Entrepreneurs are all just a little bit crazy and add motherhood on top of that and you get a whole new experience! Entrepreneurs see the world differently, yet we still want to fit in, maybe more so if you are a woman and mother, for the sake of our children.
I’m sure there have been books written about the psychology of entrepreneurship, but I don’t have time to seek them out. I figure one will fall in my lap as I need it. And interestingly Liz Pabon, who wrote The MavHERick Mind
, recently reached out to me and will be doing a guest post on my blog soon. I just began reading her book and so far it’s a fascinating read on how and why women entrepreneurs in particular hold themselves back from achieving the success that they are capable of.
A post also recently fell in my lap in-box written by Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape and Ning, called The Psychology of Entrepreneurial Misjudgment. It is an excellent read where he puts modern language around observations made by Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet’s long time partner and Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Here are the themes and you’ll have to head on over to Marc’s blog to read the rest:
One: Reward and Punishment Superresponse Tendency
Two: Liking/Loving Tendency
Three: Disliking/Hating Tendency
Four: Doubt-Avoidance Tendency
Five: Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency
Six: Curiosity Tendency
The Doubt-Avoidance Tendency is the one that resonated with me the most. It’s true that “You’d better not have a lot of doubts about what you are doing because everyone else will, and if you do too, you’ll probably give up.” But it’s darn hard not to have doubts when the stakes can be so high. I would add that if you don’t have any doubts at all, then you might just run over a cliff without knowing it. But if you need a quick answer, you can always ask the Magic 8 Ball (thanks to Scott Allen of The Virtual Handshake for the link). I only had to ask my question 3 different ways to get the answers I wanted. 🙂
One thing I remember from Marc’s past blog posts is that there is a direct correlation between success and how many times you get up to bat. Many inventors had a string of things that didn’t work out before they found the few that did, and the chances of finding something that does work increases when you try more things. So Babble Soft is my second at bat. I believe we barely slid into 2nd base with our first company, which is still operating, so I’m swinging for the fences on this one!
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Author: Aruni |
Filed under: babble soft,
entrepreneur,
entrepreneurship,
marc andreessen |
Tags: Berkshier Hathaway,
charlie munger,
Curiosity Tendency,
Doubt-Avoidance Tendency,
entrepreneur,
entrepreneurship,
Liz Pabon,
magic 8 ball,
marc andreessen,
Netscape,
Ning,
psychology,
self doubt,
The MavHERick Mind,
warren buffet |
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According to Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, Opsware, and now Ning (a social networking site) you should NOT plan your career. I wholeheartedly agree. We are living in different times where there are too many variables to plan for a life-long career at say IBM, GM, Dupont, etc. He then says focus on developing your skills and pursuing opportunities. I agree with this too because you may just stumble upon your, shall we say, happiest LIFE. This doesn’t mean don’t have goals. If you want to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, then pick opportunities to help you develop those skills so that when the opportunity presents itself, you are ready.
Check out his lengthy but interesting blog post where he describes in depth his following rules of career planning:
The first rule of career planning: Do not plan your career.
The second rule of career planning: Instead of planning your career, focus on developing skills and pursuing opportunities.
His thoughts reminded me of the thoughts shared by one of my interviewees (available on the Succes Means… tab of this blog). His name is Jimmy Treybig, and he happens to be the founder of Tandem Computers, which is now part of Hewlett-Packard. Oh and Jimmy also happens to be one of my Babble Soft business Advisors.
One of the things I notice most prominently about Marc’s blog posts is that he often uses the feminine gender (i.e., she, her) in his writing when he gives illustrations. I think that’s great and it’s a small step to help adjust all of our minds and remind us that women comprise at least 50% of the world population!
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: entrepreneur,
entrepreneurship,
marc andreessen,
success |
Tags: career,
career tips,
jimmy treybig,
marc andreesseen,
success |
Comments Off on Do Not Plan Your Career!
According to the summary section of a recent post by Marc Andreessen (co-founder of Netscape and current founder of Ning) called Age and the Entrepreneur – part 1:
- Generally, productivity — output — rises rapidly from the start of a career to a peak and then declines gradually until retirement.
- This peak in productivity varies by field, from the late 20s to the early 50s, for reasons that are field-specific.
- Precocity, longevity, and output rate are linked. “Those who are precocious also tend to display longevity, and both precocity and longevity are positively associated with high output rates per age unit.” High producers produce highly, systematically, over time.
- The odds of a hit versus a miss do not increase over time. The periods of one’s career with the most hits will also have the most misses. So maximizing quantity — taking more swings at the bat — is much higher payoff than trying to improve one’s batting average.
- Intelligence, at least as measured by metrics such as IQ, is largely irrelevant.
So here’s my first challenge: to anyone who has an opinion on the role of age and entrepreneurship — see if you can fit your opinion into this model!
