An NBA Championship: The last of Mark Cubans Bucket List

Mark Cuban is the most well know owner of a sports franchise in history. Most people probably can’t even name another one (except maybe from their favorite team). The question is, why does everyone know who he is? How did he manage to go from a nobody tech geek/sales guy to millionaire to billionaire to celebrity?

Sure, there are some other notable entrepreneurs who own a sports franchise including Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft/greatest rider of coattails in the history of man, and Donald Trump who owned a team in the USF for a whole 2 years (do we even consider him to be an entrepreneur?) oh yea, and Ted Turner, the man who took over his father’s multimillion dollar advertising company, kept up with trends in digital (but never really gave up print) and is now consider to be an American icon. Don’t get me wrong, I think all of these guys are brilliant and have done a great job “figuring it out” and being very well known successful business men. But, unlike the rest of us, they were forced into and handed the opportunities and billions of dollars they are now known for.

Marc Cuban on the other hand pretty much built his dynasty on his own.  Realizing bar tending could barley pay the bills he took a job as a salesman for a PC software company. After only a year he was fired. So what did he do? Start a company! Many of us could only dream of having the confidence to go from unemployed to CEO over night. The story isn’t quite as cut and dry, but in the effort to over dramatize his story it was. He built the company into a powerhouse then sold it for 6million dollars. Bored and hungry for more, Cuban started another company, which he then sold to Yahoo! for 5.9 BILLION DOLLARS!

It was around then, 1998, that we began to recognize Cuban as the loud mouth, know it all, uncharacteristically intelligent, billionaire, that we know today.

Since then, he has done it all: Made the Forbes Richest people list, bought a sports franchise, traveled the world, competed on “Dancing with the Stars”, acted, etc. You name it, he’s done it. And very publicly I might add.

Now, the Dallas Mavericks are his pride and joy. A money making venture of course, but Cuban is in it for more than just the money. Cuban wants to win! Since his first venture in the early 90’s Mark has gotten very used to “winning”. Just imagine how cocky he would be had he gone on a Charlie sheen drug binge and rant. The bottom line is,if you are not a part Team Cuban, you are in 2^nd place, unless of course,  you own an NBA franchise. All Mark Cuban wants at this point is an NBA Championship! You can tell by the way he acts compared with the other owners and GMs. He gets more worked up than the player, which has even gotten him finned by the NBA. In my opinion Mark Cuban has done everything is in his power to win but he has come up short for 12 straight years. The man who built a company form the ground up and sold it for 6 billion in 4 years can’t build a team to win four 7 game series in 12 years?

This is the year! Not because the Mavericks are any better than they’ve been, or the lack of quality teams. It’s because Mark Cuban deserves it. When Mark Cuban wins the NBA Championship this year, he will have completed his entire Bucket list by age 52. Will any of us be able to say the same…

In the words of Lil’ Wayne, “Don’t worry Lebron, get ‘em next year”

Salute to Chad Ochocinco – Social Celeb Guru

A couple days ago I went to a marketing round table about Social Media. I thought it was going to be about how encourage your clients to engage their consumers via social media channels. It wasn’t. But it was amazing! Jeff Wilinger aka Social Media Guru, host and speaking, spent 2 hour explaining how he uses social media (including twitter) to brand himself and close huge business deals. I’m not going to go into all of the details but I would recommend checking this guy out: http://jwillie.posterous.com/. I am impressed with 3 things:

1. He’s able to keep his 10+ social accounts organized and up-to-date (3 twitters, 2 facebooks, linkedIn, 2 blogs and more)

2. The guy in his 50’s. Not many 20-30 year olds are taking advantage of social medial the way Jeff does.

3. He’s actually received monetary value due to social media.

While he claims he is known as the “SharePoint guy”, we really know him as the Social Media GURU. I’m determined to take full advantage of social media to build MY brand because of him.

Anyway, last night I was playing around on Twitter.  I noticed Ochocinco (@ochocinco) was tweeting like crazy; almost unbearable. He posted a tweet that he was going to do a live video stream so I thought “why not; I could use 1 more reason to hate on him”. So I clicked. When I got in, there were about 50 people watching the feed. He wasn’t doing much because his user interface wasn’t working right. He started to talk about his day, the lockout, cranberry juice, his reasons for not drinking etc. Not too entertaining but I couldn’t turn it off. Eventually, he says, “Since I can’t read the chat feed, “tweet” me your questions and I’ll answer. So I did that too. Sure enough, he starts reading questions and answering them like: Who’ll win, Mosley or Paquiao? What are your thoughts on the lockout? Why aren’t you in Kansas playing soccer? At this point, there are almost 1,000 viewers. I couldn’t believe it, he tweets (once) to his “fans” that he is doing a live chat (it’s 10pm by the way) and within 10 minutes there are 1,000 people watching him sit in his hotel room drinking Cranberry juice talking about nothing in particular. Most importantly, (and the highlight of my night) he read my comical question out loud…and laughed! I honestly felt like that girl that turns hysterical at the Justin Biber concert because he touched her. It was like we bonded, but not really. I have to admit, it was actually pretty cool though.

