Found+READ: Comments on stories by Larry Chiang

Nathan Schorr — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 21:08:54 GMT

Great stuff.
At the moment, I am getting mentord by two people, one of whom I have known for ages but the other person I only met recentlly. To build our relationship, I drew on my memory of when I got along with one of my favorite teachers from high school…I thought about how I got his attention, what were the questions that I asked, how involved did he get with my work, what does he like to do? Those type of questions.
Personally something else that mentors bring to the table, are contacts. These mentors might not have money but hopefully great advise and even better contacts.

Lee Brillhart — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 05:31:04 GMT

Treat the receptionist like the CEO and you’ll at least get more shots at actually pitching the CEO. It’s amazing how bone-headed people are; treating assistants like second-class citizens. I love the story (and it’s not apocryphal) of a sales team with an appointment with a senior VP at Customer X and it just so happened that the flu bug had ravaged the ranks and the senior VP, who obviously had a great attitude, was filling in for a half-hour at the front desk to let the beleaguered (and lone—there were usually four front desk people) receptionist get some lunch. The sales team got impatient at having to wait and started making assholish comments to “the help”. The VP left the desk when the receptionist returned and then let the sales team cool their heels for 2 hours before informing them that her calendar was just too jammed—for the next year.

Larry Chiang — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 18:31:41 GMT

Expanding on #4)
4B) Set aside and prempt their “no”...
My people at duck9 don’t call to sell access to students with a FICO of 750. They call to warn of pitfalls of giving away premium (pizza), tips using a SSP (second stage premium), fraud of wrong cellies, AND management of our 1,300 student representatives.

4C) Set aside your need to sell something. Call when you don’t need to make numbers. Call when your en fuego. Make a sales call to socialize and add value while setting aside your need to make commission/profit.

Vineet Sinha — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 03:47:01 GMT

Larry, Great Post.

If possible, I would appreciate some more elaboration on number 4 above.

Neil Cauldwell — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 22:39:30 GMT

Great post, Larry. I’m going to live by 10 b) from now on.

Adam Benayoun — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:27:52 GMT

That’s where most of the Old Schools _Geek_ entrepreneurs fails. Today it isnt enough to have a good product (or good developers’ founders), you need to be able to market the product and market your team by successfully networking with other entrepreneurs and potential investors. Networking can also bring you potential cooperations.

Matthew Maroon — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:27:49 GMT

Great tips. Most of these I’ve thought of consciously, but a few I’ve sort of noticed and not been able to verbalize so precisely.

Lee Courtney — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:27:46 GMT

Be a Dave Packard rather than a Bill Gates – show an interest in the person, not just what that individual can do for you. You know the usual – family, kids, hobbies (you do have a hobby other than work, don’t you?), vacations, politics…

Sukhpreet Singh — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:27:46 GMT

Great Tips. I often go to a parties where 90% of the people are twice my age – very accomplished. Somehow i always look for people of my age to hang around with and so true, it does make me comfortable. I would always think how to make best of these parties and now i have some direction – try (aim) to learn something new and be a shih tzu.

Chris Finlayson — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:27:45 GMT

This is great, but how to I find out about/get in invited to networking events? Do I have to network on my own in order to get invited to networking events? I am new to the value and am still used to unfriendly Los Angeles.