And here’s my second challenge: is entrepreneurship more like poetry, pure mathematics, and theoretical physics — which exhibit a peak age in one’s late 20s or early 30s — or novel writing, history, philosophy, medicine, and general scholarship — which exhibit a peak age in one’s late 40s or early 50s? And how, and why?
So if your odds of a hit are related to the number of times you are at bat then get out there and start trying to hit that ball! Marc no longer accepts comments on his blog so if you have answers to his questions above, feel free to comment on this post. Since I’m in my mid-30’s now I am taking the stance that it’s more like “novel writing, history, philosophy, medicine, and general scholarship.” 🙂
Thanks again to the folks at Austin Business Babes for their series of podcasts on me and my thoughts on entrepreneurship. I believe they finished the series with a podcast they called “just get started.”
just get started
Click To Play
Thinking too much can stop you…don’t imagine all the things that can go wrong, just go into action! This and other insights of an experienced (and young) entrepreneur, Aruni Gunasegaram.
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: entrepreneur,
entrepreneurship,
marc andreessen |
2 Comments »
A blogger I admire a whole bunch, Connie Reece of Every Dot Connects, tagged me for the 8 Random Things About Me game (meme?). I’m not sure what a meme is but it seems like a ‘tag your it’ kind of game and then you have to spend a bunch of time crafting a respectable blog response. 🙂
She helped me get up and going with my first blog and has given me advice and suggested connections that I should make in the blogosphere. All out of the kindness of her heart. What a big heart! I still have no idea what her “I’m my own first cousin” statement means. I made the mistake of commenting on her post as follows:
So here it goes:
1. I was born in Sri Lanka.
2. I used to ride on the University of Texas at Austin Equestrian team (which apparently does not have a working website) in undergrad. I always seemed to pick the craziest horses during competitions! 
3. I used to work at Mr. Gatti’s Pizza my junior/senior years in high school and the summer after my freshman year in college. I love their parmeson mix. My co-workers had a nickname for me: Pep-Aruni. Get it?
4. I have lived in Sri Lanka, England, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Texas. I have traveled to many more places than that.
5. I have lived in Texas now for 27 years. 8 years in Lubbock (Happiness is Lubbock, Texas in my Rearview Mirror was my favorite Mac Davis song), 4 years in Austin, 4 years in Dallas, and now 11 years back in Austin.
6. My first paying job was a paper route in Lubbock when I was 13 years old. I remember the cold, icy mornings delivering the Saturday and Sunday papers and the sometimes hot, dusty afternoons delivering the evening paper. I did this all on my 10 speed bike with one of those shoulder bags with pouches in back and front to hold the papers while I pedaled. I threw the paper with one hand and tried to avoid crashing with my other. Ah, those were the days…
7. I like to sing but right now I usually only sing in the car to the Top 40 tunes. After Babble Soft makes it (crossing my fingers), the next thing I will pursue is a singing career…probably won’t get too far since I’ll be in my 40s (or maybe 50s) by then. 🙄
8. I’m married to a White guy named Erin who grew up in Mexico City and who you would never know is 100% fluent in Spanish. He was born in the US and then moved to Mexico City with his parents because his grandmother (who is 86 years old) runs a restaurant there. He’s sometimes smarter than me and that’s why I married him. 🙂
Now I am not sure if I know 8 bloggers to tag since I’m still a new blogger (4 months and counting) and I’m not Marc Andreessen, but here we go (in no particular order). I’ve included links to the posts of those people who have already been tagged:
1. Carole Hayes – Alias Tex: Telling thier story to every stranger that arrives. Carole happend upon our company site by seeing a blog post at The Lactivist. Carole is one of our biggest fans and she is awesome! A news station in Dallas, WFAA, ran a story on Babble Soft on August 2, 2007 and she was the subject of the story. Interestingly, one of my friends in Dallas saw the piece and called me to tell me that she and Carole where in the same Mom’s group when her eldest daughter was born almost 7 years ago! Small, small world…
2. Clay Nichols – Daddy Clay’s Blog: it’s only pee – A fellow Austin, Texas entrepreneur demonstrating that it’s OK to be a great dad! He is co-founder of dadlabs.
3. Maryam Scoble – Maryamie: Maryam Ghaemmaghami Scoble’s musings about Life, Love and Everything Else… I heard about Maryam from none other than Connie Reece. She met Maryam’s husband, Robert Scoble, during SXSW, a music and film festival to end all festivals, held in Austin every year. Connie actually gave him a 6 month gift subscription to Baby Manager because apparently Robert and Maryam announced their pregnancy on twitter (still haven’t figured out what twitter is yet) but as of today we don’t know if Robert lost it or left it somewhere or even remembers meeting Connie. Maryam is so nice and responds to my comments on her blog. I’ve commented a few times on Robert’s blog but he seems to think I’m not worth acknowledging….probably because I’m not Marc Andreesseen. I just saw that he got Faceslammed by Bill Gates which makes sense if you think about it.
