Howdy Super Happy People,
First off, I apologize for the long time off with no posts. I had a few things to attend to. As a “Welcome Back”, I wanted to re-post a GREAT article by a wonderful blog by Brad Feld about Getting Things Done:
I hope y’all enjoy it!
-Chris
Howdy Super Happy People!
Over the weekend, I had some insightful things that I thought I would write about to demonstrate my genius, and mastery of conveying said genius upon my followers.
However, this morning I read a posting from a person much smarter than @ChiefSuperHappy. And that person is Scott Weiss (@W_ScottWeiss) of the firm Andreessen Horowitz, This Guy . He had a brilliant post about the start-up mentality and GSD (although he used a different term) This post. I love all of the points he’s making–they drill down to “Achieve The Unreasonable”. For example, there have been a few times in my career where my foot has been “on the line”. Fortunately, they have all been successful.
His emphasis on “violent passion”: Do you need an alarm clock to get you out of bed to attack your business? I had a conversation with a President/COO whose company Super Happy Juice will be partnering with. And he put it this way, “I set an alarm just in case, but it usually goes off in my pocket on my way to work in the morning.” Your too busy creating your business, to let sleep get in the way.
Read Scott’s post, and use it as a checklist for your business/Life.
I’ve got meetings with bankers and lawyers I’ll be writing about this week. Be Super Happy Everyone!!
Howdy Super Happy People!!
Today I had a conversation with a friend of mine (the same person who talked me into going to business school) who is an entrepreneur as well.
Me: “So do we ever get a ‘net negative 1’ on our List, or is it always increasing?”
Friend: “Yup. There is always something to add. It never stops.”
For the past few weeks, I’ve been furiously hammering my List, and every time I start to make headway, 10 more things are added. For example, we are locking down our production facility for Super Happy Juice, and we need to have a Food Handlers License before we can sign on. Nothing we didn’t foresee, just something we have to do. It will likely take a day for the class, pay the $15 fee, and whammy, we are certified food handlers. Again, nothing that precludes us from creating a Super Awesome Company, just another thing. Just backs up the ability to “cross it off your List” by a day or two.
When I was a Teaching Assistant my 2nd year at Anderson, I worked with undergrads on business plan development and lectured on hands on running of companies. A common theme was: A good plan and excellent execution, beats a great plan and mediocre execution. I would hold this as the most important tenents of entrepreneurship–execution.
In B-School, and the business world, I describe these people as a GSD. There is no better accolade to bestow upon someone, in my opinion.
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A follow up to my mentorship post yesterday. I had a young person I met over a year ago, connect with me this week about helping them create plan for the next 3-5 years. Very positive meeting. What was encouraging about the person was they knew they had an uphill battle facing them. And in one conversation, they had a week’s worth of homework ahead of them. As a former collegiate athlete, they were excited about the adversity in front of them, and the chance to have a long-term goal. More to come on this.
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Tomorrow I’m meeting with another banker. I get a much better vibe from this one, even just via email. We have a mission at Super Happy Juice: Only work with people who espouse what we do, and are excited to be part of our venture. If you aren’t excited to work with us, there is someone else who is. And that’s a good thing, for everyone.
That’s my job, and I’m sticking to it. #ChiefSuperHappy