Entrepreneurship Today

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Question Why do people choose to become
  entrepreneurs?
• a. They want to make more money.
• b. They have no other alternatives.
• c. They want to work fewer hours.
• d. They want to have flexible work hours.
• e. They believe they can create more interesting
  work for themselves than others can create for
  them.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Answer For most entrepreneurs, the answer is e.
• Entrepreneurs are like artists (who, by the way,
  are also entrepreneurs), they are driven to
  create new enterprises, new services and
  products, new business models.
• They want to innovate and change the world.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• My Career
• Supply and Services Canada (Nuclear Icebreaker
  and other Studies) 1979-1982
• Terrace Investments (1,200 home sites, dozens of
  commercial buildings, mini-offices, travel
  apartments, financial leasing, Ottawa Business
  News, Ottawa Senators and The Palladium (now
  Scotiabank Place)) 1982-1994
• Carleton University Sprott School of Business and
  School of Architecture (Research Professor)
  1994-2006
• University of Ottawa Telfer School of Management
  (Entrepreneur-in-Residence) 2006-present
• Partners Advantage GMAC (Broker) 2008-present

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Question What hasnt changed in the field of
  Entrepreneurship?
• a. You still need to focus on sales, sales,
  sales.
• b. You need to check, check, check.
• c. (Positive) cashflow is an absolute
  requirement.
• d. You need a good business model.
• e. You need to be a good communicator (with
  clients, suppliers, employees, etc.)
• f. You need to set and achieve goals. Ideas are
  not enough execution counts.
• g. You need to be ethical.
• h. You need courage.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Question What has changed in the field of
  Entrepreneurship?
• a. In the age of the Black Swan, predictions are
  nearly useless and plans are not much help.
• b. You need to be extremely flexible in how you
  achieve your goals.
• c. Innovation, large and small, is crucial.
• d. You need a good business model.
• e. The world is a self-help place.
• f. The Internet allows you to reverse out the
  work.
• g. Social marketing allows you to access world
  markets effectively.
• h. Education and training are even more important
  today (to boost productivity, support innovation,
  enhance competitiveness, produce a sound business
  model, etc.).

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Case in point Pool.com
• - SnapNames.com charges 60 to backorder Domains
  Name.
• - Rob Halls Ottawa-based Pool.com provides
  backorder service for FREE.
• - Free is not a good idea!
• - Actually it is.
• - Rob only charges you if he successfully
  obtains name for you.
• - 100,000s domain names switch to Pool.com,
  almost overnight.
• - 5,000 dot-COM names delete per day. Pool.com
  gets 40.
• - 2,000 times 60 times 365 times 2 year
  registration 87 million!

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Case in point Social Marketing
• Around 2.5 million will buy you one, 30 second
  Super Bowl ad.
• South African winery wants to conquer US Market.
• Mad Men want 10 million to start national
  campaign.
• Winerys budget is 40,000.
• That would get you one, ½ second Super Bowl Ad.
• Instead, they offered free case of wine to
  influential bloggers and any California-based
  tech outfit celebrating a new product launch.
• Within two years, they sell more than 6 million
  annually in USA.
• Cost of marketing campaign just over 45,000.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• What is the value of something in infinite
  supply?
• Economic theory of Supply and Demand suggests
  value approaches zero!
• 30 million clever, hard-working Americans and
  millions more around the world are thinking up
  clever new ideas every day!
• Ideas are relatively abundant.
• Execution skills are relatively scarce.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Pool.com
• Strong value proposition.
• Growing market.
• Since it is a good idea, there will be
  competition.
• If it was a bad idea, there wont be but so what?
  Its a BAD idea!
• Make money while lying on a beach!

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Out execute the competition
• Provide superlative Customer Service CALL CENTRE
  IS A PROFIT CENTRE!
• Pool.com reverses out the work to clients (Domain
  Name Registrants) and suppliers (Domain Name
  Registries).

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Bring Back the Senators Campaign 1987 to 1990.
• What does Toronto have that Ottawa doesnt?
  Bruce Firestone to himself, circa 1987.
• A zoo, a theme park, a NHL Team!

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Out execute the competition
• Purchase 600 acres for Palladium (now SBP).
• Pre-sell 15,000 PRNs for season tickets (at 25
  each).
• Sign up 500 corporate sponsors (at 500 each) and
  32 original corporate sponsors (at 15,000 each).
• Lobby the 21 members of the NHLs BOG and its
  President.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Dont take No for an answer, late Professor of
  Economics O. J. Firestone, U Ottawa to his son
  Sept.1990.
• You will never, ever get a NHL Team in Ottawa,
  anon. BOG member the night before the NHL awards
  the Senators to Ottawa, Dec. 6, 1990.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Make sure that the last face the BOG sees before
  they make their decision is yours, Norm Seagram,
  former member of TOOC to Bruce Firestone.
• Last two faces the BOG see Phil Esposito (Tampa)
  and Bruce Firestone.
• The NHL is pleased and proud to announce
  franchises have been awarded to Tampa and
  Ottawa, five hours later.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• After winning the franchise, you
• Party all night?
• Do a few media interviews, leave for Miami, fly
  to Montreal, drive to Ottawa, prepare to sell 22
  million in cash worth of season tickets in ten
  days in late December 1990 for a team that wont
  play (and win) its first game until October 8,
  1992?