4. Thom Singer – Some Assembly Required – Thom is a fellow Austin blogger who I’ve known for years. He writes books on networking and how to be the best networker around! He recently got back from a trip to Ireland and said he kissed the blarney stone. My challenge to him is that the next time I see him, he has to demonstrate his newfound ability to persuade people to do things he wants them to do.
5. Mack Collier – The Viral Garden: blurring the line between company and customer. Mack has given me some links to some informative articles about business blogging and much needed words of encouragement!
6. Randa Clay – Randa Clay Design (already tagged) – I love her current ‘juicy’ lime graphic on her blog! I know I need to change my blog header but I haven’t had time to figure out how to modify the css file. I would love to have one as vibrant as hers someday. Her lime graphic makes me wish I was on a beach sipping margaritas. 🙂
7. Jennifer Laycock – The Lactivist: nursing out loud! (already tagged) – I admire her ability to get the word out about breastfeeding and offer her support and insight to so many of us who need it. I like the fact that she’s not preachy and aims to highlight the facts and the laws surrounding breastfeeding. She acknowledges that breastfeeding doesn’t work for everyone and we should not look down on women/families who choose to bottle/formula feed. I totally agree! I found her site, while doing follow up research on our launch press release and she posted a “not so flattering” post about Baby Manager. I think I have since recovered…barely… 😯
The following are ‘long shot tags.’ They are people who I know are extremely busy at the moment but would I’m sure have great responses if they have the time to respond. However, if one of them does answer (or points me to the post where they have already put down their answers to this game), then I would have met my requirement of 8!
8. Wendy Piersall – eMomsatHome: starting, running + succeeding in home business and blogging. I have learned SOOO much from her blog about ‘how to blog.’ She’s amazing. I will be doing a guest post for her in the near future. I heard about Wendy from again, none other than Connie. Connie met her at a conference and told her about me and later told me about her. Thank goodness because I wouldn’t have made as much progress on this blog without Wendy’s tips!
9. Marc Andreessen – Blog.Pmarca.Com: Often Wrong. Never in Doubt. I am fascinated by his writing on high-tech business start-ups especially since I’m on my second high-tech startup. When he was accepting comments, he actually replied quite often to my comments which was like ‘wow, Marc Andreessen responded to me on his blog. Totally cool. I matter in the universe now!’ He recently wrote a post called Why a startups initial business plan doesn’t matter that much. I totally agree. Now I can just mention Thomas Edison when someone asks me for a business plan. I emailed him to see if he would mind me tagging him, but haven’t heard back. I so enjoy his thoughts on startups that I’m hoping he will have the time to tell us 8 Random Things about himself. I even created a category just for him.
I think the protocol is that you link back to this post when you make your post. It has taken me days to construct this post from contacting people to see if they would mind being tagged, to determine if they had already been tagged, to adding links, etc. I’m cross-eyed now. I’m not sure I can handle another tag but I hope it’s clear why I could not leave Connie’s tag unanswered!
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: blogging,
entrepreneur,
entrepreneurship,
Just For Fun,
marc andreessen |
7 Comments »
I think I’m a blogger without a niche. I started this blog to help build awareness of Babble Soft. People typically think that I should spend my time reading mommy blogs, but I find that I gravitate to business, technology and entrepreneurship blogs. For instance, I happened upon Marc Andreessen’s blog a few weeks ago and simply downright enjoy what he writes about! Marc was a co-founder of Netscape, and his blog raised in the ranks so quickly that he recently got overwhelmed with the time it takes to moderate comments so he’s no longer accepting comments. He writes on entrepreneurship, lessons learned, venture capital, his experiences and his new venture Ning. Reading what he writes reminds me of my first entrepreneurial endeavor and all the ins and outs of working with VCs and large customers. I was even able to contribute a few things to the discussion. I hope he opens up comments again but in the meantime check out his latest post on Eleven lessons learned about blogging, so far. I really need to learn more about StumbleUpon. Oh where or where does the time go???
I still have a lot to learn about blogging myself and right now I’m trying to figure out where I fit in. I like to write about babies, parenting, business, entrepreneurship, women, and random funny stuff. I’m not particularly drawn to the stereotype mommy blogs. I am attracted to blogs written by knowledgeable women whether they are mothers or not. You can see from my blogroll that the women-led blogs I visit frequently are: eMomsatHome, Burningbird, and The Lactivist.
Now if I can just figure out how to make sufficient money from blogging to put towards future development of applications for Babble Soft, this just might work out!
Aruni
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: babble soft,
blogging,
entrepreneurship,
marc andreessen |
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