A new business idea: funeral services for a doll!?

I spoke to a group of Japanese students last night about entrepreneurship. They're on an exchange program with the University of Washington.  One of the students wants to start a business that provides funeral services for dolls.  When I first heard the idea, I thought she was joking.  She wasn't! I inquired further. It turns out that of a class of 25 students, approximately 50% of the 20 year old students had a doll that they cared for regularly.   Furthermore, the students that did have a doll overwhelmingly thought that this students idea was a very good business idea. I don't know if it is or not but I thought this was fascinating.  Further evidence that understanding culture is critical when doing business.  Funerals for dolls....mmm. Makes you think doesn't it!

Friday's career advice

I recently was asked by a freind for some career advice. He as trying to decide what to do next. He currently is a VP at a small public company that is struggling through a transition.
His choices were:

  1. Start a new company
  2. Join a company that just closed a 2 million venture round
  3. Look for a job in another public company.

He had already decided to leave his current firm where he had been for 3 years. He's 40 years old and has 3 children. His current salary is $225K. Here's what I told him about his options.

  1. Start a new company -- this is great if you know what you want to do. There's a lot of risk but there's also a lot of reward. This is the height of creation. It basically means giving up on salary for at least 6 months and quite possibly 12 months. You're likely to end up owning anywhere between 15% and 50% of a company if you're the founder post a round of financing. You're going to have to work harder than you thought possible. The two big pluses of this direction is that you're your own boss and you get to define teh company culture...plus you're there when the equity gets divided.
  2. Join a funded start up -- if you don't have the stomach or the idea for starting a company this is a great way to learn about start ups.  The good news is you can get paid on day one. Your likely salary as a VP is about 120K to 160K and you'll get anywhere from 1% to 3% of equity that vests over 4 years.
  3. Join a public company -- Also, a viable choice but the bureaucracy is usually in place. You don't play a meaningful role in establishing the culture of the company or the management team. You likely are paid 200-300K and may get equity in the 0.3% up to 0.75% depending upon the maturity of the company. This equity also vests.

There's no right answer. You've got to decide what it is you want to do and assess the risks and rewards. He told me today that he is going to join a funded start up. I think this is a great choice for him.

Seattle Open Coffee continues

I thought that after the long weekend there would be a drop off in the Open Coffee meeting -- I was wrong! We had 22 folks there today.  Good networking, good conversation, good coffee, and good times. Last week we had our first venture capitalist come by and join the conversation -- Michelle Goldberg from Ignition attended.
We also got written up by John Cook of the Seattle PI...check out the post here. One correction -- I'm the organizer of the Seattle OpenCoffee -- but the original idea and credit rests with a friend and fellow entrepreneur Saul Klein of London.

Seattle Entrepreneurs Open Coffee home page for the year

I just set up this page on upcoming for the Seattle Open Coffee weekly meetings we've been having.

It's crazy but Upcoming doesn't let you set up recurring appointments so I put this out until December ....and Meetup wants to charge 10.99  per month to organize this event.   

Sorry Scott -- but at that price I have to go with your competitor which is free even if they don't let me make recurring appointments. Scoot -- is Scott Heifferman the CEO of MeetUp and a friend.

All are welcome:
Every Tuesday, 8:30AM - 10:00AM, Louisa's at 2379 Eastlake Ave. E, Seattle

Seattle Open Coffee Success

This was the fourth meeting of Seattle Open Coffee. It has totally exceeded my expectations at this point. Today was the largest showing yet....17 people. At this point the events are primarily social and networking.  People come -- some new faces each week and some regulars. We have coffee and breakfast and chat about our start ups /early stage companies.  I'm not sure exactly what to do with these events -- whether to add any structure at all or not. In the meantime, they're fun events and there seems to be a group of regulars who can carry this forward. So the experiment continues. If you've got ideas about what we should be doing at these events please send it to me....
This OpenCoffee is held each week on Tuesday at 8:30AM at Louisa's. See you next week.

Seattle Open Coffee is a good event!

We had the second OpenCoffee meeting today at Louisa's. I was worried because I didn't send out an email or publicize it in any way....and lo and behold, 13 people showed up. I think this is going to be a good event in Seattle.
I didn't have my camera so no photos this week but you can imagine what 13 entrepreneurs drinking coffee in a Seattle cafe looks like. 
It is interesting that no VC has yet to make an appearance at the event. I'll try and invite some for next week.
I should mention that a few people even made it over from the east side. Special thanks to them -- tells me there's a real need for this.

So the specifics of next week are the same as this week.
Every Tuesday, 8:30AM - 10AM, Louisa's Cafe on Eastlake in Seattle

Seattle Open Coffee a big success


CIMG0583, originally uploaded by a sack of seattle.

This morning we had 14 people attend the inaugural Seattle Open Coffee.  This far exceeded my expectations and I look forward to doing it again next week on Tuesday at 8:30 AM at Louisa's on Eastlake in Seattle. If you're an entrepreneur or just interested in entrepreneurship come join us.