Betty Sue Flowers had a fundamental impact on my life. Many of you have heard the story of my trip to Chile, and how it was fundamental to the path that I was taking in devoting my life to supporting entrepreneurs.  Because of her connection to Joseph Campbell, and my awareness that I was about to take on a hero’s journey, I contacted her to see if she would give me advice on what I should do in preparing and creating a model for supporting entrepreneurs.  I still remember her saying to me… “If you are serious about this, you should go to Chile. You should meet Senator Fernando Flores.”  I don’t think that I was ready to hear those words… but she said them, I think three times…. “If you are serious about this….”.

What is amazing is that those words and my year spent in Chile in 2003 opened up doors of awareness that I can not imagine any other way that I might have found.  Thank you Dr. Flowers. And only after years do I feel comfortable in saying “Thank you Betty Sue”.

The following letter is somewhat personal, but in in honoring her, I repost it here, for she has had a fundamental impact in my life, and I want the world to know of my gratitude for her:

Betty Sue,
I’ve been meaning to write you as soon as I heard on the radio and today in the newspaper that you are moving to NYC. I want to say thank you from the deepest part of my heart for the doors that you have opened for me.  Our conversation in 2003 has sparked adventure after adventure as I follow my bliss.  I am sorry that I have not told you over the years about how the door that you opened as fundamentally shifted my life.  Going to Chile continues to pay dividends through the awareness that I gained by being there- an awareness I can not imagine having happen any other way.

Let me share some of the openings that you have created through me.

We’ve launched Tech Ranch Austin, a technology venture accelerator, where we support entrepreneurs in launching their ventures.  Since November 15, 2008, over 100 entrepreneurs have gone through our “office hour” program. We’ve engaged 12 startups in their earliest steps of growth. Two weeks ago we launched the “Employee to Entrepreneur” Program, with our first class of 12 students- (many of these guys were laid off, and now are starting ventures).  One of our companies is proceeding to the third level of the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. Another of our companies was funded $4.2 million in Series A funding.  We held an Entrepreneur Town Hall Meeting of 80 entrepreneurs from across the City of Austin in March, and now the Economic Development Office of the City of Cedar Park is paying us to launch an Entrepreneur Town Hall Meeting there. Also for Cedar Park we will be forming an “Enterprise Tribe”.  (Enterprise Tribe is what I now call the model that has developed out of what I originally took to Chile).

Its been a remarkable six years since our meeting.  The first years were hard as I stumbled around trying to understand what life was telling me to do.  I now feel a clarity, and have an ease of movement towards the vision that we talked about so many years ago- its funny what time and practice, and helpers along the path have opened up to my eyes now.

I’ve often times held back in telling you how much I greatly appreciate the spark that you shared with me- the opening of the door to Chile- which, by the way, I still stay in contact with several of the four guys that Fernando put me in contact with.  Thank you for the gift you have given me.

I am excited in reading that you are about to open yourself up to the next adventure with your move to New York City.  Please let me know if there is anything that I can do for you.  I do hope to get to connect with you again before you leave… or at some point in the future.  Is there any way that I can be of assistance?  Also, let me know if there is time that you have for a coffee or lunch.  I understand that with the move, you will be very busy- but please know that I would greatly enjoy connecting with you as the time permits.

Also, do let me know if you change your email address- I would like to stay in contact if at all possible.

Thank you very much.

Take care,
Kevin

The attack was senseless, and I don’t know why I was picked.  There was no provocation, and it seemed that the four guys that attacked were not after money, only violence.

During the interim it has deeply touched my heart to see the outpouring of people that have reached out to me. Thank you for doing so, for this has really meant something to me.

In between taking care of my health, dealing with a criminal case, and doing what I love- helping entrepreneurs through building their businesses at the Tech Ranch Austin, I might not be able to get back to you really quick.  I do look forward to connecting with you soon.

Here’s the KVUE news story on what happened.

We’re going to be rallying the community around some new ways of making Austin safer. If you are interested in being a part of making Austin safer, please let me know.

I’ll blog some more about what happened in a coming blog post.

