New Paradigm

"Place an intention to be a vessel

- so wealth flows through us, 

so we can feed the poor. 

Then it means we are working for Allah 

If we are working for Allah, 

we will do whatever it takes

to sell & market our products & Services 

so we can earn the Halal way 

Allah as our Guide, 

Run to Allah, 

the wealth will run THROUGH us 

Not TO us, 

THROUGH us 

To the Poor, 

Be the Vessel 

Be the Vessel 

Be the Vessel 

Love the Poor, 

The Poor they are our CEO

We want to make lots of money for them

to feed and help them - 

Fisabillillah 

Be like Abdur-Rahman Ibn Awl

The eighth person to embrace Islam,

Starting with nothing,

he went on to enjoy tremendous success as a merchant, 

becoming the richest of the Companions. 

From his great wealth, 

Abdur-Rahman financed the Muslim armies,

contributed to the the upkeep of the family of Mohammed after the prophet's death 

and was universally renowned for his fabulous generosity.

Don't Be Wealthy, 

Just for the sake of being Wealthy

BE Wealthy to be the vessel for wealth to flow 

To the Poor 

For Fisabilillah ...

Do it with the Right Islamic Muamalah 

Islam way of doing Business

Without RIBA

Pay your zakat 

Focus on Distributing Your Wealth 

Focus on the Ummah"

shared by Suria Mohd

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Manual for climbing mountains

A] Choose the mountain you want to climb: don’t pay attention to what other people say, such as “that one’s more beautiful” or “this one’s easier”. You’ll be spending lots of energy and enthusiasm to reach your objective, so you’re the only one responsible and you should be sure of what you’re doing.

B] Know how to get close to it: mountains are often seen from far off – beautiful, interesting, full of challenges. But what happens when we try to draw closer? Roads run all around them, flowers grow between you and your objective, what seemed so clear on the map is tough in real life. So try all the paths and all the tracks until eventually one day you’re standing in front of the top that you yearn to reach.

C] Learn from someone who has already been up there: no matter how unique you feel, there is always someone who has had the same dream before you and ended up leaving marks that can make your journey easier; places to hang the rope, trails, broken branches to make the walking easier. The climb is yours, so is the responsibility, but don’t forget that the experience of others can help a lot.

D] When seen up close, dangers are controllable: when you begin to climb the mountain of your dreams, pay attention to the surroundings. There are cliffs, of course. There are almost imperceptible cracks in the mountain rock. There are stones so polished by storms that they have become as slippery as ice. But if you know where you are placing each footstep, you will notice the traps and how to get around them.

E] The landscape changes, so enjoy it: of course, you have to have an objective in mind – to reach the top. But as you are going up, more things can be seen, and it’s no bother to stop now and again and enjoy the panorama around you. At every meter conquered, you can see a little further, so use this to discover things that you still had not noticed.

F] Respect your body: you can only climb a mountain if you give your body the attention it deserves. You have all the time that life grants you, as long as you walk without demanding what can’t be granted. If you go too fast you will grow tired and give up half way there. If you go too slow, night will fall and you will be lost. Enjoy the scenery, take delight in the cool spring water and the fruit that nature generously offers you, but keep on walking.

G] Respect your soul: don’t keep repeating “I’m going to make it”. Your soul already knows that, what it needs is to use the long journey to be able to grow, stretch along the horizon, touch the sky. An obsession does not help you at all to reach your objective, and even ends up taking the pleasure out of the climb. But pay attention: also, don’t keep saying “it’s harder than I thought”, because that will make you lose your inner strength.

H] Be prepared to climb one kilometer more: the way up to the top of the mountain is always longer than you think. Don’t fool yourself, the moment will arrive when what seemed so near is still very far. But since you were prepared to go beyond, this is not really a problem.

I] Be happy when you reach the top: cry, clap your hands, shout to the four winds that you did it, let the wind – the wind is always blowing up there – purify your mind, refresh your tired and sweaty feet, open your eyes, clean the dust from your heart. It feels so good, what was just a dream before, a distant vision, is now part of your life, you did it!

J] Make a promise: now that you have discovered a force that you were not even aware of, tell yourself that from now on you will use this force for the rest of your days. Preferably, also promise to discover another mountain, and set off on another adventure.

L] Tell your story: yes, tell your story! Give your example. Tell everyone that it’s possible, and other people will then have the courage to face their own mountains.

taken from “LIKE THE FLOWING RIVER” (Kindle Edition) by Paolo Coelho

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Who is John Galt?

For twelve years you've been asking "Who is John Galt?" This is John Galt speaking. I'm the man who's taken away your victims and thus destroyed your world. You've heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis and that Man's sins are destroying the world. But your chief virtue has been sacrifice, and you've demanded more sacrifices at every disaster. You've sacrificed justice to mercy and happiness to duty. So why should you be afraid of the world around you?

