Lessons Learned from a Lifetime Dedicated to Entrepreneurship
If you’re planning to start a business or a startup, it’s valuable to learn about life and the flow of business from people who have navigated their own paths to success. Though it’s true, no matter who you learn from or what college you attend, ultimately, everyone has to make his or her own way to success. However, no one can make it without borrowing a proven effective strategy or two from someone else.
David Turner Morgenthaler died in June of this year after achieving great success with his venture capital firm, Morgenthaler Ventures.
Turner, known as a successful investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist will also go down in history for his instrumental roles in amending ERISA legislation and lowering the US capital gains tax to 28% from 49%.
Small Biz Trends contributor Scott Shane shared some of the valuable business lessons he learned from Morgenthaler over the years.
What Can Entrepreneurs, Startup Founders and Investors Learn from Morgenthaler?
On Startup Founding and Success
- Startup success is challenging. Most of the factors that contribute to a startup’s success aren’t factors founders can control. In fact, Morgenthaler equated startup success to, “making lightning strike the bottom of a swimming pool on a sunny day.”
- Startup investing isn’t a guaranteed money maker. Startup investments only produce returns about 10% of the time. Investors should be prepared to lose money often.
On Investing, Entrepreneurship and Business Strategy
- Successful investing can come from doing adequate research and knowing everything about a company’s management, their organization, their market and their industry.
- However, the most important element in the equation is the entrepreneur or management team. The right person/people can change organizational factors and create success. In fact, he felt most startups and entrepreneurial endeavors failed because the business owners and founders, (the people), made mistakes.
- Successful business heads gather in places where realistic success is plentiful. They leave dead places where new business and investment can’t flourish. This is why you see so many entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.
On Intelligence
- Intelligence is not the same thing as getting a lucky break and profiting from it.
- It’s not being an intellectual snob and discounting the input of everyone around you with a good idea; and
- Good ideas must also be provable. They must be possible. They must conform to the standards of natural laws like gravity etc.