"Being a Generalist" Part 2 -- The HOWTO Guide

A successful entrepreneur needs to know both the technology and the market, as young Thomas Edison learned his lesson. So how does one become a generalist? Here are some quick ideas:

1. Attend conferences and seminars. Pure networking events are often boring. When you attend a conference or a seminar with a technical or business theme, not only will you be able to learn something out of your domain of expertise, but you'll be able to chat with like-minded entrepreneurs and potentially foster new ideas. NECINA is one such non-profit organization providing these types of entrepreneurship opportunities. 

2. Step up and volunteer. Say your a technologist and would like to gain more marketing insights -- find an organization where you can contribute on the marketing and customer-facing side. Conversely, say you have an MBA background and would like to gain some tech chops -- find an organization where you can help develop and maintain its website. The beauty of volunteering is that the entry bar is often lower (e.g. you are often spared a formal interview process), it usually won't conflict with your day job and employer, and you will feel good about adding social value.

Don't just learn by reading a book. Learn by doing. Not only will you gain hands-on experiences in the field, you will get good advice and mentorship this way as well. Have you ever dreamed of having experts sit down and share their insights and experiences with you on a topic of your interest? Yes, this is a sweet dream. After all, you are no longer in school and you are not paying them. However, if you contribute to a course of their interest, they will often be more than happy to do the talk while you do the work. See, get your interests aligned, and here comes a win-win.

3. Plan your career transition. Compared to the above two options, this one is much risker and less feasible. After all, changing your full time job requires careful consideration and is not always feasible due to many constraints. You might be ready for the transition, only when all the following conditions are met: a) you have gained enough expertise in your current job are no longer as motivated; b) there is a new opening that you are qualified for, excited about, and can learn skills; c) if the new gig fails, you have fall-back plans.

Again, any radical transitioning involves a lot of risk. Why not reduce the risk by trying something part-time, as a volunteer? I have some excellent volunteer opportunities for you, on both business and technology tracks. Ping me and I will offer you the leads for free.

P.S. I am not a recruiter, and has no financial interest involved. How I do enjoy match making. :-)

"Being a Generalist" Part 1 -- A Lesson that Thomas Edison was Taught

Dear friend, if you are still not convinced by my previous post about the importance of being a generalist and diversifying your skillset, let me tell you another story -- A story about the legendary inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Edison, and his first patented invention.

At the age of 22, Edison invented a voting device that automated ballot counting through electrically and chemical mechanisms (recall modern computers did not yet exist in that era). This brilliant device not only significantly reduced the error margin resulting from manual counting, but was able to shorten the prolonged voting process by hours or even days. Think about how much cost it would cut for the government!

However, things took a 180-degree turn, when the device was taken to Washington DC to meet its buyers -- the high-powered politicians. To Edison's astonishment, the politicians were abhorred by this invention, as its adoption would lead to a significant decrease in the time for conducting their political moves such as filibusters and lobbying. Clearly, when it comes to voting, faster is simply not better by their standards. But this was a new revelation to young Edison.

As a result, the device was a technical masterpiece, but sold exactly 0 units in the market. Imagine how heart-broken Edison must have been. But the lesson paid off in the longer run.

LOF (leap of faith) or NDA -- what would you do?

A friend of mine was recently approached by a startup founder to discuss potential employment or partnership possibilities. While this sounds like a wonderful career opportunity, he told me he was turned off by the founder's insistence that he should sign an NDA before they entered the conversation. Here are his arguments for why no sensible entrepreneur should sign the NDA in a situation like this:

1. How much the founder will be telling my friend about his company is solely at the founder's discretion. It is not clear what the founder is protecting against even before they enter the conversation. It only conveys a lack of trust and confidence, not exactly a turn-on during the "dating period."

2. When the start-up goes out to pitch VC firms for their funding, the convention is that VCs won't sign any NDA. Here is a starting point to research on this topic: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=vc+sign+nda. For example, Brad Feld made some good points from the VCs' perspectives.

The irony is, clearly VCs will be more connected than an average employment/partnership candidate, and therefore bears a higher "risk" of "leaking" the start-up ideas to others. So why insist that the latter sign, but relax the rules on the former?

3. Here are some real legal concerns from my friend's perspective: The legal cases between Mark Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss brothers, or between Mark and Paul Ceglia recently are good entrepreneurial lessons that suggest one should never sign any NDA or contract casually. No one knows how the stuff he signed will affect his career 5 or 10 years down the road, right?

Well then, as a start-up founder, if you don't insist that people sign NDAs, how do you protect your ideas? Here are some heretic (read: non-scientific, non-data-driven) tips that are not taught in school: Be street-smart, and follow your gut feelings. If the candidate is a person you feel you can trust, then take a leap of faith and see where it leads you. Also, don't be too serious or overly protective with your ideas. After all, some say that ideas are a dime a dozen; execution is all that matters.