Every entrepreneur starts her company with a clear vision for success. You will create an amazing environment and hire the smartest people to join you. Together you will build a beautiful product that delights customers and makes the world just a little bit better. It’s going to be absolutely awesome.Then, after working night and day to make your vision reality, you wake up to find that things did not go as planned. Your company did not unfold like the Jack Dorsey keynote that you listened to when you started. Your product has issues that will be very hard to fix. The market isn’t quite where it was supposed to be. Your employees are losing confidence and some of them have quit. Some of the ones that quit were quite smart and have the remaining ones wondering if staying makes sense. You are running low on cash and your venture capitalist tells you that it will be difficult to raise money given the impending European catastrophe. You lose a competitive battle. You lose a loyal customer. You lose a great employee. The walls start closing in. Where did you go wrong? Why didn’t your company perform as envisioned? Are you good enough to do this? As your dreams turn into nightmares, you find yourself in The Struggle. read more..
Friday, 15 June 2012
Friday, 20 April 2012
Real Estate Finance-Ivy League School-Entrepreneur-Wall Street
"In the Studio" has a special segment this week, hosting a Valley entrepreneur who grew up on the East Coast, studied at an Ivy League school, was lured to Wall Street, and eventually decided to leave the pinstriped suits behind to start building his own startup, eventually finding his cofounder via Facebook, moonlighting as an entrepreneur after the markets closed in NYC, and is now helping run a venture-backed startup that's making a real difference in the world.John Zimmer grew up in a Connecticut suburb outside of New York City, worked hard and made his way to Cornell in upstate New York. In college, he was part of the University's storied "Hotel Management School," taking a specific interest in real estate finance which eventually led him to the real estate finance group of a major New York investment bank. Zimmer felt that the culture around his high school and in parts of college put the lure of investment banking in his sights, but after some time, he developed an itch to try something new despite the chorus around him. read more..
Friday, 23 December 2011
Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg-Social Misfit-Social Media-Entrepreneur
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - He doesn't wear hoodies and he wasn't a social misfit at Harvard, but the Israeli social-media entrepreneur formerly known as Rotem Guez now has several important things in common with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. For one, they share a name, with Guez officially changing his name to Mark Zuckerberg earlier this month. The other thing: a knack for courtroom appearances, with Facebook suing the former Guez -- we'll call him, Zuckerberg II, for the sake of clarity -- and the entrepreneur suing the Social Media company right back. ... read more..