the power of entrepreneurs to create lasting social change

HOWARD A. TULLMANCEO – OCTOBER 2014

280 DIGITAL TECH STARTUPS75,000 SQ FOOT FACILITY

1000 PEOPLE A DAY

Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are Visionaries with a Poorly Developed Sense of Fear and No Concept of the

Odds Against Them.

They Make the Impossible Happen.

Ignorance is a Competitive Edge

NOT KNOWING THE CONVENTIONS OF THE GAME

TURNS OUT TO BE AN ADVANTAGE IN MANY CASES(AS LONG AS YOU’RE WILLING TO

ALSO BE UNPOPULAR)

Don’t Sell Your Dreams Short

I Always Ask for the Best Seat in the House.

Someone’s Going to Sit in It.

It’s O.K. if It’s not Me, but It’s not O.K. for Me not to Try

to Get It.

Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs See What Everyone Else has Seen, and Think

What Nobody Else has Thought.

Pretty Cool Collateral

One Week’s Interest on

the Loan was $6.10

SUCH A DEAL !

Entrepreneurs Are Realistic

Expecting the World to Treat You Fairly Because You are a Good Person is

Like Expecting a Lion not to Eat You Because You are a

Vegetarian.

WORK - Not Wishful Thinking

YOU GET WHAT

YOU WORK FOR,

NOT WHAT YOU

WISH FOR.

WORK - Not Wishful Thinking

We Tell Ourselves that Skill is the

Precious Resource and that Effort

is the Commodity.

It’s Actually the Other Way Around.

Effort Can Trump Talent & Ability.

Entrepreneurs Don’t Take “No” Well

We Don’t Allow Others’ Limitations to Define Us.

“It’s Only a ‘No’ for Now.”

Experience Can Be Your Worst Enemy

Experience is like the taillights on a boat which illuminate where we have been when we should be

focusing on where we should be going. (J.F.K.)

When Times are Toughest

When Great Entrepreneurs Meet Resistance…They All Do One Thing

THEY PUT THEIR HEADS DOWN … AND JUST WORK THAT MUCH

HARDER

You Deliberately Raise the Ante of Effort and

Concentration in Order to Clear Your Mind of Trivialities.

Entrepreneurs Look “Inside”

People are Always Blaming their Circumstances for What They are.

The People Who Get on in this World are the People who Get Up and Look for the

Circumstances They Want.

If They Can’t Find Them, They Make ‘Em

We Avoid the Blame Game

When You Blame Others, You Give Up Your Power to Make

Things Change

The Truth Only Hurts When It Should

Good Managers Challenge their People,

Poor Ones Comfort Them

If I Accept You as You Are, I Don’t Help You.

If I Treat You as Who You Can Become, I Make You Better.

IT HAS NO REAL NOURISHMENT. THE EMPTINESS COMES BACK VERY QUICKLY AND

NOTHING GETS ACCOMPLISHED IN THE MEANTIME.

THERE IS NEVER, REALLY, ANY RELEASE FROM THE CONSEQUENCES OF ADVERSITY UNTIL

YOU DECIDE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THEM.

Sympathy is Like Junk Food

Entrepreneurs Don’t Settle

There’s No Such Thing as a Good Excuse

It May Be Necessary Temporarily to Accept A Lesser Evil, But You Should Never Even Pretend that A Necessary Evil is Good.

When You Settle for Less than You Deserve, You Get Less than You

Settled For.

No Excuses – No Place to Hide

Yesterday: “I Don’t Know” = You Were Ignorant

Today: “I Don’t Know” = You’re Lazy or

You Don’t Care

THE ANSWERS ARE OUT THERE – WHAT IS OFTEN MISSING IS THE WILLINGNESS TO

TAKE THE TIME AND TO DO THE HARD WORK OF SEEKING THEM OUT.

Some Good News

Old: Cheap, Fast or Good …… Pick 2

New: Cheap + Fast = Good Enough

WE ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED TO EVALUATE

“EITHER/OR” EQUATIONS

“TRADE-OFFS ARE A FAILURE OF CREATIVITY”

Five Concepts

TELL A SIMPLE STORY – WHO, WHAT, WHY

KEEP RAISING THE BAR – EXPECTATIONS WILL GROW

START WITH WHAT YOU HAVE – ITERATE CONSTANTLY

DON’T STICK TO THE “PLAN” TOO LONG, BUT STICK TO YOUR GUNS

MAKE ROOM FOR ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE

Tell A Simple Story

A Simple StoryWho are We? Where are We Going? Why?

People Don’t Always Know Where They’re Going; They Just Know They Don’t Want to Go

There Alone.

Business is Personal. People Commit to Other People and Ideas, Not Institutions

Tell A Simple Story

The Ability to Succinctly Express an Idea Is Virtually as Important as the Idea Itself

If You Can’t Write Your Idea on the Back of Your Business Card, You Don’t Have a

Business

Don’t Mistake a Clear View for a Short Distance

Being Honest is the Best Technique.

Right Up Front, You Tell the People What You’re Trying to Accomplish & What You’re

Willing to Sacrifice to Accomplish It

If You Can’t Commit to Something Big, Commit to Something Small

Everything’s Not “Either/Or”

Tell The Truth

It Couldn’t Be Easier

SAY EXACTLY WHAT YOU THINK

DO EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAY

Five Concepts






Keep Raising the Bar

What’s the Best We Can Possibly Be?

