Being an Entrepreneur is Only One Stage of a Business Career

http://www.prendismo.com/playAll.cfm?id=15&caseId=35

Being an Entrepreneur is Only One Stage of a Business Career

Undergraduate and Early Career Experiences
01:01 Choosing Corporate over Academic and Developing First Product
00:42 Passion for Product Development Which Led to Becoming an Entrepreneur
00:57 Starting a Software Company for Handheld Computers - Palm Computing
00:55 First Product Failure and Following Market Research
00:55 Decision to Move Forward and Start a New Company
01:38 Developing the Palm Pilot and Raising Additional Funds to Get to Market
05:47 A Video on Pen Computing
00:49 Handling Rejections and Finding an Acquiring Company
02:24 Decision to Leave Palm and Start New Company Handspring
01:00 Handspring's Relationship with Palm
00:23 Handspring's New Handheld Product - Visor
00:49 Funding New Company, Handspring
01:01 Taking Handspring Public
02:46 Future of Handheld and Wireless Technology
01:57 Being an Entrepreneur is Only One Stage of a Business Career
05:21 Gold Rush Analogy as it Relates to the Internet Boom
01:17 Importance of Following Your Passion - Which for Him is the Product
01:06 Maintaining a Balance and Finding Happiness
00:55 Connection Between PDA Products and Neurology
01:02 Different Role of Operating Systems in Desktops Versus Handhelds
00:58 Entrepreneurs Who Deserve Admiration
00:49 Competition
00:54 Thoughts on Voice Recognition Technology


So now I'm gonna turn my comments to the present, and give you some suggestions about some advice, perhaps. I have a normal set of top ten lessons from Jeff that I give to people, and I was going to give it here, but I decided not to, I decided to try something different. I met with a number of students yesterday, and I was surprised by the number of times I was asked a particular question, and it seemed to be something that was resonating with a number of them. They were basically asking, "What should I do? Should I finish my degree, or go start a business now?" or "Should I finish my degree, and go work from someplace, and then start a business?" Those were the choices; I'm gonna start a business, so should I do it immediately before I finish school, or should I do it right after I finish school, or do I have to work someplace first? It was a legitimate question, and I didn't think there was an easy answer to it. And, so when somebody asked me that, I said, "You know, I don't think that's an easy question to answer, I don't think there's a yes or no, but I'm gonna try an analogy on you, and work through it with you." And I didn't really have time to rehearse this to myself, forgive me if I get a little off track here, but, first thing to remember is that entrepreneur is not a career. It's not something you do for your life. If you're successful as an entrepreneur, you very quickly become a business person. The people that are usually entrepreneurs for careers are usually the people that aren't successful at it! It's also not a title! Some people say, "I hate those boxes, when you fill in those forms, they say what's your position, what do you do for a living", and you know, you're not an entrepreneur, that's not something you do for a living, that's a kind of embarrassing thing for me to admit. And I don't know what to say, engineer, business person, product person, I don't know. But anyway, you gotta remember that it's a set of business principles, or business tools that can be applied for starting companies and growing companies, and you gotta bear that in mind.