I’m gonna talk a little bit about
something called entrepreneurship
entreprenuer shaped the world right
we’re single-handedly responsible for
some of the greatest innovations in
society technology science I’m sure
there’s a lot of us entrepreneurs in the
house and even each of us inspire to be
an entrepreneur ever since I was a
little kid I inspired to be an
entrepreneur
but the Kauffman Foundation says only 6%
of the entire population are
entrepreneurs of the 6 percent 90
percent fail within the first 12 months
of launching a company the primary thing
that we often as entrepreneurs that we
seek when we want to first start a
company is we want to go out and seek
wisdom guidance is there a framework is
there a guideline that I can go and read
I want to become a sponge I want to know
everything about entrepreneurship there
is there’s conventional guidelines
conventional wisdom that tells us how to
operate right and some of it is the same
go to business school read manuals raise
capital right you had invent something
try to go to market scale the market
generate revenue build to exit chase the
vision not the money right they’re all
the same sort of playbook that has been
historically around since the 80s 90s
right for a little bit before my time
but what if I told you that that
conventional wisdom is and that
there is a lot of holes in the
conventional wisdom of how entrepreneurs
are operate today I’m going to share
with you my unconventional journey of
how I became an entrepreneur and how I’m
successful I’ll tell you a little bit of
backstory so you know what qualifies you
AJ what qualifies you to be an
entrepreneur a couple things I started
my I was a dyslexic coder take that
think about that for a second nobody
could read my code I didn’t make it
through a lot of my internships because
they’re like what the hell is he writing
Scott doesn’t know how to code I was a
dyslexic coder early on my parents
through all sorts of medicine at me and
I really didn’t take it because I didn’t
I thought it was a little bit smarter
than they were don’t tell them that dope
and over the course of time I learned
how I was self-taught 14 years old learn
how to code by 16 I had an internship
which I’ll talk about here momentarily
interesting internship I got bitten by
the Silicon Valley bug and I went out to
Silicon Valley by night my first company
I started was 17 I sold the company at
19 I sold my second company at 22 so
Google by 26 I was retired I was four
companies in three exits one failure
right around the age of 29 I got bitten
by the bug again so I went back into
industry so totality I’ve had four
successful exits three failures and I’ve
successfully now launched another
company with a co-founder here in
Ashburn bicoastal between here in San
Francisco so I’m gonna start off by
telling you about how I got started as a
dyslexic engineer it was the most
challenging thing okay it’s very
difficult right nobody could read my
code what the hell’s this guy writing so
I joined this company right I was
introduced to this company here in
Northern Virginia this company was
revolutionary there were gonna
revolutionize the way you buy alcohol
they had this crazy idea and a lot of
people are gonna say that that’s crazy
who the hell will do this but you had to
put some contacts for you these guys
wanted to do drive-through alcohol shops
they wondered star pilots off in New
York City there Northern Virginia guys
is anyone familiar with the term
brogrammer very interesting program I’ll
explain what that is
programmers are typically these bros
usually in college there are a bunch of
bros that get together and suddenly they
realize we want to do some
Oh Graham who revolutionized the work I
unfortunately got connected to four
programmers that started this company so
I joined this company with the idea that
I’m gonna make a difference as a young
coder they were all significantly older
not was about two weeks in these guys
came to the realization that we really
don’t understand what this guys doing
right primary examples so we would I
would provide them software we see how
it works how does this work you’re doing
a phenomenal job but we have to be able
to contribute what if you leave we don’t
want you to leave with our source code
it’s okay what can we do about it well
nothing really man would you you know
you’re a good coder we’re trying to sell
so they said well you know AJ we’re
gonna have you do something different so
sure I will do anything I just want to
be a sponge and want to learn from you
guys so what we’re gonna have you just
control the communications right that
was a bad mistake because sometimes
these guys we had a message board these
guys would say stress we’re stressed
how’s everyone doing how’s the team what
can I do I stressed stressed the next
day I was show up with dessert think
about deference that was dyslexic so I
thought these guys were actually asking
for dessert so I would show up with
dessert unfortunately that job didn’t
last too long I did learn something
valuable probably some of the most
valuable lessons that I learned from
these Graber grammars they introduced me
