Top 5 Entrepreneurs Must-Have’s

After my last startup Mint.com got acquired last September by Intuit, I got invited to numerous speaking engagements. I thought it would be a good idea to have a card to pass out at these events for people to contact me.

I took my design to AlphaGraphics in downtown Mountain View, CA. When I went to pick up my cards the guy at the counter looked down at my card and read out loud, “Femgineer: Speaker, blogger, software engineer.” He looked at me and asked, “Are you going into business for yourself?”

“No I’m just having the cards made up to pass out at events,” I responded as I paid for my cards and left without thinking much about his question.

Over the next few weeks friends and family started to ask me what I was going to do next, and each time I responded that I was going to stay at Mint for a year and explore opportunities. But then my mentors start to push me, they said, “I know you want to be a femgineer, but have you seriously given some thought to pursuing your other strengths like being a leader?” Finally it dawned on me that if others believed that I was capable of starting something and saw potential then maybe I should consider my own ideas.

I started playing with a few ideas, and in December I announced my resignation. I started BizeeBee in January, where I’ve been the CEO and Founder for the past six months.

I was recently asked to speak at an event and asked what my five must-have’s are, after some consideration I came up with the following list:

1. Friends
2. Energy
3. Thick Skin
4. Strong stomach
5. No backup plan

Once I knew I was going to be an engineer I knew I had to move out to Silicon Valley. After graduating from Duke I moved out to Silicon Valley. For the first year I didn’t really know anyone because I spent most of my time coding away in my cubicle. I slowly started to emerge and pursue my interests: yoga, snowboarding, Spanish, and going to networking events. I met a lot of people in the course of pursuing my passions, and over the past six years my friend circle has become very diverse and filled with genuine people.

When I announced that I was starting a company my friends immediately started helping me in ways that seemed unimaginable. Many introduced me to advisors, investors, customers, and employes, while others provided a shoulder to lean on.

As an entrepreneur, you can never have too many friends. They are your best advocate. Spending time with them will help you to relax. But there will be times when you’re friends aren’t around and thats when you need the second must-have: energy.

At a startup everyone puts in long hours, but as a founder your days are long and filled with a variety of tasks. For example, I start my day fundraising, then move onto brainstorming and prototyping, then coding, and finally networking or going to a speaking engagement. All the context switching can be tiring, and requires an entrepreneur to have a high level of energy. You’ve got to have energy, because it conveys confidence which is what attracts investors, customers, and keeps employees motivated.

To keep your energy levels up you will have to say no to events and people who want a piece of your time. But your first priority is to your team and business.

Everyone will want to give you their opinion when it comes to dealing with life decisions, like where you go to school, who you date, what career you should choose, and how to run your business. These people will truly test your energy, but you’ll be tested even more by the nay-sayers and less-than-well-wishers, which is why you need to have thick skin and a strong stomach.

I welcome nay-sayers into my life, and treat them as if they are playing devil’s advocate. For instance, when I was contemplating going to work for Mint, my dad asked me, “Why would you go work for Mint, its just like Quicken?” I thought about what he said and compared the two. Mint was free, online, and targeting a younger demographic. While Quicken was a desktop product, and focused on a serving an older demographic. To me it seemed like there was room in the market for both products. Instead of being hurt, I took my dad’s question as a challenge and used it to evaluate the businesses.

Then there are those who are less-than-well-wishers and against them you’ve got to practice detachment. Fixating on their negativity will only bring your energy levels down and derail your focus.

There may even be times when your investors and employees don’t want to follow your plans, your plans will fail, or you need to try a different approach. You need a strong stomach to deal with all of these ebbs and flows.

About a month ago I interviewed an engineer, and his final question to me was, “What are you going to do when BizeeBee fails?” I must have glared at him, because in my mind I was thinking, “What a ridiculous question!” I don’t even think about a backup plan, because all my efforts are spent on thinking about how to make BizeeBee succeed. I think about my employees and how I can support them, then I focus on streamlining the customer experience, and finally move on to how we’re going to generate revenue. At the end of the day there isn’t time to focus on a back-up plan. A sure cause of failure would be to fixate on it and then engineer ways to deal with it rather than trying to make the business succeed.

These are my top five must-have’s, which maybe different from yours. They won’t all exist at once. There will be times that your friends will be there for you and other times when you need to derive energy from within. Other times will require strength that comes from having thick skin and a strong stomach. But of all these must-have’s the most important by far is to not have a business plan and instead focus on executing your business plan!

About the Author:
Poornima Vijayashanker is CEO and Founder of BizeeBee. She blogs regularly at femgineer.com.

Poornima is a software engineer and entrepreneur. She was one of the first engineers at Mint.com, a startup, which was acquired by Intuit. She graduated from Duke University with double major in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science. Poornima has been a devoted yogini for the past 6 years and competes in Bikram Yoga. Through consulting with local studios looking to improve their management practices, she decided to create BizeeBee. Learn more about BizeeBee

Poornima Vijayashanker

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