The Columbia Venture Community looks poised to be the group that finally brings entrepreneurship to the forefront of the Columbia community (and if not, it at least looks like it could save a senior or two from unwittingly going into banking or consulting).

I’ve written about the Columbia entrepreneur community, or lack thereof, before. In fact, it was my first post. Over the past several months, however, I’ve noticed a marked change in the buzz over Columbia’s commitment to entrepreneurship. It’s come from several places. The focus group I mentioned in my first post was organized by the Columbia Center for Career Education. In April, I attended a Business School-run event, the Columbia Entrepreneur Organization’s Pitchfest. In May, I attended my first Columbia Venture Community event run by Mark Peter Davis, a Business School alumn.

It was at the CVC event that it really felt like things were starting to come together. It was the first time I had really seen a group for all of Columbia — alumni, engineers, business, law, etc. It was the first time I saw an event and a group that looked like they had staying power. Not since CORE somehow got Mark Cuban to speak on campus have I felt that. (I’m not sure if CORE still operates since they’re still sporting the several years old Cuban photo so maybe this is a bad comparison?)

On Tuesday of this week, I attended my third Columbia Venture Community event (one of them slipped through my blogging fingers). On a lazy August day at 6pm on the upper west side, I was shocked to find 50+ people in the basement of Lerner Hall. School’s not even in session!

There were 50+ real, living and breathing people with some affiliation to Columbia who weren’t off ‘summering’ elsewhere for August (which probably means there weren’t too many VCs in the crowd), and who couldn’t think of anything they’d rather be doing than talking about startups. Brilliant!

I spent the networking portion of the night speaking with a variety of interesting people that helped reaffirm my gut feeling about CVC. GoodGame TV developer, Oliver, and I talked about getting started in PHP. GoodGame TV features an entertaining series of videos covering everything gaming related. Great content, not so great UI. (Oliver, expect an email from me. I think a few simple changes would take care of some of the UI issues). I also chatted a bit with Vikram Venkatraman and Sol Kahn, both classmates, colleagues, and friends from our mutual obessions with entrepreneurship.

Tejpaul Bhatia, founder of MediaMerx, promised a Guide to Raising Venture Capital post for Enter Venture in the future — and yes, I will hold you to that Tej. “Everything you’ve ever heard about raising money on blogs is wrong” Tej told a few us. We look forward to hearing what’s right, Tej. I also enjoyed conversations with Frances Ning and Jonathan Wegner. Jonathan’s business card he gave me at my first CVC event still ranks as one of the best I’ve ever picked up (Update 9/21/08: They’re called Moo Cards, and I just ordered a few for Enter Venture). Frances was notable as one of the few women at the event and aspired to to build feeder organizations that would bring Chinese nurses to America.

Everywhere I stepped I was tripping over interesting people, and again, remember, this is August.

Unfortunately, I was not able to stay for most of the presentations, but I was able to see Bartek Ringwelski and Sasha Davidov present InterviewPoint. InterviewPoint is a database of real interview questions from real interviews as recorded by real students. Users can share questions and strategies, as well as benchmark their resumes against other students in similar interviews. I haven’t been in the banking / consulting interview mindset for awhile now, but something tells me that a Vault guide + InterviewPoint combo would be the perfect recipe for your banking or consulting interview.

Of course, this is the Columbia Venture Community. After realizing you could start your own InterviewPoint, there’s no reason for you to go on that consulting or banking interview after all. With all of this excitement around the Columbia entrepreneurial community, there’s no better time to shun the all too familiar Columbia paths. Come out, meet other entrepreneurs, and see what else is out there beyond the banking / consulting world. Bring friends. Join a startup. Start a startup.

It figures that this group has only now come along just as I’m about to move to San Francisco. Two years since I’ve graduated from engineering school, it’s great to finally see entrepreneurship gaining some traction at Columbia.

Farewell CVC and good luck. I expect a Zuckerberg or two by the time I get back to NYC.

Visible Measures – Matt Cutler, VP Marketing & Analytics

Visible Measures analyzes the effectiveness of internet video and video advertising to determine how the video is being consumed and spread virally. Their solution is particularly cool in that you can analyze the way people are viewing a video — when they’re rewinding, when they’re navigating away, pausing, etc. For example, in this video of Kobe jumping over a car, they can track the precise part of the video that people end up rewinding to watch again. (The jumping over the car part, obviously). I can see how valuable this information would be for marketers, especially for those videos without the obvious ‘jumping over a car’ rewind section.