Thanks,
Kevin

Randy Komisar of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers shares insight in this short clip on how to find your passion and how to pursue it.  Key insights:

• Don’t look for a specific passion, but build a “portfolio of passions”, and then map them into the opportunities in front of you
• Use your values and what you care about as a compass to make sure that you are headed the right direction.
• When confronted with a decision, ask the question “How does what is right in front of me sync up with my passion?”
• Realize that for every one decision that you make 9 doors are going to close as you walk through that tenth door… but as you walk through that tenth door, ten more doors are going to open

Complementary currency is, as the name suggest, a monetary system for conducting business between individuals that can live along side a nation backed currency system (e.g. the US Dollar).  Complementary currency systems allow individuals to conduct trade / business without having to use money backed by a central government.  That is, as an example, I could do business with a graphic artist who in turn does business with an engineer with in turn does business back with me.  Instead of just “bartering” between us, the complementary currency system allows me (like when using dollars) to not have to intimately know who I am doing business with, for the currency (whether dollars or complementary currency) tracks the transaction.

It seems, that with the current economic conditions that the US and the world has been facing that there is even greater interest than before in this method of conducting business by a more general crowd than I had previously found when I was looking into complementary currency in 2006/7.  This article by Kevin Kelleher on the Gigaom blogging network speaks to how a wider crowd of individuals might be looking to use complementary currency in the coming year(s).   Kevin writes:

[Chris Anderson, writer of The Long Tail,] imagined this excess ability expanding as unemployed workers engage in labors of love for free, if only to do something valuable with their time and/or advertise their skills.

…

I wonder what kind of creativity could be unleashed by workers who, though deprived of a steady paycheck, are freed from such tedious tasks. Some could come up with new ideas that help vault the web to a more advanced stage. Others may make micro-contributions that are equally powerful in aggregate. Such creativity could then foster an entirely new generation of startups, which would eventually lure away some of those who had remained at steady jobs all along.

I believe that complementary currency has the chance of expanding something that ends up being much more resilient than just filling the gap in an under-employed market.  I believe that we could see the rise of not just a reputation system that tracks who did what, but a deepening of the currency system in general, where we have an environment that makes it possible for more former employees become entrepreneurs, exploring their capabilities, talents, and passions… ending up not just looking for a job for when the economy recovers, but in establishing themselves in businesses that the traditional monetary cost of capital would have been a barrier to them before.

So, for the Austinites following my blog- what became of this local complementary currency system?  Although it did not take off in the direction that we all expected, there is notable work being done here locally… led by one of the guys that taught me about it in the first place- Tom Brown.  Tom and Rich Vazquez are writing about these concepts at the Open Source Currency Blog, and have a full blown complementary currency system running at the Austin Time Exchange.  In fact, they just had a meeting talking about the “Next Economy”.

Its uncertain about what will be happening with the US and world economies- but it is good to know that there are alternatives that are being explored for entrepreneurs here in Austin.  Keep me appraised of what you are seeing out there as well, and I will do the same through this blog.

Austin Business District’s Open4Business Conference- November 11- with five high impact tracks including Sales & Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, Business Law, Sustainability

UT Austin’s Ready to Commercialize event November 17th and 18th- reviewing technologies that are coming out of the University of Texas System.

I will be at both events representing TechRanchAustin as we continue to look for tech entrepreneurs to join us on the ranch.  Please let me know if you will be there- I look forward to connecting.

HOUSE WINE

408 Josephine
Austin 78704-1017
+1.512.322.5210

Here is a map.  This location is very close to the Barton Springs / Lamar intersection.  They have wine and beer inexpensively priced.  Moreover, if you have a good recent war story (whether the outcome was good, or if it created a lot of scar tissue for you) I will buy you your first drink.  (Ok, so I am only going to do this for the first 10 good entrepreneurial-scar-tissue-stories, as we comisserate together.  )  Catch me via twitter if you have any questions, or post a comment here.  I look forward to catching up with you then.

Q. What is your advice to entrepreneurs seeking funding or growth opportunities if the credit and capital markets continue on their current course?

