Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur

Woman: Mitch Thrower is an alum of USD MBA, 2001. So, I’d like to present Mitch Thrower.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: Thanks, everyone, for coming. It’s a Friday night, so would everyone please stand up?

We’re going to do something interesting. This room is very structured right now, and so what I’d like you to do is grab your chair and your bag. You don’t have to move too far away, but just rearrange your seat so this room is very unstructured. You can still see me. You can turn the chair around. You can do it anyway you like. And grab another chair so you can put your feet up. Relax. Grab a second chair so you cankick up you feet. There we go.

Now, everyone give me a collective "Ahh."

Audience: Ahh.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: What I’m going to do tonight is share with you 10 very, very important things about entrepreneurship and about starting businesses.

Congratulations on your fantastic pitches. I thought they were great. I particularly liked a few of them.

So, tonight, think about where you are, not just in this chair in a more comfortable position. This is a view--it was a famous photograph that was taken during the Lunar landing of the moon—a picture taken from the moon of the earth.

And it gave us great perspective on how small we potentially are, but it’s the process of life and meeting other people and starting things that are bigger that make us and provide us with a much, much better, bigger meaning.

"Entrepreneurship is an art, not a science." That’s a quote actually from a presentation I was in this morning by a gentlemen named Michael Robertson, who started mp3.com. It’s an art, not a science. And in his quote, the thought is, to a certain extent, being in the right place at the right time with the right idea, except you have a lot of control over that. You are in this room, which you’ve made it 90 percent of the way towards success.

What do I mean by that?

You have a network. You have a university. You have a sports structure. You have the capacity to get and gain the knowledge that you need to start a business, but there are some missing pieces.

So, when you’re studying the pitch and the this and the that and all the science of entrepreneurship, realize that a lot of it is actually inside you. It’s not necessarily on the paper.

There’s been an interactive shift in how you present yourself. So, start to broadcast to the world the things that you want to world to see, because those will come back and bite you in the world of entrepreneurship. You are a brand, and that’s something that is easy to forget.

You know, I worked for Walt Disney a long time ago, and someone mentioned that I was not born an entrepreneur. For my first entrepreneurial adventure, I saved up my allowance because I went into this store and I found these little things. They were glow sticks. You know, glow sticks, you break them and you shake them, and you sort of see the Fourth of July.

So, my idea was to save up my allowance and then buy a box of glow sticks for $1 each and sell them for $4 each. I’ll never forget, because a policeman came up to me when I had one glow stick left afterwards--I had a wad of cash and one glow stick left, and he said, "Do you have a solicitation permit?" And I go, "They’re free."

So, it was some on-the-spot thinking there, right? I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew that I wasn’t supposed to be doing what I was doing at that time when he approached me.

And there’s a nature of business built into that experience that I’m only now learning again, and that is, when someone gives you money, when someone invests in your company, when you’re an entrepreneur, you’re doing something. You are spending money. You’re spending your own money. You’re spending the money given to you by investors.

And the simple goal of entrepreneurship is to spend money on things that return more capital than you’re spending the money on.

So, brand yourself. Take the time, not just on MySpace, but do you own your URL?

I have a small company, which is a very niche market, personal branding. We take celebrities, private equity individuals, and we brand them online. The company is called Quantum Interactive.

The first thing we tell our clients to do is make sure they’ve purchased their domain name dotcom. Do you own your domain name dotcom? Nine dollars at GoDaddy. You should, because, when someone ultimately types your name into Google, you want the first thing that comes up to be your name dotcom and any information you choose to put our over that URL. Become a paperweight--a paperwork featherweight.

You hear about the pitch, the PowerPoint, the executive summary, all these things you can do to raise money for your business, all these things that you have to have. And the reason you have to have them is because you have to have them in your mind. But, what you present to a venture capitalist, I would argue, should be very light. It should be very small. You want them to ask for more information.

And there’s a concept there in entrepreneurship which is you don’t want to give people too many reasons to say no. You want to take the best of what you have to offer and present it to the venture capitalists, present it to the people that you’re talking to, then let them ask you for more. Have all materials ready. Have the greatest executive summary, greatest PowerPoint, the absolute most amazing elevator pitch.

So, being a paperwork featherweight will help you because you’re not stacking stuff up on someone’s desk that they have to read someday.

Number eight, and this is something I didn’t believe and I learned through life experience, is that all barriers are breakable. You think there’s this enormous mountain in front of you stopping you from being a successful entrepreneur. There’s a big wall. It’s kind of like the Del Mar. Del Mar, I think, is the Great Wall of China of San Diego, especially in the summer during the racetrack season and the fairground season. You just can’t get through Del Mar.