Boxee – Gidon, Co-founder

Update: I’ve received my alpha invite — thanks guys!

Boxee’s product looks awesome. Before I talk about their presentation, if you guys are listening out there, hook a brother up with an alpha invite!

Boxee is a social networking digital media center for the Mac (and other platforms soon too). Boxee scans your home network and builds a rich media experience over your digital library with browsing features similar to, but better than Apple TV and iTunes. Boxee imports third party content so you can read more information about your videos, see a pilot, or read lyrics to your songs (super cool — I never know the lyrics to even my favorite songs). You can use a remote (super cool again — maintains the tv media experience). You can invite and follow friends’ libraries (super cool one more time — can we finally realize a free on demand media service with this?). You can tune into your friends’ playlists, import slideshows from Flickr and Picassa. You can zoom in and out of your videos. Better yet, you can extend Boxee even further as seen with their Muxtape example.

Again, guys, if you’re listening, I’d love an alpha invite. I get the impression that I’d have a lot more to say about Boxee with more than a cursory feature review

MediaMerx – Tejpaul Bhatia, Co-founder & CEO

I reviewed Tej and MediaMerx’s service in my original Columbia Venture Community post. My original comments remain the same — great opportunity, great sounding company. For an example of MediaMerx’s service in action, check out videopassport.tv.

Hulu – Kevin McGurn, VP National Sales

Kevin McGurn presented one of the hottest new video sites — Hulu. He talked about Hulu’s focus on really building a site that highlighted already beautiful video assets using simple design and high resolution, high quality video. It’s quickly become the destination for professional videos of your favorite movies and tv shows. I could go on and on about how Hulu seems to have nailed the professional online video site. Just check out their site — your favorite shows are probably already up there.

Move Networks – Bob Bryson, SVP Sales & BD

Move Networks is another company bringing higher quality video distribution to the web. Their focus is on getting the highest quality video to the user, regardless of their connection or local environment. Users with the best connections can get the best video, while users with slower connections get a lower quality video, rather than an interrupted video experience. This sounds like a great solution for content providers — just check out their client list for proof.

Thanks everyone! I’ve included a video of all the great presenters thanks to Yaron and Blip.tv! This is a Meetup group I’ll definitely be visiting again, and next time, I’ll be sure to stay for a drink afterwards.

Now, I’ve never lived or worked in Silicon Valley, but I’ve heard about it. I’ve heard that students are encouraged to pursue entrepreneurship. I know that they have startup career fairs. What I knew about the NY startup scene during college was this: nothing.

So, here are my two ideas for how Silicon Alley can change that:

1. Silicon Alley needs to go to school

At the CVC event tonight, I heard and participated in several conversations that went like this:

• “I had no idea there were startups in NYC when I was in school.”
• “Are there companies that come to campus that aren’t investment banks or consulting firms?”
• “Why doesn’t anyone just go recruit from SEAS (Columbia’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences)?”

Great question. I graduated from SEAS in 2006. While there, I had no idea that NYC had even a single startup. I knew exactly who McKinsey, BCG, Booz Allen, Deloitte, UBS, Citibank, and Goldman Sachs were, or rather, after going to Columbia I knew who these firms were. I couldn’t agree more with Ari Greenberg of Baveo when he says that, “before I came to Columbia. I didn’t even know what the hell an investment bank or consulting firm was.”

I get the impression that Silicon Valley really cultivates the relationship with the young talent coming out of its area’s schools. I remember reading an article from Hacker News that said that many of UC Berkeley’s CS majors had multiple job offers.

Just before today’s CVC event, I ran into a recently graduated CS major who lived on my floor when I was a freshman RA (don’t ask). What’s he up to these days? He’s looking for a job. Looking for a job??!! Are you crazy?

Do you know how many times I’ve been at tech events lately where someone announces they’re hiring? This always strikes me as amazing. You’re looking to hire someone at an event full of people already working for startups or people planning to start their own? Really? Is there no better place to ask that question?