Your world is only the product of your sacrifices. While you were dragging the men who made your happiness possible to your sacrificial altars, I beat you to it. I reached them first and told them about the game you were playing and where it would take them. I explained the consequences of your 'brother-love' morality, which they had been too innocently generous to understand. You won't find them now, when you need them more than ever.

We're on strike against your creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. If you want to know how I made them quit, I told them exactly what I'm telling you tonight. I taught them the morality of Reason -- that it was right to pursue one's own happiness as one's principal goal in life. I don't consider the pleasure of others my goal in life, nor do I consider my pleasure the goal of anyone else's life.

I am a trader. I earn what I get in trade for what I produce. I ask for nothing more or nothing less than what I earn. That is justice. I don't force anyone to trade with me; I only trade for mutual benefit. Force is the great evil that has no place in a rational world. One may never force another human to act against his/her judgment. If you deny a man's right to Reason, you must also deny your right to your own judgment. Yet you have allowed your world to be run by means of force, by men who claim that fear and joy are equal incentives, but that fear and force are more practical.

You've allowed such men to occupy positions of power in your world by preaching that all men are evil from the moment they're born. When men believe this, they see nothing wrong in acting in any way they please. The name of this absurdity is 'original sin'. That's inmpossible. That which is outside the possibility of choice is also outside the province of morality. To call sin that which is outside man's choice is a mockery of justice. To say that men are born with a free will but with a tendency toward evil is ridiculous. If the tendency is one of choice, it doesn't come at birth. If it is not a tendency of choice, then man's will is not free.

And then there's your 'brother-love' morality. Why is it moral to serve others, but not yourself? If enjoyment is a value, why is it moral when experienced by others, but not by you? Why is it immoral to produce something of value and keep it for yourself, when it is moral for others who haven't earned it to accept it? If it's virtuous to give, isn't it then selfish to take?

Your acceptance of the code of selflessness has made you fear the man who has a dollar less than you because it makes you feel that that dollar is rightfully his. You hate the man with a dollar more than you because the dollar he's keeping is rightfully yours. Your code has made it impossible to know when to give and when to grab.

You know that you can't give away everything and starve yourself. You've forced yourselves to live with undeserved, irrational guilt. Is it ever proper to help another man? No, if he demands it as his right or as a duty that you owe him. Yes, if it's your own free choice based on your judgment of the value of that person and his struggle. This country wasn't built by men who sought handouts. In its brilliant youth, this country showed the rest of the world what greatness was possible to Man and what happiness is possible on Earth.

Then it began apologizing for its greatness and began giving away its wealth, feeling guilty for having produced more than ikts neighbors. Twelve years ago, I saw what was wrong with the world and where the battle for Life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality and that my acceptance of that morality was its only power. I was the first of the men who refused to give up the pursuit of his own happiness in order to serve others.

To those of you who retain some remnant of dignity and the will to live your lives for yourselves, you have the chance to make the same choice. Examine your values and understand that you must choose one side or the other. Any compromise between good and evil only hurts the good and helps the evil.

If you've understood what I've said, stop supporting your destroyers. Don't accept their philosophy. Your destroyers hold you by means of your endurance, your generosity, your innocence, and your love. Don't exhaust yourself to help build the kind of world that you see around you now. In the name of the best within you, don't sacrifice the world to those who will take away your happiness for it.

The world will change when you are ready to pronounce this oath:

I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man,

nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.

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Felix Dennis - Can You Get Rich?

So can you get rich? Can you build your own business empire?

It’s true. You can be rich. You can build your business into an empire. You CAN do it.

Anyone of reasonable intelligence lives in a Western democracy can do it given sufficient motivation and application. And the first lesson is that you can only get rich if you believe, if you believe in yourself. You must believe in yourself. You must believe in you can do it. You must believe that you are the one to do it. For if you will not to believe in yourself, then why should anyone believe in you? Absolute belief in yourself is vital if you are to succeed. Absolute belief in yourself despite all your faults — many of which you will not know — all your weaknesses.

Despite what your parents and teachers told you. Despite what your colleagues and friends tell you. Despite what your lover tells you. Despite your own failures, up to now, despite everything that life has thrown at you. If you only banish fear and fear of failure to the darkest recesses of your heart and I promise you: you can do it and no one can stop you from doing it. Only you can stop yourself from doing it.

We all fear failure

I fear it still. I have always feared it but such fear itself is not the problem. It is the paralysis that comes from such fear which is the real problem. The paralysis that grows into a mountain you shrink from climbing. That fear is real. The fear of embarrassing yourself, of people laughing at you, of letting down yourself and your family, and your colleagues and maybe even your employees. The fear of losing money that you borrowed or begged or stole. The fear of failing in the open where there is nowhere to hide and no one else to blame. This is the fear you must confront, that you must entice, capture, train and eventually padlock into a secret chamber of your soul. It will still call to you. It calls to me. You will hear its echo from time to time. Believe me. But by then you will be so far up the mountain—so close to the goal of getting rich—that its cries will only serve to spur you on rather than paralyzing you with doubt and dread. Confront fear of failure. Confront it head-on. Stare it straight in its feral eye. Wrestle with it. Master it and master it as best you can. Batter it into submission and harness it into becoming your secret weapon. A ghoul a scourge to keep you working longer hours than your friend can believe, harder than your colleagues can comprehend, harder than you ever dreamt you could work. In years to come you will thank that fear. The fear that drove you to achieve what you feared was impossible.

