Online Business Freedom

Last night I attended The Journey of Entrepreneurship Event at USC.

I was especially interested in going because one of the keynote speakers was Josh Berman, co-founder of MySpace.com, and current CEO of Slingshot Labs Inc., a division of News Corp, and a web incubator dedicated to building new web companies.

The other keynote speaker was Ramona Capello, CEO of Corazona Foods.

Ramona has worked in senior executive positions at companies like Nestle and Celestial Seasonings before breaking off and creating Corazona Foods. One of her great claims to fame is that her company was the first to create and sell a great tasting potato chip that actually lowers your cholesterol.

Now, to be honest, the event was rather dry.

Remember, I’m a bit of a seminar junkie, so when you’ve been to as many marketing conferences as I have, you get used to seeing some pretty good platform speakers.

My wallet will tell you all about it.

But here are some observations I found interesting.

* The topic of PASSION - Ramona lost her father and both her grandfathers to heart disease. As a result her passion for the health food industry was unparalleled. You may not have these kinds of dragons in your life, but we all definitely have some areas of passion we can tap into

* The importance of TARGET MARKETS - Josh Berman didn’t just go off, build a website called MySpace.com, and watch the money roll in. In the very beginning, he and his team did market research, and realized that independent bands fit their research, and social media prototype perfectly.

So they targeted this group first, dicing and segmenting their list geographically, and by genre. As a result, from the outset, bands became the heartbeat of MySpace. Today, over 5 million bands sell their CD’s on MySpace, 70% of whom are not in the US.

* The concept of TEAM BUILDING - With a dry chuckle, Josh Berman confessed that to this day, he didn’t know how to build a website. He created a TEAM to do all the stuff he wasn’t able to do. As a CEO, he simply kept the vision alive and moving forward.

His original team is still with him to this day, including a slew of programmers, creatives, and of course, “MySpace Tom” the most recognized face on the website.

* The power of RELATIONSHIPS - Here’s an interesting example. Berman worked as a financial analyst for Fox, then left. But he retained his relationships there.

Later, he came back to Fox as a marketing executive, then left. But he retained his new relationships there.

Then, MySpace got bought out by NewsCorp (Fox’s parent company). He said this never could have been set up had he not kept his relationships with Fox intact.

* The value of NOT RECREATING THE WHEEL - Ramona saw that the health food market was dominated by the “balance” war-cry. Basically… If you balanced a healthy diet with exercise you would lose weight and lower your cholesterol.

But Ramona wanted to make lowering your cholesterol something passive and hands off, so that anyone could get healthier without having to do any extra work. So she went a step further to create the industry’s first snack potato chip clinically proven to lower your cholesterol… while you sleep (sorry, I couldn’t resist throwing in some weight loss copy!)

Josh Berman literally looked at Friendster, saw the popularity of social networking, analyzed the weaknesses of that particular site, and created MySpace to exploit these weaknesses.

Both of these entrepreneurs simply saw a popular market, and improved upon a working model. They didn’t dream up the next “pet rock”.

So here are some personal observations.

1. It was strange to hear their stories, because most of their careers WEREN’T entrepreneurial. At least, not in the sense that I’m used to hearing about

2. I couldn’t incapsulate any dominant skill sets, besides managerial qualities and passion. They seemed like decent salespeople, but just hard workers who were idea driven

3. But just because they don’t fit the mold of what little old me thinks of as an entrepreneur… who cares! They’re doing SOMETHING right…

One woman asked a question about breaking that “million dollar mark” in sales, and Ramona looked at her for a moment, then said quite seriously, “I look to break the 100 million dollar mark every year, with every company I work with, so I’m not quite sure how to answer your question.”

She looked at Josh Berman who said, “Don’t look at me, Mr. Murdoch expects BILLION dollar revenues with us at News Corp…”

I have no idea if personal freedom and a million bucks a year works for you, or if you want the wealth and prestige of a 100 million dollar company.

Either way, hope this helps.

-James D. Lee

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