Importance of Experience
Be patient! It helps to have experience under your belt before you set out to start your own business according to Jeff Hawkins. You ought to have experience working for a good management team. Give yourself time to have great mentors. People should experience good times and bad times - you have to learn to manage growth and success as well as how to deal with and anticipate the bad times. People have dropped out of school and started businesses but this is not typical. In Hawkin’s experience, the vast majority of people that start companies and do so successfully have had experience that has helped them.
Please visit the Stanford Technology Venture Program’s Educator’s Corner for more clips.
2 Comments
Jason Liebe
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:45 am
Getting experience is valuable, but don’t wait too long before venturing out!
EVERYONE has an idea for a product or service they think could evolve into a business, the difference is that an entrepreneur takes action. You’re going to quickly get experience in a startup and it will likely be more intense and valuable because your butt is now on the line. And from what I have seen experience in the corporate world does not always extrapolate well to the startup — keep that in mind.
One of the great things about being an Internet entrepreneur is that you can keep your day job without serious affect on your startup.
So my advice would be to get something done now and accrue some startup experience for yourself while you continue to get it in your day job until you’re ready to make the transition.
David Askaripour
October 23rd, 2006 at 10:12 am
Jason, great advice. I think that it doesn’t hurt to gain experience from a workforce, just as long as you can somewhat tolerate it, or perhaps even enjoy it. But the important thing is to not let it be the only thing; like you said, gain the experience, but take action!
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