Silicon Alley should be hammering on Columbia and NYU’s doors. What more could a startup ask for than a recent graduate with lots of energy, the willingness to learn, and tons of time on their hands? Sure, it takes a leap of faith to recruit entry level developers from college, but it sure beats standing in a conference room while holding a “Looking for Developers” sign over your head.

The message to Silicon Alley is simple. Students have no idea that you exist because, well, you’re not hiring them!

2. Silicon Alley needs to be the most popular kid in school

I think this would be pretty easily attained by Silicon Alley once they start reaching into the area’s universities. How many college students really dream about donning that suit and tie when they graduate, anyways?

The area needs more buzz. It needs to create this buzz by looking outside its IAC walls. It needs success stories that people know about and hear about. Students shouldn’t find out about the Silicon Alley startup scene two years after graduation. They should be dreaming about being a part of it from the moment they step on campus. They’ll see startups, join startups, and think, “Hey, I can start one of these on my own.”

All of a sudden, that CS major becomes more attractive. You don’t need to move across the country. You don’t need to squeeze in that economics minor to make yourself more attractive to the McKinseys and Booz Allens (not that I’m advocating being one dimensional). Awareness will build on campus. Students will start telling stories about those firms that are dishing out free lunch and that let you wear jeans to work.

I can just imagine the career fair now. Imagine a table for Meetup right next to the table for JP Morgan Chase. How many engineers would choose writing back end financial software over working on a hot web product?

As Mark Davis said at today’s CVC event, “Columbia has a lot of people interested in entrepreneurship, but there’s not a lot of community.” The community has to come both from the universities and industry.

Columbia is starting to get it’s act together. Your move, Silicon Alley.

Whenever I go to one of these events, I enjoy a little chuckle to myself when I think of the conferences I’ve attended for my day job.  There’s typically a host of software providers, or a featured software provider, trying to sell any doohickie or widget they can stuff down the government’s throat.  I’m often the only person in the room under 40 and always the only one in the room with a spike of hair running over the top of his head.  For one of the more enjoyable conferences, NYC’s GovTech, the NYTimes tech blogger, David Pogue, gave a great, but revealing presentation about all kinds of new things on the internets — Skype, iPhone (1.0 not 2.0), etc.  It sometimes feels like stepping back in time.

Mashable was about as different from my day job’s conferences as one can get, but maybe it was a little too far in the future?  The event was hosted at Touch, a faux ritzy lounge / club that most people probably think of when they think of New York bars.  That’s right kids, plush couches, and a freakin’ DJ!  The only problem with this is that whole “Exhibit” part sometimes got kind of tough.  People were yelling over one another, and the exhibit area was packed, even during the first hour or so that I was there.  Not a bad bar scene, but again, the exhibit was kind of lost in the mix.

Don’t get me wrong.  I completely enjoyed myself at Mashable’s Exhibit Hall.  A bit of free food, (not free) beer, and internet geeks in the same room makes for a good time. Maybe they just needed a bigger space?

Rather than talk about the event, I decided to do something similar to what I did with the Columbia Venture Community article and review a few of the companies and websites I saw yesterday.  (If anyone else wants to review some of these sites, feel free to do so in the comments.  Yes, you, my 10 readers…):

NameThis – NameThis is another Kluster product and seems very similar to the Kluster site.  NameThis offers allows you to crowdsource the name of your company, product, or, well, anything.  My initial impression with the site is that I’m not in love with the wooden deck-like header overlaid horizontally on the vertically striped background.  It kind of hurts my eyes, but doesn’t keep me from being able to quickly figure out what this site’s all about.  They do a great job of using the most important screen real estate with the important functions of the site – naming competitions.

I ran into a few stumbling blocks when I tried to use NameThis though.  And by that, I mean, I can’t log in to use the site really at all.  I tried to log on to NameThis using my Kluster email account, the log on kept failing, but there was no message to tell me what was wrong.  I decided to “forgot my password” and had an email sent to me with a link to reset my password.  When I reset my password, I was taken straight back to the original log in screen as if there was another unannounced error with the system.  Grrr.  I can log in to Knewsroom and Kluster so I don’t think it’s me.

I can log in to the site and see the current naming competitions, but I can’t participate.  It’s too bad too.  The concept of this site is so simple and easy to understand that I want to participate, you know?  Just the tip, just to see how it feels?

