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[Music]
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So the first question why did he become an entrepreneur and
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this anybody can you know go first?
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Well I started by entrepreneur journey you know
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unconventionally, I actually dropped at high school on 16 so
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actually it would cause me to become an entrepreneur was a
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little bit different. My family was going through little
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hardships I was trying to go ahead and help out and you know
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basically try it out. My first job and only job was trying
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out for McDonalds and they rejected me so. I realized that
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hey there is something called the internet and looked at
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what was going on I mean the full year of it and fell in
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love with the whole online advertising space and you know
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the beauty of the internet is you don't need the stigma
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that's attached to kind of business as it was probably 50
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years ago. I mean you can be a 16-year-old in a bedroom and
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start a business that two years later you can sell for $40
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million. And you know that probably wasn't possible 50 years
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ago so you know part of the survival helped me become an
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entrepreneur but on top of that I love building stuff out of
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nothing so encashment about it as long as you are having a
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DNA be successful.
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So I became an entrepreneur pretty much out of necessity. I
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had been working at a public accounting firm then passed
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over for partnership two times and I can see that the third
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was coming up. And the only reason was because I was woman
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and at this point there were 0 women in the partnership
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across the world. And that just wasn't okay with me but I
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had butted my head up against the glass ceiling enough times
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and at this point had enough visibility across the whole
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firm to know that I wasn't personally going to be able to
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change this organization from the inside. So I left and
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turned around and offered them my services for basically the
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exact same thing that they would have had if I had been
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partner within their structure and asked them to pay me
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three times as much. They agreed, which was the amazing
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part, provided me an office and let me keep my
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administrative assistant for their first six months and I
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was totally billable from the very, very first day. And that
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grew into an organization that had employees across the
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world and then you know kind of once you get the bug it just
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kind of starts taking over and so I was like well you know
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there is a problem here, I can solve it by doing this. There
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is a problem there and I can go solve that by doing this and
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I love it.
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Yeah, so I guess the best answer that I can give is that I
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didn't decide to become an entrepreneur, and I mean that in
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two ways. One, I am actually not quite an entrepreneur. I
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don't really deserve to be called an entrepreneur unlike all
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the other people up here. I have always sort of helped
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entrepreneurs. I joined the LinkedIn and Facebook before we
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raised venture funding, before the companies were built and
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so on so very, very, very early in those companies. But I
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always sort of liked helping entrepreneurs. They used to
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call that thing a venture capitals but that means something
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else today I guess. So the second way in which I mean that
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and just really amplifying what Carol just spoke to is I
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think of lot of the time people who end up being
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entrepreneurs don't really exactly decide to become
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entrepreneurs. It's not like being an accountant where you
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say you know I am going to go out and you know take a test
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and get a license and go become an accountant. You know I am
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going to go to an entrepreneur school and become an
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entrepreneur. It's a little bit more organic than that, a
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lot of the time in my experience. And it's just something
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that almost happens to you or that you get the bug for like
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you said usually because something is broken that you want
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to fix or because something doesn't exist that you think
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should exist. And you just decide you know I am going to do
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it. And that can take lots of different forms but I think
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it's a more organic process than a lot of other so-called
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career paths.
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I actually never aspired to become an entrepreneur and I was
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working as a research scientist and I thoroughly enjoyed
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that. And as I know I inspire to become an entrepreneur
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working as a manager or working in business in the first
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place. But the thing that made an impact on me was that I
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was actually reading the specification for Netscape 2.0,
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some years ago some of them may remember the browser
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Netscape. But I was reading the whole night and I was really
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taken by this, and it had an enormous impact on me. So the
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next day I actually quit my job and started my first
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company. And I had no idea what kind of business idea I was
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going to pursue and I really didn't have so much of a plan
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but it was more this incredible passion I felt for internet.
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I could just sense that internet was going to be a really,
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really big and I felt it was too big of a thing to walk away
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from. So that's actually why I started.
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So in a life of an entrepreneur, now you are all living a
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life of an entrepreneur what is it you like about the life
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of an entrepreneur and what is it that you don't like about
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the path that you have chosen? Anybody, you can just go to
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anywhere you like?
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I guess what I love about is you know it probably goes both
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ways. I love creating something out of nothing and seeing
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that impact it's almost like you can see it nurture and you
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can see the positive result as quick as you can kind of make
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it happen. The downside of it being an entrepreneur is that
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it's not as you know passion stable as a typical company
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where you have enough stings in place but you don't have to
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worry about the revenue, you don't have to worry about
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profitability, you don't have to worry about the individual
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things so you end up losing a few hairs almost everyday. So
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part of being in the startup is you know is you have your
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good days and you have your bad days but you know you fall
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down and you get up and you keep going.
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So in the corporate world I used to be called a workaholic
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and I am a pretty passionate person and when I am on a
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project or working on trying to get something done I pretty
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much stay focused on that and that used to be considered a
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bad thing. And when I became an entrepreneur everybody just
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started saying oh she is an entrepreneur it's okay. And so I
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suddenly became socially acceptable about the fact that my
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work life and my personal life had a very, very blurry line.
