Gurbaksh Chahal | Vox

Kids! Don’t Listen to “Silicon Valley” — Stay in School.

2019-03-06T05:51:19-05:00

Stay in school. Turn off the TV. Stop reading the headlines. I’m sorry, but you are not going to change the world. At least not right away.

First and foremost, kids, don’t get lost in the hype of Silicon Valley — the place or the new HBO series. Focus on your higher education so you can attain the necessary tools that will help you build a business that’s a runaway success. Definitely don’t run away from school — even if there’s a $100,000 carrot being dangled in front of you.

Now, you might be thinking, “Wait a minute … isn’t this that same guy who dropped out of high school at 16 to launch his first company? Is this the same Gurbaksh Chahal who was unsatisfied and dismissive of his years at school?”

Yep, that would be me. But hear me out …

After seeing the first episode of “Silicon Valley,” which sets out to skewer the world of high-tech startups, I’m spurred into speaking up in favor of staying in school.

Let’s just say that the show missed for me. One story line in particular made me sit up and roll my eyes. It was an allusion to the real-world offer by a Silicon Valley billionaire handing out $100,000 to 24 kids under 20 if they dropped out of college and started companies. His premise is that it’s a quicker way to business innovation.

I don’t agree with this approach, and it’s not the same as what I did.

I don’t believe in encouraging kids to drop out of school — especially with a financial lure. It’s an entirely different matter if someone comes up with a business idea and begins to successfully implement it — and then weighs the risk of staying in school. Which is what I did. It’s what Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg and many others did. We simply executed our visions. We didn’t have immediate financial incentives. Our only incentive was the opportunity of success itself.

College equips most people with the knowledge and skills they can deploy for lifelong learning and authentic success. That’s why, even though I left formal schooling at a young age, I encourage students of today with scholarships through my foundation. I applaud universities like Pace University, which includes entrepreneurship as part of its curriculum. I want people to stay in school.

To start a successful business, you need to be chasing your dream, not some hope of glory. Hollywood always sensationalizes how easy it is. That’s why you should never pursue hope by sacrificing your education. Money comes and goes, but no one can ever take your education from you.

Starting a successful business is only about the P&L. It’s often boring. It’s not about changing the world. And if that does happen because of your business, it’s the byproduct of a collective vision that came to reality. But for most companies, it’s about making profit. Young entrepreneurs should be making it happen without the benefit of a handout. To me, it just sends the wrong signal, and takes away an important variable you need to learn in business — how to hustle when you have everything to lose.

As the Atlantic recently reported: “Sensational media stories about millionaire dropouts miss one thing: The vast majority of America’s 30 million college dropouts are more likely than graduates to be unemployed, poor, and in default on their student loans.”

College is a vital stepping-stone toward a future of opportunity. It is the platform via which whole families can be lifted to better prospects. Almost without fail, every degree — from associate to doctorate — leads to progressively higher wages, according to various studies. A college education is by no means an obstacle to entrepreneurial success; on the contrary, a college education arms a person with the suite of skills necessary to capitalize on a great idea.

Starting a successful business is something you do instinctively. It’s an inner calling. It’s a passion that drives you to compete. The more you are able to hustle with grace, the more likely you are to be the winner. That’s why you’re better off staying in school instead of playing the lottery.

Gurbaksh Chahal is founder and CEO of RadiumOne, which builds intelligent software that automates media buying, making big data actionable for marketers, and connecting them to their next customer. Reach him @gchahal.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Avoid the Top Four Fatal Startup Mistakes of 2013

2019-03-06T06:10:26-05:00

Startups stand little chance of making it. Sadly, three out of four companies are doomed to fail. But not your company. You’re going to be one of the 25 percent that succeed — if you’re willing to listen to advice and steer clear of some fundamental and fatal mistakes that many entrepreneurs make.

I’ve made my share of mistakes, but I’m glad to say I’ve learned from them. I’ve grown as an entrepreneur and business leader as my businesses have grown. I started my first Internet company as an eager and hardworking 16-year-old, and sold it two years later for $40 million. My second company sold to Yahoo for $300 million. My third company, RadiumOne, is already bigger than the previous two combined, and I’m on my way to achieve my goal: Running a billion-dollar enterprise.

