Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders

Frank Levinson's Top 10 Things You Must Have to Start a Business. These include: 1) Spending everything on a good team and equipment 2) Letting people know the company is in business 3) Raising limited capital 4) Taking stock of a company and determining its needs 5) Being open to opportunities 6) Having a supportive family 7) Targeting mass markets, not just niche markets 8) Having confidence in new ideas 9) Acquiring and selling to real customers 10) Choosing a great partner

Inevitably, when a company goes public, there's an enormous amount of change that takes place, says Levinson. While the IPO may be an indication of financial success, the true measure is within the company, and maintaining a level of normalcy and maintaing the company's original culture, he adds.

Clearly, without producing something that meets a customer's needs, says Levinson, a business is not a good position to succeed. However, it's important that the business create its own goals and work to fulfill its own needs as well. He describes the best methods to reaching a compromise in this situation.

Levinson talks about how competition is unavoidable among businesses, and in the high-tech industry, it's fast-paced and often cutthroat. Keeping ahead of the competition comes down to two things, according to him: quick innovation and keeping your team small and focused.

Number 1 in Frank Levinson's Top 10 Things You Must Have to Start a Business. Levinson claims that the people you work with and your team are key in making your business successful. He explains the factors that should go into choosing your partner

Number 5 in Frank Levinson's Top 10 Things You Must Have to Start a Business. When starting a business, says Levinson, it becomes your life. Having a family that supports you and understands that they may not see you often is a great benefit. He talks about his family and the way they adapted.

Levinson discusses the starting point of Finisar, and why he founded it. He also talks about the initial months of the business and trying to make a profit.

The rate at which a company grows will vary for each individual venture, says Levinson. Sustaining the growth can be a tricky thing. He explains Finisar's rapid growth and weighs the pros and cons of quick growth and sustainability.

It's often more difficult than it sounds, but it's important to be fanatically ethical when building a company, says Levinson. He believes people understand if it's an ethical environment right away. It is something that people gravitate to, he says, so you just have to build it early and never step off of it.

Frank Levinson, founder of Finisar, begins his talk with a story about a failed startup of his, Netek. Netek is an example of company that had all of the components that are commonly considered to be necessary - idea, business plan, VC investment, team and space. But even with all of that, Netek couldn't get off the ground, he says.

When starting a company, it's important to tell your family that they'll rarely see you, says Levinson, and to tell them how important they are to the whole process. The stress involved with a startup is often mind-boggling, and the support of family can be the saving grace, he adds.

As a company grows and develops, it is possible that its methods for design and production change, says Levinson. The company may also look to new avenues of possible innovations. He describes the changes Finisar has seen over the years.

How do you take a task that you already know how to do and do it a whole different way? Bartz talks about lateral moves within companies to improve innovation. She looks forward to future technology that will allow the creation of rich media content.

Over the last three years, Autodesk had to change delivery times due to customers' faster delivery demand. Autodesk was able to move forward using software as service, thinking about process, and innovating in an established company.

Bartz argues that you must understand how a company is run. Life is about horizontal and lateral moves. She also talks about the various positions she has held in the past, from analyst to VP of customer service. By the time she became CEO, she had acquired a strong background in various fields.

Bartz talks about how people who failed within Buzzsaw, were often given new projects to work on. Failure was valued, she says. Rather than criticizing projects that failed, Bartz notes how people wanted to apply the knowledge they learned from mistakes into new projects.

How do you seek out and promote quality leaders from within a company? Leaders are often self-selected from peers, Bartz says. On way to identify them is to set up a management meeting and tap into the different groups across the company and note who gets picked to represent the individual groups. Usually, these are your leaders. Because they are easy to work with and are creative, they are sought out as leaders at whatever level they are in. No one wants to work with an asshole, however qualified they may be.

Bartz discusses Buzzsaw.com, a company created to provide a hosted environment for the construction industry. Because Autodesk had no experience in the construction industry, the company spun out Buzzsaw and then bought it back after a successful fundraising round with VCs.

Bartz examines long-term balance and encourages people to catch themselves before they fall too far. Learn how to manage the various activities you are involved in, she says. Juggling is pertinent to career development.

Autodesk's vision is to keep the design data in digital format. Wireless industry is essential in this area. A small team of engineers at Autodesk banded together and built a wireless product on the fly to address an immediate need.

Kelley is pleased with the Ventures Funds he has started: "OnSet" and "IDEO Ventures". He raised these funds in reaction to his observation where designers are not valued as much as lawyers and management consultants. The fund allows IDEO to invest and/or participate in new interesting projects which operate on different business models than IDEO's.

Kelley narrates his experience prototyping the Apple and the Microsoft mice.

Kelley believes you start to think about things completely different when you think your job is to design the experience of using the device as opposed to designing the device itself. Kelley feels that to captivate an audience you need to build a context around the technology you are marketing and take into consideration how outside factors will affect how your product is perceived. He uses methods of transportation as an example

Kelley further describes his passion and what design means to him. He describes design as a process of having a combination of ideas in the head that need to be organized, while making a leap of faith about how it will be presented. It is a totally enjoyable experience, he says, there's a zen moment where time goes by and you lose track of everything. He presents a few design projects, including Personal Sky, SpyFish and weather-related inventions.