About a month ago, I attended an event at Electronic Arts. It was a Haas/Berkeley b-school alumni event (yeah, as a Tepper alum, it was painful, and I was the only one without a blue sportcoat and khakis) and featured EA’s CEO, John Riccitiello, as the keynote, plus a presentation from the winning team of a recent Haas pitch competition.
During the event, Riccitiello talked about “three things startup entrepreneurs need to consider,” or something like that. I can’t remember because, well, because if I don’t write something down I tend to forget it within 24 hours.
What I do remember is that his insights were amazing, that they really resonated with me, and that I couldn’t wait to write a post diving into each one.
The kicker here is that I did write it down, in the Miui notes app in my rooted/flashed Samsung Galaxy S2 phone. Yes, I sometimes revel in my phone modding awesomeness!
At this point, I’m sure you’re asking, “Well, wtf? If you took notes, why am I reading this blog full of excuses instead of hanging on every word of your usually compelling and intelligent insights?”
Yeah, me too.
Seems as though my awesomeness usually manifests itself as outright stupidity in the form of not fully thinking things through (or not thoroughly reading the full instructions) before embarking on a project. Recipes are a particular problem area. For example, I’ll have a hankering for a creative dinner, find a great recipe, buy the ingredients, then start the cooking process around 7pm. Then, about once a quarter, the clock nears 8pm and the next step in the recipe says something like, “simmer for three hours.” Here’s a good example. It’s happened enough that the wife now laughs it off…and then makes cream of wheat for herself while I solider on and have dinner at 10:30p.
Where was I? Oh yeah, the insightful comments from Riccitiello.
OK, so I took copious notes on my smartphone. I planned a great blog post, and even started thinking about ways to approach each of his different points. As usual, work and life got in the way and I put it off for a few weeks. But, I always remembered that I took great notes and would be able to whip out a post at any time.
Then, my daily news alert for the keywords “ICS+Galaxy+S2” finally had a hit related to a working version of CyanogenMod 9 for my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S2 phone, better known as the i777. So, always wanting to have the cutting edge phone OS, I flashed the rom, installed Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), and was in heaven…until I wanted to write this post.
As I realized that I flashed my notes out of existence, like Dicaprio in Inception,  my world crashed around me. Do you remember the days of MS Word crashing after you spent 90 minutes editing a doc? Well, regardless of how close this was to that experience, that’s how I felt. Yes, I like to blow things out of proportion.
So what did I do? Well, I wrote this amazingly entertaining post. Then, thanks to the ever-wonderful Google thingy, I was able to find a refresher on the event. Problem: solved!
Here’s a recap of Riccitiello’s main points:
- Understand who the customer is and who the product is designed to serve
- Have a clear value proposition to know what problem you’re trying to solve
- Have the right kind of talent in order to make the product a success
- Listen, listen again, adjust, then listen one more time
- Successful ventures are ones that change over time
Great points, all. I’ve talked to many wannabe entrepreneurs over the years who absolutely KNOW without a doubt what their customers want, but refuse to consider any feedback because, “well, you just do get it.” I’ve heard time and time again from those who think that all they need to do is throw up a website and the crowds will just magically appear without any marketing, not to mention a clear value prop. Talent? Well, most of the soon-to-be failures think that they themselves are the only talent that they’ll ever need.
The last two points are the ones that really separate the wannabes from the truly sharp entrepreneurs. When I started HulaCopter, I told anyone who would listen about my idea, business model, marketing plan, etc., and then I listened to their feedback. Some feedback was great, some not so good, but I still listened and took everyone’s feedback as another data point to consider.
Changing over time? Well, the pervasiveness of the buzzword “pivot” proves that most people now think that it’s best to ensure that you change your plan quickly, just so you can say that you pivoted. (Kind of like I started this post as a reflection on EA’s CEO’s comments and then pivoted it to be about me and my lack of a phone backup solution.)
Bottom Line
I’m not sure what the bottom line is for this post. On one hand, it’s that you shouldn’t trust anything digital to save your thoughts. On the other hand, it’s that you should listen to smart people and take their advice, even if they went to a sub-par b-school.
By the way, Riccitiello worked at The Clorox Company, PepsiCo, Häagen-Dazs, Wilson Sporting Goods, and Sara Lee Corporation, in addition to EA. That’s quite the resume!