One last thing about Kluster, they seem like they have found a system that will really be able to churn out products.  It seems like they’ve put together three different applications over night so I bet we can expect more.

edopter – edopter was probably my favorite site of the event.  Even better, Matthew from edopter was probably the easiest person to talk to of all the participants.  Great site.  Great people.  Good combination.  I don’t think I’m a part of edopter’s target market, but I can completely see the type of people who would love this site.  In fact, I have a friend of mine that I’m sharing the link with once I finish this post.

For the most part, the site design is great.  I came away with a few ideas for updating the Enter Venture blog design (whenever that will be) .  They do a really good job of focusing your eye on big, clear images and text, which makes for a fun browsing experience.

I do have a few complaints: Some of the graphic design makes it a bit difficult to scan for elements on the site.  The buttons blend in with the rest of the background and text a bit too much — for example, the log in button on the home page.  The search bar also suffers from a similar problem but looks more like a button than an input field.

Concertattack – ConcertAttack has a great, clean site that addresses the popular music / artist / fan / concert market.  I should be feeling great about ConcertAttack, but here’s the thing…  Haven’t I seen this site before?  Or some variation of this site?  I’m certainly not someone who would use the site.  There definitely are a lot of people who would — just check out the activity on the site.

My worry for them is how are they really, really going to stand out?  Something tells me the fans of these sites are pretty fickle.  Concertattack must do one or two things better than anyone else, it’s just hard for me to know what those things are.

VideoClix.tv – VideoClix was a crowded by people so I knew there was something worth checking out in them.  I just watched the demo of their product and can now see why it was so crowded.  VideoClix has made video interactive and clickable for more information and product suggestions.  While watching a video of Steve Harvey, you can mouse over the video for an indication of what’s clickable.  When you click on the video, a small sidebar slides out with more information about Home Depot, sandpaper, Steve Harvey, etc.

The product doesn’t yet seem perfect from the demo, but it’s a certainly on its way towards a really new and interesting viewing experience. I look forward to my beta invite to see more.

Rubicon – Hmm.  Rubicon.  I was at  first excited about Rubicon.  This might be something I could use in the future.  I have a blog.  At the point that I have more than 10 readers, I might want to put ads on this blog.  Unfortunately, I never found myself wanting to get started.  They do some sort of ad network optimization thing where we all magically make tons of money, or “mad cash”.  All I wanted to do is figure out what they could do for Enter Venture.  Instead, I filled out a form, that took me to their “User Interface” (I should have known to bail out here), then another set of questions, and really, I stopped there.  It was clear that this wasn’t something I wanted to use.

After writing the above, I decided to give Rubicon one last try and at least view their 3 minute demo.  Instead of a demo though, I got a voiced over sales presentation.  I think they’re really stretching the use of the word “demo” (short for “demonstration”) here.

MotionBox – MotionBox was another company and site that I really liked.  Put them in the edopter bucket.  MotionBox seems to have found a niche in the family video sharing space.  Their site uses all kinds of language and images that target the “Hi Mom, the baby did x today!” audience.  MotionBox’s user account screens look the best of any of the sites I saw at Mashable.  They’re well organized, have subtle design touches that compliment that organization, and they make it extremely easy to use their system — right down to the short but instructive step-by-step guide that’s just perfect for their target market.

Unfortunately, it’s ridiculously hot in my apartment right now as NYC just got slammed with a heat wave so I need to wrap this up here.  MotionBox deserves a more extensive review, but I’m (thankfully) short of any sample baby videos at the moment and don’t expect any soon.  Maybe then I’ll give them the full test.

Thanks again to Mashable and all of the event’s participants!

Scott asked the panel to give one piece of advice to the entrepreneurs and their startups. Here’s the gist of what they said:

• Mimeo (CEO Adam Slutsky) – “The team is most important.” “Start with the customer.”
• Thumbplay (VP/BD Chris Phenner) – “Get used to what each other smells like.”
• The Ladders (Marc Cenedella, CEO) – “Get going.” “Get real customers that send you angry emails and learn something.”
• DailyCandy (Catherine Levene, COO) – “Focus. Figure out what you’re doing and do it well.”
• Meetup (G.Whalin, CTO) – “Have a vision and stick to your guns.” “Launch iterate. Launch iterate.”
• Etsy (Rob Kalin, CEO) – “Head down and work.”
• Huffington Post (Jonah Peretti, Co-Founder) – “Be flexible.” “Know yourself”
• Huffington Post (Betsy Morgan, CEO) “Leave behind conventional rules.”
• AlleyCorp (Kevin Ryan, CEO) – “Carve out a market that people didn’t realize existed.”