A. My advice is that they melt wax into their ears and go forward. If they are waiting for wonderful credit and capital markets, they probably aren’t entrepreneurs. They’re much more likely to be consultants and bankers looking to quickly flip a company.

It feels like a great time to be an entrepreneur. I am sorry to see so many other people in the world upset about financial doom and gloom.  Maybe at some point I will change my song…. but for now, I am glad to be building a company, and helping other entrepreneurs build their companies.  Yes, all of us entrepreneurs have to be somewhat more conservative right now than we might be during boom-times, but it is a GREAT time to start a company.  If you have been displaced from your previous job, or have the general entrepreneurial itch that you have not been scratching, and you have the entrepreneur jean (not the consultant or banker gene described above) build it now.  Sure, calculate it out… but realize that right now, entrepreneurial businesses will be the first to recover and thrive from the present credit crisis. Damn the torpedos, full steam ahead!

Enterprise Tribes: Supporting Emerging Tech Startups In the Age of Web 2.0

Failure to receive support early enough in the startup cycle is a challenge that has kept many promising technologies from ever making it to the market. Venture capital and angel investment have their place, but most financial capital cannot invest in high-risk ventures at the earliest stages. The fate of the typical entrepreneur has been to build his business through sweat, credit cards and friends-and-family investments. But now, social networking technologies are making increasing amounts of social capital available – significantly reducing financial costs faced by entrepreneurs. Mr. Koym shares stories of startups that use social capital in place of cash and the principles that benefit emerging technologies companies – whether bootstrapped or investor-backed.

One page abstract:  for Track 5:  Business & Economic Development

The sad truth standing in the way of getting many promising technologies to market is that most startup support programs don’t work early enough in the startup cycle to be significant at the times of entrepreneurs’ greatest need.  Venture capital and angel investment certainly have their place, but most financial capital cannot invest in high risk at the earliest stages. Until recently, the typical entrepreneur stood alone in building his business through his own sweat, credit card and the cash offered up by friends and family. However, social networking technologies now are creating opportunities to significantly reduce the financial cost of building a business, by making social capital more widely and easily accessible.  In this speech, Mr. Koym will share examples of startups that are leveraging social capital in lieu of financial capital and the principles that work for companies in the emerging technologies arena.

As a technology visionary, including predicting and ushering in web based eCommerce in 1994 and building the startup company that subsequently leading Dell Computer Corporation’s billion dollar eCommerce site in 1996; Predicting the usage of Linux in embedded devices in 2002, subsequently leading the deployment of this startup’s products across Schlumberger’s world wide network; Mr. Koym now is charting where social networking technologies are opening up opportunities to change the face of entrepreneurship, culminating in four conceptual shifts that he sees will drive change across the five domains of the individual, the corporation, the enterprise tribe, on demand services, and governments.

The Four Conceptual Shifts that Mr. Koym is predicting will show up in the following ways:
1.    Superempowerment of the individual, where individuals exchange the mythical stability of a corporate job for the stability of self-employment, producing an entrepreneurial mindset that creates a truly resilient workforce.
2.    New open corporate structures that allow much greater flexibility by coordinating many outside players in an open, yet not vulnerable, value chain
3.    The rise of the Enterprise Tribe- a presently emerging social structure where entrepreneurs connect and support each other much in ways resembling America’s agrarian past
4.    A “Chinese menu” of on demand, robust, Internet delivered services, organized by vendors large and small
5.    Governments that become agile, and in many times, partially replaced by grass-roots community efforts organized through social networks.

Texas unemployment claims remain well above 2007 levels - Austin Business Journal:.

Bengt Arnetz, the Swedish professor who led the study, says there is no doubt that cell phones “have measurable effects on the brain.” He believes that the radiation from phones activates the brain’s stress system, making people feel more alert and decreasing their ability to wind down and snooze.

I have noticed over the last few months that when I stop using the ‘net by 10 pm, but even if I still work on non-computer task, I am able to get to sleep and sleep much better.  If I allow myself to do computer related work after 10 pm, I have significant problems falling to sleep, and I don’t sleep as well.