to this golden era in Silicon Valley
right Napster was being developed Marc
Andreessen had just built mosaic he was
doing work on Netscape is revolutionary
the gold rush and I became a startup
sponge all the conventional wisdom I
spent a year just learning everything
trying to get all the information
compacted into my brain and I struggled
right so but it was all conventional
wisdom like how this is an easy
framework I know how to code you know
I’m I can be an entrepreneur so I became
a startup sponge entrepreneurship and
one of the first lessons that I learned
was then I had to get out to Silicon
Valley so I became a car thief I stole
my sister’s car
at the age of 79 learner’s permit with
fifty two hundred dollars in my pocket I
got disowned by my parents and I drove
cross-country in Silicon Valley with a
company called peer-to-peer logic that I
wanted to revolutionize so I started out
as a car thief and drove to Silicon
Valley
why because I knew that I had a clutch
that it was okay to fail I was reading
everywhere that it’s okay that you can
fail your startup can fail your company
fit failure is good failures okay go hot
some like well you know if if they’re
telling me the 90% of the starters fail
even if I fail it’s okay unfortunately I
learned the hard way after six months I
became homeless
my parents didn’t disown me at that
point I had nowhere to go
living out of my car I was living out of
my car and completely the most
horrendous of situations but I never
gave up right
I knew my idea with flourish so I had a
tremendous mentor in the mentor and we
talked my precision see a lot of the
talks talk about persistency and not
giving up there’s something in
entrepreneurship when you’re dealing
with venture capital something called
pitches you go up and stand in front of
different companies different faces and
you pitch I pitched 123 times in the
course of six months at Stella got my
first yes nobody would invest in me why
because I said well you know it’s a
great pot but you know you’re you’re you
failed what happened here so that was
all bs
right everything that I’ve read on
conventional wisdom it’s okay to fail
it’s not really okay to fail
it took under 23 times right I got every
excuse in the book but all roads led to
one thing that you failed AJ you failed
so we the conventional wisdom of a
failing we sort of tweaked that right
now I the way I look at it it’s okay to
fail but not your first time right you
have your first home right great you can
fail all the time you can point back to
if you’re a first-time entrepreneur and
you
fail guess what you decrease your
probability excuse me you increase your
probability of failure and not getting
funding or not going to the next Sager
company significantly sounds the first
biggest unconventional wisdom that I
continued articulate and continue to
sort of divulge to entrepreneurs now
it’s okay to fill but don’t fail the
first time write fast words my third
company you know this is this is this
piece of wisdom is not written in any
textbook but a lot of companies
replicate technologies they look for two
things we even do it on this Coast right
yeah I blame Silicon Valley but we do it
on this Coast all the time yeah I just
heard on WTOP news that you know there’s
artificial intelligence is the next best
thing
I just have accompanying artificial
intelligence we’re reinventing
artificial intelligence really well that
was done ten years ago there’s two
things fear of missing out FOMO right
and the shiny object syndrome which I
think it’s a medically specific termined
syndrome these two things drove my next
company and the primary objective was
everyone in Silicon Valley was after
social mobile and local we were hearing
this term everywhere everyone had to do
a company in social mobile local right
oh yeah Mark Zuckerberg was seeing
success but suddenly says you know we’re
now on the social local mobile space
everyone in the valley was doing social
mobile logos so we said we’ve got to get
in on this action this is incredible we
have to chase this new trend we can’t be
the ones that are left behind so we went
after the social mobile local space and
unfortunately we were not prepared
because none of us as the three
co-founders of this company really
didn’t understand all the space we
insure it to a certain degree but not to
a point where we could launch a company
and that company failed flat on its face
so the second point of unwritten
conventional wisdom is don’t be a victim
of FOMO and shiny objects enter the
third one this this this may upset some
of us in the audience but it’s fine
the third one is this whole evolution of
that’s ingrained right I have a I have a
nine year old son and we talked about
this a lot and I say you know Noah what
do you wanna do he says well how do you
learn business you know well how can I
be a entrepreneur so one of the things
I’ve always told him and I’ve learned
myself and I’m I may be in a small
population I absolutely hate the concept
of business school and I’ll explain to
you guys why right why I hate business
going and why you shouldn’t attend
business school one of our startups
