SYNC with Kevin O'Connor, Co-Founder of DoubleClick on 3-1-11 03/01/2011 Summary
Introducing Kevin O’Connor: Avid Surfer, Internet Pioneer
- Poised in front of more than 150 blazer-clad business minds at Santa Barbara’s University Club, Kevin O’Conner tells the story of his metamorphosis from geeky teen to co-founder of DoubleClick—an internet advertising and technology company that sold to Google in 2008 for 1.2 billion.
- As a kid, O’Connor liked to look through the trash for old televisions and other gadgets to fix up or take apart. As a young man, his dream was to be an Olympic wrestler.
- “I didn’t know what an entrepreneur was until I was thirty,” says the Detroit native. “I give more people the advise to not become an entrepreneur, because the reality is: it’s really hard.”
- Hard, yes. But O’Connor proves it is possible.
- “Every time I follow my passion, something good happens, he says.”
- Now CEO of FindTheBest.com, this tech genius wears a surfer’s tan under his pinstripe shirt and jokes that his next big move is to write a book called, “Ripped, Rich, and Righteous.” He laughs. “People lie to write best sellers.” There are few if any shortcuts to success. It takes strategy, hard work, and determination to wrestle an opponent to the mat. It takes passion and resolve to hold him there.
II. Train for Success
Lesson 1: See it & grab it. Seize the opportunity.
Lesson 2: Ideas are cheap. 1 out of 100,000 ideas ever get to the next stage. Come up with lots of options. Execute the best one(s).
Lesson 3: Companies exist to solve a problem, to make money, or to save money. You have to come up with a solution that is better that anyone else’s.
Lesson 4: Focus. Know the one thing that separates you from the competition. You don’t need twenty things or even ten. You just need one or two that really set you apart.
Lesson 5: Hire “Smart Athletes”: people with common sense who are competitive enough to push past the pain. People who hate to lose.
Lesson 6: Dominate your customers. Serve them better that the competitors.
III. Ask Yourself
- How big is your marketplace?
- How tough is your competition?
- How good is your team?
IV. The Piggy Bank (Otherwise Known as Funding)
- “Think of funding like a ham and egg breakfast,” says O’ Connor. “The bank is the chicken, and you’re the pig. You gotta have something to contribute.”
- “Raise money when you don’t need it. Desperation is NO good.”
- Get your product to a stage where people can touch it, see it, and feel it, says O’Connor.
- ”If you sell it, you validate it.”
V. Check It Out
The Map of Innovation: Creating Something Out of Nothing
by Kevin O’Connor :
