Google Doug Burgum and you will learn about the remarkable entrepreneur who founded Great Plains Software and sold it for over a billion dollars. I listened to his 2008 keynote address to aspiring business entrepreneurs and company founders and was impressed that his remarks focused completely on four values key to success: Passion, Courage, Perseverance, and Gratitude.
Passion: Burgum's advice: Do what you love and love what you do. Find passionate people and channel their passion. Become a "dangerous dreamer" by dreaming with your eyes open.
Courage: Doug literally mortgaged his farm and faced rejection after rejection from traditional banking and financial services institutions. You must be willing to take risks and surround yourself with like-minded colleagues with the courage to "do the right thing for others every day" no matter what.
Perseverance: The Great Plains IPO was 14 years in the making as the new company met challenges and made mistakes. Doug noted that Thomas Edison had over 2000 failed attempts when inventing the light bulb. When asked about these failures, Edison responded that inventing the light bulb was 2000-step process. Similarly, Chester Carlson had seven years of rejections before his copy machine idea was bought by the company that became XEROX; and the Wright brothers endured 700 glider crashes (didn't get the idea of using wheels right away) in the four years prior to their famous powered flight at Kitty Hawk.
Gratitude: This value pulls it all together for Burgum. No one can make it alone. Whether it's the great colleagues that surround an entrepreneur, the family member believers, those angels who funded the first round, the company that acquires yours, or the banker that coordinates your IPO. It's never just you, it's all those who helped along the way. Paraphrasing Margaret Mead, Doug summed it up this way: "Never doubt that a small, committed group can change the world."
My take on Doug's keynote is that he is spot on--these values do indeed form the foundation for success. And I would add that once this level of achievement has been reached, giving back to the community may very well be the fifth key value for entrepreneurial success.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Ahhhh Doug! You forgot...and it doesn't hurt to be solidly grounded. To never miss one of your children's parent-teacher conferences, school performances, to flip pancakes on Saturday morning and to remember to wish their friends Mom's "Happy Birthday" when you pick up your kids from a birthday party...for you believe that a birthday really should be the Mom's celebration.
Nor does it hurt to believe in and to back great causes...such as the Salvation Army red buckets...or to not take yourself to seriously when you do. Dare to be seen in public wearing a turkey hat.
REMEMBER NAMES! Call people BY THEIR NAMES! It really does make a difference.
Take pride in your family history! If your grandfather was a lowly grain elevator owner in a town of less than five hundred in the NDakota praire...celebrate the fact that he was the most honest grain elevator operator! Take pride in where you came from!
Never forget being a really nice guy goes a long way!
Post a Comment