Teaching Employees To Be Entrepreneurs Will Become Standard Fare

Teaching employees to be Entrepreneurs will become standard fare in corporate America.

I wrote an earlier piece on this topic Why Corporations Should Train More Intrapreneurs, back in October.

In today’s post, I want to discuss some trends we’re seeing in our work with various corporate partners who are either already implementing or considering internal programs for teaching employees entrepreneurship.

First, consider what an entrepreneur does.
>>>

Valuation Without Revenue Unicorns

Excerpt from my new Entrepreneur Journeys book, Billion Dollar Unicorns:

Recently, Unicorns with multi-billion dollar valuations without the revenue to justify them have returned with a vengeance. The frenzy started with Facebook acquiring Instagram for $1 Billion, and climaxed with the same company acquiring WhatsApp for $19 billion.

If there were any analysts that had doubts about Facebook’s mobile dominance plans, they have been put to rest. Facebook’s monetization plans vis-à-vis these apps, however, are less clear. The same applies to Yahoo!’s $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr.

I would like to look at WhatsApp more closely just because of the historic nature of the deal.
>>>

Future Unicorns

Excerpt from my new Entrepreneur Journeys book, Billion Dollar Unicorns:  

As I think about where future unicorns are likely to be, what trends present the characteristics of opportunities that can scale to that extent, I have a few observations.

I have had the opportunity to discuss these observations with a number of thoughtful industry leaders, and this chapter synthesizes some of those conversations in brief.

If you review the types of companies in this book, they span a few specific industry sectors: Cloud / SaaS (Marketo, ServiceNow, Concur, Zoho, eClinicalWorks, RightNow, SuccessFactors), Big Data (Tableau), E-commerce (Eventbrite, MercadoLibre, Flipkart), Vertical Search (Kayak, Trulia), Healthcare IT (AthenaHealth, eClinicalWorks), etc.
>>>

Why Not All Private Unicorns Will Become Public Unicorns

We’re in yet another tech bubble led by Silicon Valley’s marvelous froth machine. However, this time, the bubble is constrained to two parts of the market, and thankfully, both are private.

One, late stage, over-valued, over-hyped venture-funded still private startups. The ones among these that are valued at over $1 Billion are anointed Unicorns. This stems from an article by Aileen Lee with Cowboy Ventures, Welcome To The Unicorn Club: Learning From Billion-Dollar Startups.

Two, over investment at the seed stage in private fledgling startups. For more on this, please read: Why 70k In Angel Investments Is A Problem.

Thankfully, the public market is NOT in a bubble, hence when this one bursts, not much harm will be caused, except a lot of rich people will lose a lot of money.
>>>

Bootstrapped Unicorns

Excerpt from my new Entrepreneur Journeys book, Billion Dollar Unicorns:  

In the fall of 2007, I met Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho, for the first time. At that time, no one had heard of him. He was flying under the radar of Silicon Valley. Sridhar had a small network management tools business that basically functioned as a highly profitable cash cow. It was not an earth shattering idea. But it gave him cash to play with.

And play he did. He decided to go after Salesforce.com with a Software-as-a-Service Customer Relationship Management product at a price-point that was one sixth of what Salesforce.com, the market leader, charged. He offered the product to small businesses, and customers lapped it up.
>>>

Why 70k+ Angel Financings Is A Problem

Much as we would like to see more entrepreneurs successfully raise seed money from angel investors, the current level of investment is structurally worrisome.

In 2013, 70,713 ventures received angel financing (Source: Center for Venture Research, UNH).

However, the number of companies that get venture financing has remained more or less steady over the years at about 1000.

Presumably, a vast majority of the 70k entrepreneurs and their investors aspire to substantial exits down the line.

However, the market cannot sustain that many exits.
>>>

My Themes for 2015. Yours?

Yet another new year has begun. As I write this, I am looking out on a glorious, sunny day. There has been rain these past few weeks, after many years of draught. This morning, the sunlight shines beautifully on orange and yellow leaves – the last few on the pear tree in our garden. There is a sense of well being in nature.

Is there a sense of well being in the world at large?

The question doesn’t meet with an unambiguous yes. War. Destruction. Terrorism. Children being killed. Rising inequality. Looming water crisis.

In our personal lives and choices, it is important to remember:

“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.”

As I think about our sphere of work – the industry, technology, entrepreneurship, business – I carry much the same feeling with me.

And with that sentiment, here is a reflection on some of the themes I am pondering for 2015.

>>>

What Can You Do When You Fail To Raise Series A After “Graduating” From An Accelerator

I don’t believe in the concept of “graduating” from an accelerator, but since most incubators and accelerators use this as a framework, let’s discuss what entrepreneurs ought to do when they ‘graduate’ without funding.

This, btw, is the plight of MOST startups around the world.

MOST incubators and accelerators promise to get them funded.

MOST fail to keep their promise.

Why?

Because most businesses are not fundable.

Let’s recap some basics from Entrepreneurship Does NOT Equal Financing:
>>>