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Archive for Wil Schroter

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Vision (38)
June 9, 2009
About once a month I get a Google alert notifying me that someone is looking for a Web developer who can copy the functionality of my Web site. The thinking goes that if they simply copy the Web site verbatim, they’ll essentially enjoy the same success. This sounds good in theory except for one truth - in five years across three different companies (Swapalease.com, Go BIG Network, and GotCast.com) no one has ever done it successfully.That doesn’t mean people haven’t tried. Heck, people ha ...view entire post
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May 27, 2009
The "Great One" said it best Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, when asked how he was always on the puck before anyone else, pointed out that he was by no means the fastest skater on the ice. Instead he explained that he always just focused on skating toward where the puck was going to be. Gretzky knew that if he couldn’t be the fastest in the middle of the game, he would have to figure out how to stay ahead of the game.Sometimes trying to keep up in the middle of the game is a  ...view entire post
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April 28, 2009
If you asked me to point to the heart and soul of a startup company, I would not say it’s the people, the culture, or even the product. I would say it’s the pitch. The pitch is that one message that, when delivered, makes people say “wow, that’s a great idea!”. The pitch gets everyone in the room excited about getting on board with your product and your company. It’s the inspiration that carries everyone along for the ride.The pitch also determines whether or not the company's offer has  ...view entire post
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October 29, 2008
About once a month I get a Google alert notifying me that someone is looking for a Web developer who can copy the functionality of my Web site. The thinking goes that if they simply copy the Web site verbatim, they’ll essentially enjoy the same success. This sounds good in theory except for one truth - in five years across three different companies (Swapalease.com, Go BIG Network, and GotCast.com) no one has ever done it successfully. That doesn’ ...view entire post
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October 13, 2008
Anyone who’s survived the last down market knows that there are diamonds in the rubble of a broken economy.  While everyone else is fleeing for the hills, a smart, lean startup company can find its greatest fortune. In order to understand why a down market creates so many opportunities for a startup company, you first need to understand why a bull market makes it so difficult to succeed. In a bull market the cost of everything skyrockets.  As more capital  ...view entire post
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July 23, 2008
There's an old adage that says "Entrepreneurs do what other people won't in order to do what other people can't."The suggestion there is spot on - that the entrepreneurs who get to live the life people dream about did so because they were willing to make the sacrifices it took to make that life happen.  So the question really is: can you afford not to be an entrepreneur?If the answer is “yes”, your life will probably be just fine doing whatever it is that you enjoy doing.  But if you really want ...view entire post
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July 9, 2008
Your First idea is only the Beginning Like everything else in this life, the plan for your new startup company will almost certainly change beyond anything you could have contemplated.  We would all love to think that we can have one new product idea that is so brilliant we never need to change a thing, but that rarely happens. In fact, many successful companies launch with one idea in mind but become fabulously successful by shifting directions completely.Google started out just powe ...view entire post
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June 11, 2008
After you listen to about a hundred startup company pitches you start to notice that they all sink or swim on just a few basic points.  Given enough time, you don’t even need to know what the product is. Instead you just start asking whether or not the entrepreneur has the right answer to a handful of questions that validate just about any startup idea.   This isn’t about having a sixth sense about the success or failure of a potential business idea.  No one has  ...view entire post
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May 14, 2008
Your Idea Alone has no Value Contrary to popular belief, great companies are not borne from great ideas alone.  We'd all love to think that if we could simply invent the next Post-It note, we could sit back and watch the cash tumble in.  But if great ideas don't spawn great companies, what does? The short answer is: you.  The longer and far more complicated answer is how you specifically position yourself and your company to execute on an idea.  Anyone who overhear ...view entire post
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May 1, 2008
In this episode, Wil discusses with Jim of MyPersonalBrilliance.com his formula to create an innovate company. Wil also explains how questioning your business decisions and the answers can guide entrepreneurs to a better company. You can listen to the second interview with Wil here. ...view entire post
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April 29, 2008
Wil Schroter discusses with Jim Canterucci of MyPersonalBrilliance.com his definition of success and the difficulties of evaluating the market for your idea. Wil also explains how to build a strong team for your venture, being aware of your weaknesses and how to best use GoBIG as a resource. You can listen to the interview with Wil here.  ...view entire post
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March 5, 2008
In the movie Liar Liar, Jim Carrey plays attorney Fletcher Reede, who’s been cursed with the inability to lie. Every attempt Fletcher makes to lie results in him blurting out the God’s honest truth instead.Imagine what would happen if an entrepreneur were cursed with the same affliction. What would their pitch really look like? The Sales Pitch “Hello, I’m Wil Schroter, and thank you for being the only client that was willing to return my phone call. I’ve borrowed my roommate’ ...view entire post
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February 14, 2008
Had a great visit a few weeks ago to the Vator.tv offices and shot a quick interview with Bambi Francisco.You can View My Interview here. Vator is giving entrepreneurs the opportunity to create video pitches of their business, making them available to investors, partners and potential employees. What I liked about Vator from the start was that they provide a very human element of the pitch process.  It also gives other entrepreneurs the opportunity to see how different pitches are delivered, fr ...view entire post