which is successful which I took IPO
took public we were struggling early on
about 25 employees out of palo alto
struggling had no idea right I have a
kitchen table MBA
I’ve never went to be school and but we
realized that you know what yeah these
these guys in Harvard moved to the
valley and we met them and they seemed
fairly intriguing you know and they were
they understood our space that we were
working so we ended up hiring seven
business school grads fresh talent
incredible talent these guys are amazing
they’ll help us build a foundry business
model and they’ll help us scale right so
we work with these guys for courses
three weeks of all my experiences and
working with anyone and I tend to get
along with most people right the seven
school business school grads over the
course of three weeks the most horrific
experience they had absolutely no
knowledge every time a problem would
come they would reference text books
that were outdated draconian textbooks
from ten years ago
well IBM did this in the 90s and this is
a case study
his case study doesn’t apply most of
their knowledge went back to inherently
everything they learned there were not
true operators right so Business School
didn’t create any value it got really
bad to a point where towards the end of
that three-week term relationship we
actually gotten a physical battle with
these guys yeah you actually fought with
these guys imagine that right I had to
use my mark Krav Maga for the first time
right and unfortunately the result was
the county jail right so you can say as
an entrepreneur I started in grand
larceny by stealing my sister’s car and
I ended up full-circle in the county
jail yes and Noah the please don’t share
this with your mom so the county the
business these business school guys even
in the myths of all of us were separated
sitting inside the jail their argument
still was that you guys are wrong and
that you know reference this case study
when IBM went to market they scale that
X but you guys are doing it wrong and
I’m sitting here looking around like do
these guys realize that we’re all inside
a county jail that in they’re having
these conversations so it’s baffling to
me it’s the lack of situational
awareness right so they put the
blindfolds on and and then they teach
you they teach you just fundamentals but
there’s really no operators so the
inherent last unconventional piece of
advice don’t go to business school I
fold I hope I’ve inspired you guys with
the probably most unprepared talk and
best of luck to everyone thank you very
much for your time [Applause]
something called entrepreneurship
entreprenuer shaped the world right
we’re single-handedly responsible for
some of the greatest innovations in
society technology science I’m sure
there’s a lot of us entrepreneurs in the
house and even each of us inspire to be
an entrepreneur ever since I was a
little kid I inspired to be an
entrepreneur
but the Kauffman Foundation says only 6%
of the entire population are
entrepreneurs of the 6 percent 90
percent fail within the first 12 months
of launching a company the primary thing
that we often as entrepreneurs that we
seek when we want to first start a
company is we want to go out and seek
wisdom guidance is there a framework is
there a guideline that I can go and read
I want to become a sponge I want to know
everything about entrepreneurship there
is there’s conventional guidelines
conventional wisdom that tells us how to
operate right and some of it is the same
go to business school read manuals raise
capital right you had invent something
try to go to market scale the market
generate revenue build to exit chase the
vision not the money right they’re all
the same sort of playbook that has been
historically around since the 80s 90s
right for a little bit before my time
but what if I told you that that
conventional wisdom is and that
there is a lot of holes in the
conventional wisdom of how entrepreneurs
are operate today I’m going to share
with you my unconventional journey of
how I became an entrepreneur and how I’m
successful I’ll tell you a little bit of
backstory so you know what qualifies you
AJ what qualifies you to be an
entrepreneur a couple things I started
my I was a dyslexic coder take that
think about that for a second nobody
could read my code I didn’t make it
through a lot of my internships because
they’re like what the hell is he writing
Scott doesn’t know how to code I was a
dyslexic coder early on my parents
through all sorts of medicine at me and
I really didn’t take it because I didn’t
I thought it was a little bit smarter
than they were don’t tell them that dope
and over the course of time I learned
how I was self-taught 14 years old learn
how to code by 16 I had an internship
which I’ll talk about here momentarily
interesting internship I got bitten by
the Silicon Valley bug and I went out to
Silicon Valley by night my first company
I started was 17 I sold the company at
19 I sold my second company at 22 so
Google by 26 I was retired I was four
companies in three exits one failure
right around the age of 29 I got bitten
by the bug again so I went back into
industry so totality I’ve had four
