Along with being audacious, courageous, patient, and adaptive, Byers believes that entrepreneurs should be exceptionally good at sales.

Transcript



If you are going to do something great to turn an idea into an enterprise that changes the world, whether it's a business, government, education, you are going to have to sell. You are going to have to convince some customers or stakeholders to buy your story. And that can only happen if you look for these win-win situations, all those one plus one equals three type situations, whether it's partnerships, like we talked about earlier between Visio and Microsoft, or whether it's just directly selling a product or service. And so this is a list of characteristics of entrepreneurs by a person who wrote a paper called "A Test for the Fainthearted." It is in the Harvard Business Review. And he studied entrepreneurs all over the globe, which I told you I have a great interest in. And he studied them all, and he came up with five attributes. And maybe you've heard some of the other ones before. They are audacious and courageous and patient, and certainly I talked about adaptive. But I love the one that he also found that was common to all cultures, low tech, high tech - closer. And that is just another way of saying being good at sales. 

1. Difference Between an Idea and an Opportunity
2. Why do Ventures Require Dynamic Leaders?
3. Role of Context in High-Tech Venturing
4. Market Positioning and the Importance of Partnerships
5. Purpose of a Business Plan
6. Importance of Cash Flow
7. What are the Essentials of the Venture Finance Process?
8. Characteristics of Entrepreneurs
9. Role of Ethics in High-Tech Entrepreneurship

Tom Byers lectures on Entrepreneurship for Stanford University students, January 18, 2006. Tom Byers is a professor at Stanford University where he focuses on high-technology entrepreneurship education. He is founder and a faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), which serves as the entrepreneurship center for the engineering school. STVP includes the Mayfield Fellows work/study program, Educators Corner website of teaching resources, and global Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education conferences.Tom is also a faculty director of the AEA/Stanford Executive Institute, a general management program for technology executives. Tom is co-author of the textbook called "Technology Ventures: From Idea to Enterprise" (McGraw-Hill, 2005). Tom also holds a visiting professor appointment at the London Business School and University College London. In this Stanford lecture, he talks about the role of context in high-tech venturing, market positioning and the importance of partnerships and the purpose of a business plan.



Related Links: www.stanford.edu

Last Updated: Wed, Oct 4, 2006



Course Details:

- Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Speaker Series

- Stanford University's Entrepreneurship Corner (ecorner)



Original Course Name: Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Speaker Series