Grade A Entrepreneurs

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

How much do we spend on latte or little things that we could skip once in a while? Yet, how often do we resort to Wikipedia? As far as I am concerned, I look at Wikipedia quite frequently. So this year, I felt that I should make a donation. They launched their annual giving campaign last week. To know all about it:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/2008-9_Annual_Giving_Campain_Launch 

As conscientious scholars (or former scholars), we may be inclined to say that not all the articles are reliable. This is a legitimate concern. I have a somewhat heavy-duty University background myself, and there was a time when I did not feel that I had the right of writing anything before getting into hours/days/months of verifications. Did I avoid inaccuracies? Certainly not. Can we always be certain that the resources for which we pay are 100 percent dependable? Certainly not either, especially on topics where propaganda can easily sneak in.

We are always right to be cautious. Yet, Wikipedia is a phenomenal body of knowledge that is accessible to everybody and a great springboard for further research.

I am not a fundraising consultant for Wikipedia. This post was only triggered by an informal conversation with my friend Cynthia Typaldos.

Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

The Nikkei Business magazine is no fancy publication, and I was pleased to see the picture of Eliane Fiolet and Hubert Nguyen, the founders of Ubergizmo. But I was not surprised. It is not only because Japan remains the fairyland of whatchamacallits, it is also and, maybe primarily, because as writers and consultants, Eliane and Hubert are now part of the cream of the crop of the gizmosphere. They receive hundreds of press releases per month, dozens of actual products; they test 95% of them, write most of the reviews and breaking news, and provide expert advice to an ever-increasing number of companies. Obviously, they work around the clock and ride the world. Ken Kaplan, Broadband and New Media Manager at Intel admires their dedication: “They attend events and follow up with questions. When you blog, you must act quickly to beat your competition; Hubert and Eliane also do things thoughtfully.”

Their self-funded business is a passion – and it is thriving! They started their blog in 2004 and, because of their complementary talents, have a handle on a wide range of gadgets. Hubert is a retired NVIDIA engineer and Eliane worked for a top design firm, Minale Tattersfield Design Strategy, where she created the identity for Fortune 500 companies. They don’t claim to discuss all the gadgets that spring up left and right. They keep away from geeky oddities or gimmicky thingies. They like game changers, either because these are hyper-techie, especially beautiful, or because they reflect interesting societal trends, and so, effectively combine the pair’s interests, technological and aesthetic. Who can resist the KDDI mobile phones’ futuristic creativity? Whether you’re into gadgets or not, it was hard not to agree that the Mio H610 was “the sexiest GPS alive.”  Hubert and Eliane talk the talk and walk the walk: clearly, the Logitech diNovo Mini does look great on a coffee table in a San Francisco loft, and Eliane, as faithful as she may be to Macintosh, admits that Hubert’s Voodoo Envy 133 is to die for. Meanwhile, as Hubert puts it, “Intel has just gone nuclear with hard-drives.”

They have the informed perspicacity of intelligent trend-setters and are “unbiased reviewers” in a smart way: instead of being tediously convoluted – often the pitfall for reporters who don’t touch products – Hubert and Eliane get to the point quickly, provide clear explanations, and explicitly state where they stand, which does not prevent them from being fair to products to which they do not feel especially attracted but could make sense to others. “The worse case scenario,” Eliane says, “are the gadgets that seem to be meaningless. So we ignore them. Why rave against them? There are so many gizmos that are worth talking about!”

Although I am not exactly a gadget fanatic myself, I am an Ubergizmo fan. In fact, they have managed to get me interested! I like Eliane’s and Hubert’s free-spirited and modern journalist style; as most of the best journalists, they have the nimbleness of chroniclers and the clarity of knowledgeable reporters, the quick thoroughness of domain-expert reviewers, and the sharp eye of art critics. Incidentally also, they are “citizens of the world,” Kaplan added. True. Ubergizmo is currently distributed in six languages (English, Spanish, German, French, Chinese and Polish), and read in over 200 countries. 

Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

Probably because of the downturn, I have never been asked as often as this year if it is useful for entrepreneurs to have an M.B.A!

Entrepreneurs are, almost by definition, “francs-tireurs,” (literally meaning “sharpshooters”), in other terms “guerrilla fighters” operating separately from the regular army. (Incidentally, this French word appeared in the English vocabulary as early as 1808.) By contrast, many M.B.A folks often appear to look more like operatives inside the regular, that is corporate, army. Does this mean that an entrepreneur with an MBA is an oxymoron, then? No. Think of it this way: Bernadotte was an independent-minded private who became one of the top Napoleonic Marshals, then broke ranks to go his way before rejoining them – until he chose to be his own boss again and turned into the founder of the current Royal House of Sweden. This analogy suggests that the entrepreneurship and MBA streaks may perfectly coexist within the same individual, and that one or the other gaining the upper hand may just be a matter of circumstance or context.

The fact that there are successful entrepreneurs with no MBA does not mean that they succeeded because they do not have an MBA, and failures of businesses started by MBA holders cannot be attributed to their having one.  In the same fashion entrepreneurial instinct does not equate with managerial and financial acumen, MBA does not necessarily mean lack of creativity. 

So, here are my two cents of the day:

– If you have started a company or participated in the early days of a startup that didn’t get to at least $5M in revenue and want to eventually have the option to build a career within larger corporations, you may want to consider earning an MBA or an Executive MBA. Put yourself in an employer’s shoes. How can s/he have a clear idea of what you know or don’t know? Why should anybody buy the idea that you will learn everything on the job? An MBA title does not entitle you to anything specific, true, but it shows that you are familiar with the basics.