This is a very interesting concept. And it’s kind of tied in to all barriers being breakable when something I stumbled into--no pun intended--because I’m an athlete. I was a lacrosse player in college, and then I fractured both my knees and had four knee surgeries, two on each knee. There was a time when I never thought I could walk again.

But, then after the surgeries, the knees healed in a certain way and he said, "You can walk and you can run and ski again." It was amazing. So, I started doing running races, swimming, starting doing triathlons, fell in love with being active, primarily because it was taken away from me for four years. It’s like life, human nature. If something’s taken away from you, you want it back even more.

So, by having this barrier in front of me and breaking through it, I fell into the sport of triathlon. And I now participate in a sport called endurance, or long distance triathlons: Ironmans.

And it’s tied into a networkable comma. Because I’ve stumbled into in the sport of triathlon, I have a very networkable comma. Mitch Thrower, triathelete. When someone says your name, they say something after it. Talking about you, they will say your name, comma, how they perceive you. Your name, USD student. Your name, person who presented. If you go out at night, you know, your name, gray shirt guy.

You know? Everyone gets labels. The great thing is that you control your labels. And I don’t just mean clothes. It’s how you present yourself. It’s who you are. It’s the memorable experiences that you present to people.

So, when you’re in that sport and when you’re going to these events, you’re flying first class, is effectively what it’s all about.

So, when you’re deciding what you’re doing, what sports you’re pursuing, who you’re hanging out with, there’s a big difference. On the weekend, if you go to the San Diego Convention Center and you volunteer for a venture capital conference, or if you’re hanging out at PB Bar and Grill, it’s been said, I don’t remember by who, maybe someone in the room does, that your friends will define you and make you successful or unsuccessful. It’s also how you spend your time.

So, you want to be more than that business plan because, for example, when I can talk to an investor, I can ask them about their training and ask them about what they’re working on. You don’t just want to walk up and pitch somebody, because it’s a human interaction. Entrepreneurship is a human interaction. You’re getting money from somebody.

But, it’s a little bit like dating in that there’s a lot of trust that has to be built first.

So, be more than a business plan. Be interesting. Interview everyone, because they say you’re going to start life when you graduate college, or when you get out of your graduate school. It’s not true. You’ve already started your life.

And the people in this room--there are a few diamonds. For you in particular, and in an entrepreneurial environment and in your life, you have diamonds around you. But, you don’t know who the diamonds are, and you’ve got to sort through a lot of coal. Let’s be frank. We all have people on our cell phone we want to delete, right?

I learned a great trick. You take all the folks that you don’t want to talk to on your cell phone and you label them, "Do not answer", right, because you don’t want to take their name out of the phone. So, if you just label them, "Do not answer," you can actually get away with saying, "Oh well, I’m not feeling bad." This person is a time suck, is an energy vampire. They’re pulling all of your time. Now you don’t feel bad.

So, you’ve already started your life. Your life is not going to begin shortly.

Someone asked me when I worked for a very large corporation. And the company I started, Active, I started it in my apartment. It was a two-bedroom apartment. It went from, you know, two people to three people to 35 people to 180 people, then back down to 100 people during the dotcom bust, then up now to close to 2,000 people based all over the world.

But, it’s a corporation, so there are cubicles and there is the cubicle culture. Has anyone seen Office Space? We’re in cubicles, right? And it’s kind of an interesting scenario. You’ve heard about when the Internet goes down at work, everyone kind of peers up from over the cubicle wall like, "Oh, how long have you been working here," you know?

The challenge is we’re in our own worlds, in our own lives. The opportunity is that you can step into someone else’s world and learn from them. So, someone said to me, "I’m really bored at my job. I’m working for this large corporation. I’m doing all of these things. You know, I just go home, I go to work, I go home."

But, I told her, "Why don’t you have a task?" There were about 60 people in the organization. So I says, "What if, for the next 90 days, take one new person in the company for a cup of coffee every day to find out what they know?" Pursue your spark.

It’s almost an undefinable thing that happens inside of us when we find an idea or an enterprise we’re interested in. And a lot of times it’s what we’re familiar with. We’re at USD. There’s a long line. We’ll develop a business to cut the line, you know, make it shorter.

The nature of the human mind is to solve problems. We have a super-computer. I always say in my lectures that you have a super-computer between your ears that has more neurological connections than all of the super-computers in the world combined, which is a pretty powerful concept.

So, you’re going to solve problems. You’re waiting at the end of the line. You’ve got to get to class. You’re bored. You’re going to solve that problem. You want a parking spot; you’re going to think of a valet business on campus.