I’m just as eager and hardworking today as that callow 16-year-old. You have to be. You can’t afford to lose your passion. The difference is that today I already have a wealth of experience to draw on. Each day, I witness the bright-eyed enthusiasm of Silicon Valley startup entrepreneurs hoping to make it. So, from my perspective, looking back on 2013, I want to share some ideas to help other entrepreneurs succeed. Here are some of the pitfalls to avoid:

Focus on managed growth over a hiring frenzy

Ever heard of Clinkle? It’s a mobile payment startup that would love to topple Square. Founded by a 21-year-old Stanford University student, it’s famous for raising $25 million prelaunch, the largest seed round of capital in the history of Silicon Valley.

Even before launching its app, the company seems to have gone on a hiring spree. With all that money at its disposal, Clinkle spared no expense building out a high-profile executive team, including Barry McCarthy, former CFO of Netflix. But within months, according to news reports, it issued pink slips to 25 percent of its workforce, with disgruntled employees going online to openly vent their anger amid allegations of mismanagement.

There’s a cautionary lesson here: Always manage growth over aggressive hiring. When I started my first company, there was only one employee for the longest time, and that was me. I was cautious in the speed at which I recruited new people, but I did learn as I expanded that it pays to hire the best, and to reward them accordingly.

Innovate or die

In the fall of 2012, most analysts were writing obituary reports for Netflix. The company had experienced an 88 percent plunge in third-quarter profits. It seemed to be drifting. But then it took a bold step and created its own content, the series “House of Cards.” The company’s turnaround strategy: Turn itself into a “premium television network” like HBO.

It worked famously. Netflix’s own drama series quickly skyrocketed to become the most-streamed content in the U.S. and 40 other countries. Netflix made history, becoming the first non-TV network to win Emmy awards. Its documentary movie, “The Square,” was nominated for an Oscar this year. Netflix took a chance, disrupted the traditional television industry forever, and added $18 billion to its market cap in just 16 months.

Of course, Netflix had a wealth of audience data at its fingertips and was confident that launching its own content would succeed. And therein lies the lesson: Take calculated risks as you adapt and innovate. In my own case, I have always “built a better mousetrap” based on solid experience.

Shout it from the rooftops

It’s always tempting to want to operate in stealth mode. You don’t want someone else to steal your brainchild, after all. But you can take secrecy too far, as reportedly happened to Preetam Mukherjee, who started online video-hosting site Marcellus.tv. By the time he had launched, there were many other video platforms that had beaten him to the punch — with better features. He recovered and built a loyal customer base.

In comparison, Alex Turnbull, founder of Groove, repeatedly blogged last year about his company’s journey to $100,000 in revenue for its customer-support software. His posts were packed with insider detail. It looked like he was giving too much away. But his readers — fellow entrepreneurs, marketers and engineers — jumped in with useful free advice.

If you’re open to being open, you may well find that customer feedback prevents you from making mistakes, or gives you ideas for features you had not considered. Once you’re visible, you may well hear about potential competitors you never knew existed. You also need to know that being first to market isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be, as your competitors will learn from your pioneering screw-ups. And there are other good reasons for openly revealing your plans: You may well unearth angel investors, and being out there, revealing who you are to the world, lets your honesty shine through.

Personally, I engage as many social media platforms as I can, and as often as I can, because I want to get my message out there and help as many budding entrepreneurs as I can.

Communicate with your customers

Some companies assume that they — and not the customer — know best. But successful companies have to learn how to listen. With social media, an unhappy customer (or anyone else, for that matter) can broadcast their discontent to the world in a matter of seconds. Whether it’s true or not (and often it’s not) the damage is done, unless you can rapidly respond with real facts.

Southwest Airlines has a very active social media program, with about 30 regular employee-bloggers and many other occasional contributors. Southwest has a reputation for being a fun, people-oriented company, and it shows through in the blog posts about what it’s like working for there. It’s personalized and authentic. The company employs a social media staff of six, but mostly lets the bloggers speak in their own voices.

Where Southwest’s social media communications really comes into its own is when there are challenges to address (flight delays, for instance), or controversies (for example, when they kicked an overweight passenger off a plane). They monitor and respond to comments — and get the company’s message out fast. Congratulations to them.

Startups can learn from these experiences. You might not yet have millions of customers to handle, but you should act and respond like you’re a big company. Hopefully, you don’t have too many employees, you believe in openness and frequent communication and, in particular, you can adapt as needed. To paraphrase Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Gurbaksh Chahal is founder and CEO of RadiumOne, which builds intelligent software that automates media buying, making big data actionable for marketers and connecting them to their next customer. Reach him @gchahal.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.