Aaltoes Talk with Mårten Mickos

Starting a Business Mårten G Mickos Otaniemi 15 Dec 2009 Aalto Entrepreneurship Society

Here’s to a lot of failure!

MySQL 2001-2008
2001
a dozen people
less than $1m in sales
leading open source DBMS (4m installs)
niche player
valued at $7m
2008
400 employees
about $100m in sales
leading open source DBMS (11m installs)
leading player
valued at $1bn (original founders’ shares grew 40x – from $7m to $280m)

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." — Winston Churchill

About Mårten Mickos
Born 1962 in Otaniemi, Finland
M.Sc. (Eng) in technical physics from TKK
[email_address]
www.twitter.com/martenmickos
Founded Polycon in 1987 with 2 friends
VTKK 1991-1993
ViSolutions 1993-1995
Solid Information Technology 1995-1997
Intellitel Communications 1997-1999
MatchON Sports 1999-2000
Vexillum 2000-2001
MySQL AB 2001-2008, Sun 2008-2009

Keep going 1 2 Ambition Outcome 3 4 5 6 7 8

"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." — Michelangelo

Starting Your itch / your passion A real market demand with a window of opportunity + Fail fast Scale fast => Don’t worry – be crappy

When is the right time?
Are *you* ready?
The importance of the S curve
First-mover advantage?
Many entrepreneurs start too early in the window of opportunity

Driven by what?
History
Technology
Ego
Greed
Patriotism
Opportunity
Customers
Markets
etc.

Growing a business FOCUS. FOCUS. FOCUS. Pick the business that you want to be in. Period. Everything else is out of mind. Done. Finished. Gone. Just get on with it!

Stockdale paradox = sisu
Pure optimists don’t survive
” Don’t believe your own PR”
Pure pessimists don’t survive
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." - Henry Ford
“ You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” — Admiral Jim Stockdale (POW in Vietnam)

Being a startup CEO
Knowing & accepting yourself
More humility than ego
Faith in people
Visionary & contagious optimism coupled with sustained ability to face the brutal truth
Ability to hire the best
Listening & experimenting
Inexperience can be a great asset
Ability to be engaged in making things happen, coupled with ability to detach and see the helicopter view
Relentless drive towards goals
Remember, it is a lonely job to be the CEO.

Effective executive by Peter Drucker
Great managers may be charismatic or dull, generous or tightfisted, visionary or numbers oriented. But every effective executive follows eight simple practices.
1. They ask “What needs to be done?”
2. They ask “What is right for the enterprise?”
3. They develop action plans
4. They take responsibility for decisions
5. They take responsibility for communicating
6. They are focused on opportunities rather than problems
7. They run productive meetings
8. They think and say “we” rather than “I”

Effective team (by mgm)
Great executive teams may be aggressive or conservative, intuitive or calculating, conflicted or harmonious. But every effective executive team follows eight practices:
Team members ask each other "How can I support you?"
Team members hold each other accountable while also allowing each one to show vulnerability.
The team practices open and authentic communication.
The team arrives at key decisions together through discussion, debate, and synthesis.
The team has fun.
Team members see success of the whole team as the best form of success.
The team operates at a strategic level and empowers the organization around them to make and execute operational decisions.
Each team member builds his/her own teams following these principles.

Thoughts on success
Shoot for the stars. Even if you fail, you’ll land on the moon.
Succeed in spite of your background, not thanks to it
Assets can turn into liabilities in an instance; liabilities can turn into assets over a long time
There are innumerable ways to fail, but there is also always more than one way to succeed
Quotes
"Fall seven times; stand up eight." — Japanese proverb
"I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed." — Michael Jordan
"Full effort is full victory." — Mahatma Gandhi

Easy ways to fail
“ The market is so big that 1% is enough for us.”
“ Actually, there are no competitors.”
“ Our product does, among other things, everything.”
Greed, fear
Falling in love with a product or idea, believing your own PR, not knowing your place
Lack of patience and endurance
Misjudging the scale of the challenge
Lack of “Excel Gymnastics”
Inability to deal with people
Not solving the customer’s problem
Not listening, not experimenting
Not removing toxic individuals
Failing to act on early signals
Blindly believing ”experts”
and many more ...

Thank you! Please start great businesses. [email_address]

Aaltoes Talk with Mårten Mickos

by Aalto Entrepreneurship Society on Dec 15, 2009

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