You have to have a clear understanding what is your time to do and you must understand step-by-step how you are going to do it. “I’m going to do this. If that fails I’m going to fall back and do that.” “Now I gotta do this, then I gotta get that.” You have to have a clear methodology in front of you. That does not mean you’re creating a business in ridiculous things that I received 40 a week of. You know, business plans telling me how we’re all going to become a multi-billionaires, nevermind all that. You have got to have a clear understanding of what you’re going to do and the steps you’re gonna take to do it. Then you have to, I don’t know if you’re going in with a partner or just entirely on your own.

Go to a place

Go to a place on your own. I don’t care where it is. I don’t care if it’s in front of your chimney or if you’re going out in the middle of the new Forest swear to yourself: “I will not give in until they bankrupt me.”

While you never give in on your goal, you know, what you’re trying to reach what you’re trying to do. You know, make more money than your neighbor. You might have to change the methodology. If something isn’t working then, what sorts the man or woman that is gonna to be rich from the man or woman that I just gonna have tried it once, failed and dream about it, is your ability, as with all human activity, to adapt. So you’re going to say “okay”, you know, “this isn’t working we gotta change our methodology. We gotta change direction. We gotta do something else that’s gonna make the damn thing work!” And if you’re willing to do that and keep trying. You know, listening to everybody that you know who’s got any kind of sense, whatever, that you trust, you know within this particular industry or whatever.

And if you’re willing to change until it starts working then they cannot stop for the very simple reason that in the end you WILL get it right. And I had to do that many, many times. Many of the magazines I started were complete dogs. They were absolutely useless and we all got together and we talked about it and we started to listen to our readers and we realized that what we were doing was completely wrong. And it’s amazing how often entrepreneurs get the right idea and the wrong methodology and just go about it completely wrong.

So, can you get rich?

Can you build your own business empire? Is it a delusion to believe that so-called ordinary men and women can within not so many years do what I did? And what did I do? I went from being a failed blues musician and an art student living in a crummy bed sit. Didn’t have the price of a pint of beer in my pocket, let alone the money to pay my landlady the rent into becoming one of the richest men in Britain or so the Sunday Times Rich List tells us. I went from being a highschool dropout without a penny of capital or the benefit of a university education to owning my own business, flying around in private jets, purchasing massive homes in the states with thousands of acres of land around the world, being chauffeured in a fleet of rolls royces and maybachs and drinking the finest wine that money can buy from my own cellars.

In the end if you want too much money, then make the decision that you do want it and go out there and get it brother and nothing can stop I swear that to you. Nothing in this earth can stop you, apart from death, nothing. Most of the people that got fantastically rich in the western world in the last couple of hundred years were not very clever. They don’t have to be clever.

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Believe In "Ridiculous" Dreams...By Heavy D

Some years back there was a young, ambitious, tenacious young man who wanted to rule the world. This young man and I grew up in the same town. I was slightly older by a couple of years but I had already begun to realize my dreams. This young man reminded me a lot of myself.

1. He believed in himself when no one else would.

2. He often felt like an outcast and alone because there was nobody around that he could share his "RIDICULOUS" dreams with and because most people couldn't see that far.

3. No one wanted to hang around this person because they found him either annoying or NUTZZZ!

4. He never quit, he never gave in to anyone's opinion of him. He'd rather be alone than give up on his dream.

Damn, "That was me," I said, that's how I felt when I was coming into my own and striving to realize my dreams. I did sound crazy. I did feel alone. Hell, I was crazy and still am. I know what this brother is going through.

"From now on..." I said to him, “You can roll with me ... tours, videos, studios, meetings. Just come hang out.” We became fast and close friends actually more like brothers than anything else. He called my mom "MOM" and I called his mom "MOM." Till this day it remains so.

I helped this young brother without any expectations for myself. It was just so reminiscent of my endeavor and of my lonely dreams that I felt like I had to help him. Now, I didn't know it at the time but I was mentoring this young brother. Again, for me it was just helping another brother out who wanted to do something bigger than anyone where we were from could realize.

We would sit for hours in my mom’s basement and talk so much sh** about what we would do with our first million dollars and the types of cars and houses we would buy. Today, I still laugh at the nerve we had. But that's what it took. NERVE!!

Funny thing about “passion,” it will lead you directly to your dreams. So yes, I mentored this young man, albeit indirectly. 

