The First 106 Miles
By Jeremy D. Zawodny
Expert Author
Article Date: 2005-01-12
A bit over an hour ago I got home from the first meeting of 106 Miles, which Joyce describes as: a networking group for entrepreneurial engineers in Silicon Valley.
The plan is to get together once a month in a casual atmosphere, have a couple beers and a slice, and ask questions of an invited guest who has good stories to tell about starting a tech company. It's basically a geek kegger with a slightly more directed chat in the middle.
Link: 106 Miles
And it was good.
We had time to get acquainted while folks arrived and discovered the beer. Then we moved into a large conference room where we got to hear about the experiences of Joe Kraus and Graham Spencer (of Excite, Digital Consumer, and JotSpot fame).
While they said a lot of interesting things, there are two I really picked up on. First, on the topic of keeping control as a startup grows into a larger company, Joe said that you need to decide early on what you want: control or success.
They also talked quite a bit about the importance of hiring the right people, noting that it's better to hire nobody than to hire the wrong person. And it may be a good idea to put off hiring as long as you possibly can--keep it small until you can't afford not to.
I can't really do the discussion justice--or the many conversations that sprung up over the beer and pizza that followed. But it was all Good stuff.
Thanks to Joyce for organizing and CommerceNet for sponsoring.
About the Author:
Jeremy Zawodny is the author of the popular Jeremy Zawodny's blog. Jeremy is part of the Yahoo search team and frequently posts in the Yahoo! Search blog as well.
Visit Jeremy's blog: Jeremy Zawodny's blog.
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