Thanks to CenterNetworks for the video!

My initial impression is that Mark Davis has addressed many of my concerns about the Columbia entrepreneurial community in one fell swoop. This event brought together alumni and students, all of the schools, entrepreneurs at a variety of levels, and had a very NY Tech vibe to it. Not a bad first meeting.

After the event I was speaking with the creators of MyOffice about how to improve the event, and the one thing we kept coming back to was the need for feedback. (Isn’t that the great thing about entrepreneurs? They’re always looking for someone to tell them they’re wrong. They’re always looking to improve.) I have a few ideas to make the CVC events better, and in the spirit of one of those ideas, feedback, here’s my assessment of the companies that presented:

ThisTechnology

ThisTechnology has created a system that will bring internet style banner ads to television. I think most people harp over the fact that their platform will add advertisements to their television screens, but I don’t really worry about that. I’ve seen this style of advertising overseas so I think it’s only a matter of time before it becomes the norm here. I don’t claim to fully understand how this platform works, but I can see the end product.

Jeff’s presentation was professional but shaky because he rifled through his speech and his slides. Ultimately, he showed his product and you got it. The existing partnerships, staff composition (12 people full-time, 3 people part-time, and 1 person over-time — great line), and experience were encouraging. What’s less encouraging is that I can’t seem to find their website in a search.

SocialDough

Social Dough is an engagement advertising platform. It guarantees engagement for advertisers, publishers, and content consumers, everyone makes money and saves money.

SocialDough seemed to have a bit too much figured out, but not too much figured out — if that makes any sense? They had a 6 year revenue projection, but no developer. I wasn’t sure how it worked, but I still remember a PowerPoint slide with a 2000% increase.

I think SocialDough is doing the right thing by getting out there and presenting their idea, but I can’t tell if this is anymore than an idea at this point. Derek and his partner should really focus on rounding out their team and building their product, less on excel noise and buzzwords.

MediaMerx

MediaMerx has created a platform that distributes premium video to emerging markets. The point of the pitch was simple: there is a growing affluent segment in emerging markets that has money to spend on what we’re selling them. Brilliant. They could be selling designer handbags to this segment and it’d be a good idea. Trade your designer handbag shipping issues for broadband issues and you have MediaMerx.

Tejpaul Bhatia could have given this presentation in his sleep. He clearly laid out his company and transitioned well into several demos of his product. As one of the creators of ESPN 360, I’m confident he knows the industry well and shows it during Q&A.

Who Tours

Dave Smith is a product guy, and I loved it. He barely stood up to acknowledge the crowd before sitting to his product demo and living the “Show don’t tell” mantra. He walked us through WhoTours, a smart concert search engine. WhoTours can use your iTunes library to search the internet for concerts you’d enjoy. Sort of. The demo had a bit of hitch, but given Dave’s passion for the product I have no doubt it’s something he’ll fix.

This is the most enjoyable review to write because I have something to play with at home and there’s an actual product to talk about. I think the UI could use a bit of a reworking, but they have a great homepage graphic to work from.

Dave wasn’t prepared to and didn’t know how to answer some of the financial questions in the crowd. Great. That’s why he was there. It was great to see him use the Q&A to survey the crowd for revenue ideas.

Snooth

Snooth has created the worlds largest wine community social networking website. Their recommendation system is comprehensive with forums, ratings, connection to stores and distributors, and a variety of search filters. It’s a fun website that even a non-vino can appreciate with a pleasant, interactive experience that is both well branded and easy to navigate.

Philip James presentation was hampered a bit by IE6. He handled it well and stayed away from problem spots on the site, but his next purchase should probably be an adapter for his Mac so he doesn’t have to demo with IE6 again. Snooth sounds like a company that has targeted a niche, is iterating their site, and is growing.

All in all, this was a great step in the right direction for the Columbia Venture Community. I was impressed with the presenters. The group has the potential to grow and the opportunity to do so. To be successful, it will need to be prepared to support the needs of undergraduate early entrepreneurs to VCs, but I’m looking forward to seeing how this goes.