Today, this young man is one of the most powerful, hard working, famous people on the planet. He's done things that I have never imagined doing myself. He is smart, shrewd, and still tenacious.

He has accomplished more than he and I ever discussed. He has gone on to create and even re-create some of the most recognizable brands and artists in the entertainment business.

He continues to break down barriers and change the game. Time and time again, he has faced adversity, criticism, hate, jealousy, ridicule and pain but he has always maintained his drive and his dream.

Today, he is now a mentor to many. And the irony is that he is even a mentor to me without him ever knowing it.

I am constantly inspired by this brother. I reflect sometimes on our many conversations as “dream chasers” and “outliers.”

I will never lay claim to the heights that he has brought himself to but I will say that if you or anyone you know has a "ridiculous" dream remember, it doesn't take much to encourage someone to go for that dream and this brother is living proof. 

I have another friend who told me a great quote. Allow me to share it with you.

"BEING REALISTIC IS THE MOST COMMONLY TRAVELED ROAD TO MEDIOCRITY"  -Will Smith

So, here I stand today proudly in the shadows of a true dreamer.

I salute you Mr. Sean “Diddy” Combs. And may you continue to dream, the "RIDICULOUS" dream...

BLESSINGS,

HEV

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What Makes an Entrepreneur? Four Letters: JFDI

by MARK SUSTER on NOVEMBER 19, 2009

I had a picture in the office of my first company with the logo above and the capital letters JFDI.  (In case it’s not obvious it’s a play on the Nike slogan, “Just Do It.”)  I believe that being successful as an entrepreneur requires you to get lots of things done.  You are constantly faced with decisions and there is always incomplete information.  This paralyzes most people.  Not you.

Entrepreneurs make fast decisions and move forward knowing that at best 70% of their decisions are going to be right.  They move the ball forward every day.  They are quick to spot their mistakes and correct.  Good entrepreneurs can admit when their course of action was wrong and learn from it.  Good entrepreneurs are wrong often.  If you’re not then you’re not trying hard enough.  Good entrepreneurs have a penchant for doing vs. over-analyzing.  (obviously don’t read this as zero analysis)

I spent nearly a decade building software for large companies and then advising companies on the same.  I didn’t have to make many serious decisions.  So I was surprised at the sheer volumes of decisions that had to be made when I became a startup CEO.  Most of them are completely mundane such as choosing which:  bank,  office space, 1-year lease vs. 2-year lease, logo, URL, pricing structure or which VC.

The technology team disagrees on direction and wants resolutions.  Your head of sales thinks she should fire somebody.  You need to decide whether or not to launch at TechCrunch50.  Somebody asks whether you plan to set up 401k’s and do contribution matching.  I think this paralyzes many people.

I learned quickly that I needed to just do things.  Yet I initially had a team full of people that seemed to either over analyze things or more likely wait for a higher source within the company to make the tough decisions for them.  You’re sales person is getting blocked by the CTO who says she shouldn’t go above him but the CTO isn’t approving the deal.  Should she take a chance and potentially ruffle feathers?

Yes, I know it’s my job as the CEO to be the coach for people and that’s fine.  But if everybody is looking for me to make their decisions we’ll never get anything done.  I felt like I had done the hard bit and chosen people that I truly respected and I would rather empower them to make decisions and accept consequences.

Sometimes you need to break some eggs to get things done so if that’s what it takes I wanted my team to go for it and I wanted to symbolize that it was OK with me.  I would far rather have some messes to clean up than to never have them cross the line trying.

So I took on the motto JFDI to symbolize this.  And I think my team did a great job and rose to the occasion.  Maybe it helps that I love controversy and pushing the boundaries so people felt it was OK for them to do it as well.

Another side of JFDI is finding ways to get stuff done that seem impossible.  Entrepreneurs have a way of doing that. Getting suppliers to accept terms that they said they never normally agree, getting accepted to speak on a panel when the conference organizer initially said “no,” getting people to moonlight for you until you have the cash to bring them on board.

A couple of quick stories / examples:

1. Making Things Happen

There’s a guy in Los Angeles that I met at several tech networking events.  He was a really nice and personable guy who had deep domain knowledge in an industry that he’d worked in for 10 years that is in need of technological advancement.  He wanted to be the guy who did it.  So we discussed his ideas several times.  I usually try to avoid getting stuck reviewing people’s PowerPoint decks (I get this request too often and frankly I’m already behind on my own work!) but there are some people you just take an (extra) liking to and want to help.  This was such a guy.

So over several months I went through a few iterations on his idea.  He was stuck on capital raising.  He wanted to know how to get started and “Could I intro him to a couple of local angels?”  One night after a DealMaker Media event we got 20 minutes together after the event ended.  I was blunt (warning: that sometimes happens with me) and told him not to bother and that I wasn’t prepared to help with angels.

