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William Rosenzweig, founder of the Republic of Tea and a professor at Haas, believes that to be successful, an entrepreneur needs curiousity, courage, confidence, and commitment.

Most ventures start with a seed of discontent, and in Rosenzweig's case, the seed sprouted 30,000 feet in the air. On a flight from Newark, he spoke with his seatmate about their shared frustration of of not being able to get a good cup of tea. By the time the plane landed, he had a business partner and the first sprouts of a business.

Writing is normally the first step in making ideas tangible. Rosenzweig generated a whopping 400 pages of ideas in six weeks. These notes eventually became a book on starting a business, and the advance on the book became the seed capital that funded the Republic of Tea.

Perhaps the most surprising lesson is is that good things can come from Newark Airport. As if a multimillion dollar business weren't enough, Rosenzweig also met his wife at Newark.

(liveblogging from the 2005 Net Impact Conference at Stanford Business School.)

Posted by complexify at 06:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Having finished my first set of midterm exams at business school, it's a good time to reflect on what I've learned so far. Some of these things are reinforcements of things I once knew, but others reflect a new way of looking at the world:

1) Net Present Value is often an easy calculation, but no better than the underlying assumptions.
2) Business leaders realize that too few people know how to think (e.g., knowing when an NPV calculation even makes sense).
3) No one has yet solved the principal-agent problem.
4) Accounting is truly important, especially with regard to cash flows. Not sexy, but particularly critical to young companies.
5) In the wake of my first set of exams, it's clear that what's outside of the classroom is more important than homework and grades, as that's where people actually live, dream, and work.

Now this may not seem to be a lot of bang for the buck (12.5%*$120k equals roughly $12k), but I'd wager that it's a positive NPV transaction for me on many levels. The final point above has a lot to with that, and it's something I'll return to in the future.

Posted by complexify at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)