On January 23rd, I was fortunate enough to listen to a talk by Muhammad Yunus, one of the great entrepreneurs of our time. Muhammad Yunus is the founder to the world’s most successful — if not pioneering — microfinance institution, the Grameen Bank. This groundbreaking organization has profitably uplifted impoverished communities using small loans all across Bangladesh. He’s written a few books about his experiences, and it’s also earned him the Noble Prize. Not bad, huh?

Yunus’ speech drew a large and diverse crowd to the top floor of the Barnes & Nobles in Union Square, which was nearly overwhelmed by the event. The entire floor was filled with listeners straining over bookshelves to hear this man speak. I can say, without a doubt, that this was the best speech I’ve ever heard while standing in the Philosophy section of a bookstore.

Yunus spoke to the crowd for roughly an hour in a soft, understated tone that seemed more suited for a small seated gathering yet somehow worked with the swelling crowd anyways. It reminded me of what it must have felt like to have an elder tribesman lecturing by the camp fire. That is, if I were a tribesman. Yunus didn’t necessarily lecture or preach. He told stories, and in his stories you could find lessons

Yunus’ genius is most obvious in the way he diminishes his successes, the way he simplifies them. There’s no hint from him that he’s drastically changed the way the world views the financial clout of the poor. There’s no indication that he’s done something game changing. Instead, Muhammad has simply “given money to impoverished women so they could buy a goat and asked that they pay him back.” Talk about an understatement.

The Grameen Bank is one of those organizations that defies long-established conventions for what a business should be. It’s a profitable business, but it doesn’t only measure itself by profit. It’s “another type of business,” Yunus says. Rather, the bank is interested in profit AND the social uplift of its customers.

I have long been fascinated by these types of businesses and the entrepreneurs that create them. As much as I love tech and web businesses, the social sector represents the real apex of innovation. Not only do these entrepreneurs create new systems, but they are creating new frameworks. The social sector is redefining what a business is and what it serves to accomplish.

Even more impressive, these entrepreneurs and organizations typically operate in the most extreme of conditions. Can you imagine what it must be like organizing the distribution and collection of loans to impoverished women throughout rural Bangladesh? It puts your scaling issues to shame. Begun in the late 1970s, how many times do you think he faced doubting investors, personnel issues, and near failure ?

In creating the Grameen Bank, Yunus finds that everyone is entrepreneurial with the right conditions. Village women needed capital support to create sustainable businesses. Street beggars needed a support network of their peers to keep them accountable. “A seed from the tallest tree, planted in a pot will not grow,” Yunus tells us. For all of you early entrepreneurs, remember that. Success requires the right environment. Persevere. Improve what you can control.

Muhammad Yunus does not talk about Muhammad Yunus. Like any great leader, he talks about everyone that has helped make him successful and takes none of the credit. He talks about the the wonderful programs his staff have come up with, the amazing energy of the people he works with, etc.

For all of these reasons and all of the reasons I’ve forgotten since Yunus’ speech, Yunus is the embodiment of a great entrepreneur and someone that every early entrepreneur should emulate.

In front of a crowd of roughly 200 Columbia MBA and MBA alumni, the PhD computer scientist largely avoided his technical area of expertise and spoke instead about how to make choices using the Confucian philosophy rooted in the middle way. His decision to teach a room full of New York, capitalist, Western listeners using Eastern philosophy was both an extremely interesting choice and one I greatly respected.

I’ve largely recreated the main themes of his presentation below. Most of this is direct from Lee’s slides with the middle way tenets condensed for easier consumption. But before that, why are we even talking about choices?

“The most important event [in recent history] is not technology or the Internet. It is.. for the first time.. substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they have to manage themselves.” – Peter Drucker

This was the only time that Lee really touched on anything technical at all, but it underlined the connection to his work and association with Google. The internet isn’t the only thing enabling choices, but as the leading way in which we increasingly get all of our information, it’s certainly the foundation for a lot of our choices. It enables us to make more choices and better informed choices.

