Passion

The lesson of the day: persistence and stalking pay off.

After visiting with Steve of callspark.com, Alison of Vark.com, Matt of Digg.com and the many professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs at the SFNewTech networking event, I have discovered a very important piece of information: you need an i phone to survive in Silicon Valley.

Today felt like a crash course to life in the tech-savvy world that is San Francisco. The first stop was with Steve Larsen, the newly appointed CEO of the start-up company callspark. The company is combining personal contacts with the White and Yellow pages in which you can search for a number to call, or if you prefer, text.

For me, the takeaways from the conversation with Steve relate with funding and marketing. He explained the ways that funding for start-up companies works and where callspark is at in the process. Steve also pointed out the importance of marketing to other businesses. I get caught up in marketing to the individual consumer; however, the individual consumer ends up being the smallest portion of your actual revenue. It again made me realize the realm of business to business marketing and how the average consumer (me) fails to comprehend the expanse that is today's business world.

The main story I remember from Steve is that persistence, more than talent or intelligence, pays off. In gaining the best and brightest employees to getting the product off and running, it is those people who keep on trucking and who keep believing that they will succeed are the ones who get what they want. If you have the passion for the product and believe in what you are doing, you will be successful in one way or another.

The perfect example of passion was Alison Johnston from Aardvark (Vark.com). She is a young, bright woman fresh out of Stanford University and already making a difference for this question and answer company. As community relations, Alison is in charge of collecting and maintaining all feedback on Vark features and potential improvements.

Her passion is what struck me the most as we ate lunch at a Thai restaurant (again, another dining first!) She is invigorated by the product and could have talked about the product and its features for the entire lunch if we had not asked other questions pertaining to her job, etc. It was nice to get a perspective of marketing and promotion from a person our age.

To a degree, Alison fit the role of a Communication Facilitator. She plans events for the Vark community to attend and is the go-to person for feedback and focus group research (although they call it user relations). She is always excited and her personality convinced me of the product's value.

The next stop was of value to those of us getting ready for the job hunt. Matt Von Horn, the Business Development Manager at Digg.com not only discussed the company with us (after signing a confidentiality agreement), but also included his tidbit on being successful as an individual in the business world. His advice: be audacious. Stand out and do something different than everyone else. If you really want something, go for it (even if it involves stalking) and don't give up if it doesn't work the first time. It was how he got his job at Digg and how he has been successful so far.

Matt also gave us advice on networking and marketing ourselves. His main advice was to add value to the person and the relationship by being unique and standing out to that person in the initial conversation as well as in all encounters with the individual. Finally, he emphasized following up with people and maintaining that relationship.

All of this advice came in handy as an hour later we were faced with a situation where we could network with entrepreneurs and other start-up company advocates. At the SFNewTech event, it was a role-reversal for me. There I was a communications major, a person who should be good with people, at a loss for words when faced with the tech lingo of codes and programming.

However, I was able to meet a few people who worked more on the marketing and product management side of the business and it was nice to be able to pick their brains on the details and the challenge of making engineers understand the customer's perspective.

I also talked with a few people interested in promoting their applications. One of the best applications I heard about was the moodagent which rearranges your songs into playlists based on your mood. There were many other applications presented tonight including apps for healthcare, radio, and even an application for applications.

It was interesting to be meet with disbelief when I replied with "No, I do not have an iphone." The technology was all very interesting and gave me perspective on the increasing wave of technology and how I am already behind.

Again, what struck me at the event was the passion in which people spoke about their products and companies. They live and breathe their product and want as many people to know about it as possible. They are all trying to stand out and make it with their ideas and business models that are attached.

So far, I have gathered that I need to do something about which I am passionate so that I will enjoy life and my life's work.

After a busy day, we finally go back to the hotel and are preparing for tomorrow's trip to Hummer-Winblad Venture Capital and the Exploratorium.

Until next time,
Kaitlin