ was to offer people real time job opportunity information in their geographic location, to help job seekers find jobs faster and easier. It seems to be working and I am happy 
Now I want to take ProjectJobs_ to the next level and I am looking for the perfect company name. It’s been an interesting process that I want to share with you that was inspired by my good friend Andrew Macaluso over at Santasti the worlds only palate cleansing beverage. He recently wrote the blog post Whats in a Name? where he talks about the origin and process of choosing his companies name Santasti. Here are my favorite two paragraphs.
Anyone who as ever tried to name a business, brand or product knows how hard it is. It’s like naming a child – you don’t want people making fun of your baby on the playground. It’s very difficult to find an original and appropriate name that isn’t taken. The last thing you want is to get sued by Coke as soon as you’ve developed some good will and recognition behind your brand.
As someone who has gone through the process, my advice is to pick a name and get going. Think about what Shakespeare said… “A rose by any other name.” Meaning –what matters is what something is, not what it is called.
Today I’m very happy with SanTásti. It’s a great name for our palate cleansing beverage. The response we generally get when we share some of our earlier names is consistent. People can’t imagine SanTásti being called anything else.
My big takeaway from Andrew’s post is the product/service makes the name and not the other way around. And even though I still understand all of this I am still having a difficult time picking a name for my own company and I need your help! My three top choices are:
- www.ButterJobs.com
- www.JobShoots.com
- www.FeedSanta.com
Which name do you like the best for my job site? Share your answer in the comment section below!
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