A couple of days ago on campus, the BUCS kicked off their Speaker’s Series focused on Entrepreneuring in the Technology industry. To start things, they brought in Jim Estill (check out his blog entitled Time Leadership) who founded the EMJ Data Systems, a distributor of computer hardware and software products to Canadian resellers, VARs and dealers. He founded EMJ during his time at the University of Waterloo in 1979 and grew the company to revenues of $350 million before selling his company to Synnex. Jim now heads up the CEO position over at Synnex in Guelph, ON, a company currently with over $1 billion in revenue.

As a business student, a ‘grassroots technologist’, and a person with an entrepreneuring spirit looking to start a young tech company, I found what he said to be very relevant and found him to be very inspiring. Giving me more hope for my particular venture.

Here are some key points (or rules) from his presentation, this isn’t the full 12 though:

• Failing is not a bad thing. If you dont’ fail enough, you’re not taking enough risks.
• Fail Often (and you’ll win a lot), Fail Fast and Fail Cheap (tax your losses properly).
• You can make money on any point of the product curve. For example, Dot Matrix are definitely on the end of their product cycle, but Jim still makes a considerable amount of money of them because there are still applications for them, even if home consumers do not need them. However, every point on the curve requires a different strategy– all points are mutually exclusive.
• Time is your enemy. Accelerate your failures, and don’t waste time perfecting your business plan. Step out and do it!
• Set a high pace. Make sure its one that you can maintain forever.
• Be frugal. Not cheap.
• Be Growth Oriented. Grow through driving efficiency, not by cost cutting.
• Study time management. Jim also seemed to be a major supporter and promoter of speed rating. I think I’ll take that up sometime soon.
• Nurture a network. People will be more willing to buy from a person they know ahead of time.

Other great pieces of info included crossing the chasm, treat your early customers like Gold, and to strike fast in the amidst of a change in your market.

I encourage you guys to check out his blog. I’m going to go and get that business plan done.

[tags]Synnex, Thusenth, Waterloo, Estill, Jim-Estill, EMJ[/tags]