Running a start-up can be a lonely. What is glamorized in media are the high points, revenue and usage going up and to the right, the launch party, the high-fives when you close a big deal, the opening of your first office.
The reality is more gut wrenching. The late night realization that you may not make a revenue target. The early morning notification that your server is offline. The sinking feeling when a key prospect tells you they cannot work with you. The difficult meeting with an employee when have to tell them you have to let them go.
The life of an entrepreneur is a series of peaks and valleys that can whip you from euphoria to depression and back again in the course of a few days. But it’s when you’re starring into the abyss that you find out who your true friends are, when you find out if you picked the right group of investors, that believe in you and will help you work it out.
After spending two days at Stanford University with 250 other individuals who work at True Venture portfolio companies, I have a new appreciation for why someone would want True Ventures as a backer.
Once a year, True, an investor in my company, Gigaom, hosts a True University for its portfolio companies. It’s an incredibly generous offering. Two days rich with talks and workshops on how to run a business. A sample of the sessions include:
- Steve Blank talking about how to develop a business model and product/market fit
- Army Major Aram Donigian talking about negotiation tactics learned while in Iraq
- Robert Brunner, the designer of Beats headphones, talking about design experience
- Reverend Cecil Williams and his sharp as a tack wife Janice Mirikitani talking about the mission of GLIDE
And that’s just the highlight. In between were smaller workshops with folks like Hooman Radfar (the right and wrong way to let someone go), Lars Nilsson (how to set up and run an inside sales team), and Braden Kowitz (how to run a design sprint).
But it’s more than talks and workshops. I came away with a feeling of community. True University is an environment of complete trust and collaboration. I spoke openly about challenges I was facing and shared with others lessons I have learned. We were all working to build something and we wanted each other to succeed. True Ventures is more than a collection of investments, it’s a platform from which tomorrow’s leaders can take a leap and know that you’ve got a community of like-minded folks are behind you.
Thank you True Ventures for being an investor and thank you for an amazing couple of days!
Further: videos from past True University sessions are posted at on TrueTube