When to stop raising money
There's a popular saying in Silicon Valley: You raise money when you can, not when you need. It seem to make sense: raising money is affected by trends: in 1999 almost any startup that had the words “dot com” in the name could easily raise money in Silicon Valley. In 2000, the company “pets.com” raised $300 Million with a multi-Billion dollar valuation even though the company was less than 2 years old and their business plan consisted of losing money on every single product sale. On the other hand, back in 2004, the Korean “Daum” bought the search engine Lycos that competed with Google at the time for only $95 Million, 98% less than its value just 4 years earlier (Lycos was sold to a Spanish telecommunication company in 2000 for $12.5 Billion).
Sending the Wrong signals
Economists have an interesting concept called “signals” which is also used in psychology and in the combined field of psychology and economics called “behavioral economics”.
The idea behind signals is that many times we need to make a decision but we don't have enough information to make one. We therefore rely on “signals”. When a man sees a woman in a bar, he wants to know if she is single, if she came to the bar to meet other people, if she's not there just because she's a waitress, if she is looking for a date, etc. The way the woman dresses, the way she is sitting, who she is sitting with and how she looks back at the man are all “signals” that can be used to determine the right course of action.
Going up against too many giants
About a year ago I met a Korean entrepreneur who had an idea that was supposed to beat Google, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter together.
At first, I tried to be very gentle and polite (not easy to do with my strong Israeli genes). I asked him if beating just one of those multi-Billion dollar giants won't be good enough. No, he said, I can just as easily beat them all – why should I settle for just beating one?
How can you win the lottery?
You watch TV and see that someone won the lottery; you are not surprised. Millions of people buy lottery tickets, and the odds are millions to one. Certainly someone should win, so why not that person?
Do you need to dream in English?
I’ve mentioned how important it is for entrepreneurs to have the web site, presentation, marketing material and pitch all in English. Korean language school teachers like to say that their students will become so fluent, that they will “dream in English”. But I don’t want you to dream in English at all.
How important is English?
I often talk about (and write about) what Korean startups need to do to go global, and almost always my first point is: “Speak English”.
The reaction is always a polite nod of agreement; everyone I talk to seems to understand that this is important. And yet, as soon as the talk is over, the Q&A is done in Korean; startups send me a Korean executive summary or insist to pitch in Korean.
