About the author: Erica Wassinger is principal of erw public relations, a boutique firm based in Omaha. She works with a handful of e-commerce startups and venture capitalists. She also is a mentor for Straight Shot, Omaha’s first tech accelerator program.

Silicon Florist founder Rick Turoczy speaks during the most recent Straight Shot Speak Easy.

Rick Turoczy is the editor and founder of Silicon Florist, a 20-year veteran of the startup industry and co-founder of the Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE). I guess you could say we liken him to the Jeff Slobotski of Portland.

Thanks to our sponsor

Become an SPN sponsor »
Meet our sponsors »

Last week Turoczy brought a fresh perspective on what makes entrepreneurs successful to the more than 50 individuals gathered at DJ’s Dugout in Omaha. The group came together for the second installation of the AIM Institute’s Speak Easy series, powered by Straight Shot.

Turoczy opened his keynote presentation, entitled “Ideas About Ideas,” by stating that the very best entrepreneurs are not the people that can think of gigantic ideas—anyone can do that, he said—but rather they’re the ones who can balance the schizophrenia between big ideas and executing the small details.

He went on to say too many people see entrepreneurship as something you fall into. “There’s something innate in a founder, somebody who has the courage to step off that cliff and start a new company,” he said. “That’s something unique to a founder.”

Here are a few more of the “ideas about ideas” Turoczy shared:

1. If you want to boil the ocean, you’ve got to figure out how to make the kettle whistle first. A theme within Turoczy’s presentation was the need for founders to break down their big dreams and ideas into manageable tasks that can be accomplished over time.
2. Facilitate invention, but seek innovation. “When you invent something, there’s no market for that thing because people didn’t know it existed,” Turoczy said. “If you take something that’s already been invented and apply it in a new and meaningful way, that’s innovation and where you make money.”
3. Embrace risk. Fail harder. Turoczy borrowed this credo from his PIE partner, Wieden Kennedy. He went on to paraphrase the company’s founder Dan Wieden—he coined Nike’s “Just Do It” tagline—saying that unless you’ve failed a couple times, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Take a risk and you may succeed.
4. You don’t have to fix everything. Just fix one thing and fix it poorly. Finding the “sweet spot” between a useful fix and a complicated user offering is something most founders find difficult. Find your user’s most painful point in the current system and fix that before worrying about the rest.
5. Don’t worry, be crappy. Simply put, stop waiting to perfect your offering and just publish it. Turoczy challenged the crowd to Google Twitter’s first landing page. It was awful but it forever changed the game.

In addition to Turoczy’s presentation, AIM and Straight Shot flew in Women Innovate Mobile co-founder and female entrepreneurship heavyweight Kelly Hoey. Hoey shared head-turning statistics on the rise in mobile usage and power of female purchasers has on the entrepreneurial sphere.