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Entrepreneurship Today

• John, what was the vote?
• It was unanimous.
• Surprise phone call three weeks later.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Gadgets and Gizmos do not make a business.
• Bell Control circa 1985 taught me that

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Entrepreneurship Today

• You are not the market.
• No one else wanted to turn off their phones!
• You need top notch execution and a sustainable
  competitive advantage to successfully implement a
  viable business model.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Google was not the first search engine.
• But they had a better algorithm, neutral,
  TRUSTWORTHY results and much better execution.
• More than 10 interviews now required to get hired
  on by Google.
• Sergei Brin and Larry Page recognize that it is
  NOT your assets or your IP that produce profits,
  its your people.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• People like to buy from people they like and
  trust.
• Suppliers trust you to pay them.
• You trust them to deliver on time.
• Clients trust you to deliver and you trust them
  to pay you.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Trust is the foundation of a successful career.
• Once you establish trust, you become part of the
  (business) ecosystem that will sustain you, your
  business and your family for a long time.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• The human inside the system still counts a lot!
• Wikipedia, Digg.com, Facebook, Naver.com, etc.
• Who posts content on Wikipedia and Facebook, who
  votes stories onto Digg.com and who answers
  questions on Korean search engine Naver.com?
• You do!
• Put the human being back in the loop and develop
  a better business model it will give you a
  sustainable competitive advantage and probably a
  better experience for users.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Web 2.0 works because
• Custom outputs from standard inputs (Dell)
• Scalable (Pool.com)
• Network effects (Facebook)
• Reverse out the work (Pool.com and Naver.com)
• User generated content (Facebook and Wikipedia)
• Match making systems (Lavalife.com, GASNet)
• And more!

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Open source
• Peer to peer
• SEO
• Social Marketing
• And more!

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Entrepreneurship Today

• IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE THREE THINGS TO START YOUR
  BUSINESS WITH, I WOULD RECOMMEND
• Launch clients and customers
• A good business model
• Sound execution.

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Execution Counts, Ideas are Not Enough

• I WOULD PLACE MUCH LESS EMPHASIS ON
• A great, never-before-tried idea
• Bank financing
• A partner
• Access to government grants
• Access to VC financing.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• How did the greatest generation ever (face down a
  Depression, WWII, a Cold War, put a man on the
  Moon, invent the polio vaccine and much of modern
  medicine, create the computer and the Internet,
  etc.?
• Focus and Discipline.
• Confidence and Imagination.
• Ability to Execute.
• Bravery and Sacrifice.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Whats missing today?
• The next generation of entrepreneurs
• How come China and India are doing so well?
• Entrepreneurs unleashed by National Governments.
• Emphasis on education and technology.
• Reduction in bureaucracy.
• CONFIDENCE!

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Entrepreneurship Today

• What do many western Governments believe in?
• Everything today is a cost not an investment.
• Everything must be regulated.
• Its all about rights not responsibility.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• What will happen to Western Nations?
• They will act and react.
• They will reform their institutions.
• Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship will prevail
  not only in business but also in other
  organizations from NGOs and not-for-profits to
  charities and educational institutions.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Will the economic situation today affect my
  ability to go into business for myself?
• Not really.
• If you focus on getting customers and building
  cashflow, you may not need much in the way of
  Bank financing anyway.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Huge over-reaction by media to todays situation.
• 6 unemployment in the US and 5 in Canada is a
  far cry from the Depression era (35).
• Did you eat three meals yesterday?
• Did you fill up your car with gas this week?
• Did you receive your paycheque OK?
• Did you sell any stocks, mutual funds or bonds in
  the last three months?

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Entrepreneurship Today

• If you answered Yes to the first three
  questions and No to the last one, what the heck
  are you worried about?
• Warren Buffett, possibly the greatest stock
  market investor ever, is sleeping well in Omaha
  tonight.
• Buy low, sell high.
• Sell when everyone else is buying and buy when
  everyone else is selling.
• Takes discipline and courage.
• One man in the World Trade Centre Bombings went
  down when everyone else went up to be rescued by
  the helicopters.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• In the last 100 centuries of recorded history,
  very few economies have ever performed as well as
  North Americas.
• The US and Canada have together, with help from
  their traditional allies, faced down the threat
  of a world dominated by Nazi Germany and the
  Soviet empire.
• High oil prices, a sub prime mortgage mess, a
  stock market decimated by greed and panic and
  30,000 Al Qaeda terrorists are not going to end
  these two great nations.

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Entrepreneurship Today

• Entrepreneurship counts even within large
  organizations.
• Who gets the promotion?
• Intrapreneur or employee?
• Brian I have an idea for a great, new service
  for the company it will take two years and 10
  million to launch it.
• Cathy I have an idea for a great, new service
  for the company it will take two years and 10
  million to launch it but I have three pre-launch
  clients each willing to kick in 2.5 million and
  take the first six months of production.
• No one has time to baby-sit you today.
• Entrepreneurs will prevail!

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Entrepreneurship Today

• REMEMBER ENTREPRENEURS WOULD RATHER BEG FOR
  FORGIVENESS THAN ASK FOR PERMISSION!
• Thank you!