I think it’s pretty cool that Ochocinco is able to remain one of the most popular players in football, or professional sports for that matter, without getting in trouble and without being “that good” at football. Congratulations Chad, while Jeff Willinger can teach us how utilize social media, you have already mastered social media in a way that many of us didn’t think was possible.

#slute

The Web 2.0 Phenomenon

It seems that there is a new “startup” raising money (a ton of it) every single day. If you read Techcrunch.com they report on some new start-up raising x million dollars either in a series A or seed round at least once a day. What they don’t cover is what the company is up to  3-6 months down the road; With the exception of a few that are of the best of the best. Or are they the only ones still around? Just because you are able to raise money doesn’t mean you are going to be even the least bit successful (enter: Friendster) or deserve the press because you or one of your founders is a part of the techcrunch mafia or Chris Dixon is an investor in your company. I‘d like to get an update every once in a while, especially because the majority don’t have a revenue model. I, along with the majority would be curious to know is there some “ah ha” groundbreaking moment (phrase taken from Founderly.com) that takes the company from a “great” idea to a profitable company.

Anyway, there is one thing pretty much all of them , actually 2 things, have in common. 1) They are all part of the web 2.0 era 2) they don’t have a revenue model (except ad’s which many of they think damages the “brand” of their “product”)

This really got me thinking; where is web 2.0 actually going? What are the trends these start-ups are following, and, what about non 2.0 tech startups? Is there no longer a market for web-based companies that don’t focus primarily on social networking?

Each of these companies has is a part of the “Tech bubble” (although Naval: Founder of Angelist and author of Startup boy doesn’t think we are in a tech bubble: a top of another blog post) 

Quora, Tumblr, 4chan. stumbleupon, groupme, flicker, instagram, digg, and forusquare

You have probably heard of just about all of them and, as I mentioned, all share 2 things in common.

So I ask, is this just the next evolution in the tech community? Does social networking HAVE to be a part of your business model? In my opinion! Groupon, Intuit, and Asana are making a TON of money! They had an idea to make money and “solve” a problem at the same time without worrying about included what your friends had for lunch.

Did I hit this on the head, or am I missing something?

Why Leave the flute behind?

If you were born in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and possibly even the early 80’s you probably have already found the title of this blog amusing.

My ideal title would have been the same as everyone else who write a personal blog about nothing in particular; “Ian Anderson’s Blog”

If you were born in the 80’s and beyond (myself included 1986); this is is why that name would not work; “Ian Anderson, known throughout the world of rock music as the flute and voice behind the legendary Jethro Tull”

I’m in sales so I talk to a lot of people on a daily basis, most of who were born in the “Jethro Tull” era (Not many key decision makers are 25 or younger). At least once a week someone asks me, “Are you familiar with Jethro Tull?” or “You don’t play the flute do you?” or “You probably aren’t old enough to know who THE Ian Anderson is”. The truth is, I really don’t’ know much about the guy. I’ve Googled him a few times and listened to some of his music, but only to avoid sounding stupid when I hear the inevitable questions. I have to admit, it’s been a great way to build rapport with decision makers who otherwise wouldn’t have given me the time of day.

Anyway, I figured “Forget the Flute” is my semi rebellious attempt to differ myself from the hippie who ruined my life (that’s a jok… sort of)!

So now that 800 lb gorilla now has explained why he’s in the room; I would like to re-focus my topic of conversation. This blog is a documentation on what I’ve learned about the tech industry, being an “entrepreneur” and what I think it takes to start a company. I’ll also take the time to vent about stupid things I read, as well as praise things I find insightful.

While I am happy share my 2 cents about what I think/know, I am looking forward to hearing what everybody else has to say. I hope to start some insightful conversation that can be shared among all of us who have high expectations of ourselves.

Keep it real!

An Entrepreneur or Something Else?

I was told that if you want to be an entrepreneur you should keep a blog. It seems that everyone has tons of advice about what it takes to be an entrepreneur. However, I was also told that an entrepreneur is a self-proclaimed name for people who are too conceded to work for someone else, but too lazy to actually start a company. A real entrepreneur won’t call themself an entrepreneur but instead will tell people that they “start businesses” or they “create startups”.

It would be interesting to hear from a real founder of companies what they call themselves. Does it matter? Will you find that more people who call themselves entrepreneurs are yet to start a company? I can only speak for myself, but this has been my experience. Weather these people will actually one day start a company is yet to be known.

Anyway, while I don’t consider myself to be an entrepreneur, here I am writing a blog about starting a company, reviewing tech industry trends, and publishing my insight on…whatever is on my mind.

So do I fall into the category I so much wish not to be a part of? Only time will tell I guess….

I’ll explain the title; Forget the Flute- Ian Anderson’s blog, in the following post!

Keep it real!