Since we have to make all of these new choices, the middle way provides a framework for making the right choices, both on the internet and off:

1. The middle way is about avoiding extremities. Anything extreme is bad. Everything in moderation.
2. The middle way is about having flexibility to choose based on your situation. The best leaders choose their type of leadership depending on situation: directive: visionary, harmonious, democratic, accountable, coaching.
3. Have the pragmatism to pick your battles. Accept that there are some things you can’t change, but increase your level of influence for the things you can.
4. Have the objectivity to analyze your options. (And I love this…) What’s the worst that could happen? Can I accept that?
5. Have the self awareness to set expectations. Having the right expectations ensures you wont give up on failure and wont be complacent with any access.
6. Have the perspective to learn from mistakes. Wisdom is the ability to make good decisions, but you need to experience making bad decisions to get there.
7. Have the courage to let go. The best opportunities are transient.
8. Have the courage to follow your heart. If you find a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.

Lee’s presentation style was methodical (something we can relate to at Enter Venture) with a deliberate structure that was obviously the result of years of presentation practice. He was calm at the podium and mixed his points with a variety of examples. It was obvious that he wasn’t always a good presenter but had chosen to become one.

One of his example stories described how bad he used to be in his graduate school years. Kai-Fu Lee received failing grades for his eye contact, communication, and engagement with a group of gifted summer school students. Apparently, Kai-Fu Lee practices what he preaches (see #6 above) because he was nothing but confident for his roughly 2 hour speech.

His story for #8 was particularly helpful for making big decisions, I think. He said there was a newspaper test and a tombstone test. The newspaper test forces you to evaluate your decision as if it were plastered on the front page of a newspaper. Would you want people to view that as your life? And the tombstone test for when you die, what do you want people to know you loved doing?

Other notable quotes from the presentation that were not necessarily his own were:

• A man who can think but cannot express himself is at the same level as a man who cannot think.
• It’s not innovation that matters. It’s useful innovation that matters.
• If you think your likelihood of success is in the 40-70% range, you should do it. Waiting longer could cost you more. – Colin Powell. (Yikes – the one strike. Colin Powell probably isn’t the best person for a likelihood of success example.)

Every early entrepreneur would be well served to follow Kai-Fu Lee’s advice but early entrepreneurs should especially learn something from the middle way. Early entrepreneurs have to decide whether they want to be entrepreneurs at all. Entrepreneurs, developers, and designers face an onslaught of choices both large and small. Not all of these decisions require that sort of Tombstone Test but channeling some Kai-Fu Lee wisdom will be a good idea for when you do.

When you’re looking for events, don’t just go to the events where you’re familiar with the material. Go to events where you don’t always know what you’re getting into, wont know anyone, and know little about the subject matter at hand. Meeting new people forces you to talk about your ideas and refine the way you communicate. More importantly, because you’re not an expert at the subject matter at hand, you learn to listen. Entrepreneurs should be equally good at both.

With this in mind, I attended Web Analytics Wednesday hosted by Avenue A | Razorfish. What little I know about web analytics comes from my short history with Google Analytics, and with only a few weeks of experience with the application, I knew there was obviously more I had to learn.

The night’s presentation was given by Eric T. Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified and was titled the Future of Web Analytics. His presentation centered around his predictions for the future of the web analytics industry such as industry consolidation, increasing responsibility for ROI, and a move towards more robust tools.

Ultimately, I think the title of the presentation should have been the Future of the Web Analytics Industry, but I can’t fault Eric for that. This was not my domain.

I was hoping for a breakdown of some of the more rigorous tools in the industry using multivariate analysis as well as a better understanding of cookie deletion rates. He touched on these things but never discussed them in any depth. Then again, of course he didn’t. He was speaking to a room full of web analytics professionals.

The night was by no means a loss for me. Eric was a great presenter and shared a similar appreciation for learning outside your expertise. He advised the people in the room to develop their skills outside their domain with presentation classes and statistics classes.

In that vein, I think attending Web Analytics Wednesday was well worth my time. I spoke to a few people about their industry, picked up on the industry lexicon, learned about legislation effecting the industry, and added a few books to my future reading list (and had free pizza and beer — thanks guys!). I may not have learned those skills for taking my Google Analytics data a step further, but I now know where to look when I decide to.

In my warmup post, I talked about the the issues facing the Columbia entrepreneurial community and how it struggled to gain traction. I’m happy to report, just a week later, that I feel the tide may truly be turning. I’m began writing this post from Room 140, Uris Hall at Columbia University where the first ever Columbia Entrepreneur Organization’s (CEO) PitchFest was going on.