I can not conclusively state that wireless internet signals create the same issues as noticed by the researcher concerning cell phones- but I do believe that there is some connection both based on the research, and my own personal experience.

If you suffer from insomnia- I have included my original email to the writer of the article in the more section of this post.  Post a comment- and I can point you at more information as well.

Following is the original email that I sent:

Anne,

I have had severe sleep problems, that although I can not ground in specific sales numbers, I can tell you they have been a royal pain in the you know what.  Given that I don’t have exactly what you are looking for, but that I am keenly aware of the problem, if you can, please keep me in the loop about what you find and when you publish.

An example of this week… I am in San Miguel de Allende this week on vacation. Two days ago I tried to go to sleep at 12 midnight… and did not fall asleep until sometime after 5:00 am.  There are no pressing issues in my business, nothing that should be keeping me up at night… and I am on vacation… what a spoil of the next day this was.

I have tried Ambien, vallarian root, melatonin, meditation, neurofeedback, exercise, magnesium pills, and on and on (many other things, these are the ones that come immediately to mind.  Some quick reflections:

1.  Ambien feels weird the next day…. supposedly it is “out of the body” by the next day… but it still feels weird after taking it. I have subsequently stopped taking it, and only use it if absolutely desparate.

2.  I have noticed that touching a computer after 9 pm or 10 pm has a direct correlation to being able to sleep.  I suspect that wifi has something to do with this. I have no way to prove this, but this article does show a basis between mobile phone radio waves and bad sleep. I never had sleep problems before using wifi.  I can not prove causation, but I do see correlation.  Because of this, I am getting even more strict about turning off the wifi at home at night, especially after some point in the evening.

I am very interested in learning what you find.  Sleep deprevation is the number one personal issue that screws with my personal performance concerning my business. I have learned to just deal with it, especially when I have a large presentation (e.g. 70 plus people the next day).  I don’t like the limitation that I feel in these large crowd limitations with what happens after not sleeping… (I am just not as sharp as I am after a full night’s sleep)….

Let me know if this prompts any other questions, and certainly, please do keep me in the loop, if possible, on what you find.

Thank you.
Kevin Koym

First, to do so you will need to sign up for an account here:
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/users/register

Here is the first talk to vote for:
The Rise of the Enterprise Tribe
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/1207
Social networks are creating fundamental shifts in the opportunity to start / grow businesses. New social organizations are creating real business impact in getting work done, and helping entrepreneurs succeed. Kevin will share insight based on his book, and work with Bootstrap Austin and entrepreneur networks in Mexico and Chile.

Here is the second talk to vote for:
Building Austin: Best Practices For Growing Our Community
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/1181
Austin community leaders are leveraging social networking to actively build Austin more than ever before. We’ll bring several of Austin’s cutting-edge community leaders, including NetImpactAustin (non-profits), Door64 (employment), Bootstrap Austin (entrepreneurs) together in dialouge to share how they are building the Austin community, and not just holding networking events.

Thank you for your support. By getting these messages out, we will continue to build Austin into an entrepreneurial powerhouse!

Kevin

A simple demonstration of this insight can be found in my friend Felipe Contreras Haye’s statement:

Hemos venido a hacer una invitación a varios establecimientos educacionales a sumarse junto a nosotros a un proyecto de Innovación Educativa basada en los principios (NO EN LAS HERRAMIENTAS) de la Web 2.0. (emphasis added by Kevin)

For my friends that don’t read Spanish, I will translate, adding my understanding and interpretation to his statement- “We are sending invitations to various educational establishments around a innovative education based on the principles of Web 2.0, not the tools of Web 2.0. ”

This is a profound insight… why ? Many times the focus of entrepreneurs that I work with in the US, especially because of our technological prowess- we sometimes are drawn to think that technology is driving the dynamic growth of the Internet. Hardly. The social disposition of Internet users drives the net… and education should be directed at the social underpinnings and changing users perceptions of the net- not just training individuals on tools. Tools will change, within 6 months. The ability to “see” opportunities and how to respond to them in the world will stand, no matter what changes in the domain of technology. This need to “see” opportunities and not be blinded by shinny-object technology is essential for all entrepreneurs.

