Entrepreneur’s DNA: It’s not only about the idea, but also about the contacts

‘How many could reach the goal and how many actually reach it?’ I asked myself a while ago when thinking about professional sportsmen. Is it only a matter of perseverance? Is it contacts? Is it resources? Or maybe just that “luck” factor that we all need...

The same happens with entrepreneurs. It isn’t only a question of having an idea but also of being brave enough to go after it and being helped by the appropriate people so as to implement this idea in the real world.

Who was the one who really saw Facebook’s potential? Mark himself knew there was something good about it but he wasn’t very sure about what to do with it. It was then when ex-Napster Sean Parker came into the picture. A controversial figure, with the extensive experience of having developed a product, faced investors, big companies, trials, and even of having lost them. But with all this businessman experience, he can see the product and he can also see the entrepreneur.

Sean didn’t only see Facebook’s potential but he also had enough knowledge that would allow him to make a “key” contribution to the project, and so it was. Facebook wins the first investment capital by the hand of Sean’s contacts.

Being an “entrepreneur” is a process of discovery. In the Gold Rush days, discoverers spent never-ending hours straining water to find gold. Persevering, analyzing our ideas and taking them from the paper to the action is the key process.

‘The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas’, Linus Pauling.

The Launch: what is the most important thing about the launch of my idea? Making an extensive and complex development or just quickly looking for a way of letting the world try my idea? People have to know it! Immediate feedback is essential!

‘Grooveshark’s first version was a Frankenstein… But it’s always better to win back the audience later than to waste years just thinking about the perfect concept that may never be ready”, Andrés Barreto.

Friends, Contacts and Partners: how much am I doing to improve my profile? (see also “Personal Branding: today more than ever!”). Or, if that question is too complex to answer: how much am I doing for my contacts? Those which will afterwards help me to enrich the entrepreneurship by adding their vision, advice and more contacts.
The entrepreneurship business is also about sharing. I had the chance of listening to Alec Oxenford’s advice about enterprise, sharing and having a partner (Alec is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of OLX): “It’s better to have part of the whale than 100% of the minnow”, told us humorously.

‘I’ve been blessed to find people who are smarter than I am, and they help me to execute the vision I have’, Russell Simmons. Founder of Def Jam Records.

I believe that these components are the ones that, all together, make an idea, an enterprise grow, and they are the key to its potential success.

Last but not least, I would like to share an example about this issue which I personally experienced with a project called Liibook (I hope I can write a specific article about it in the future). Federico Roma (founder), talented and visionary graphic designer, had the idea of a platform of books publication available on the Internet and open to everyone. With only his idea, he looked out for 2 key contacts which supported him from the business perspective, the entrance into the market, as well as from a technological point of view to carry out at least the first implementation.

What is important about this initiative is the fact that Federico bet on his idea and the contacts that made it possible for that idea to reach its goal. A year after winning Wayra, the Wheel in Sillicon Valley and his presentation on 2012’s TechCrunch, Liibook landed in San Francisco where it is expected that it will receive investments that will lead to more growth. All this was achieved thanks to Federico’s vision and his trust on the contacts that knew how to support and help him.