MADE Magazine March / April Issue Commemorative Issue | Page 7

Navigating the conference felt a little like trying to
decide between acts and which stage to go to at
what time during Lollapalooza or Coachella (minus
the awesome music and high-waisted shorts, of
course). There were 3 stages and anywhere from
one to three talks happening at the same time.
My first learning and piece of advice: learn the
schedule ahead of time and map your experience
according to your priorities as an entrepreneur.
Focus on relevance to your business model and/
or areas of needed understanding (i.e. building a
three-sided marketplace).
The conference boasted some industry vets
and startup powerhouses. Each fireside chat or
keynote left me feeling either extremely motivated,
extremely behind, or just simply amazed at the
caliber of talent and accomplishment in the
room. While I didn’t get to hear every speaker, the
following list includes my top 5 practical nuggets
from the many talks that I experienced.
Guy Kawasaki on Top 10 Mistakes of
entrepreneurs: “Mistake # 2: Scaling too fast.
Solution: Eat what you kill.” What this means is
even though you are dying to go harder faster,
try to scale according to your revenue and profit
growth as opposed to always seeking growth via
capital injections by way of fundraising.
Steve Blank on The Next Era of Entrepreneurship:
“Entrepreneurship is the world’s worst job and the
world’s best calling.” It only makes sense to do it if
you were born for this grind and entrepreneurship

POP
CULTURE
ENTREPRENEURSHIP

runs through your veins.
Bastian Lehmann, founder of Postmates, on
Building a Three-sided Marketplace: “Understand
the inputs of your gross profit margin and then you
understand where to focus. Don’t always listen to
what everyone tells you about your business.”
Ron Conway, founder of SV Angels, on
Immigration Reform & Tech: Advocacy and
Entrepreneurship: “Be discerning about your
investors. Relevant key relationships and domain
experience should always be criteria.”
Vinood Khosla of Khosla Venture: “Run lots of
small experiments and quickly reiterate your plan.
This is called a flexi plan.”
At the end of the day(s), it was an amazing
experience that gave me some really great advice,
potential partnerships and new networks. A last
personal learning and piece of advice I want to
share is always have your elevator pitch ready
to deliver. Throughout the event I told anyone
who asked or would listen about WeSolv and the
value I brings to the market. Such conversations
led to a Chicago Angel investor showing interest
requesting follow-up on my venture, biz-dev
meetings with enterprise companies and some
new allies on my journey to success.
As we used to say at Marshall, stay hungry, stay
foolish! Signing out.

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