About the Author: William Fisher, a partner at Treetop Ventures in Omaha, is a regular guest contributor to Silicon Prairie News. In his series, View from the FishBowl, Fisher calls on his experience as a business executive and technology investor to lend his advice to entrepreneurs in the Silicon Prairie.
For Fisher’s bio, including a listing of companies he has been or is involved with, visit treetopventures.com.
Contact Fisher at fish@treetopventures.com.
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Francesca Cutrera of Your Happy Plate, the winner of Startup Weekend Omaha, demonstrates her team’s Android app during the final pitches of the 54-hour event. Photo by Danny Schreiber.
Recently, I was honored to spend an evening with an outstanding group of young people who participated in Startup Weekend Omaha. Wow, was that refreshing! What I saw was a super group of young people trying to figure out how to walk the walk … knowing they’re already beginning to understand how to talk the talk.
For me, walking the walk is getting out and doing something about your idea or helping someone else bring their idea to the world. That is so different than those who like to talk the talk but don’t take the initiative to get themselves involved.
Boy, was I impressed at the young people who got up in front of their peers (and older people like me) and put it on the line! Sure, there was some hesitation … and for sure, there was a dependence on technology that everyone struggled to make work. (BTW, the group that should have entered Startup Weekend would have been a Tech Support group that could have easily made the projectors, audio systems and other technology work as it was a continuous struggle to adapt to the room’s highly engineered and probably expensive technology. If there was a group like that, they would have won first place!) However, most of the groups worked through the problems (even had one group step up and perform while another was making their presentation work; great job) and did a super job telling their story.
However, I was sort of dismayed and amused at the ability for this group to “talk the talk” as it relates to various methods of monetization of their ideas. Everyone was pretty sure that they would be successful by doing advertising; boy, are they in for a shock when they actually take the time to figure out the economics of that business. Many were pushing subscription models; how many of these things do you subscribe to besides the obvious ones (cable, wireless)? I was probably more intrigued by the idea that one group had that would probably have a great chance of monetization but they chose to forego monetization and go the way of Twitter (no apparent monetization model). Why, I asked? Well, it worked for Twitter. Yikes! (It isn’t that I want to discourage this logic; I just want to point out that the lottery might be a better choice with a lot better odds).
For sure, I don’t want to discourage anyone. Actually, just the opposite is what I have in mind. If you are going to suggest that you can do what someone else is doing (whether it be a pricing model or something else), do your homework and understand the specifics as opposed to just “talking the talk” and hoping that others are reading what you read and therefore nod their head.
Finally, there are various clichés that are fun to think about when you meet someone who is talking the talk but isn’t walking the walk. The British call it “someone with all mouth and no trousers;” Texans call it “someone with a big hat and no cattle;” Grandma Fisher used to tell me not to “write a check that I am not big enough to cash.” Her expression had nothing to do with money!
