Entries Tagged 'Entrepreneurship' ↓

After moving into my appartment building that was probably built in the 1800′s when (used to house Bethlehem Steel engineers) I found myself reflecting on the benefits of living in the Lehigh Valley while driving an online startup:

1. Think outside the box – No buying the hoopla around Silicon
   Valley chatter and slip into groupthink. You truly think like an outsider and question UI/functionality/application development. It’s great benchmarking trends and common themes but there is something to be said about being different.
2. Focus On Yourself - Worry about your own goals/objectives instead of staying tuned into rumors and “what if’s” about other companies. This may be my football background stepping in as nothinig proved more valuable then worrying about your own game before others.
3. Big Fish in Little Pond – Viddler.com (our startup) has received funding and support from the Ben Franklin Technology Partners and the State of Pennsylvania.
4. Your forced to live online – everything you do is focused at the core of where you work. Your habits form in online behaviors and save time networking and get straight to the core of problems. Also, you focus on talent and developers and designers that deliver on time.
5. Inexpensive! – They have $5 pies (an entire large pizza) and $1 beer specials at my favorite joint Casa Mia. Boooya!
6. More Talent Available - WHAT!? Why else would Google be building a campus out of Detroit? Silicon Valley resources are tapped. There are many talented engineers out here coming from enterprise corporations. Darron Schall, rockstar actionscripter and author of O’Reilly’s Essential ActionScript 3, is an hour outside of Bethlehem. Robert Hall, award winning flash designer, is frequently available to come on board for projects and once again only an hour away as well!
7. Stay Hungry – I always worked out best in old rusty gyms with just the essentials. In my opinion, the same should goes for a startup. No climate controlled facilities, raised desks and bouncy balls here.

Here’s my toast to Bootstrappin’ Bethlehem…

technorati tags:Entrepeneurship, Bethlehem, Viddler, Lehigh

In football, as in life, cheating should not be condoned. Erik, my brother who plays Nose Tackle for CSU, did win on Saturday against Wyoming 39-31. Erik told me after the game the refs did not make a holding call all game and he was really upset. So what am I getting at?

Football teach’s life lessons. Life is not always fair is one of them. It’s all about overcoming and being the toughest guy on the playing field.

Here is the summary of my presentation for Entrepreneurship class in bulleted format (hopefully my plan to record this will work and can put up)

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Jeff Hawkins, the creator of the Palm Pilot, is a spectacular example of an innovating entrepreneur. He founded Palm Computing and later Handspring (inventing the Palm Pilot and Treo, respectively).

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Twenty-three year old, TerraCycle founder, Tom Szaky, shoveled through 50 pound garbage barrels filled with pounds of maggots to get his company out of the dumps. Relating to the movie Shawshank Redemption, he is the modern day Andy Dufresne who “crawled to freedom through five-hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can’t even imagine.” TerraCycle is worlds first consumer product where every part of packaging and product is waste. I had the opportunity to hear his amazing story in my Entrepreneurship class this morning. His startup story is compelling, very down to earth, and extremely inspiring.

Listen to Tom via Podcast.
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Entrepreneurship is the engine behind an innovative always-changing economy that harnesses the individual Entrepreneur. The Entrepreneur is the visionary driver building the framework and guiding this engine through startup obstacles and innovation despondencies. This breed of workers drives economic events through a semiconscious process of intuition and insight, and with a deliberate strategy and an overall vision. The next generation of entrepreneurs — digital entrepreneurs — have been growing due to an ever increasing number of digital customers and internal digital workflows. These fringe players are usually or normally at the top of the field they are in and have experience in most functions within an organization. My prediction: There will be more fringe online entrepreneurs in the next 5 years than ever before. As the digital lifestyle becomes ingrained as a behavioral attribute of the educated, next generation entrepreneurs will be there to capitalize. Just as a gas engine distributes power, control, and a steady comfortable ride, entrepreneurship does the same for its fastest moving driver: the digital entrepreneur.
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