– If your undergraduate studies are in liberal arts, and your first job is in a high tech company (large or small), earning an MBA may actually give you the confidence to one day become an entrepreneur.  “My undergraduate studies were music and political science. An MBA enabled me to understand the workings of business and gave me a toolkit to better assess opportunities. It also gave me the opportunity to make the switch from an early career in consulting to an internet start-up, and to my current executive director position in a non-profit music festival and school, The Walden School  (www.waldenschool.org),” Seth Brenzel says. “Moreover, the network of professionals at business school, who come from a wide variety of backgrounds and who have gone on to careers in varied industries, is invaluable to me personally and professionally.”

– If you have been involved with a number of successful startups (I tend to old-fashionably believe that some of them should show profitability), enrolling in an MBA program may be superfluous. Yet, I recommend that you strengthen and formalize your practical business experience and identify the blind spots that could jeopardize future entrepreneurial endeavors. You do not want to be a serial entrepreneur embarking in serial mistakes. Buy a few “Portable MBA”-type books. You will enjoy them far more than you think because they will place your experience in a wider context. Of course, also read all the great books of the latest seasons.  Guy Kawasaki’s recent “Reality Check” of which I spoke earlier this month is definitely one of them. Yes, I know Guy is not exactly pro-MBA, but don’t forget that he has one!

What the Best MBAs Know

The Portable MBA, 4th Edition

Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition

– If you are a foreigner, going for an MBA at some point or another in the United States may accelerate your understanding of the American business culture. This is something that I did not realize when I started my first company in 1987. Had I thought of it, I think I would have considered an Executive MBA, which might have saved me some adjustment time. Eliot Ingram, one of the founders of ClearAdmit*, a consulting firm advising MBA applicants on the most effective way to present themselves as they seek admission to leading business schools, reminded me of an interesting study conducted by a student research team at Duke’s Master of Engineering Management Program: over half of Silicon Valley startups have one or more immigrants as a key founder**. Entrepreneurs from all over the world bring their creativity to this country. MBA courses may ultimately help all of us speak a common language and belong to the same world of success. Why not?

*MBA Admissions Blog: http://blog.clearadmit.com (daily updates and admissions tips);
MBA Admissions Wiki: www.clearadmit.com/wiki (latest reports from the applicant community)
; Clear Admit School Guides: www.clearadmit.com/guides (in-depth research reports on the leading schools).

**http://www.pratt.duke.edu/news/?id=963

Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

Stylish tech is a big deal. Check out the September Business Week phone slideshow culminating with the Christian Dior/ModeLabs and Ferrari/Vertu (Nokia) models: (http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/09/0903_designer_phones/1.htm). Wow!

Today, we primarily find high-tech commodities endorsed by brands that have been vetted within the fashion industry. It is less customary to see high-tech entrepreneurs directly venture into fashion statements and follow in the footsteps of the powerful trend initiated by Steve Jobs.

I have come across a few initiatives recently, and one of the most interesting ones I have seen is LA YIN, a Swedish startup created by Ying Cheng. Ying is a Chinese woman who studied computer sciences at Nanjing University, then in Nancy, France, and earned her Ph.D. from Laval University, Quebec City. After five years at Nortel networks in the US and Canada as a research scientist in speech recognition and language understanding for directory systems and four years at Motorola Sydney Australia as the lab manager for multi-model user interface technologies, Ying decided to pursue her passion: high tech for women, by women. “Clothes, glasses, purses, jewelry… in short, lots of items that women use everyday, are gender specific,” she says. “Why should high-tech goods be gender agnostic, almost always style-less and so conspicuously disconnected from all the other accessories that contribute to define our personal style?” Ying has a point. Notebook sleeves, packaging for USB flash drives, and leather straps are now part of our daily guise, just as much as purses and make-up kits! LA YIN is an attractive offering (and a great idea for presents!), a unique combination of Chinese and European touch. Lovely and affordable.LA YIN has an interesting distribution channel: Swedish Apple resellers and soon another famous and trendy Nordic store. Of special note, the company has passed the stringent elegance tests of two major museum shops in Stockholm. You may also buy online. http://www.la-yin.com/collection.html

The Gabrielle set. Gabrielle was Chanel’s first name. “She is my role model,” Ying says. The Little black dress was beautifully simple and she invented modern accessories.”

Guy Kawasaki just gave me “Reality Check.” It is a sequel to “The Art of the Start”. Contrary to most sequels, it is an extremely good one. “The Art of the Start” became the starting point of a discussion between Guy and entrepreneurs, and among entrepreneurs – reality-checking the “Art of the Start”. Great interactive relationship, except that it ended up being somewhat volatile as relatively few people browse through the archives of even the most active blogs. “I grew frustrated with the shortcomings of blogging, which I began to do in earnest in 2006 with my blog How to Change the World,” Guy says. “I quickly learned that people rarely scroll past the home page of a blog or search for previous material.” I am glad Guy took the time to restage piles of comments (huge enterprise!) into this crisp 460 pages new desk-and-bedside guide for entrepreneurs. To the point, loaded with invaluable tips, thought provoking, and entertaining. I love Guy’s free, sometimes abrasive, style. Just as I did with “The Art of the Start,” I’ll tell all the entrepreneurs I help and/or mentor to read “Reality Check”. They will save thousands of dollars and we will get in the thick of things on day one.