Founders of the Month
Our Founders of the Month are Sabelo Sibanda and Thulisile Volwana, who started Millbug, an electronics manufacturing company which developed Africa’s first solar-powered tablet PC, as well as Tuse, an Android app that tackles connectivity issues by allowing users to create wireless mesh networks.
What did it mean for your business to be selected for the Founders Space program and why are accelerators important for entrepreneurs?
Exeq.io Launches in App Store
Founders Space Alumni Exeq.io launches today!
Exeq is the app for better spending, bringing fun to finance and budgeting. Exeq links to your bank and makes checking your bank account way less stressful.
The Exeq Feed
See your spending in one easy to follow feed that’s more than just numbers. Exeq works with all bank accounts and credit cards.
Don’t Take Life Too Seriously
Don’t take life too seriously. Don’t worry about each decision you make. In life, you never know if you are making the right decision. Life is too complex, and there are too many variables. Sometimes it’s better to go with your heart and see what happens.
Many of the greatest opportunities in my life came out of nowhere. They came when I was just having fun. Coming to China was one of those decisions. If I had thought too much about it, I wouldn’t have come. Or I would have come but not invested the time to grow my business.
Think Like a General
General Douglas MacArthur was one of the world’s most innovative generals. He defeated the Japanese by his island hopping strategy. In battle, he would do the unexpected, showing up where the enemy least expected him.
Here three of his most famous saying. I think they apply to startups too:
1) You are remembered for the rules you break.
2) In war there is no substitute for victory.
3) Old soldiers (entrepreneurs) never die; they just fade away.
Bioprinting to the Classroom
SE3D is a Founders Space startup that designs and builds desktop bioprinters for education and research. Check out their Indiegogo campaign!
My Life in San Francisco
Top Ten things this past week…
1) Work, work, work, fun, fun, fun, run, run, run! Playing Bocce ball with my friends. Brian Goggin is a local artist and wildman. He’s a killer on the Bocce Ball court.
2) My former business partner is Adam Zbar. His startup, Sun Basket, just hit $200M in revenue. We celebrated at his wife’s birthday party with drinks, music and hugs.
Unicorn Universities
Here are the Unicorn Universities!
I love these charts, but you have to be careful. This study is flawed. It does not tell you about the quality of the education. It tends to be skewed towards tech and MBA heavy universities. And it favors larger schools.
A small university simply won’t have as many graduates, so it won’t be listed, which doesn’t make sense. Small universities simply don’t have as many tech and MBA graduates. As a result, this chart has a built-in bias against small universities, where the quality of education of often higher.
Sex, Lies & Pseudo Science: Why Google Must Fight Back
Google’s firing of James Damore is big news in Silicon Valley. Damore was an engineer at Google when he wrote a 10-page memo claiming that women are not ideal for some engineering and management positions because of biological reasons. He said Google was wrong in trying to increase the number of female engineers and managers.
A Lesson from Uber’s Ugly Side
Benchmark, one Silicon Valley’s top venture capital firms, is suing Uber’s founder and former CEO, Travis Kalanick, claiming fraud and other transgressions.
As evidenced by the recent spate of stories, Kalanick was grossly irresponsible and tended towards cutthroat business tactics. My belief is that what goes around comes around. Kalanick acted unethically, and now he’s paying the price.
I always tell startup founders not to cross the line. It’s good to be aggressive. It’s good to push the limits. But don’t do anything illegal or unethical. That’s crossing the line.
DNA Editing & Neo-Sapiens
Is DNA editing going to make homo sapiens obsolete? I think the answer is YES!
Scientists in the United States have just edited the DNA of human embryos to erase a heritable heart condition. This opens the doors to a new era in medicine and a lot of controversy. If we can do this, we can start remaking our species.
This is what I’ve been talking about: healthier, smarter, stronger children. Get ready for a wild ride into a future of neo-sapiens!
Beware of ICOs
Don’t buy the ICO hype! An ICO is an initial coin offering that blockchain startups are using to fund their growth. The problem is that virtual coins are extremely risky investments. This year, ICOs have raised over $500 million in the US and more in China. Speculators can drive up prices by 1000x in a single month.
Equbot is First to Take IBM Watson to Wall Street
Founders Space alumni Equbot is the first use IBM Watson to help pick stocks.
“Each day, the Equbot Model ranks each company based on the probability of the company benefiting from current economic conditions, trends and world events and identifies approximately 30 to 70 companies with the greatest potential for appreciation and their corresponding weights, while maintaining volatility comparable to the broader U.S. equity market.”
ETF-com: http://www.etf.com/sections/daily-etf-watch/etf-watch-ibms-watson-drive-fund?nopaging=1
Smart: http://www.smart2zero.com/news/ibm-watson-pick-stocks-new-etf
Finding Focus
With the launch of INNOVATION EXPLOSION coming up, I’ve been under a lot of pressure to record episodes for my new podcast on HimalayaFM. The problem is that I have no time. I’ve been traveling and speaking nonstop. So today, I locked myself in my hotel room, turned off my phone, and began recording.
Nothing is more important than focus. Sometimes, you need to force yourself to withdraw to be creative. For me, I need uninterrupted blocks of time. I need to get into the flow. I can’t do it in short burst.
Believe in Yourself
Believe in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will. Everything you say and do is informed by your belief. Your own success and failure are a result of your belief.
If you don’t believe you can do something, you’ll never do it. But if you believe you can do it, you’ll find a way to get it done, or at the very least, you’ll find out what you can do.
Keep Dreaming
I had a dream last night about an entrepreneur who kept pitching the same startup at competitions over and over. He was once a successful lawyer, but now he spends all his time working on a startup called Moo Pet that never seems to go anywhere.
Despite being unable to make his startup succeed, he can’t imaging going back to his old life. So he is caught in a sort of purgatory. It’s like Dante’s Divine Comedy, where he’s trapped in Limbo between Heaven and Hell. I’m sure you know someone like this!
Making Your Elephant Fly
A friend of mine is struggling to chose her path through life. She doesn’t want money; she wants a purpose. She wants to do something meaningful.
I’ve struggled with this same thing throughout my life. What’s the most meaning thing I can do right now? How can I make a real impact on people’s lives? How important is money versus doing something to better in the world. Even today, I’m asking myself the same questions. Is there a better direction I can take?
Our Brains are Hardwired & Ancient
Our brains aren’t like computers. They don’t have any software. There’s no operating system. It’s 100% hardware. It’s like if you had a computer and everything was hardwired.
Fortunately, the design of our brains is nothing like a computer, otherwise, we’d be stuck. Our brains are an incredibly complex tangle of neurons, which are divided into regions. Each of these regions can communicate with 50% of the other regions.
From Rags to Riches
More than any other people in the world, Americans believe in going from rags to riches. The American Dream is that anyone can rise up from poverty and make a fortune.
The irony is that the United States is actually one of the harder countries to make your fortune. In Canada and Denmark, people have practically twice the odds of rising up from the bottom 20% to the top 20%. However, if you live in certain cities, like San Francisco or Seattle, your odds are close to Canada, while if you live in places like Nashville or New Orleans, your odds are much, much lower.