successful exits three failures and I’ve
successfully now launched another
company with a co-founder here in
Ashburn bicoastal between here in San
Francisco so I’m gonna start off by
telling you about how I got started as a
dyslexic engineer it was the most
challenging thing okay it’s very
difficult right nobody could read my
code what the hell’s this guy writing so
I joined this company right I was
introduced to this company here in
Northern Virginia this company was
revolutionary there were gonna
revolutionize the way you buy alcohol
they had this crazy idea and a lot of
people are gonna say that that’s crazy
who the hell will do this but you had to
put some contacts for you these guys
wanted to do drive-through alcohol shops
they wondered star pilots off in New
York City there Northern Virginia guys
is anyone familiar with the term
brogrammer very interesting program I’ll
explain what that is
programmers are typically these bros
usually in college there are a bunch of
bros that get together and suddenly they
realize we want to do some
Oh Graham who revolutionized the work I
unfortunately got connected to four
programmers that started this company so
I joined this company with the idea that
I’m gonna make a difference as a young
coder they were all significantly older
not was about two weeks in these guys
came to the realization that we really
don’t understand what this guys doing
right primary examples so we would I
would provide them software we see how
it works how does this work you’re doing
a phenomenal job but we have to be able
to contribute what if you leave we don’t
want you to leave with our source code
it’s okay what can we do about it well
nothing really man would you you know
you’re a good coder we’re trying to sell
so they said well you know AJ we’re
gonna have you do something different so
sure I will do anything I just want to
be a sponge and want to learn from you
guys so what we’re gonna have you just
control the communications right that
was a bad mistake because sometimes
these guys we had a message board these
guys would say stress we’re stressed
how’s everyone doing how’s the team what
can I do I stressed stressed the next
day I was show up with dessert think
about deference that was dyslexic so I
thought these guys were actually asking
for dessert so I would show up with
dessert unfortunately that job didn’t
last too long I did learn something
valuable probably some of the most
valuable lessons that I learned from
these Graber grammars they introduced me
to this golden era in Silicon Valley
right Napster was being developed Marc
Andreessen had just built mosaic he was
doing work on Netscape is revolutionary
the gold rush and I became a startup
sponge all the conventional wisdom I
spent a year just learning everything
trying to get all the information
compacted into my brain and I struggled
right so but it was all conventional
wisdom like how this is an easy
framework I know how to code you know
I’m I can be an entrepreneur so I became
a startup sponge entrepreneurship and
one of the first lessons that I learned
was then I had to get out to Silicon
Valley so I became a car thief I stole
my sister’s car
at the age of 79 learner’s permit with
fifty two hundred dollars in my pocket I
got disowned by my parents and I drove
cross-country in Silicon Valley with a
company called peer-to-peer logic that I
wanted to revolutionize so I started out
as a car thief and drove to Silicon
Valley
why because I knew that I had a clutch
that it was okay to fail I was reading
everywhere that it’s okay that you can
fail your startup can fail your company
fit failure is good failures okay go hot
some like well you know if if they’re
telling me the 90% of the starters fail
even if I fail it’s okay unfortunately I
learned the hard way after six months I
became homeless
my parents didn’t disown me at that
point I had nowhere to go
living out of my car I was living out of
my car and completely the most
horrendous of situations but I never
gave up right
I knew my idea with flourish so I had a
tremendous mentor in the mentor and we
talked my precision see a lot of the
talks talk about persistency and not
giving up there’s something in
entrepreneurship when you’re dealing
with venture capital something called
pitches you go up and stand in front of
different companies different faces and
you pitch I pitched 123 times in the
course of six months at Stella got my
first yes nobody would invest in me why
because I said well you know it’s a
great pot but you know you’re you’re you
failed what happened here so that was
all bs
right everything that I’ve read on
conventional wisdom it’s okay to fail
it’s not really okay to fail
it took under 23 times right I got every
excuse in the book but all roads led to
one thing that you failed AJ you failed
so we the conventional wisdom of a
failing we sort of tweaked that right
now I the way I look at it it’s okay to
fail but not your first time right you
have your first home right great you can
fail all the time you can point back to
if you’re a first-time entrepreneur and
you
fail guess what you decrease your