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February 6, 2008
Leading a startup company is nothing like leading a big, established company.  Startups are focused foremost on survival, while big companies direct their efforts toward growth or in the worst case, slowing decline.It’s natural that many entrepreneurs start companies with a task list that looks a lot like it did at their old job. After all, they’re likely coming from an established career in a big company. Big companies (usually) have the critical infrastructure in place and as inefficient as th ...view entire post
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October 15, 2007
Once again moving sleep down my priority list, we've rallied and launched a new company - GotCast.com!  (its company #10 for me) The concept is simple: we're casting for TV shows online. Up until now, getting cast for television was only for people who were "in the business" or had moved to Hollywood to get famous.  But with the massive switch from scripted TV (think Seinfeld) to reality TV (which is now 85% of what's on television) made the demand for general tal ...view entire post
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October 4, 2007
The equity in your startup company, often distributed in the form of stock options, is the most valuable asset you will ever part with. They are like the organs in your body – you only start with a limited amount and at first they seem like they are free. But like the organs in your body, you only get one chance to give them away, so you had better be real careful about giving them away. It all starts innocently enough. We have a great idea. We need people to implement and support the idea, and  ...view entire post
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August 9, 2007
Aspiring entrepreneurs are often faced with a tough question – would you rather own 100% of your own company or own a percentage of someone else's?While there are a lot of variables to consider, entrepreneurs often overlook the variables that really matter. They tend to think in terms of, “how can I get the biggest check on payday?” When the real question is, “what’s the chance that I'll ever see a payday at all?”In order to understand what a stake in a company is really worth, you need to know  ...view entire post
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July 20, 2007
Remember Day One of your new startup? You jumped out of bed, kissed your wife on your way to work, and ran into the office ready to conquer the world. That seems like a long, long time ago doesn't it? It's now Day One of Year Two.  Today you didn't jump out of bed because you were sleeping at your desk.  You responded (3 hours later) to a text message your wife sent you asking if you were going to make it home tonight.  You're not worrying about conquering the world today anymore, you're worr ...view entire post
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July 18, 2007
I'm out in Palo Alto today, spreading the Go BIG gospel far and wide, listening to entrepreneurs tell their startup stories.  I even ran into a few Go BIG members while walking the streets of San Francisco, which was pretty cool. In the last 24 hours I've probably given the Go BIG elevator speech 20 times, pitching reporters, entrepreneurs, investors and just about anyone that will listen. There are 3 reasons I pitch everyone, all the time: You never know to whom you're pitching.  On at lea ...view entire post
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May 22, 2007
Every month I make a pilgrimage to Silicon Valley to visit my startup brethren and soak in the startup vibe.  And every month I return home to Columbus, Ohio thinking I've just visited another planet. The problem with Silicon Valley is that the people there are absolutely in love with Silicon Valley.  So much that they tend to forget that the rest of the world doesn't operate anything like they do, yet ultimately they rely on the rest of the world to absorb and digest the products they cre ...view entire post
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May 18, 2007
Last night you woke up at 3 a.m. with the best new business idea you've ever had. You ran to your computer, started Googling similar terms, ran through Technorati to see if anyone was blogging about it, and performed some domain searches on GoDaddy to see if anyone had the name (they always do.) You went to bed feeling good about your new idea, not finding anyone that had something similar.  You slept like a champion, basking in the glory of your brilliance. Then you woke up the next day on ...view entire post
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April 4, 2007
People often ask me how I knew a company that I started was going to be successful. They equate the concept of being successful to finding a white light at the end of a dark tunnel. In my experience, entrepreneurs rarely ever see a white light of success until it’s blinding them entirely. They are so busy building their company and trying to get through next week that they don’t have time to seek out any kind of light. The good news is that even though things may be difficult for you now (they  ...view entire post
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March 21, 2007
Recently I had a forum discussion with a group of really smart MBA students where we talked about starting companies. The students were armed with a few years of great business education yet couldn’t answer one particular question: How do entrepreneurs evaluate risk before starting a company? My answer: We don’t, we just take it on. At first everyone waited for the punch line. They assumed that great companies were the result of a tremendous amount of research and planning, like writing a term  ...view entire post
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February 23, 2007
People talk about turning a dream into a reality.  It's often just a tired euphemism, but in the case of starting a company that's exactly what you're doing - turning an amorphous concept into a living, breathing reality. I've had the good fortune to go from dream to reality quite a few times and I can say first hand it never gets old. As entrepreneurs we get excited about our new ideas.  We dream of taking those ideas and creating great organizations behind them.  We want them to ...view entire post
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January 29, 2007
There is truly a right way and a wrong way to pitch your company via e-mail.  We get about a thousand submissions to Go BIG every week, many of which make their way into my inbox.  Here's a quick primer on the right way and the wrong way to pitch your company via e-mail. First, the wrong way 1.  Write ten paragraphs about your company.  No one has time to read your life story, and frankly, if the type of opportunity doesn't match up with who you're pitching, who cares whe ...view entire post
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January 16, 2007
