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May 4, 2004: The Asterisk Era
In recent weeks
we’ve been treated to a couple of seemingly disparate news stories.
In one corner we have the steroids in baseball issue. In the other
corner we have the pending monster IPO of Google. I put these two
seemingly disparate stories together because one word comes to mind
when I think about either: Asterisk.
In the baseball
world we have a situation were the exploits of certain players are
in doubt due to the shadow cast by alleged steroid use. With the
Google IPO, we have some people who are hopeful that we’ll return to
the halcyon days late 90’s IPO mania. If we’re talking about
placing asterisks next to the records of certain baseball players,
shouldn’t we put asterisks next to the exploits of certain late 90’s
era companies?
How would this
work? Let’s see…you just hit 80 homeruns? Make that 80* homeruns.
You helped sales rocket from $1 million in 1996 to $50 million in
1999? Put an asterisk next to it. You drove in 200 runs in a
single season? Put an asterisk next to it. You sold your company
for $500 million in 1999? Put an…well, you get the idea.
I bring this point
up because in recent weeks I’ve been awash with people bragging
about their exploits in the late 90’s. This culminated with someone
who told me it would be fun to talk to college students about the
challenges of finding sales success during the dot com boom! I used my usual
“venture monkey” retort: during the late 90’s, we were all
turbocharged monkeys on crystal meth with cattle prods poking our
backsides. Perhaps people touting their great late 90’s successes
should add a FDA-type warning: Actual results may differ with your
era.
I think it is
fantastic that some people got out when the going was good. I have
no problem with people making gobs of money. But when I hear people
brag about their wins from 1999 and completely gloss over the fact
that the late 90’s business culture was a historical anomaly, their
bragging rings hollow. Talk to me about your wins from 2003. Talk
to me about selling today.
Just as the
current baseball era is running the risk of being known as the
asterisk era, so too is the business era of the late 90’s. And
here’s the rub for this column and all the early stage and wannabe
entrepreneurs who read it: the way business was conducted in the
late 90’s was not normal. And in turn, today’s economy is not
“bad,” although you would have a tough time finding that fact
reading the collective brain dead trust of the bad news gazette that
poses as our mainstream media.
The economy is not
bad. Repeat that. The economy is not bad. True entrepreneurs do
not wait for the New York Times to make an official proclamation:
“The economy is now in good shape. If you wish to pursue your
entrepreneurial dream, now is the time to do it.”
Entrepreneurs
don’t wait for permission. They do it. They are often
counter-intuitive and when whole world says stop, they go. They
don’t wait for some pundit to tell give them an economic green
light. They look both ways, and if they have enough room to move,
they walk out into traffic.
Don’t believe me?
Don’t believe Chicago has enough entrepreneurial spirit? Simply
hang out at any busy intersection and watch you fellow Chicagoans
walk through busy traffic, blatantly ignoring the sign that says,
“don’t walk.” Go to Seattle or Cincinnati or Atlanta. In those
cities, in most cities, actually, people will not cross traffic-less
streets simply because a street says “don’t walk.”
A bit of a
stretch? Perhaps. But the lesson is if you want to follow your
dreams of being an entrepreneur, you won’t let whining detractors
stop you. You won’t look for permission. If you have some place to
go, if you know where that place is, you’re not going to let 20
signs that say “don’t walk” stop you.
We don’t have a
bad economy folks. We had a mild recession in 2001, inflation is
low, and the unemployment rate is comparable to the rate in the mid
90’s. Venture capital investing has begun to level out, at roughly
1997 levels. I don’t recall too many people complaining that the
economy was bad in 1996, even though just about all indicators are
comparable, if not better, than they were in 1996.
We have far too
many people who have been sold an economic bill of goods, and as a
result, these people are sitting on the sidelines, grumbling about
how “bad” the economy is. The freak years of circa 1999 are not
returning any time soon. The time to stop grumbling is now. Money
is being raised, companies are selling, and companies are buying.
And maybe, just maybe, the Google IPO will jump start a little mania
for the new millennium.
Has your company been profiled by Bill Snow? Send
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bill@billsnow.com
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