The event was a first in more ways than one though. While CEO is a graduate business school organization, the event was open to students from all of the schools as well as alumni. Flyers covered the campus. I received three separate emails for the event, and I’m an alumni. I can only imagine how many times current students were emailed. While the numbers weren’t extraordinary, the 100+ people who attended the PitchFest witnessed one of the more successful Columbia entrepreneur events I’ve seen in years.

The idea behind the event was to bring together the skills and talents of the various schools at Columbia. Each person who chose to do so was given 1 minute to present who they were, what idea or existing business they had, and what they were looking for.

I loved this framework. I believe it successfully addressed two of the most frustrating pieces to networking events.

One, everyone had a chance to participate. There were all kinds of businesses and presenters. Very few people stood to start the event, but after awhile the sheer number of presentations made it easier to take your own turn in front of the room. After all, everyone was doing it.

Two, the event was efficient. What better way to force people to hone their message than giving them only one minute? Better yet, for those in the audience, how else would you have been able to hear so many different ideas and opportunities?

Some of my favorite presentations were about:

• A medical device company specializing in handicapped devices. Better yet, the presentation was made by a woman that used walking crutches. If I had money, that’s someone I would invest in — someone who uses their handicap to a competitive advantage.
• A freshman from the biomedical engineering program (BME, what what!) who has grown his pancake making hobby into a business that will challenge the vendors on campus. He was the youngest person in the room and one of the best dressed. I could go on, but let’s just say I was impressed.
• Finally, those people who simply offered their services were also among my favorites. These experience-offerers truly understood the spirit of the event.

I also presented and met some interesting people, but I don’t want to talk about that just yet. Right now I have an idea and a prayer but nothing more. I’m a firm believer in the fact that ideas are worth nothing and execution is worth everything. However recently, I’ve changed that belief slightly with my most recent idea. Ideas still aren’t worth anything and execution is still worth everything, BUT, timing is golden.

Overall, well done CEO. It’s good to see these types of events at Columbia, and I was impressed with all of my peers. Next task for CEO and other entrepreneurial groups on campus: How do you capture the attention of the rest of the 99.5% of the student body that missed this event (to say nothing of the alumni network in the area)?

The aim of the focus group was to gauge alumni perspectives regarding the entrepreneurship climate on campus.  The group was made up of both non- and for-profit entrepreneurs, a venture capitalist, and a startup lawyer.  While I have not started a business before, I am extremely interested in entrepreneurship and as a recent graduate who was fairly involved in Columbia’s Organization for Rising Entrepreneurs (CORE), I thought I might have something to say.

Fledgling.  That’s how I described the entrepreneurship climate.  (Another focus group member said “fragmented”).  A turnout of fewer than 10 people reinforced this sentiment.

My experience with entrepreneurship on campus was mixed.  The two summer months I spent in Scotland  as part of the Encouraging Dynamic Global Entrepreneurs (EDGE) program was phenomenal.  The lack of continuity and infrequent presentations from CORE were not.  There was no real driving force for entrepreneurship, no success stories to emulate.

The rest of the group identified a variety of other barriers on campus: the competition from high paying corporate jobs in NYC, the lack of communication among schools at the university, the lack of funding access, and the lack of opportunities to be a part of other startups.

The suggestions for improvement, however, were fresh and inspiring.  The group talked about creating startup career fairs to combat the dominance of corporate fairs on campus, building on existing resources to make to create a more robust support network, bringing teams from the various schools together (gasp!  inter-school communication?!), and really just showing students how cool entrepreneurship can be.

My personal idea is for Columbia to seek partnership with existing NYC entrepreneur / startup groups by hosting some of their events on campus.  Groups like the New York Tech Meetup and NY Web Entrepreneurs Meetup are always looking for developers.  Hosting their events would solve their space problem, people problem and reveal to students the entrepreneurial / startup landscape outside Alma Mater’s gates.

Overall, I applaud Columbia for its efforts to increase the spirit of entrepreneurship on campus.  Efforts like the newly created engineering minor in entrepreneurship and today’s focus group offer hope that the climate will improve.  We just need to expose students to the opportunities beyond Goldman Sachs, or as one participant said,

“There once was an actual guy named Goldman; there once was an actual guy named Sachs.”