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"That's not a company, that's a feature..." Well, now it's a company...

On Thursday, I was fortunate to be at the Facebook F8 Keynote and Hackathon. It was an amazing event, where Zuck gave a keynote with a Jobs-esque flair for pacing and drama.

He announced the launch of Facebook Platform. As it has been covered in detail elsewhere, I won't give a detailed explanation; suffice to say, it allows developers to build new applications (music players, dating services, etc.) within the Facebook environment, giving Facebook users quick and easy access to these new services. An important element of Facebook platform is that developers get to keep all of the ad revenue from the Facebook applications.

I found this interesting, because in Silicon Valley you are constantly exposed to entrepreneurs who have great ideas that aren't sustainable businesses by themselves. The question venture capitalists often ask is, "is that a product or a company?". More recently, with the emergence of web 2.0, the problem has gotten worse. For example, I might have an idea for a much better, simpler way for online invitations to work.  VCs have been asking "is that even a product? or is it a feature?" A great idea isn't such a great idea if nobody knows about it and nobody is signed up. 

Until now. Facebook's platform will allow many of these cool product ideas to actually become businesses in their own right by leveraging Facebook's platform of users. Facebook users won't have to learn a new interface, visit a new web page or change their current behavior.

Pretty cool, I think. Look for my Facebook apps to be launching soon ;)

How to Recruit Star Employees, example #1

A very cool, innovative recruiting effort with a personal touch by Red 5.

Lessons from Entrepreneurs & VCs

Our last class in Entrepreneurship & VC featured all three of the instructors - Andy Rachleff (co-founder of Benchmark Capital), Peter Wendell (founder of Sierra Ventures), and Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google) - individually talking for 45 minutes, giving us parting advice. It was one of the best single classes I've ever had. I thought I would share here some of my key take-aways.

- Successful people listen. You have two ears and one mouth. Use them in that ratio. You learn more when you listen than when you talk.

- Putting on "the cloak" of leadership. A large part of your role is to inspire and motivate your employees, and people will look to you for confidence. If you were on a plane with engine problems, you don't want the pilot to say "I am exploring a number of options and hope that...", you want him to say, "I will do whatever it takes to land this plane."

- The importance of passion. When Warren Buffet finds people to run his business, his key criteria is to find somebody who would do the job whether they would get paid or not.

- Just when you think you've got it 100% right, you can be taken down. Look no further than what happened to JetBlue in February. In January, a mistake like this by JetBlue was almost unthinkable.

- People who are lucky make their own luck. And you only make your own luck by staying in the game.

- You will only be as good as the people you will recruit. Media & culture celebrate individuals, but teams succeed.

- The best scientists can explain complex issues in simple terms. Pretty good scientists can explain complex issues in complex terms.

- A's hire A's. B's hire C's. Always strive to hire people better than you are.

- Be a clear, fair manager. For example, when speaking to a business unit leader that isn't succeeding, say: "I want a strategy to win in 1-page and the objectives we need to hit each quarter to reach them."

- When considering a business:

- Look for change. What inflection point are you taking advantage of? Without change, there is rarely opportunity.

- Always look for the 80/20. 80 percent of the value is delivered by 20 percent of the product/service. Focus on that 20 percent.

- Does is answer a real pain? Who is the user and what is their pain point?

- Just keep selling. Not a bad default strategy to communicate to your team.

- Be humble. The markets are brutal to those who are arrogant.

- Understand what you don't do well. Surround yourself with people and resources that can do these things well.

- Practice self-discipline. Set targets, have timetables, have clear unambiguous goals. Life passes quickly - days, weeks, months, years, a lifetime.

- Be yourself. In group settings, you usually serve the group best by thoughtfully expressing exactly what you are thinking. Not necessarily what the group wants to hear.

- You've got to give trust to get trust. Treat people as you would want to be treated. Sometimes people take advantage of you. That's fine, don't do business with them again.

- Shoot for the moon.To be successful, don't follow the pack. If you want to win, don't hedge.

Stanford GSB eConference (with bootleg)

Had a great time today at the Stanford GSB e-conference. I got to check out the panel entitled Trends & Opportunities in Consumer Internet. The panelists are listed below:

Heidi Roizen (founder of Mobius Venture Capital)
Chad Hurley (co-founder of YouTube)
Jeff Jordan (CEO of Paypal)
Elaine Wherry (co-founder of meebo)
Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook)

I played around with the recorder on my new blackjack during the panel. Although the sound quality sucks, and I missed the first 5 minutes, and I ran out of memory space for the last 5 minutes, I thought I'd upload it anyway in case anybody is really interested.

Misc Wisdom for Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners

Today I had lunch with Joel Peterson (wildly successful real estate and private equity investor) and later had a dinner with two more recent entrepreneurs and classmates: Jenny (owner of a wildly popular midwest desert chain) and Erik (founder of a series of popular - and profitable - e-commerce web sites ).

Some interesting tidbits from both events:

• Both Joel and Jenny listed "confidence" as the number one trait of a successful entrepreneur. Jenny went into some more detail, labeling herself as an "insecure egomaniac." She is confident she can do anything, but is always paranoid about what might go wrong. I thought that was a great phrase.
• Jenny's keys to hiring great retail salespeople: 1. Make sure your shop is the best place in town to work (her company is inundated with resumes every week). 2. When hiring high schoolers, find the ones who lead clubs, team, etc., at school. Also look to see what colleges they are applying to.
• Erik's unorthodox hiring tip: Take a look at the state of the inside of their car. If you are hiring for non-creative, execution-style positions don't hire someone who's interior is a mess.

Entrepreneur Idol at Stanford GSB

Last week we had a great event at the GSB organized by Charles River Ventures and my friend John. It was called Entrepreneur Idol (see event video here). Sixty MBA students gave 30-60 second pitches of a business idea to a panel of judges, including George, Bill Tai and Susan Wu . It was a lot of fun and a great idea for an event. Check out the video above. And yes, I did give a pitch, but unfortunately didn't make it into the top three.

Ideas vs. Opportunities

Serial entrepreneur and angel investor Audrey McLean was part of an entrepreneurs panel today in our Formation of New Ventures class. She had a great sound-bite concerning aspiring-entrepreneurs coming to her with 'ideas'.

"I don't care about ideas, I care about opportunities. You need to know what problem you're solving and which people you're solving it for. And are there enough people who have the problem who will pay enough to make a sustainable business."

Success and Failure

Winston Churchill's definition of success:

"The ability to move from one failure to another, without losing enthusiasm."

It certainly resonates with the lives of many of the leaders whom I've studied this year.
[Via my Dad]

Meebo founders on iinnovate

Check out the new iinnovate episode, where Julio and I interview the founders of Meebo.

Market Trumps Team

In my amazing "Formation of New Ventures" class, Andy Rachleff (co-founder of Benchmark Capital) discussed which matters more in a new company, market or team.

"When great management meets lousy market, market wins.
When lousy management meets great market, market wins.
When great management meets great market, something magic happens."

Note that andy talks more about that issue in the iinnovate interview.