October 2010
Beginner
352 pages
6h 11m
English
Content preview from Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Chapter 23. Engage Great Mentors
Emily Olson
Emily is the co-founder of Foodzie, an online marketplace where consumers can discover and buy food directly from small artisan producers. Foodzie raised $1 million from First Round Capital, SoftTech VC, Tim Ferriss, and several other angel investors after completing TechStars in 2008.
Starting a company is the hardest thing I've done in my life. It's like I'm walking into a final exam every day that is composed of essay questions on topics I've never studied. That's the reality for most entrepreneurs. Now imagine walking into that same test, but now it's multiple choice and you have someone who already took the same test sitting next to you who is telling you the answer is probably "a" or "b." That's how much easier business gets when you get the help of a great mentor.
When my Foodzie co-founders Rob LaFave, Nik Bauman, and I first arrived at TechStars, we went gangbusters on setting up meetings with any TechStars mentor who would give us the time. At the beginning of TechStars, we were in the business of meeting mentors. But then we realized that while we needed to engage mentors, we also had a business to run.
Mentors should fit into your business, which means at any given time you should only be working with a few, but their experience should match up with the challenges you face. We found that when it came to finding the right mentor, ...
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I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
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I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.