“Why?” he asked.  I told him he wasn’t a real entrepreneur.  He looked stunned.  I said that he had been talking about doing this for too long.  He still had no website and no prototypes.  But “he didn’t have the budget to hire a developer until he had raised money!”

I said that was my point. “A real entrepreneur would have done it anyway.  He would have found somebody technical and inspired that individual to work for equity or deferred payment.  Real entrepreneurs are contagious.  They are filled with ideas and they get those ideas onto paper.  That paper can be in the form of wireframes or in the form of a PowerPoint plan.  Or worst case your ideas can be conveyed verbally.  But they GET THINGS DONE.  You have the skills and knowledge to do that.”

I walked away kind of feeling bad.  I don’t like to intentionally crush people’s hopes.  But I always view my job as being honest so that people don’t waste time, money or both if their ideas aren’t good or the positive execution isn’t likely.  But then something awesome happened.  He took my comments as a challenge.  He went out and found a developer and built a product.  He refined his business plan and he got commitments for $150-200k but needed some lead angels to commit first.  When he re-approached me he had a much better plan and he had a prototype!  I introduced him to some angels and his round was OVER SUBSCRIBED!

That is a true story.  I don’t know whether the entrepreneur feels comfortable with my saying who he is so if he does and he reads this perhaps he’ll put his details in the comments section.  But I  bring up this story for a reason.

2. Analysis Paralysis

I used to sit on the board of a company (for which I DID NOT invest) with a very smart and very likable CEO.  This person was educated at the best US schools and had worked for a top-tier strategy consulting firm – one of the big 3.  The CEO led every board meeting with vigor and the board members (sans me) were always wowed.  The CEO had 60-page Powerpoint presentations analyzing every micro detail of the business.  The company had less than $5 million in revenue yet we had a multi-tab spreadsheet doing activity-based costing on our customer service staff, operations and technology.

We had every chart every invented by man (or McKinsey) showing failure rates of our product, mean-times-to-repair, detailed sales forecast charts, etc.  Charts.  What lovely charts!  I know they would have been very useful in dissected the woes of General Motors.  I was the only unimpressed board member.  I was the one pointing out that we were behind on our sales targets and our “Elephant Deal” that had been promised was 6 months late.

After a few board meetings I finally spoke up.  I was a bull in a china shop.  I said (out loud), “I sure wish that some of the time that went into these PowerPoint slides would have gone into meetings with the COO, CFO or CMO of [Elephant Customer].” The CEO had never met with any of them.

With a CEO that likable, smart, educated and accomplished it made board members squirm that I was willing to call bullshit.

I’m sure you know what happens next.  We missed our sales target by more than 66% for the year but we had great slides explaining why.  The next year we set the sales budget equal to the previous year’s sales budget that we had missed.  We missed the next year by more than 33%.  Nobody seemed shocked.  The company has burned through serious cash.  I complained the whole way.  It was not fun.  No “independent” board members seemed to care (or even comprehend the lunacy of the whole situation).

To this day I’m sure they see the situation differently.  Beautiful slides by top-tier consultants have hoodwinked large companies for years and I can see why.  They are intoxicating, complex, insightful and tell a great story.  But in the end they’re usually just that – a story.  Sometimes a fantasy.

I still really like this CEO and have deep respect for this person outside of the role of being a CEO.  The “Peter Principle” says that “everybody rises to their level of incompetency.”  Read this as some people who are great at analyzing to not make great doers and therefore do not make great entrepreneurs.  I think many VCs have learned this the hard way when they step in to temporarily run companies as I have seen happen.

The problem with the company that I described above was that there was somebody willing to fund ongoing losses and the board continued to believe that good times were just around the corner.  Maybe they’ll be proved right some day.  I certainly hope so.  But in the UK we used to call this “promising jam tomorrow.”  I was tired of jam tomorrow.  I left the board.  The company never JFDI.

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How to Pitch a VC: 5 Tips from ‘Shark Tank’

By Steve Strauss | October 3, 2011

What does it take to not only get the attention of VCs, but actually get them to invest in your business? This, of course, is a question that vexes many an entrepreneur. Sure, you can read books and articles and watch videos, but let me suggest a different path:

Watch TV.

Specifically, turn on the show “Shark Tank” on Friday nights. If you have never seen it, here’s a quick recap: Entrepreneurs and inventors come before a panel of multi-millionaires and billionaires (like Mark Cuban and Barbara Corcoran) and pitch their businesses. If the sharks (the investors) like the idea and think it is a market-worthy product, they will offer the entrepreneur some or all of the money the person is seeking in exchange for an equity stake in the business. If they strike a deal, the shark and the entrepreneur are in business together.

It’s fascinating to watch, from both perspectives. Sometimes you see entrepreneurs go up there with a dynamite idea but no clue how to execute on it. Or they have no sales or no team. Sometimes the sharks battle each other for a piece of the pie when an idea seems too big to miss such as Toygaroo, a company that rents toys to parents of young kids for a monthly fee — sort of like Netflix for toys. Brilliant.