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Blurry line if you are lucky. Yeah, you know, the best thing
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about it is that it's amazing and all consuming and
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exhausting and crazy and the worst thing about is that it's
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amazing in all consuming, exhausting and crazy. It will
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become your life if you are lucky and you are doing it well.
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And there are straight offs in that but you know I feel like
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the last ten or so years of my life or more or less this
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vortex of non-stop startupness which is great I wouldn't
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trade it for anything. But I think it almost becomes an
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either-or decision at some point if you are lucky enough to
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be facing that problem.
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I think for me the biggest thing is the dream you know that
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you can allow yourself to dream, you can allow yourself to
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you know you are going to credit company, you are going to
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have an impact over the world you know and it's at the end
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of the day it's really all up to you. So I think that's a
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fantastic luxury that there is really no limitation. It's
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all about your capability, your creativity and your hard
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work that at the end of the day hopefully, you will be able
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to accomplish what you are set out to do.
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You know the things that all of us are talking about is that
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we are doing it because we have some passion about what we
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are doing and with whom we are doing it. And you know one of
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the things that you will hear people give you advice about
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over and over again is stay focused on your passion and the
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reason is if you hate what you are doing you won't be
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successful as an entrepreneur because it requires too much
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extra effort. And you have to really love it to make the
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sacrifices that are necessary to be successful.
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You also are a little bit crazy to enjoy the ups and downs
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of it because there is a lot of ups and lot of downs along
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the way but I think the other key thing is like if you look
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at just how the business world works you know big companies
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get to run it but in a startup you get to change it. And you
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know if you look at you know company like Facebook, Twitter
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and just social media in general that's really transpired
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the way we communicate, big companies are now falling onto
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that. So I think that's the highlight of being entrepreneurs
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when you can make that big of an impact and if you are part
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of that genre you can really go ahead and see why you are
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passionate about it you are making a change and it's a lot
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of fun.
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[Informal Talk]
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Don't you have the phenomenal when you are entrepreneur and
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that is to pick the people you actually are going to work
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with and I think that really makes a big difference, you
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know one thing is to have this, objective, dream, desire but
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you can actually work with people that are phenomenally
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inspiring, people that are fun to hang out with, people that
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you really care about. And regardless of where you want to
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go with the company, regardless what you want to accomplish,
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just a luxury that everyday you will go to work, you are
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working with people that fundamentally are people that you
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like and you want to hang out with I think that is a
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phenomenal perk if you can put it that way.
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So it's a great segue through the next question and so we
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have some we have both pure entrepreneurs and we have some
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venture capital experience here so you can answer it from
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either perspective. Do you think it's better in the
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construction of an entrepreneurial company to partner to
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have a partner with someone that maybe as complementary
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skills or vision or whatever or is it better we go it alone?
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I think it's a frustrating answer but it depends on the
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person. And you know there are people who are absolutely
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solo creators who have a very individual drive and that's
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the way they function. There are people who you know thrive
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and need a partner. I think you know the funny thing about
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startups is this whole thing is driven by exceptions, you
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know you can create anywhere you like you know, oh you know
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startups where the husband and wife are founders together
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that always goes well except for Cisco. You know startups,
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so I mean no matter what you pick there are always
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exceptions. So it's very hard to generalize out of those
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things. You know I have been involved in companies where
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there were kind of cofounders and a founder and cofounders
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and just a founder and I think all of them can work. The
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most important thing if you are starting something yourself
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I think is to ask yourself what's the right thing for you.
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And just like with a lot of the other things that we have
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been talking about it really should be a sort of an organic
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process. I think if you sit down and say alright today I
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need to go out and find myself a cofounder that's probably
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not going to succeed.
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I think it's all about you know the couple of ways to look
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at it part of it is finding your dream team and you know,
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either all your cofounding employees and that's really
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essential for any startup your first five people make it or
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break it to actually seeing if it's going to survive first
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20 people, make it to see if it's going to be a large
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company or not. And you know when you get to that standpoint
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you got to go ahead and realize who your right partners are
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going to be and partner can be beyond cofounder it's really
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VC. And you know just a short plug for Stanford. Stanford is
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actually an investor in gWallet, so I think we have got you
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know we picked the right investors for the right reasons and
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partly is because you know they can actually add a
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tremendous value. I mean if you look at my first company I
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actually take no funding whatsoever. I bootstrapped it
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mainly because nobody wanted to fund me. I was 16, 17, 18 so
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no offense on that but you know what I learned on the second
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time around is when I actually raised venture capital is it
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matured me as an entrepreneur. It actually brought a
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different perspective on how to grow large company, how to
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actually sustain certain things that you do international
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expansion so forth and picking that right partner is key,
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because if you put the wrong one, you know VCs can either
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add a lot of value or take a lot of value out. So, that's
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the caveat, no offence but that's the big formula into
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finding the right magic in that partnership.
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So you know the other part is whether or not to do it alone
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or in the team. It is also based on if you need outside
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money you know, how are you going to get it, and in the
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venture world one of the conventions is basically never
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invest in a single entrepreneur. And the bottom-line is if
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that entrepreneur gets hit by a bus you know what do we
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have, so if we have at least two people on a team and one
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person gets hit by a bus then at least theoretically there
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is somebody to kind of go forward and so typically by the
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time you see them any entrepreneur company coming forth to a
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venture capital from, you will