Your mind will solve the problems in this immediate situation that you’re in. But, in entrepreneurship, one of the challenges is that you have to step out of what’s going to solve your immediate problem and step into a world where it’s a lot of peoples’ problems. And that’s not always an easy jump to do because we like what’s familiar. We’re operating in the world of the familiar.

So, pursue your spark. This is important because if you’re not fired up on what you’re doing…like, I am really fired up. I am really excited about what I’m doing in the sport of triathlon. And as one of the owners of Triathelete Magazine, and now Competitor Magazine and Elite Racing and The San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon, I can tell you that you need to find what you’re passionate about. How do you find your spark? What magazine are you reading? Where are you looking for information? What makes you laugh? Because if you’re operating an entrepreneur adventure that doesn’t involve your spark, or if you’re starting a company that doesn’t involve your spark, you’re going to get bored, and boredom leads to a whole host of things that I don’t even want to get into right now. Most of them are bad.

So, pursue your spark, but marry your dream. Marry your dream from a business perspective, and that is--marry your dream means become the same entity as your dream. And there is an important point of this concept, and that is I think you should always want to and try and try and have 51 percent of anything you’re involved in.

If you do nothing else in your entrepreneurial career, and it’s going to be really hard to do that, always have 51 percent of anything you’re involved in, because otherwise there will be conflict that you do not have the final say in. And if you’re here on a Friday night, trust me, know you’re going to want to have the final say in what you’re doing for the rest of your life.

Shift on a nanochip. I learned this in my first company, which was a college marketing business that sold Eurail passes to college students. We had a little book called The Passport that went out to study abroad offices. And we didn’t actually shift on a nanochip, because we started Eurail passes in this little book that we sent to study abroad offices, and all this money started coming from Eurail passes. But, we didn’t shift our model from a marketing advertising company to a Eurail pass company, because we were selling Eurail passes quickly enough.

We stayed true to marketing and advertising. We were making money. We’re making all this money over here, but we weren’t focused on it.

In today’s world, you have to be able to drop a business plan you had 10 days ago and put a new one in place. You have to be able to change your model. Don’t get tied to sunk intellectual cost, because that is the heaviest anchor you will find in the process of entrepreneurship.

People get attached to their ideas. And if you think about, ideas are nothing. I have an idea. It’s really nothing. It’s the execution of a good idea that’s everything.

I wrote a book called, The Attention Deficit Workplace. It was lessons about how to be more successful in today’s marketplace. The book was published by The Lyons Press. It actually sold out. It’s a mistake to think the most value thing you can get from other people is praise; it’s criticism, because you can do something with criticism. You can’t do anything with praise. It’s just puffery. So, when someone give you a criticism, it’s the greatest gift.

So, we changed the book title to Give Me 10 Seconds and I’ll Change Your Life, and 99 Success Parables For Today’s Work Tornado, from The Attention Deficit Workplace. And Scott and some other folks I know know the other cover.

Change quickly. And it goes back to shift in a nanochip. Shift on that chip. Change your direction and change your opportunity.

Click people. My mouse--I talk about this when I lecture to the Entrepreneurship classes and to the Strategic Management and Family Business classes. I can say, "What are you doing after this? It’s Friday night. Where are you going?"

I can say, "What is happening in your social life? Are you happy? What did you do this morning? What are you wearing? What’s the first thing that you saw this morning when you woke up? What do your parents look like?"

"What’s the sound of your child?" If you don’t have children and you have to imagine one, what do you imagine their voice will sound like?

I’m clicking in your mind. And when you’re an entrepreneur and you’re presenting a business plan to a venture capitalist, you’re clicking in their mind. And it’s a pretty full computer.

You know that little thing that shows up in your computer. It’s a clock, and in Vista it’s a round thing. The clock means I’m waiting, but the round thing means something’s happening.

You know, that happens with people, right? Sometimes I just want to hold up a clock that says "I’m thinking about something else right now."

Well, with a lot of venture capitalists, when you walk up to them when you’re approaching them with an idea or a concept, be sensitive to the fact that many people, most of the time, have that clock right in front of them that says, you know, "Thinking about other stuff than what you’re saying now." Try and figure out how you can approach someone and interact with someone when their clock is not going.

And when you leave here tonight, you’re running around the world with a mouse clicking on people, clicking on the things that are going on in their minds.

Number one--and I would actually rank this first, although I’m descending to this number one: brutal honesty. Brutal honesty is probably one of the most important things in entrepreneurship.

When things are going bad, call your investors. When they’re going great, call your investors. The important line there is to let people know what’s going on. Share what’s happening.

So many times I’ve seen businesses and people get in trouble because they have not been honest. They have not been sincere. And in this world, trust me. Everything becomes knowledge of everyone. Everything is ultimately found out.

