Guy Kawasaki: The Top 10 Mistakes of Entrepreneurs
The UC Berkeley Startup Competition (Bplan) proudly welcomed Guy Kawasaki to the Haas School of Business. Kawasaki, former chief evangelist of Apple and co-founder of Garage Technology Ventures, explained the top ten mistakes that entrepreneurs make. His talk covered all stages of a startup from inception to exit.
Enjoyed this much more that I thought I would. What an unforgettable character
8:48 Multiplying big numbers by 1%
10:57 Scaling too soon
15:30 Partnering
16:29 Pitching instead of prototyping
19:54 Using too many slides and too small font
22:12 Do things serially
23:37 Believing 51% = control
24:52 Believing Patens = Defensibility
28:09 Hire in your own image
29:24 Befriending your VCs
Bonus:
35:55 Thinking VCs can add value
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Thanks!
Thanks for the break down
Loved the video! Business is hard and failure along the way is inevitable. Glad to see someone who is real about the industry.
Amazing speaker, never get bored of hearing his talks
Guy is just an amazing speaker. He is able to connect the dots in his speech and convey one message. It would be hard to forget the lessons he shared in this talk. Key things that stood out for me are
1: Patents are not really useful
2: Shut up and show a prototype
3: Still shut up and improve your prototype then show it again
4: Being frugal is an asset.
5. 10 slides, 20 mins, 30+ font size
great video. Guy Kawasaki’s message to entrepreneurs on top 10 mistakes is awesome. He touched upon everything from wrongly projecting a market share to the defensibility of patents.
Great lecture. I had a question about one of the mistakes. “Hiring In Your Own Image”. Should the ideal hiring situation or process be linked to: matching the position with a prospective employees experience and skillset?
The thing about the parallel stuff: True problems appear in parallel and need to be solved in parallel. But learning can only be done serially. It’s physically impossible to learn financing and hiring at the same time. So be prepared to do a lot of crappy stuff, but do one thing well. Put all your heart in one area. And after doing that for 3-5 years you have learned something in most areas and can do much less crap, maybe little enough to finally win.
Great lecture. Very useful information. Thank you, Guy, and thank you Berkeley.
Fantastic over-delivery by Guy. Here is the 30 Point Font version.
1. Mistake: Multiplying big numbers by 1 percent (Truth: Don’t use this type of logic. It does not work.)
2. Mistake: Scaling too soon (Truth: Companies don’t die if they don’t scale fast enough.)
3. Mistake: Partnering (Truth: Sales fixes everything.)
4. Mistake: Pitching instead of prototyping (Truth: A functional prototype reduces the risk that you can deliver.)
5. Mistake: Using too many slides and too small a font (Truth: 10/20/30 rule—10 Slides, 20 Minutes, 30 Point Font.)
6. Mistake: Doing things serially (Truth: Doing everything at the same time is how the real world works.)
7. Mistake: Believing 51% = control (Truth: The moment you take outside money, you have lost control. You have a moral, ethical and financial obligation once you take outside money.)
8. Mistake: Believing patents = defensibility (Truth: Only use the P word once. “We have filed patents.” “If you are acquired someday, the acquiring company will love that you have patents.”)
9. Mistake: Hiring in your own image (Truth: Seek balance to complement your skills. You need someone to make it, sell it, collect it.)
10. Mistake: Befriending your VCs (Truth: VCs are in the business of making money, not making friends. Just make your forecasts. They will ask you step aside if you don’t. “Just meet your projections.” “Under promise and over deliver.”)
Bonus. Mistake: Thinking VCs can add value (Truth: Fundamentally you want their money and 2 to 3 hours of their bandwidth each month.)
Pure common sense, transparency and good communication. Thank you!
Mistake 1: Thinking that getting 1% of a market (car market, hamburger market, phone app market) is easy. It is not easy, so don’t think like that.
Mistake 2: Scaling too fast. You anticipate huge growth and customers that will love your product and you invest so much and then it turns out no one wants to buy your product, and you run out of money.
Mistake 3: Being obsessed with partnering. Partnering is essentially two companies coming together in an attempt to band-aid their weaknesses. Focus on SALES. Sales fix everything.
Mistake 4: Being too focused on your ‘sales pitch’ and perfect ‘powerpoint presentation’ that your prototype lacks. Focus MAINLY on improving your prototype. PROTOTYPE.
Mistake 5: This kind of a rule. 10-20-30 rule. 10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 pt font on a presentation.
Mistake 6: Doing things serially. In the real world, you will need to stay on top of multiple things at once. Not just hiring. Not just raising money. You will need to move everything down the road at once.
Mistake 7: Thinking that owning 51% of your company means you have control. NOT TRUE. The moment you take outside money (investor money), you lose control of the company and you have an obligation to the investor.
Mistake 8: Thinking that because you have a patent that makes you defensable. Don’t even think about telling an investor that the reason you’re defensable is because you have patents. You’ll never have the time of money to sue Microsoft.
Mistake 9: Hiring too many of the same person. Hire a variety of types of people. In other words, have strong branches for every aspect of your company. Generally, you will need people who specialize in MAKING the product, SELLING the product, and COLLECTING the money.
Mistake 10: Trying to befriend you VC (venture capitalists or investors). They are just here to make money. Meet your deadlines/projections of 80% confidence minimum. Don’t think that they’re out there to help you and babysit your company.
Mistake 11: Thinking that VC’s are the key to your success just because you know that they have invested in a successful company before.
*You should definitely watch the Q & A that begins at 41:05 *
@Hector Man thats pretty cool.
I have an idea :
it’s a new type of restaurants : eating-spots,
in an eating-spot, food keeps changing, chefs also rotate,
thanks to this rotation of food and chefs, eating-spots are way more powerful than restaurants,
along with that, there is a mobile app,
people vote for the food that will be cooked in the next days,
menu is influenced by the live input of the people via an app,
Julio Ochoa ppl pp
Thank you for your help man
Thanks.
I just put up my first video on Youtube this afternoon; Talked last week to my daughter’s tenant who is a MBA student at Berkeley Haas; Right now we have a distinguished visiting professor staying in our vacation rental in Berkeley who is teaching at Berkeley Haas MBA program; Our son is finishing his MBA at UCLA Anderson School of Management; We bought our home from one of original founders of Berkeley Evening MBA program; NOW, somehow this great presentation from Guy Kowasaki to Berkeley Haas MBA students appears like a rocket on my lap top. Talking about Google following me around?I started on my MBA program some 35 years ago but never finished it. It is scary. At any case Mr. Kawasaki has many good things to say and he is very entertaining as well. Have you done your prototype? That seems to be his most important advice for the new start ups.
Guy, so much great information … thanks for sharing your knowledge about entrepreneurs 🙂 You rock!!!
Guy’s sense of humor is the biggest indicator of his honesty
Really enjoy this video, very informative and highly entertaining…great job Guy!
Fantastic, I really appreciate the no BS expertise from Guy 🙂
I loved this video Guy is not only an excellent and knowledgeable speaker but he is down earth no bullshit
i love dis guy! he is absolute joy and talks with humour keeping his humbleness even though he was one of the reasons the macintosh was a success! respect!
“Sales fixes everything” – in business, truer words were never spoken
Except bad accounting of course