Just like the Internet was not “just like TV, but better”, the shift that is coming is not “just like Web 2.0 but better”.  A fundamental shift is occurring.  Do you see it?

Activities on the Internet are shifting from (1) broadcast to (2) Web 2.0 conversations to (3) cooperation (taking action together).  Greater than at any point in the history of the Internet cooperative behaviors are taking place- where people are not just talking with each other, but an even greater amount of collective action is happening…. and in this, what is significant is not the large system collective action (as an example, political campaigns like the Obama campaign) but the small scale activities.  What is unique about these new small scale activities, compared to grass roots activities of the past?  This is not just grass roots happening, but the fact that these small scale activities are producing real business impact.  Small groups of entrepreneurs around the world are connecting together, getting real work done, and creating better economic outcomes.

For myself, I have been doing this round the world with working with software developers world-wide- and other business people both in Austin as well as at considerable distance.  Constraints- whether they be financial,  skills, or resource limitations are being more easily overcome than at any point in the history of the world.  Cooperation, not just conversation is the new, coming language of the Internet.  We see this already in open source software projects and in the remix of certain parts of the music industry… but cooperation is not going to stop there.  Although risk abound, a new language and new practices for cooperating world-wide is emerging.  We’ll keep around Web 2.0 just like we have kept around our old TV’s… but it is time to make space for the cooperation-economy, and realize that it is not going to be “just like Web 2.0 but  better.”

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

Update on my book:  one section of 10 or so pages remains to be done.  It is a major section- about how the Enterprise Tribe and social networking will effect the Individual.  I am looking forward to getting your feedback about this, and please do continue to share your stories with me- they have been extremely effective in helping flesh out the book and the concepts that we are developing…. Now back to Rule #2, finishing what I write.

“…the most significant factor was the state of a nation’s Social Technology. The rule of law, the existance of property rights, a well organized banking system, economic transparency, a lack of corruption, and other social and institutional factors played a far greater role in determining national economic success than did any other category of factors. Even countries with few resources and incompetent governments did reasonably well if they had a strong, well-developed Social Technologies. On the flip side, no countries with poor Social Technologies performed well, no matter how well endowed they were with resources or how disciplined their macroeconomic policies were.”

What community leaders of all stripes (local, state, government) should see in this statement is that the opportunity for using social networking technologies can have an even more profound effect for amplifying more general social technologies for supporting entrepreneurs. Clearly community leaders that embrace the adoption of these new tools for supporting their entrepreneurs will win. The entrepreneurs (and communities!) whose leaders ignore these trends will lose out.

Thank you to my colleague Greg Hennessy for bringing Beinhocker’s work to my attention.

The trends that Clay has spotted in his talk and his book are the general idea behind the specific focus of the Rise of the Enterprise Tribe that you have been reading about at this blog. Collective action of coordinated entrepreneurs are supporting the group getting better in the entrepreneur community of practice called the Enterprise Tribe.

As you have heard here at this blog, the shift towards the superempowered individual and the attitudinal shift towards work will drive entrepreneurs to create businesses that follow their passions.  No matter where the economy takes the US in the short term, this long term outlook of aligning individuals with their passions in their work bodes well for the future.

What is needed most, though, are structures to support these entrepreneurs.  In the coming days and weeks I will be blogging about new initiatives that we will be doing to create large scale efforts of supporting entrepreneurs.  Get in contact (through email or comments on this blog) if you are interested in being a part of these efforts in your community.

“O.K., but how are loosely organized workers going to replace and compete with companies like Dell? Can hundreds of I-build/support-PCs-in-my-bedroom companies make it in Austin? What other things are these people going to do?”

This is a good question, and there is no simple answer. No, I am not recommending that a number of loosely connected entrepreneurs try to go head to head in the computer assembly business with Dell. What is needed, is creating whole new types of connections and organizations of companies, to create and release whole new levels of value through innovation. A very timely article just came in from Fast Company, called The World’s Most Innovative Companies:

[P&G created the] Connect Develop program, which allows outside developers to get their concepts and designs into P&G’s product pipeline. An applicator developed by Cardinal Health (now Catalent), for example, helped P&G launch Olay Regenerist Eye Derma-Pods, now its top-selling skin-care item. Today, 42% of P&G products have an externally sourced component. And this giant is growing: Revenues rose 8%, to $78 billion, last fiscal year, while profits climbed 14%, to $11 billion.