You think that you’re paying this person this much in the company and this person this much, and they’re not going to talk? You’re wrong. Everyone will always find out everything, because a secret is something you tell one person at a time.

Brutal honesty is the single most important thing you can do in your careers. And it starts now, because everything you’re doing now is tracked. You’re the first generation whose great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkids can look at your hard drive.

Because it’s a Friday night, and I want to ask everyone to stand up one more time before we go to Q&A; take a deep breath, stretch.

Think about what thoughts you have to ask an entrepreneur. If you could reach forward in time and ask a question of someone, of you in the future, what would you ask?

Audience member: Obviously, you’ve been busy in your last couple years. When you were just starting out, what were some of the most memorable things that kind of stopped you in your tracks, that you’ve had to overcome?

Mr. Mitch Thrower: What were some of the most memorable things that have stopped me in my tracks that, I’ve had to overcome.

Well, one was of course the athletic injury, because that was a complete change in direction in life. And it didn’t really stop me in my tracks. I got a mountain bike and I had a one-legged mountain bike I was riding around campus. It was great. You can do all kinds of things with crutches.

But, when I’m looking back, the things that stopped me in my tracks, a business partner here and there that ended up being not the right business partner, you know, maybe being a little bit too trusting.

I’ve had some experiences where, you know, you discover things that people are doing that you never would have expected them to be doing. And you have to take some very dramatic and drastic steps to get away from a situation.

I think another thing that happened--and I’ll ask you to kind of keep this semi-confidential--is I think that in the world of business you find, no matter where you are, you have a blame-placing, credit-taking culture.

If something went really well, everyone wants credit for it. Right? If something went badly, it’s someone else’s fault. And that’s hard to overcome because you see that in a corporate culture, and it comes and then you walk away from a situation.

And they’ve said that history is written by the people who are writing it, and the people who are writing traditionally would say we’re right.

So, it’s the same with a company. If you leave a company or you step away from a situation, people will inadvertently change history so that they’re better, you’re worse. That’s hard to overcome.

More questions, thoughts, reflections?

Yes, your name?

Jordan: Jordan.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: Yes. Nice to meet you, Jordan.

Jordan: Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming.

You were talking about evolving with your business practices, knowing when to shift gears. How do you know it’s time to evolve with the trends that are going on with the business world versus sticking to your guns and pushing through your original ideas?

Mr. Mitch Thrower: Well, it’s usually when you run out of money.

I remember, actually, a meeting that we had in the first venture when we were going to do college postering. And we were going to put posters up on college campuses around the country to sell AT&T cards and American Express cards and local merchants.

And we sold one client. And it was nine months in, and we couldn’t afford salaries for anyone. And it was a really difficult meeting to sit down with everyone at the table and say, ’Hey, I’m going to keep pursuing this company. But guys, guess what? You really shouldn’t be here, because we don’t have any revenue.’ And you know, there were tears and people were upset.

But, I don’t know that there’s a real answer. There’s no crystal ball. But, if you think it’s time to switch, you can try stepping into the other business and then stepping back.

Try something new. If something’s not working, try something new. Or don‘t think, okay, I’m going to make this work. Don’t be completely blindsided by all the things that are opportunities around what you’re working on.

So, there’s no real answer there.

More questions. Two more questions. Yeah.

Audience member: When you meet someone for the first time, possibly they’re looking for something from you. What makes them stick out in your mind, or what are you looking for from them? Like, say a pitch or personality.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: I think successful people who have enough money to invest in a venture, many times--and I’m thinking specifically about private individuals--are not always looking for just a return. They’re looking for something more.

They’re looking for something that’s interesting to them. They’re looking for an area of core competency that they can help someone with. They’re looking for the opportunity to coach someone or give something back.

And I think when I’m looking for investments, and when I’m looking for things to do outside the realm of my already overwhelmed existence, it’s when I see an opportunity to enjoy the interaction of coaching or enjoy the new business or learn something.

And so, if you can offer to someone that you’re going to have--raise capital from, one of those things, offer to teach them something or involve them in something--or not, because sometimes people are like, ’All right, here’s a check. I want money in five years. Thank you.’ And those are great investors, right? Those are really great investors.

But other times--and often, you’ll find that people who want to, for example, invest in sports have been very successful in sports. That’s why a lot of sport ventures that get started go to professional athletes to try and raise money.

So, if you find people that have done what you are doing before and been successful at it, it really is a way to kind of align yourself.

It’s like going up to someone and say, "Hey, I went to USD." We can talk about, you know, the way the power plug is installed underneath the little leather seat. You know, the high leather seat has a power plug underneath it.