What’s the Test?

When You Look Around and Discover that No One is Doing It Better.

You Need to Constantly Outmode Yourself and Cannibalize Your

Business

Keep Raising the Bar

What You’re Doing Today May Be

Meaningless Tomorrow

Disruptive Change and Radical Obsolescence

Not Evolutionary Development

Five Concepts






Start with What You Have

A Good Plan Violently Executed Today Beats A Perfect Plan Next Week

Nothing Will Ever be Attempted if All Possible Objections Must First be Overcome

It’s Easier to Ask for Forgiveness than Permission

Only the Winners Decide What were War Crimes


The Time will Never be “Just Right”

Start Where You Stand and Work with Whatever Tools You Have at Your Command. Better Tools Will be

Found as You Go Along.

You Can’t Rush It. It’s Like Pushing a Rope.

Nine Women can’t Make a Baby in One Month

Start Now with What You Have

Waiting Doesn’t Necessarily Get You to a Better Answer

Elaboration and Detail Saps Critical Energy and Momentum

“It Isn’t Always the Movie that Gets Made, But It’s Always What Gets the

Movie Made.”

No One Has Ever Said:

“Let’s Go See that Movie – It Came in

on Budget.”(Not Even the Ernst & Young Guys)

Start with What You HaveFeasibility Will Compromise You Soon Enough

(There are always plenty of people to tell you why a good idea won’t work)

“Don’t Leave before You Leave” ( Sheryl Sandberg)

Successive Approximation

versus

Postponed Perfection

Errors of Enthusiasm

versus

Wisdom of Complacency


The “Successive Approximation” Process is Just Like Ironing – The Key is Forward Progress

You Move Forward a Few Steps and then Go Back and Smooth Things Out – Over and Over


Experiment

Measure

Modify

React

Start the Process Again

Develop Your Business Incrementally

Five Concepts






Don’t Be A Slave to Your Model or Your Business Plan

Use a Business Plan to Recognize & Measure Change as It Occurs – Not to Run Your Business

The Future is Where We Have the Greatest Leverage

Building a Business is Evolving a Central Idea Through Continually Changing Circumstances.

Don’t Be A Slave to Your Model or Your Business

IT’S AN ART – NOT A SCIENCE

A Model or Business Plan Doesn’t Necessarily Get You to the Truth.

Eventually even the Best Math Stalls out and Something More Human – Intuition, Experience, Wisdom – Has to

Take Over.

Don’t Become So Reliant on the Numbers that You Lose Sight of the Facts.

Don’t Try to Make the Circumstances Fit the Plan

Change the Plan

Consistency Requires You to Be as Ignorant Today as You

Were a Year Ago

Two Critical Rules

The Best Approach

WE ARE STUBBORN ON VISION

WE ARE FLEXIBLE ON DETAILS

Five Concepts






Protect Your Pioneers

People want talent, which is in itself something out of the ordinary. But when it comes to the other oddities that are always associated with it,

and perhaps are essential to it, they will have none of them and refuse

them all understanding.

It’s A Business, Not A Romance

“NOT EVERYONE CAN LOVE RAYMOND”

“I Used to Rob Banks and the Trick Is – It’s not Important that

Everybody in the Car Likes Each Other. It’s Just Important that

They Each Know How to Do Their Jobs and that They Do Them Well

When the Time Comes.”

Technology Won’t Save You

There are No Sustainable Competitive Advantages

except Well-Trained, Passionate and Dedicated

People.

People Are the Only Sustainable Edge

Opportunity International

BUILDING NEW BUSINESSES TODAY ISN’T SIMPLY ABOUT MAKING

MONEY.

IT’S ABSOLUTELY ABOUT MAKING A DIFFERENCE.


No One Can Really Lead Other People Except by Showing Them a Future and a Path to Reach It.

You need to make them part of the process and the solution – partners in the act of creation


If you motivate your people without giving

them the proper tools and the necessary education

to be effective, you simply breed frustration and bad

numbers.


1. Financial Services

2. Job Creation

3. Training and Education

4. Mentoring

5. Community


METRICS MATTER

TRANSPARENCY AND EFFICACY

We act as though comfort and luxury

were the chief requirements of life,

when all that we need to make us really happy

is something to be enthusiastic about.

Two Game Changers to Think About

Experiences Will Be Far More Important than Ownership

Utility Will Be Far More Valuable than Possession

HIGH END: EXPERIENCIES ARE THE NEW LUXURY GOODS

LOW END: THINK DIVVY

Kickstarter Film Investor

“I did not contribute to the film for a cut of the profits. I contributed to be a part of the creation process, to see how it’s made, and to see

Zach’s pure vision come to fruition. I paid for an experience.”I paid for an experience.”

Lipstick on a Pig

Haptic Fork

Haptic WALLET – B of A

AS THE MONTH GOES BY AND YOU BEGIN TO REACH YOUR BUDGET LIMITS, THE WALLET

GETS PROGRESSIVELY HARDER TO OPEN

• 9-29-14 11pM