s some superb books have come out about entrepreneurship and startups from the legends of Silicon Valley–most notably by venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, investor Peter Thiel and founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman–one might wonder what more is there to say.
Enter into the fray a unique contribution that combines not only remarkable lessons of what it takes to build an enterprise from scratch, but how a global phenomenon of entrepreneurship is solving problems, bottom up, once thought only the domain of top-down government and large institutions.
Crazy is a Compliment reads with all the energy, experience, and drive of its author Linda Rottenberg. She is the co-founder of Endeavor Global, what has become the largest support network for entrepreneurship around the world. Started in 1997, it now boasts 350 employees and 20 affiliates throughout Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Europe. The near 1,000 Endeavor Entrepreneurs they have selected for mentorship and support to date are screened from over 30,000 candidates, have created more than 400,000 jobs, and generated annual revenues of breaking seven billion dollars.
She knows what she's talking about.
Rottenberg is a force of nature, one of the great champions of “high-impact entrepreneurship,” a term she coined some years ago. It means finding, backing, mentoring, and connecting the people with the biggest ideas, the ones with the greatest potential for revenue and job growth, both in high and low tech. Some years ago when she willed Endeavor into Brazil she literally created the Portuguese word for “entrepreneur” and got it published in the local official dictionary. In so doing, she received the nickname “Chica Loca.”
For her, opportunity knocks where the chips are down. In 2012, Endeavor opened operations in Greece during the height of the austerity protests. “Chaos is the catalyst of in-novation,” she declares when we meet in her airy loft office in lower Manhattan. “When economies are down, entrepreneurs look up. Stability is the friend of the status quo.”
At Yale Law School in the 1990s, Rottenberg worked with a professor on a project building law and business programs in South America. The palpable frustration she felt coming off the young and talented people there put her on the path that became Endeavor. “No one, whether student or taxi driver, felt there were paths available beyond what they did or some government job. This was the era of Apple and garage startups in the United States, but no one there even had garages.” She understood that local context meant everything, and that role models change how people look at themselves.
“Small numbers move the needle. Endeavor participated with Stanford Business School and the World Economic Forum in a study of 380,000 companies around the world, and found that five percent of the business builders ended up creating almost two-thirds of the jobs.” And, she would soon learn, it wasn't only about the direct jobs and profits, but ecosystems those companies created. She calls it the “PayPal Mafia Effect,” after the extremely successful e-payments company whose employees subsequently spawned many new startups.
Her book tells the stories of some of the amazing entrepreneurs in her network–from young tech giants like Wences Casares who came from a sheep herding community in Patagonia to build the first major online financial portal in Latin America and now one of the most interesting companies in Bitcoin, Xapo. She tells stories of some of the great American icons. But she also tells us amazing, against-the-odds stories like Leila Velez, who grew up in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro where she took one beauty salon to become Beleza Natural–which employs over 3,000 people and earns $100 million in revenue across Brazil and soon beyond. Throughout, Rottenberg weaves deeply personal experiences from the sinewaves of ups and downs and eventual success she created at Endeavor.
And she takes on some startup "myths" in provocative and counter intuitive ways. Business plans, for example, are over-rated–one cannot possibly know what the future will hold and 65 page business plans with five-year projections are meaningless. Talent and drive to solve a problem is everything. Risk taking myths are over-rated, when what matters is risk mitigation–personally and professionally–in order to weather the inevitable ups and downs of starting a company. Relying on "friends and family" is over rated when they tend to tell you what you want to hear, and not the hard truths of your ideas. Stalking is good, because to get the attention of people who can drive your business you have to show up over and over again.
She writes most movingly when she wrestles how, as a Harvard and Yale educated executive, she never liked to show her weaknesses and learned that her team found her inaccessible and aloof. This was particularly shown to her when her husband was diagnosed with bone cancer (he is now fully recovered) and she describes how opening up to her team built a deep mutual resolve and support. She has a chapter even entitled "Go home" to insist that while we all must work hard, some life balance is essential for who we are overall and for the success of enterprises.
And she is an utter evangelist on how technology is unleashing a new economic order.
“Don't underestimate the power of hope,” she once said to me. “I'm a big believer that when someone succeeds, and even when others fail, they want to raise the bar.” She has learned from her experience and in any part of the world that there are countless committed, talented, and dedicated people who know their region, know its issues, and understand its opportunity. They are willing to roll up their sleeves, take on their scars, build, and mentor others. “An ecosystem comes from this. Big things happen.” There will be booms, and there will be crashes. Irrational exuberance can quickly become irrational depression. “When the busts come, people will leave, people will say ‘I told you so,'” she smiles. “And then things happen.”
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's November/December 2014 print edition.