Hey, some people didn’t know that! Hey! All right, who has the coffee shop idea, because they know power plugs and wireless and--don’t know if they’re still here.

So, I mean, one or two more questions real quick, and then we’ll go to bonus material.

Yes. Your name?

Derek: My name’s Derek.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: Derek. Nice to meet you.

Derek: Nice to meet you, too.

Due to some experiences in my past, I’ve been burned a couple times. So, now I have a hard time trusting a lot of people as I learn to do whatever I need done on my own. But, I know, moving forward, I’m going to have to involve other people, especially with certain skills and talents and that kind of thing.

How do you find the right people to fit certain niches?

Mr. Mitch Thrower: Yes. Good question.

Derek: Or should they even fit something? Should they just be based on their own individual talents and skills or personality traits, or--?

Mr. Mitch Thrower: You know, it’s so challenging in life because, if you think about it, the decisions we make in choosing friends, in choosing relationships, in choosing the people we interact with, tend to be based on so much less than, for example, we select a college or we select a car, or we select something that’s really important to us.

But, we tend to fall into the grocery store and meet someone in the, you know, cereal aisle picking out some Shredded Wheat, and they become our best friend. And we don’t ever find out--really, we don’t ask them the right questions.

I think getting burned--and you know, I’ve been burned as well. And it raises the capacity through your bullshit detector to work, excuse the expression. But, there are a lot of people out there who are very selfishly motivated and, in a very utilitarianistic perspective, will always pursue what’s best for them in a situation.

And if you can find people like that and eliminate them, you can say--or interact with them in such a way that you understand their personalities, getting burned by people is another gift, unfortunately, because you do raise your kind of bar.

You’re looking and saying, "Well, wait a minute. This, this and this have happened in the past in a situation like this." And even better, you can, once you get into a business relationship with them, cover it in the legal contract, which is really your ultimate recourse.

Once you start a relationship with someone, if it’s a business partner, go legal. And I don’t mean sue them, but have protective provisions, because if you sit down and somebody knows in their character they’re going to burn you, and you have the anti-burn me provisions in something that’s a document, that’s a written document that they can be sued for, then that would be a good detector. So, that’s one tip.

But really, again, there are going to be more people that you find out are bad after the fact, unfortunately, because I know that’s happened to me. So, I don’vt know if there’s another answer.

One more question. Oh, a couple more questions. Yeah. Your name?

Jessica: Jessica.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: Jessica. I know that.

Jessica: You were involved in a lot of test businesses, a lot of new projects. I don’t even know how you handle everything and write a book at the same time.

How do you stay afloat and not feel bogged down or overwhelmed? And I see you a lot. You’re always smiling. You’re always kind of in a good mood and good spirits, and I’m just wondering how you do it.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: I think your perspective on life is going to change over time. But, if you have some experiences in life early on that shape you--like, I had a very early experience. When I was 14 years old, my sister passed away, and she was 16. And it kind of shook me and let me know that this is a pretty short trip. A hundred years? A pretty short trip.

So, take your age, think of your age, picture it in your mind. Let me click on your mouse. Picture your age in your mind right now. Now, put next to it a percentage sign, and then write the word "finished."

So, right now you are "blank" percent finished. Over. Game over. Right, though the thought is, why be upset? You know, why--if this is an anthill and there are six billion human ants, why would I possibly get upset because another ant is mad? It doesn’t make sense, right? So many people get so bent out of shape because someone’s mad about something. Well, they‘re mad. Their deal.

And I do have kind of a golden retriever personality. I’ve been criticized for that, actually. I’m the guy in the Titanic. It’s sinking and I’m singing, you know?

But, I think--I have done a lot, but I have been around for a while. So, it looks condensed, but I’ve been around and doing ventures since, you know, 1990. So, that’s a long time.

I saw another hand go up. Yes. Your name?

Jonathan: Jonathan.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: Jonathan.

Jonathan: Nice to meet you, by the way.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: Nice to meet you.

Jonathan: I think a lot of the people that we heard today have really great ideas, like the air filtration system, or his idea on, you know, fixing cities that are underprivileged in Mexico.

How do you--like, those are to me really great ideas. How do you get to the next level, pursuing your your dream or whatever it is? Between, you know, technology, investors, everything else, how do you get there with just the idea?

Mr. Mitch Thrower: I’ll tell you a story. We were struggling. In the beginning, I was a bootstrap entrepreneur. The first company I started with 16 credit cards, $60,000 of credit card debt, because I asked my dad to borrow $10,000 to start the company. He said, "Get a job."

Today, you don’t need all that capital to create a website, to create an idea, to be able to communicate through graphic arts what it is that you want to do.

