| >"We then hired “The Machine” (Engineer #2) and I moved in with him into an apartment in the Twin Peaks neighborhood of San Francisco, mostly so I could harass him into programming day and night. And as my two engineers built a beta version of our call center software, I started dialing for dollars and calling call center owners with the pitch and promise of something cheaper. After so many rejections, I wanted to reject myself. After what must have been more than 2,000 cold calls, I finally reached a receptive voice on the other line. Joe owned a small but successful call center in Provo, Utah. He called my bluff and said that he knew we didn’t have anything solid yet, but he trusted we could get it built — but it had to be half the price I quoted him. And that’s the early lesson I learned about entrepreneurship, or maybe it was a lesson in America itself. That after so many rejections, I wanted to reject myself, but then found someone who would mail me a check for $40,000, even during a recession, because they were risk-taking business owners themselves. It made me realize that America was a magical place for entrepreneurs." [...] >"I’m not sure if I have any sage advice for other entrepreneurs, but out of this experience I did learn one important truth. Namely, you don’t have to be an Ivy League graduate (I’m not) or have a lot of money (we didn’t). You just have to believe in yourself against all reasonable logic, as trite as that sounds." PDS: What a great piece of writing about Entrepreneurship! Worth reading and re-reading in the future! |