Bootstrapper.com - Confessions of Serial Entrepreneurs

So I’m a crazy entrepreneurs and by default never really liquid. When I have a few extra bucks, i almost always put it to work immediately. I’m not saying I would change this but …

I have the entrepreneurs curse where I think I can always reinvest in myself or in my friends and Seek Alpha and beat the markets. I never value the stress factor in investing in startups and I don’t think I’ve ever met an entrepreneur who does.

I figured i’d use this as a follow up on my past posts about Founders Paradox and simply state that it is very rare for people who have founded even huge companies to be as liquid as Gorgon Gekko. Now, Wall St. was over 20 years ago and having $30-40-50MM is still a decent definition of liquidity and you know what? For all the illustrious nature of startups, I know very few founders that truly are that liquid. Some may be worth a lot more but in stock they can’t sell and others held onto their stock may past the bursting valuations.

So just keep in mind that your crazy entrepreneur friend with a huge company - may need to borrow gas money next week? And please lend it to him.

Most people looking for funding want to go the MD of a VC fund. They want to track down the big fish. They will go to a panel discussion and go after the guys on the panel and try to shake their hand, pass off a card and beg for money. However, I beg to differ.

I would like to offer a different approach.

Meet the Associates in the crowd, the people that work for the guys and gals on stage.

Here’s why: They are the gatekeepers.

Who do you think reads your pitches and plans first?

Also, who do you think is hungrier?

Should the fund fail, there’s a good chance, the MD has X millions in the bank and associate has far less. Who is more motivated for success.

Let me go further. The MD already has proven himself (or at least convinced instititutional investors he’s a big swinging dick), the Associate is trying to impress the MD and bring in deals to prove his or her worth.

Often times, the Associate may be just as much in awe and want to impress the MD as you are.

So would you rather have an Associate that is in your corner, believing in your deal and pressing his or her bosses to fund it or be another spec on the radar for the MD, and possibly even an annoyance to talk to?

Influence the influencers, make friends with the gatekeepers and doors will open. Even if you know the king, that doesn’t mean you can get a meeting without first going through his consigliere.

Think about it …

So a friend of mine said the line that is the title of my blog to me tonight. I think he’s right. we should meet as many entrepreneurs as possible because they are the people that drive society forward (and occassionally backward) almost every innovation comes from one of us crazy folk. We also are fun unpredictable people to be around and YES we space out and store into corners and pace a lot. What can you do when you’re minds racing? Cherish us, don’t cast us aside like a crazy person, we may very well be responsible for building the next useless gadget you buy!

Someone needs to build tools for entrepreneurs. At some point I’m starting a non profit with the goal of helping people understand what it means to start a company. Even Cereal Insomniacs like me start somewhere, i made a billion mistakes (i’ll take only 1 penny per mistake). Here are the set of tools I’d like to see.

1) Automated powerpoint creator
2) Automated executive summary creator - not bullshit bplan writing software
3) Event calendar for entrepreneur events
4) Turn BootStrapper.com into a blog site for Cereal Entrepreneurs

Lets get some resources together to actually help people