I’ve been asked in previous lectures, "If you’re an entrepreneur, who would you marry?" What career would you get actually, physically married to?

And I always said it’s either a lawyer or a graphic designer, because you want to be able to communicate your ideas and you want to protect those ideas. And you don’t want to have to pay, because the services of lawyers have gotten very expensive. Being a little utilitarianistic there, right?

But, the first thing is to communicate your idea. You want to communicate your idea and you want to communicate your idea clearly.

Often, it’s hard to see through. And some of the speakers up here were great. For some of them, it’s a new thing. After a while, you begin to learn how to look through the person to the idea and not judge the idea just based on the person, but judge the idea based on all the things you think the person can do.

And it’s hard, right? We’re a pretty critical culture and a pretty critical state. I mean, after all, this is California, right, where people don’t ask--they don’t say, "Where did you go to school," which they do on the East Coast. They don’t say, "Where do you live," which they do in the Midwest. They say, "What kind of car do you drive?"

So, in that scenario, telling everyone your idea is the first step, and asking for help is the second step, because so many people say, "Hey, you’re going to do this, this and this." And then, they don’t ask for help. They don’t say, "Do you know anybody who can design this or who can provide me with this? Do you have any friends who do?"

Oftentimes, when someone doesn’t want to help you, they have someone they can refer you to. And that very act of someone being referred to someone else, there’s almost an inbuilt, "Oh, I have to help this person because this person referred me to this person." And you can leverage that way up.

And then, I think, just go do it. I did not know how many things could go wrong when I started my company. And they--a lot of things went wrong. I mean, we had months when we couldn’t pay rent. We had months when we didn’t know what to do with all the money.

So, I’d say just go do it. Go do it before you learn all the reasons why you won’t be successful because, even if you fail, that’s another step forward. You’ve heard that before.

Maybe one more question and then some bonus material, or thoughts. Okay, let’s go right into the bonus material.

Everyone shift your position in your chair. Kind of relax, lean back, do something else.

And I skipped over something because I talked about that in the beginning, which is, "Entrepreneurship is finding ways to spend less than you bring in." That’s it right there. That’s what you want to do.

Some people get caught up in the creativity and the idea and the plan and the process. The bottom line is you want to put something down and you want to get more back.

So, "Manage Up" is something that I’ve talked about, how you want to interact with the people around you. Most people get a Board of Directors. And the Board of Directors, they think, "Oh, you know, it’s parental control for the company," when something’s going wrong and they say to their Board, "Oh, we’re going to do this," and the Board comes in and asks you what to do.

The Board’s not really listening. The Board is, like, reviewing your packet 10 minutes before they get to the thing and are trying to come up with something useful to say, because they’ve got their lives to lead.

So, when I say "Manage Up," all the people that you think can help you will only help you if you ask them to help you, if you treat the people who are above you like you are their CEO, because they’ll be amazed, when you ask people to do things, what they’ll do. If you’re going to start to lead, lead everybody. Don’t just lead people that you think you can lead.

Here’s a funny story. This is the Chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Corporation, Bob Iger. Speaking to one of the themes earlier, which was put yourself in the right place, that sport of triathlon, Bob’s a Triathelete, or an athlete, a cyclist. And he was at a race. We got to meet at the race.

So, I’ll be interviewing Bob in about a month about an article. He was just at the race. I mean, the right place. He’s in the right place. We’re in the right environment. We had the same background, the same interests.

That sort of alignment in life will take you so far ahead, because after all, you know, like I had mentioned before, it’s an anthill with six billion human ants.

You’ve heard the fact that--have you ever heard that there are more stars in the sky than all the grains of sand on the planet? Has everyone heard that before? It’s true. There are more stars in the universe than are grains of sand on the planet.

But, I watched a show in the United Kingdom, actually, and they had said that it’s a correction. For every grain of sand on the planet Earth, there are a million stars in the sky. That’s how big the universe is.

That’s a training camp , actually, in Atlanta. We just jumped right to that photo.

There’s a little guy, a little entrepreneur, I’ll say, who’s in a triathlon. And when he jumped in, his goggles fell off. And so, what he did is he propped his lip up onto his nose to hold his goggles on. And he finished the rest of the triathlon and just didn’t stop.

And that is it’s a theme environment and it’s a theme of triathlon because, trust me, when it’s 100-and-something degrees outside and it’s really hot and you’ve just, you know, been in the water swimming 2.4 miles and then you’ve biked 112 miles over lava fields that look like a microwave oven that you left on too long, and then you have to run a marathon, everything in your body, every cell says one word, and that word is "stop." And you just keep going.

And entrepreneurship is a lot like that. You just keep going, because you’ll have people tell you no. You’ll have people tell you you can’t do it. It’s like everything in life. Just keep going. Keep moving.