But for us entrepreneurs in the audience there are a lot of lessons on how, and how not, to approach and get money from a VC. Here are five:

1. Know your numbers cold and be able to back them up: How many times have I seen someone on the show come in and say they need, say, “$100,000 for a 10% stake in my company”? The sharks immediately note that that means the entrepreneur values the company at $1 million. They ask:

What sales do you have to back that up?

What assets do you have?

What is your profit margin?

If the entrepreneur has no proof that the business is really worth what he says it is, then it’s over. Know your numbers.

2. Have some sort of secret sauce: There is no shortage of great ideas out there. What distinguishes yours? Why should a VC invest in your idea over the hundreds of others he or she sees every year? You have to offer something different and special and unique.

As one of the sharks, billionaire Kevin Harrington says, “A good business idea is a product or service that solves a problem that is not already being solved in the marketplace. The product or service should be unique enough that it’s not something already readily available.”

3. Have a great team: VCs love to see that you have surrounded yourself with people who can execute on the plan, and who have experience and a can-do attitude. That said, Barbara Corcoran notes, “Always choose attitude over experience. When I hire people I make a habit of never looking at their resume because most people spend most of their life in the wrong job. I never hire complainers or excuse-makers because they’ll find a way within my company to do more of the same. People with a can-do attitude are a pleasure to work with.”

4. Put your best foot forward: Not a few times on the show have the sharks said that they are investing in the person more than the idea. You have to come to the meeting with the VC and be impressive — a leader, a visionary, articulate, confident, and bold, all rolled into one.

Again, Barbara Corcoran is instructive, “My most important criteria when making the decision to invest are: 1) Do I trust the individual? and 2) Do they have the fire in their belly to bring the business to the finish line?”

5. Show them the money. Investors invest to make a profit. Be able to prove that you will make them a big one.

In the end, whether you get the money or not, depends on all of these things. Harrington puts it this way: “Your presentation needs to convince potential investors and business partners that you know what you are doing, have a background in your business, and have put together a good team. It’s important that you show them as little risk as possible, and convince them that they will not only get their money back, but also a high return on investment.”

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6 Lessons We Could Learn from Steve Jobs

By Margaret Heffernan | October 6, 2011

Tracking the achievements of Steve Jobs isn’t a difficult thing to do. They’re big, public and - especially in technology - remarkably long lasting. More tricky but, I think, more interesting, is eliciting from those achievements the lessons we could learn from his successes if we tried.

1. Style is Content

From the outset, Jobs and Apple believed in style: in fonts, in graphics, in industrial design and in marketing. It’s easy to under-estimate how eccentric this was at the time - and how eccentric it remains today. While most organizations believe that style is the exclusive purview of marketing, few achieve it even there. Most hardware and software remains remarkably clunky, ugly or simply derivative. (The Kindle is hideous; the Fire a pale imitation.) When I first started working in technology 15 years ago, style was dismissed as frivolous and that’s the status it still holds in most companies today. Anyone who imagines that Apple’s success derives entirely from what’s inside the box  (and there are more than a few) has missed a very obvious point.

Conventional wisdom divides thinking into the left brain and the right brain. The left is all systematic, rational, linear while the right is more emotional and creative. What Jobs demonstrated was that success lies not in emphasizing one over the other but in bringing them together. The physical representation of this was clear when he took over Pixar. The new campus planned 3 separate buildings: for creatives, for producers and for business people. He insisted that they be brought under one roof, with toilets at the center - because that’s where everyone meets and talks.

2. Patience Beats Speed

For all that Apple is known for fast product development, the truth is that Jobs was very good at waiting. After his return to Apple in 1997, when the company teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, he did what any smart CEO would do: slashed product lines (15 desktop models to 1) cut software and hardware engineers, eliminated peripherals, reduced inventory and retailers and moved most manufacturing offshore. There is nothing brilliant about this; it’s textbook stuff. But asked in 1998, by Richard Rummelt, what he was going to do next, in order to move Apple beyond its fragile niche position, Jobs had a gutsy answer: “I am going to wait for the next big thing.”

Wait? In a technology business? That took courage. Of course, once he’d figured out what the next big thing was, Jobs was methodical and patient - again - in putting in place everything he’d need to take advantage of the seismic shift in the environment when the U.S. market moved to broadband.

It’s also worth remembering that, during the three years he did this, he was remorselessly hammered by industry analysts not one of whom understood what he was up to.

3. Drama Trumps Romance

Jobs’s product launches were famed for their drama. But one thing they didn’t offer was romance. The products did what they said they’d do. Marketing commentary around them didn’t promise fantasies, illusions or daydreams. Apple promoted its products but didn’t hype them. This may seem a lackluster quality but it built trust. Apple said its products were easy to use not because (like many of its competitors) it hoped that was true, or because it was true for the PhD engineers who’d invented them, but because it was true. It seems peculiar to celebrate a company for truth in advertising but that’s one reason why Apple customers, once smitten, stayed loyal.

