Creating A Fearless Business
Charles (Chuck) Leaver is the Chief Executive Officer of Ziften Technologies based in Austin, Texas.
I took the time today to re-watch a video posted by the Commonwealth Club with Steve Blank today-- Building A Great Company With This Step By Step Guide.
Steve is a smart guy, with a nice sense of humor, and I've always valued his insights. Several of his key points ring true to me:
This is a great quote from the video, "there are no facts inside your building, so get the hell out of it!"-- There were some hard lessons learned in Silicon Valley based on this. We ensure that our key executives at Ziften (located in Austin) meet with our clients and potential clients at least once a week. We are a young company and understand it is critically important that our business model have a realistic view of our market, and determine how we can add value.
There is nothing more important to us than listening to our customers. In the video Steve points out how hard it is for entrepreneurs to listen rather than dumping their IP on anyone willing to listen. I take the time to encourage my employees to listen more than talk-- this is because our prospects and customers are far more impressed by how we can solve problems for them than by the fact that we are clever!
The perception of innovation in the USA compared to the rest of the world is discussed by Steve. I believe in this completely. It is the American way to believe that any past failures, from which learning occurs; will provide an experienced exec who will bring a great deal of value to a startup operation. Fear of failure is the death knell to innovation.
My people are encouraged to take risks without the fear and blame factor which occurs in many companies. It is making the team much faster at getting to our goal of bridging the gap between security technologies and really effective enterprise client security management. This is very significant-- we are on the verge of sharing additional information on our unique value proposition in endpoint security management, so watch this space!
Charles (Chuck) Leaver is the Chief Executive Officer of Ziften Technologies based in Austin, Texas.
I took the time today to re-watch a video posted by the Commonwealth Club with Steve Blank today-- Building A Great Company With This Step By Step Guide.
Steve is a smart guy, with a nice sense of humor, and I've always valued his insights. Several of his key points ring true to me:
This is a great quote from the video, "there are no facts inside your building, so get the hell out of it!"-- There were some hard lessons learned in Silicon Valley based on this. We ensure that our key executives at Ziften (located in Austin) meet with our clients and potential clients at least once a week. We are a young company and understand it is critically important that our business model have a realistic view of our market, and determine how we can add value.
There is nothing more important to us than listening to our customers. In the video Steve points out how hard it is for entrepreneurs to listen rather than dumping their IP on anyone willing to listen. I take the time to encourage my employees to listen more than talk-- this is because our prospects and customers are far more impressed by how we can solve problems for them than by the fact that we are clever!
The perception of innovation in the USA compared to the rest of the world is discussed by Steve. I believe in this completely. It is the American way to believe that any past failures, from which learning occurs; will provide an experienced exec who will bring a great deal of value to a startup operation. Fear of failure is the death knell to innovation.
My people are encouraged to take risks without the fear and blame factor which occurs in many companies. It is making the team much faster at getting to our goal of bridging the gap between security technologies and really effective enterprise client security management. This is very significant-- we are on the verge of sharing additional information on our unique value proposition in endpoint security management, so watch this space!