And like this little guy, stuff’s going to happen. You know, he could’ve been upset that he lost his goggles.

We talked about critical power in the sense that criticism is the most powerful positive force in your universe right now. Don’t ask people for what you did right. Ask them what you did wrong.

There are some websites to check out. They’re a gateway from MitchThrower.com. I urge you to go home and get your own domain name with your name, even if you just park it until you develop your career, and even if you just park it and put your resume there, or park it and link it to your LinkedIn site, or link it to a gateway to all your social networking sites, which you’re going to go home and clean up tonight.

We do have internships and jobs at all the various companies I’m involved in: the Active Network, Veoh Network. If anyone’s interested in a summer associate’s program, send me an e-mail. Put USD in the subject header so I can sort through the several hundred e-mails and actually know where it goes pretty quickly.

And then, what I’d like to do is have someone with a very loud voice stand up and read one of those things, because obviously I can’t. Anyone. Please?

Volunteer: Always track and pay attention to your password and online accounts. It will save you time and money. You‘ll navigate your electronic world more effectively.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: The next person. As loud as you can.

Volunteer: Always read all the legal documents that you receive and are in any way related to or responsible for.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: Next person.

Volunteer: People prefer to interact with those who maintain a strong moral code at all times.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: Next person.

Volunteer: When you have a great idea, sometimes the best way to make it happen within a large corporation is to convince others that it was their idea. Get them emotionally invested in the projects.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: That’s a really important concept in entrepreneurship. I was actually in a meeting, you know, within the last week--I can’t make it any more narrowly focused than that--where I was sitting there giving someone a strategic update.

And I noticed immediately in the meeting that I’d been talking too long. And the person I was speaking with who was there had, you know, two or three ideas, and they presented them immediately. And I realized there has to be immediate involvement and enlisting.

If you bring people into the process and help them form the idea versus telling them exactly what has to be done, you’ll be successful, because everyone loves their idea and everyone’s critical of someone else’s idea. It’s part of human nature.

So, if you present your idea and say, "Hey, this is the absolute best, most amazing thing. You ready?" They’re probably going to think, "Well, this is why it’s not going to work, for this reason, this reason, this reason and this reason."

But, if you say to someone, "Well, this is an idea we have. Here’s what we’re working with which is good, and here’s why we think it might be a challenge." They know you’ve already thought through the reasons why this business might not work.

A consistent theme in the presentations tonight was everyone thought their idea was great. You want to tell your investors and the people you’re working with that you are scared to death of the competition and that you stay up at night thinking about the fact that you’re going to go out of business the next day, because then you’re motivated.

Next person.

Volunteer: When you’re requesting money from someone, ask for their thoughts on how to make your business successful.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: Right. Ask for help rather than money, and the money will come a lot easier.

And way down here, you can see my head sort of ducked down there. This is the Ironman Canada Triathlon, 2,400 people in a mass swim start. It’s a very, very, very, very hectic environment.

That’s you in your entrepreneurial careers. And the great thing is there’s a swim. There’s a transition. You’re going to have to change your business model. There’s a bike. You’re going to have an opportunity to go any direction you want with your business.

There’s another transition, because you’re going to have to move again. And then there’s a run, and that’s when you just have to keep going.

"Who’s your number 28?" I didn’t want to let you guys leave without this. How many folks have heard me lecture before? Raise your hand. Great stuff. You’ll remember this, maybe.

Who’s your number 28 in life, in entrepreneurship? Chutes and Ladders. Anyone play this game? What happens when you get to number 28? Way up. All right? There are people around you right now that are your number 28 in this university. You don’t know that because you’re hanging out with number 87, right? Number 87’s down there at the PB Bar & Grill waiting for you to show up tonight. He just got a text. That laughter was all too familiar, guys.

We talked about The College Connection, which is the company I started in college just to help postering network work, which didn’t work. And then we started a book called The Passport. That was a transition. And we ended up selling EuRail passes. That’s what the business ultimately became after the last transition.

Then we sold that in 1997. I remember we did some consulting work with Scott Kunkle when we were getting that business ready for sale, because I didn’t know what I was doing. I was a philosophy major in my undergraduate career. I was on my way to law school. And then, to avoid going to law school, I started a company.

So, yeah. Got a question, or you did the same thing?

Volunteer: Did the same thing.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: Excellent.

Volunteer: Took three weeks.

Mr. Mitch Thrower: In law school? Bravo.

Yeah?

Volunteer: What did you do your senior year of college?

Mr. Mitch Thrower: In which capacity?

Volunteer: Just what you were involved in?