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Crazy is a Compliment
November 18, 2014
A
s some superb books have come out about entrepreneurship and startups from the legends of Silicon Valley–most notably by venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, investor Peter Thiel and founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman–one might wonder what more is there to say.
Enter into the fray a unique contribution that combines not only remarkable lessons of what it takes to build an enterprise from scratch, but how a global phenomenon of entrepreneurship is solving problems, bottom up, once thought only the domain of top-down government and large institutions.
Crazy is a Compliment reads with all the energy, experience, and drive of its author Linda Rottenberg. She is the co-founder of Endeavor Global, what has become the largest support network for entrepreneurship around the world. Started in 1997, it now boasts 350 employees and 20 affiliates throughout Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Europe. The near 1,000 Endeavor Entrepreneurs they have selected for mentorship and support to date are screened from over 30,000 candidates, have created more than 400,000 jobs, and generated annual revenues of breaking seven billion dollars.
She knows what she's talking about.
Rottenberg is a force of nature, one of the great champions of “high-impact entrepreneurship,” a term she coined some years ago. It means finding, backing, mentoring, and connecting the people with the biggest ideas, the ones with the greatest potential for revenue and job growth, both in high and low tech. Some years ago when she willed Endeavor into Brazil she literally created the Portuguese word for “entrepreneur” and got it published in the local official dictionary. In so doing, she received the nickname “Chica Loca.”
For her, opportunity knocks where the chips are down. In 2012, Endeavor opened operations in Greece during the height of the austerity protests. “Chaos is the catalyst of in-novation,” she declares when we meet in her airy loft office in lower Manhattan. “When economies are down, entrepreneurs look up. Stability is the friend of the status quo.”
At Yale Law School in the 1990s, Rottenberg worked with a professor on a project building law and business programs in South America. The palpable frustration she felt coming off the young and talented people there put her on the path that became Endeavor. “No one, whether student or taxi driver, felt there were paths available beyond what they did or some government job. This was the era of Apple and garage startups in the United States, but no one there even had garages.” She understood that local context meant everything, and that role models change how people look at themselves.
“Small numbers move the needle. Endeavor participated with Stanford Business School and the World Economic Forum in a study of 380,000 companies around the world, and found that five percent of the business builders ended up creating almost two-thirds of the jobs.” And, she would soon learn, it wasn't only about the direct jobs and profits, but ecosystems those companies created. She calls it the “PayPal Mafia Effect,” after the extremely successful e-payments company whose employees subsequently spawned many new startups.
Her book tells the stories of some of the amazing entrepreneurs in her network–from young tech giants like Wences Casares who came from a sheep herding community in Patagonia to build the first major online financial portal in Latin America and now one of the most interesting companies in Bitcoin, Xapo. She tells stories of some of the great American icons. But she also tells us amazing, against-the-odds stories like Leila Velez, who grew up in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro where she took one beauty salon to become Beleza Natural–which employs over 3,000 people and earns $100 million in revenue across Brazil and soon beyond. Throughout, Rottenberg weaves deeply personal experiences from the sinewaves of ups and downs and eventual success she created at Endeavor.
And she takes on some startup "myths" in provocative and counter intuitive ways. Business plans, for example, are over-rated–one cannot possibly know what the future will hold and 65 page business plans with five-year projections are meaningless. Talent and drive to solve a problem is everything. Risk taking myths are over-rated, when what matters is risk mitigation–personally and professionally–in order to weather the inevitable ups and downs of starting a company. Relying on "friends and family" is over rated when they tend to tell you what you want to hear, and not the hard truths of your ideas. Stalking is good, because to get the attention of people who can drive your business you have to show up over and over again.
She writes most movingly when she wrestles how, as a Harvard and Yale educated executive, she never liked to show her weaknesses and learned that her team found her inaccessible and aloof. This was particularly shown to her when her husband was diagnosed with bone cancer (he is now fully recovered) and she describes how opening up to her team built a deep mutual resolve and support. She has a chapter even entitled "Go home" to insist that while we all must work hard, some life balance is essential for who we are overall and for the success of enterprises.
And she is an utter evangelist on how technology is unleashing a new economic order.
“Don't underestimate the power of hope,” she once said to me. “I'm a big believer that when someone succeeds, and even when others fail, they want to raise the bar.” She has learned from her experience and in any part of the world that there are countless committed, talented, and dedicated people who know their region, know its issues, and understand its opportunity. They are willing to roll up their sleeves, take on their scars, build, and mentor others. “An ecosystem comes from this. Big things happen.” There will be booms, and there will be crashes. Irrational exuberance can quickly become irrational depression. “When the busts come, people will leave, people will say ‘I told you so,'” she smiles. “And then things happen.”
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's November/December 2014 print edition.