4. Nothing Beats a Good Mistake

Jobs’s career isn’t without its mis-steps. Losing control of Apple was the biggest and most obvious but there were plenty of minor slip ups along the way. The suicides at the Foxconn plant that manufactures iPhones was just one of these. But Jobs didn’t try to deny that they had taken place or that they mattered. He was swift to point out that Apple’s scrutiny of its suppliers was more rigorous than most - but he still moved quickly to understand what was going on and try to find remedies.

Every company makes mistakes. But, treated right, they can be treasure troves of learning. Moreover, people loved Jobs not because he didn’t make mistakes - but because he learned from them.

5. Technology Isn’t All About Youth

In the age of fast companies, built not to last, Apple offered ample proof that you can be innovative and cool after the age of 25. Experience, know how and skills counted for something. While the products were cool, they weren’t all built by pre-adolescents oblivious to the constraints and needs of normal human beings. That Jobs continued to be as innovative in his 50s as he had been in his 20s is something most companies should take time to consider at length.

6. Business Doesn’t Have to Be Bad

Earlier this week I was teaching a class of new MBA students. A strikingly international group, they came from Thailand, India, Korea, Colombia, Russia, Canada, Taiwan, China and the U.S. I asked them who their heroes were. As usual, the list included their parents, various heads of state and Nelson Mandela. But topping the list - regardless of age or nationality - was Steve Jobs. More than anyone else alive, he was the person who inspired their love of business and their desire to try their hands at it.

In an age when the streets are full of anger and violence at the havoc wreaked by one part of the business world, that there is such an inspirational figure as Jobs is important. We need smart men and women, young and old, to have high ambitions for the world of work, someone who believed passionately and articulated brilliantly how much good business can achieve. Now that Jobs is gone, who can fail to be concerned that no one else adequately represents his rich synthesis of intellect, imagination and passion?

The lessons we could learn from Steve Jobs aren’t all that remarkable. Many of them contain wisdom that we already know — we just don’t apply it. Why not? Is it that we lack courage? Or is it that we find it hard to believe that tenets so simple can prove so effective? Surely that’s the moral of the Apple story: there is genius in simplicity. But simple is hard.

- original link -

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Pixar: Steve Jobs’ Greatest Accomplishment

By Constantine von Hoffman | October 5, 2011

For a moment, let’s set aside all the talk of Steve Jobs as the man who brought us the Mac, iPad and iPod, and who shocked Apple back to life. Let’s remember him as a man who brought joy and great art to the world through a little side-project of his: Pixar Studios.

In 1986 — nine years before anyone had ever heard of Buzz and Woody — Jobs bought what was then known as the Graphics Group from George Lucas‘ Lucasfilms. At that point in time there was little reason to think of this purchase as anything more than quixotic. Pixar was in the hardware business, selling high-end computers to the U.S. government and Disney Studios (DIS).

Its animation work started as an attempt to sell those computers. John Lasseter, today recognized as one of the great movie makers of all time, was hired to create short animations that would demonstrate the machines’ abilities. These were premiered at SIGGRAPH, the computer industry’s largest convention, to amazing responses.

In retrospect what was most interesting about the reaction from all these alpha geeks was that they were far more impressed by the stories than the technology. After the first showing of Luxor Jr., a charming story of two anthropomorphicized desk lamps, Lasseter says he was bombarded with questions about whether one lamp was mother or father to the smaller lamp.

For a while the company did computer graphics work for other movies, but that didn’t really make a lot money. Jobs then realized he shouldn’t be in the hardware business (that’s pretty much the story of his professional life). So in 1990 Jobs sold sold Pixar’s hardware division, including all proprietary hardware technology and imaging software, to Vicom Systems. Shortly thereafter Pixar signed a three picture deal with Disney Animation Studios. In 1995 Toy Story hit the screens — kicking off the most amazing run of success by a movie studio EVER.

In the past 16 years Pixar has produced 12 feature films — all them box office smashes. The $602 million average gross of their films is unequaled in movie history. Six of them — Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Wall*E, Up and Toy Story 3 — won Oscars. The last two are two of the three only animated movies ever to be nominated for Best Picture.

While Pixar’s work is clearly among the best animation ever produced, you can make a very reasonable argument that they are also among the best movies ever.

In 2006 Disney bought Pixar for $7.4 billion, making Jobs Disney’s largest shareholder.

Jobs wasn’t the story teller who created Nemo, Woody or any of the rest. He was the man who saw what was needed to make those stories possible. Pixar clearly didn’t end up as what Jobs thought it would be when he bought it. His ability to see the opportunity as it evolved is yet further proof of what a singular man Jobs was.