P&G is showing that it has learned the need for leveraging a knowledge ecology around its business- they are leveraging the brains outside of their corporate walls…. with profits climbing.

The opportunity for entrepreneurs in the future is not just in “sourcing of components” but also the sourcing of new ideas, and creating even higher value add activities than what they might have previously done at former employers. Over this past weekend, I had the opportunity to talk with a P&G executive- who is actively exploring how to enhance P&G’s marketing programs- by identifying companies that are (1) sourcing of ideas, (2) placements of advertising or (3) media outlets… with one unique strategy: engage companies that are one or two of these types, but not companies that are trying to be all three (which by the way, allows smaller companies to play a part in P&G’s go-forward marketing strategies).  For the sake of this blog post, the key thing to glean from this article is that what I am talking about- moving to ecology strategies of organizing work- is already happening. This article about P&G confirms that this is already happening.
As a community (whether that community is Austin, or Texas, or the US, or the world), we need to support the timely transition from employee/former employee to entrepreneur, and supporting companies like Dell transition from command-and-control strategies to “ecology” strategies as quickly and smoothly as possible.  No, this won’t be easy, but the reality of massive layoffs are not creating many other choices…. but in the end, it is my belief that this transition will lead to healthier workplaces, with more direct control over one’s own work, resulting in people actually doing what they love.

First and foremost, I recognize that this is a business decision, that Dell is making in order to survive…. Yet recognize, how is it that Dell has had to make such a drastic decision- when there could have been other options previous to this choice?

What options? This is where the opportunity to transition from a “knowledge economy to a knowledge ecology” is happening… if not by strategists at Dell, certainly by some of the disaffected workers that are losing their jobs today. Some number of these former employees are going to recognize the false illusion of the stability of the “job” of the past, and start transitioning to becoming entrepreneurs- making their own employment. And in the end, this will benefit both Dell and Dell’s former employers- for the ecology of work will become much more resilient…. (right now, as an example, 900 workers hitting the unemployment lines at the exact same time. This will make finding the next job for each one of them very, very difficult. Moreover, many of these workers will not have yet developed the skills to become entrepreneurs yet )

And to the former employees that just lost their jobs… make sure that you wake up when you read the word opportunity in the line above “We believe we have a $3 billion opportunity to drive both productivity and efficiency“. When a former employer looks at cutting your job as an opportunity, it is time to change your outlook on the idea of a job.
What needs to happen is we, the Austin community, need to start working together at a level that we have not done before- and fight the recession that we are in head on. I am hopeful, that although this economic downturn will be very hard on the workers that are displaced, that through the shattering of the idea of long term employment, better entrepreneurial outcomes will come for all.

Moreover, it is time to stop coddling companies like Dell. From the article above:

Dell also received almost $280 million in incentives from the state of North Carolina to build the plant, which is not operating at full capacity.

This is a shame…. If you remember that over 50% of the jobs created in the US last year were created in firms of 10 people or less. It is time that US economic policies start promoting our entrepreneurs to create resilient business ecologies. $280 million dollars would have gone a long way to create opportunity for entrepreneurs, whether through the programs that we are doing through Bootstrap Austin or Door64 here in Central Texas. 900 people lost their jobs today. Let’s do something to ensure that we support our entrepreneurs into the future to create resilience in our job marketplace, and to fight this recession that we are in.

To take advantage of the conceptual shifts that I have written about my forthcoming book, a number of Austin entrepreneur support organizations are meeting together at the University of Texas’ IC2 Institute. I will be facilitating the session, following the design of some of the meetings that we used while I was in Chile- focused on facilitating dialogue between entrepreneurs. Here is a map to the location.

Please sign up here and join us in making Austin’s community of entrepreneurs stronger.