Someone has to tell it like it is.Starting a company isn’t a wondrous, magical experience like visiting Venice or dancing at your wedding. It’s a pain in the ass. It breeds anxiety, insecurity and often bankruptcy. And it’s the only game I want to play.If you want to find a motivational speaker, go to a Tony Robbins lecture. If you want a swift kick in the ass about how startups really work then here you go. Really, I’m actually a wildly optimistic guy. But I’ve done this enough times to know t ...view entire post
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January 5, 2007
If you spend enough time listening to venture capitalists and industry pundits talk about the next big opportunities in on-line commerce, you would think there are only a dozen companies that will ever be successful. Companies in huge markets like NetFlix, Google and MySpace have become bellwethers of the next generation of high growth e-commerce companies. But what about everyone else? While all of the attention goes to the big boys, the reality is that there’s ...view entire post
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January 5, 2007
Your new startup idea already has the potential to be worth millions today. The problem is you may not know how to spend the type of money your vision creates. Startup companies can manufacture their own wondrous currency called opportunity. They use it to lure people to work for stock options, convince investors to fork over millions of real dollars, and attract partners to chip in and support the business based on what might happen in the future. The currency of opportunity is the most  ...view entire post
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January 5, 2007
If you’re thinking about starting a company, please don’t write a business plan. Stop, put the keyboard down, and step back. You’re wasting valuable time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that you run aimlessly into the startup abyss. What I want you to avoid is the black hole of{ planning that most entrepreneurs get into when starting a company. They get sucked into a time warp where a formerly great idea gives way to months upon months of “thinking” about the idea  ...view entire post
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January 5, 2007
Let me ask you something – is reading this column the most important thing you could be doing right now? If you’re 35,000 feet in the sky flying to your next sales call, then maybe it is. But if you’re sitting at your desk in the middle of the day with a computer and a phone next to you, I think you should put this column down right now and get back to work! You’ve got bigger things to work on. There is no time! If you have time to read this column ...view entire post
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January 5, 2007
Selling the vision of your new product to customers and investors is a lot like selling fire to cavemen – it may look wondrous and new, but chances are they have no idea what they’re looking at. That’s because most entrepreneurs and salespeople have a poor understanding of how their audience will receive and process the information they are presenting. They tend to fall into the trap of assuming their audience knows as much about the product as they do, and can’t seem to  ...view entire post
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January 5, 2007
So there you are on day one of your new venture. You’ve thought long and hard about your new idea and you’re ready to build a great company that is going to change the world. Now it’s time to attract customers, employees, and investors. No problem, right? Except for the fact that you have absolutely nothing to offer anyone because your company does not have an office, a product, or a single employee! So how do you get started with this world-changing vision if you have fe ...view entire post
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January 5, 2007
Are you an entrepreneur with a business idea that just can’t seem to get the support you deserve? Maybe you’ve completed a business plan but no one seems to want to read it. Or you’ve created a fantastic product that no one seems to want to buy. Perhaps you’ve pitched dozens of investors and no one seems to want to put money into your deal. Or maybe, just maybe - your idea just sucks. We’d all like to believe that we are a fountain of brilliant ideas, but let’s  ...view entire post
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January 5, 2007
These days the companies that are blowing the doors off everyone else – the Googles, PayPals, and eBays of the world – have shown us that the path to getting big fast is all about scaling, not just growing. They’ve learned how to create scalable business models that generate massive revenues without having to add massive amounts of resources to grow. And they’ve made a ton of money doing it. These companies have not achieved such lofty heights purely by coincide ...view entire post
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January 5, 2007
The smartest entrepreneurs aren’t the ones who figure out the solutions to big problems, they are the ones who actually understand the value of those big problems. Smart entrepreneurs focus on the very essence of why the problem exists and the pain it causes. Then, when they find a solution that works, they know how valuable the solution really is. Most entrepreneurs get so enamored by their own solutions that they lose focus on the problem they were solving in the first p ...view entire post
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January 5, 2007
If you asked me to point to the heart and soul of a startup company, I would not say it’s the people, the culture, or even the product. I would say it’s the pitch. The pitch is that one message that, when delivered, makes people say “wow, that’s a great idea!”. The pitch gets everyone in the room excited about getting on board with your product and your company. It’s the inspiration that carries everyone along for the ride. The pitch also determines whether or not the comp ...view entire post
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January 5, 2007
The "Great One" said it best Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, when asked how he was always on the puck before anyone else, pointed out that he was by no means the fastest skater on the ice. Instead he explained that he always just focused on skating toward where the puck was going to be. Gretzky knew that if he couldn’t be the fastest in the middle of the game, he would have to figure out how to stay ahead of the game. Sometimes trying to keep up in the middle of th ...view entire post
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January 5, 2007
When I was a kid I thought I had it all figured out. All of the big decisions in life -- what I wanted to do for a living, who I was going to marry, and where I was going to live -- were easy to make. I was going to become a fireman, marry my next door neighbor, and live in my tree house. As it turned out I never got excited about running into a burning building, my next door neighbor grew up to look like Kathy Bates, and aside from a more promising mortgage payment, my t ...view entire post
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