Notes from a life lesson seminar
October 28th, 2007 by Allen VoivodJeff Pulver, who offhandedly said he twice made the mistake of working for someone else’s company (instead of starting his own company) in his “Lessons of a Serial Entrepreneur” session, claims to have started something like 50 companies - not all successes.
But he’s happy making mistakes, because if you don’t live and work on the edge, you don’t get pushed. (I’m paraphrasing, of course.) And I’ve tried to paraphrase some of his other bon mots here, including:
One of the things he thinks is necessary for success is absolute, supreme confidence in yourself - “It’s kind of like a super power.”
Another is a significant event that pushes you to make crucial decision about your life and the direction you want to take, when you’re pushed out on your own with no support.
He fondly recalls the first days of VON, when he had 200 people cone to his first show, people following their passions and imagining what could be.
He comes from an accounting background. Telecom is not his space, even though he is at the center of the IP communications industry web. He’s most interested in seeing how software turns into services people can use.
Now he’s investing in people’s dreams - small amounts ($10K-$30K), but enough to prove concepts and prototypes, to get businesses to a stage where they can attract bigger investors.
People who have failures under their belt seem more real and grounded to him.He takes fun very seriously, and mostly in situations where you wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable and at ease. It’s important for him to share that happy energy with other people.
The opportunities to change the world still exist in a very big way.
The negative energy of people who say “No” and “Can’t” is overpowering to him, and he needs to work with positive people - not “yes men,” so to speak, but people with happy attitudes who are open-minded to what’s possible, who take what’s been done before and improve it, go beyond it, and don’t limit themselves.
Don’t let what you don’t know stop you.
If your friends aren’t supporting you, reboot your friends.
Being lucky is okay.
Give back.
It’s all about potential. If you think about the boulder at the top of the hill, it has more potential value than when it’s sitting on the bottom of the hill. And his three watch words are “Fear, Greed, and Disruption” - if you create something that disrupts the status quo, that causes fear in an incumbent, or that makes someone greedy enough to want to buy your company for its profit potential, then you’ve won, in his estimation.
He also happens to be the mastermind behind the VON conference, at which our client Iperia is exhibiting this year, and where I’ll be blogging from during the business week.
It’s a bummer Lani couldn’t have been here for Pulver’s talk, because she eats this stuff up. And I’m beginning to see why. Hopefully I’ve captured some of its essence for her. (And you, too.)
I had the pleasure of meeting 
I’ve been reading “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” to my son the last few nights at bedtime, and been put in mind of Sally’s line: “If someone told me I’d be sitting in a pumpkin patch on Halloween night, I’d have said they were crazy.”
The other thing happening here is