Being a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur is about being a trendsetter. An individual living in a hub, which is one of the most inspiring platforms for upcoming technocrats to bring their ideas and thoughts into reality. Home to many of the world’s most influential technology companies and new start-ups, the Silicon Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, in the northern part of the U.S. state of California.
The question is what does it take for someone to shine in the Silicon Valey environment? What does it take to become the best among the rest?
I: DEEPER KNOWLEDGE OF THE PRODUCT
In a company’s early stage the face that represents it (the CEO or the FOUNDER) is the closest link to the product and services. Knowledge of the product inside, out, and all around makes it easier to raise funds. Since, those who know the plus and minus points of the product, can best convey its value. So, when you talk about the technical industry, having a technical CEO gives it a vision since the CEO himself understands the reality and the intricacies of designing a new product.
In fact, if one has personal experience with coding and designing algos, it helps with the team management because they know exactly what to demand from their employees. Technical skills provide leaders with a deeper knowledge of the workings of their companies. This knowledge helps them in guiding their teams about the advantages and limitations of the product. They themselves have insight into what needs to be done to improve their business.
One of the most successful and popular firms of the valley includes the Apple Inc. We are often mistaken that the most notable Silicon Valley Entrepreneur, Steve Jobs never had any technical skills. Well yes! That’s true, along with the fact that he was pretty good at the basics that his father taught him. He was a major in physics and arts and later dropped out. But then, he was the visionary that found Wozniak and built Apple. Steve Jobs was an analyzer, charismatic leader and manager:
- One who could gather a team together
- Filter and then compile the ideas
- Implement them
- See what’s going wrong
- And again back to step 2.
He had multiple valuable qualities, calling them skills rather than instincts would be an injustice. Apart from all this, he was a perfect persuader and he constantly convinced people to believe in his idea. He convinced his team to work with him in creating history. He convinced people to buy his product.
Time and time again, the best leaders are those who know their products inside, out, and all around
II: TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE
Another advantage of having a technical CEO is that he/she knows who to hire- a skill that is critical to a startup’s success, especially in the early stages. It is difficult to identify the characteristics of stellar engineers if someone isn’t one in their own right. Being able to explain the intricacies of a job gives candidates a clearer picture. A roadmap of what they’ll be working on, and at the same time, helps with the selling.
Consider the example of Larry Page who is a computer scientist and another silicon valley entrepreneur. However, his bigger identity is that he is a co-founder of Google along with Sergey Brin. Page explained that he didn’t like non-engineers supervising engineers due to their limited technical knowledge. Page even documented his management tenets for his team to use as a reference:
- Don’t delegate: Do everything you can do yourself to make things go faster.
- Don’t get in the way if you’re not adding value. Let the people actually doing the work talk to each other while you go do something else.
- Don’t be a bureaucrat.
- Ideas are more important than age. Just because someone is junior doesn’t mean they don’t deserve respect and cooperation.
- The worst thing you can do is stop someone from doing something by saying, “No. Period”. Find a better way to get it done and help them.
This is the way a CEO leads a company and makes it a successful.
III: “I CAN DO IT” ATTITUDE
Another example of a success at the Silicon Valley is Lockheed Martin. It’s an American global aerospace, defense, security and advanced technologies company with worldwide interests. At a time when air crafts were remarkably difficult to fly, both the Loughead brothers, Allan and Malcolm, without training, quickly exhibited abundant natural talent as aviators. Both were mechanically brilliant and self-taught pioneers in the emerging field of aircraft design. Both felt a profound calling to the skies. And it was in the creation of reliable seaplanes that the men launched their respective companies.
“It was partly nerve, partly confidence and partly damn foolishness. But now I was an aviator”, the Loughhead brothers said some years later.
But overconfidence chops clarity. It is also imperative that a CEO visualizes the big picture and uphold that vision for the rest of the company.
IV: HAVING CLEAR VISION AND FAITH IN THAT VISION
Having faith in your vision is an assertive action. Let us take Tesla, for example. A group of Silicon Valley Entrepreneur engineers who wanted to prove that electric cars could be better than gasoline-powered cars founded Tesla in 2003. With instant torque, incredible power, and zero emissions, Tesla’s products would be cars without compromise. Each new generation would be increasingly affordable, helping the company work towards its mission: to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. The founders of Tesla believed in this vision for the company and actively pursued it. At present, it is one of the top 15 firms established in the home of technology.
V: NETWORKS AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Apart from all the mentioned qualities, leaders need to possess solid networking skills when representing their company. And, spending all day coding does not help in developing those traits. For some people, the more they code, the less they can effectively express their thoughts. One gets bogged down with details spending too much time in the nitty gritty code. According to Wozniak, Steve Jobs never wrote code or created original designs. Even though Jobs lacked an intimate technical knowledge of Apple’s products, it was not a hindrance. His ability to create a vision is what led to Apple’s success. Another limitation of having a CEO who spends excessive amounts of their time coding is that their communication prowess can get rusty.
VI: PASSION
Let me name some of the most renowned firms in Silicon Valley – AMD, Hewlett-Packard, LSI logic, Nvidia, Netflix, Facebook, Oracle, Riverbed, Intel, Cisco, Electronic Arts, Symantec and also, Agilent technologies, all were successful due to their never ending hope and apt actions.
“There’s a story—probably apocryphal—about someone walking into Michelangelo’s studio, seeing a block of marble and asking, ‘What’s that?’ Michelangelo responds, ‘It’s the most beautiful sculpture you’ve ever seen.’ The guy says, ‘But it’s just a block of marble!” and Michelangelo says, ‘Come back in three years.’ He came back, and there was the Pietà. ‘How did you do that?!’ Michelangelo replies, ‘It was there. I just had to remove the stone around it.’ That’s exactly the story of founders—Steve Jobs, Elon Musk—take your pick.”
Read: Wanna make it Big? – Why Entrepreneurship is the Way Around it
This is a passion-driven business, which makes you learn the unknown, accept the new and take it to a peak. Sometimes, there might be a situation when things don’t go well, people don’t support you, you are out of money. Sometimes your co-founder leaves you in hard times, your manager shouts at you in a connected conference, your best customer leaves you. In those situations, instead of thinking that “I wish I was somewhere else, doing something else, rather than where I am,” think of the solution. Well, did you ever wonder why people still paint when they struggle for years to sell their art? It’s the same idea. ‘Passion never fails’, their mantra.
“In fact, maintaining an unshakable faith in your entrepreneurial vision despite the inevitable setbacks and challenges is what distinguishes Silicon Valley’s true innovators from the imitators”. says Kan, co-founder of live video platforms Justin.tv and Twitch, and partner at venture capital firm Y Combinator, which has been funding more than 700 early-stage companies since 2005.