probability excuse me you increase your
probability of failure and not getting
funding or not going to the next Sager
company significantly sounds the first
biggest unconventional wisdom that I
continued articulate and continue to
sort of divulge to entrepreneurs now
it’s okay to fill but don’t fail the
first time write fast words my third
company you know this is this is this
piece of wisdom is not written in any
textbook but a lot of companies
replicate technologies they look for two
things we even do it on this Coast right
yeah I blame Silicon Valley but we do it
on this Coast all the time yeah I just
heard on WTOP news that you know there’s
artificial intelligence is the next best
thing
I just have accompanying artificial
intelligence we’re reinventing
artificial intelligence really well that
was done ten years ago there’s two
things fear of missing out FOMO right
and the shiny object syndrome which I
think it’s a medically specific termined
syndrome these two things drove my next
company and the primary objective was
everyone in Silicon Valley was after
social mobile and local we were hearing
this term everywhere everyone had to do
a company in social mobile local right
oh yeah Mark Zuckerberg was seeing
success but suddenly says you know we’re
now on the social local mobile space
everyone in the valley was doing social
mobile logos so we said we’ve got to get
in on this action this is incredible we
have to chase this new trend we can’t be
the ones that are left behind so we went
after the social mobile local space and
unfortunately we were not prepared
because none of us as the three
co-founders of this company really
didn’t understand all the space we
insure it to a certain degree but not to
a point where we could launch a company
and that company failed flat on its face
so the second point of unwritten
conventional wisdom is don’t be a victim
of FOMO and shiny objects enter the
third one this this this may upset some
of us in the audience but it’s fine
the third one is this whole evolution of
that’s ingrained right I have a I have a
nine year old son and we talked about
this a lot and I say you know Noah what
do you wanna do he says well how do you
learn business you know well how can I
be a entrepreneur so one of the things
I’ve always told him and I’ve learned
myself and I’m I may be in a small
population I absolutely hate the concept
of business school and I’ll explain to
you guys why right why I hate business
going and why you shouldn’t attend
business school one of our startups
which is successful which I took IPO
took public we were struggling early on
about 25 employees out of palo alto
struggling had no idea right I have a
kitchen table MBA
I’ve never went to be school and but we
realized that you know what yeah these
these guys in Harvard moved to the
valley and we met them and they seemed
fairly intriguing you know and they were
they understood our space that we were
working so we ended up hiring seven
business school grads fresh talent
incredible talent these guys are amazing
they’ll help us build a foundry business
model and they’ll help us scale right so
we work with these guys for courses
three weeks of all my experiences and
working with anyone and I tend to get
along with most people right the seven
school business school grads over the
course of three weeks the most horrific
experience they had absolutely no
knowledge every time a problem would
come they would reference text books
that were outdated draconian textbooks
from ten years ago
well IBM did this in the 90s and this is
a case study
his case study doesn’t apply most of
their knowledge went back to inherently
everything they learned there were not
true operators right so Business School
didn’t create any value it got really
bad to a point where towards the end of
that three-week term relationship we
actually gotten a physical battle with
these guys yeah you actually fought with
these guys imagine that right I had to
use my mark Krav Maga for the first time
right and unfortunately the result was
the county jail right so you can say as
an entrepreneur I started in grand
larceny by stealing my sister’s car and
I ended up full-circle in the county
jail yes and Noah the please don’t share
this with your mom so the county the
business these business school guys even
in the myths of all of us were separated
sitting inside the jail their argument
still was that you guys are wrong and
that you know reference this case study
when IBM went to market they scale that
X but you guys are doing it wrong and
I’m sitting here looking around like do
these guys realize that we’re all inside
a county jail that in they’re having
these conversations so it’s baffling to
me it’s the lack of situational
awareness right so they put the
blindfolds on and and then they teach
you they teach you just fundamentals but
there’s really no operators so the
inherent last unconventional piece of
advice don’t go to business school I
fold I hope I’ve inspired you guys with
the probably most unprepared talk and
best of luck to everyone thank you very
much for your time [Applause]
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