Ars longa, vita brevis

- http://www.bnet.com/blog/sports-entertainment/pixar-steve-jobs-greatest-accomplishment/1621 -

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How To Be An Entrepreneur

Whilst the ultimate desire for any Muslim is success in the Hereafter, the Qur’an also teaches prayers for success in this world. Before beginning a new series on Global Muslim entrepreneurs, emel looks at the attributes that a Muslim entrepreneur should be striving for in their business.

Faith in Trade

The Qur’an has many verses extolling the virtues of trade, and the Prophet has said that nine-tenths of all rizq (material provision) is derived from commerce. He himself led trade missions to al-Sham, including for the businesswoman Khadijah bint Khuwaylid (later to become his wife). Extensive trade networks created a medium through which Islam spread peacefully, initially through the merchant class and then into the general population. Indeed, it can be said that trade flows within the veins of the Islamic culture and narrative. Given that commerce is crucial for a thriving country, with small businesses today providing the engines that power economies - creating jobs, fuelling growth and transforming communities - it is vital that young Muslim entrepreneurs take up the mantle of commerce, and begin to harness the faith-based enthusiasm for trade.

Win Win

The best deals are when the principle of ‘Win, Win’ is adhered to. Both parties should come out of a deal feeling happy. If one party feels they have given too much, or not received enough, then it is not a good deal. The ability to make such a deal requires the development of mutual respect and care. The Prophet said, “None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself,” and such an attitude in business will lead to a positive reputation.

Business plan

Writing a business plan will allow you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your idea and clearly assess and evaluate the proposition. Whilst the Qur’an reminds us that “God is the best of planners”, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan; indeed, the Prophet was clear that people had to fulfil their responsibilities towards stable action, reminding his followers to, “Have faith in God and tie up your camel.” A business plan, however sketchy, is essential to the entrepreneur. For a start-up, it should look at the projected outgoings and projected income; and give a best guess assessment of “break even”.

Success and Failure

Success is generally defined in terms of achieving goals, acquiring wealth, having prestige, status, and power; however, there is a reason why the muezzin calls out “Come to success” when he calls people to prayer; for the success of any individual is ultimately their capacity to worship God. The Qur’an says, “I have only created jinn and mankind that they may worship Me.” As this is the purpose of human beings, success can only be through this. That is not to say that the pursuit of worldly success is wrong, it’s just that one has to recognise that it is not our ultimate purpose. In addition, whilst recognising that provision is from God, for the Qur’an says, “And God provides provision to whom He wishes without any account”, the Prophet made clear that believers had to “Spread out your goods and services, and seek provision from your Lord.

Want and Need

Often, business models are about creating want and desire in the consumer. Advertising is the public face of that, and billions of pounds are spent on marketing that is not necessarily connected to substance. The business model of a Muslim entrepreneur has to be more than creating consumer goods based upon consumer desire, and projects with social – not just economic – utility should be supported. Businesses that provide social enrichment and don’t just satisfy consumer desire, but rather build social capital are long-term winners.

Keep it Halal

The Prophet said, “When God prohibits a thing He prohibits the price of it as well,” meaning that one cannot trade in forbidden things. Alcohol, drugs, gambling, pork products, pornography, etc are all obviously prohibited ways of earning a living. The Prophet also forbade transactions involving unspecified quantity, so for example one cannot sell ‘fish in the river’, ‘birds in the air’. A Muslim entrepreneur should refrain from hoarding items hoping to make a higher profit at a later date; and selling items based upon fraudulent claims is also forbidden, as is of course, dealing in usury.

Brand values

Big business always talks about “brand values”, but what is good for the corporate also holds true for the small enterprise. In addition to finding the unique selling point (USP) of your brand, Muslim entrepreneurship should have trust, justice, and integrity at the core of their brand values. The Qur’an reminds the believer that “justice is closest to God consciousness” and tells the reader to “Give full measure and full weight in justice, and wrong not people in respect of their goods” and “Oh you who believe! Eat not up each other’s property by unfair and dishonest means.”  Add ihsan, excellence, to the brand for “God has prescribed excellence in all things”, and the Muslim entrepreneur is well on the way to creating a long-lasting, sustainable brand.

Balance

Islam is profoundly about mizan, balance; and the Qur’an describes the Muslim community as “a middle nation to act as witnesses unto mankind, and the Prophet to act as a witness unto you.” As such, there should be balance in all things, including entrepreneurship. Therefore, a Muslim entrepreneur should establish balance between work and family life, between profit and sustainability, between passion and pragmatism.

Going Green

There are natural synergies between the Muslim Lifestyle Economy and the ethical lifestyle economy. Muslim entrepreneurship needs to have the vision to perceive those synergies and then implement them. The Qur’an describes humanity’s stewardship of this world, and those in business have a great responsibility to make sure their products and services are sustainable from an environmental as well as commercial perspective.

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