Week 4...

We were asked this week as one of the assignments to make a personal constitution as well as a code of conduct. Pretty much to just map out what our care values would be as entrepreneurs, the do's and don'ts. I put a bunch of values, honesty, strength, leadership etc. But after the readings for this week I realized that I have made a big oversight. I didn't mention family in either assignment. I believe in putting family first. I will always put my family and my kids first before my career. That is what is on the top of my Code of Conduct, that is what my Personal Constitution consists of. My kids, my spouse, my God comes first, always, no questions asked.

I loved the readings and videos for this week (as I do every week) but truly I think you should read them;

1.      Read "How Will You Measure Your Life?" by Clayton M. Christensen

2.      Read A Journey of Personal Transformation

3.      Read Chapter 7, "The Personal Constitution," from The Ministry of Business book.

4.      Read Chapter 8: Fighting the Dragon from Hero's Journey book.

I'm not going to talk about the reading simply because I have more to write about.

This week we had an awesome opportunity to go to Boise for 'Boise Start Up Week', a entrepreneurial conference. It was awesome!

Key points I learned from this week from both the lectures as well as observing while on the tours through different startups;

1.      Team work should be priority. the companies we walked through were set up in such a way as to encourage as much collaboration between employees as possible. As well as having people separated into teams work together, they made is possible for different teams to work together in person. 

2.      ‘Keep it light. Gotta have some fun or you’ll go crazy.’ Have fun, be open, your employees are responsible for their own productivity. If you or your employees work best if they can take a walk at exactly 1120 everyday, or take a 10-minute nap at 1pm, or play a game of basketball to get their mind rolling, if they team needs to have some food while they are collaborating, have that available. They are still expected to work 8 hours. but they better be the most productive 8 hours they can give. 

3.      Design of work space is highly important. The work place, or study room, should inspire creativity and ingenuity.

4.      Start with the why. That is what inspires and dives people.

5.      Make some noise, talk about your dreams to everyone. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking, ‘I want to surprise everyone’ or ‘I don’t want anyone to take my idea’. Get people fired up about your ideas before you even bring them to life.

6.      The moment you take a dollar from someone else it is no longer your company. Your first responsibility is to your investors, they make the rules.

7.      For every 10 start ups you see, 11 of them fail. Failure is real, it’s a part of life, get up and move on blessing the day you failed and learned why.

8.      Validate Your Idea

·         Talk to potential customers

·         Survey

·         Presale product

·         Talk about it, get people excited

9.      Form an Entity, Identify IP, own your IP, Protect your IP, Monotize IP.

10.  People will not give you real feedback till they have ‘skin in the game’.

11.  Get a good team.

·         Passionate

·         Diverse

·         Talented

·         High values

·         Mentors and advisors

12.  Anyone who creatively or technically touches your idea or product must sign an IP assignment and NDA

13.  IP-the legal stuff. Patent your ideas. (I now know how, and have an idea of what it will take)

14.  If you can’t explain your goal in 30 seconds or less, then you haven’t boiled it down enough.

15.  Don’t let your fist go around be your last. When you finally get success, shoot for it again.