Mr. Mitch Thrower: Well, because I couldn’t run and I couldn’t really do the athletics that I wanted to, I joined a parliamentary debating team which, believe it or not, was an amazing experience where you find out the topic you have to debate 10 minutes before you debate it. So, it was very unlike research debate. It was more extemporaneous speaking.

And it was trial by fire because I was so bad in the initial phases of this debating stuff. But, I just thought, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to face my fears. I’m going to do what I’m worried about, and I’m going to do it again and again and again until I’m not worried about it.

It’s like when I moved to California from Connecticut, one, I was a really bad surfer. Still am. Two, I went on a shark dive, because I swim at the cove and I was really was freaked out that there were sharks there. And I saw sharks there.

And I’m like, "Wait a minute, that’s a shark." And people said, "Well, that shark doesn’t eat you. That shark’s the type of shark that doesn’t eat people." I’m like, "Right. Okay, then. I’m swimming first."

So, I went on a dive. I hired Bob Cranston, and we went on a shark dive off Catalina. And I can remember the scene today. It was the shark diving expedition. We chummed blood in the water, and I’m freaking out. We chummed blood in the water, and then the shark smells the chum line and swims up to the boat. So, we saw these fins come up, right?

There’s a cage. I’m excited there’s a cage. I’m not worried about the cage. The diver--the boat captain takes the cage, lowers it off the side of the boat into the water. And I’m like, "Oh, don’t we get in the cage first?" And he goes, "No, no, no. You swim to the cage." "You swim to the cage? Wait a minute! This is a shark diving - not dying - expedition."

So, I did it, though. I got in the water with the wetsuit. And there’s a dive leader behind you with a bang stick with a shotgun shell attached--so that, if the shark does bite you, he knocks it away.

But, yeah. It’s one of those things where you’re so far into the trip, you’ve spent so much money on the shark diving expedition, you know what? Well, you’re just going to jump in.

But, face your fears, you know? If you’re bad at speaking in public or presenting things, just do it. Do it again and again and again. Be bad until you’re good at some things.

So, that was a big part of my senior year, and lots of other crazy, fun stuff, too.

Okay. Triathelete Magazine. I have a magazine called Triathelete. I just recently did a liquidity event that put it into a larger group.

And I was approached as this entrepreneurial kid who had a travel company. And they said, "Will you come run our chip timing business," which was the little chips in marathons, and I said no.

And then I said, "But, you have a magazine that I read. Can I look into that?" And I asked them a question you should all ask every business you get involved in, is, "Tell me about the ownership structure. Tell me who owns your company," and then get to know the owners.

Ten years later, we completed the purchase of the magazine and then put it into another larger organization.

And you’ve heard of Active.com. I’ll just show you a picture. Because I was frustrated when registering for the Ironman--just like I was frustrated when here at USD, I thought that there should be a valet company. Wouldn’t it be great? This is one of the universities where a valet service would probably work. You know, here are my keys.

So, I had the idea because I was frustrated registering for the Ironman. There were a bunch of other people out there doing it.

So, I tell you a very specific secret. I went out there and I created some graphics. I had a graphic designer who we’re now actually with. His name is Roberto. We have another graphic designer here, Lori, who is a creative director for a lot of our ventures.

I’m a big believer in having people who can communicate visually help you communicate your ideas. And I had him design everything that we would be as Active.com five years later. Here was our registration. Here was our athlete dating site. Here was our Active Advantage Card that we’d sell.

And I took it into the venture capitalist and I said, "So, what are you going to do?" And we’d been courting him and courting him and courting him. And he said, "You know what? I want to know what this business is like in five years."

So, I stayed up all night and I wrote a vision statement, and I graphically designed exactly what the business would look like in five years. I presented it to him and, a week and a half later, we had $5 million in our bank account.

And it’s pretty cool to go to the ATM and see five million dollars. You keep the slip, you know? Here’s $5 million, and that guy just said go spend it. That’s kind of a good play.

But also, we had to sell a significant portion of the company, which ended up being a painful thing later on, because the most expensive thing that you can spend early on in the venture is what? Your equity. Oh, come on board! You can have 5 percent of the company! The company’s name is eBay. Whoops.

Your ideas can change the world. In the time it takes me to finish this sentence, hundreds and hundreds of people will have just given me their credit card, thank you very much, but, more importantly, will have just registered for something athletic around the world, will have designed a way to train for their first marathon, 5K, half marathon.

Your ideas can change the world. But, try and figure out the whole social level of your responsibility as an entrepreneur so that you can think about the fact that you cannot just make money, that you can change people’s lives in the process of making money.

I think that’s it, so thanks, you guys. You’re going to watch this on YouTube, right? Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me, guys.