Prior to launching Long Tail, I’d begun to forget what it’s like to run a startup.

Sure, I’ve been slogging ahead non-stop with Cyan for a couple of years, but in many ways that’s been a markedly different experience. Because movie production largely works on a project-by-project basis, nearly all of my mental energy has been focused on the details of individual films, rather than on Cyan as a whole.

That’s especially true with fundraising, as – aside from a small chunk of seed capital at the very start – we haven’t raised money for Cyan itself, instead working to align financing directly for the films Cyan produces.

As a result, fundraising is a fairly static, separate phase of each Cyan project. Knowing a film costs $2m, we can push ahead with courting investors until that $2m is in the bank, then switch over to operations, to actually making the movie.

With Long Tail – as with most startups – fundraising is instead ongoing, simultaneous to actually running the company, alongside acquiring and releasing and marketing films. It’s a bit like bailing water from a leaky ship, constantly trying to stay one step ahead of a rising puddle of costs.

That puddle – and the speed with which it accumulates – is known in the business world as the burn rate. In short, a company’s burn rate is the amount of cash needed to fund operations for one additional day. With at least that much in the bank, the startup pushes ahead for another 24 hours; below it, and it’s game over, no matter how well things are going otherwise.

Which is why, as a startup’s CEO, no matter what else your job description entails, you’re first and foremost a fundraiser. You line up incoming investment money, and watch it flow back out, ideally watching it flow ever more slowly as the company’s revenue picks up the slack and pushes to break-even, to the point where revenue alone is enough to cover the burn.

Which makes startup fundraising doubly frustrating; you’re not just concerned about the amount of money raised, but also about the speed at which it rolls in.

Over the last two weeks, Long Tail has signed on another $60k of investments, bringing us close to closing out our seed round. But while that new money is there on paper, it’s not yet in the bank. And without feeling the urgency of burn first hand, the investors behind the cash inevitably take their own sweet time in actually sending out their wires.

So, for most of this week, instead of blogging, I’ve been obsessively checking bank balances online to note any incoming fund arrivals, and paraphrasing Popeye’s Wimpy to vendors – we’ll gladly pay them Tuesday for DVD duplication today.

It isn’t much fun. Particularly because it’s all so very close to working, and yet so very far, all at once. And because letting it stop us now would be a bit like surviving a long open-ocean swim towards dry land, and then drowning in the last two feet of water.

We don’t even need to swim this last little bit; we should be able to walk it. Stand up. One foot forward. Then another. Make it out one little waterlogged step at a time.

[Yes, they’re still coming: another installment of Radical Entrepreneurship.]

In the introduction (Chapter 0: Build Your Business), I beat to death the idea that the single most important part of building successful companies is unfailing persistence and determination, an unflappable commitment to start your company, and keep it going, no matter what.

But thereís one other trait that nearly all successful entrepreneurs share: they network like itís their job. Because, frankly, it is. A strong and extensive network is far and away the single best tool that any entrepreneur can have at their fingertips.

Literally every other aspect of starting a company ñ from hiring and financing, to sales, execution and business development ñ is largely made possible by the same thing: knowing the right people, or being a single introduction away.

That last bit is key ñ itís not just who you know, but who they know that makes networks powerful. If you have 250 names in your Rolodex, and each has 250 in theirs, youíre suddenly one step away from over 60,000 potential customers, collaborators, investors and employees. Sixty thousand!

That estimate of 250 people per network, by the way, comes from Joe Girard, a Chevrolet salesman whose prolific success put him in Guinness as The Worldís Greatest Salesman. After researching the question of average network size, Girard concluded that most people invite about 250 friends and family members to major life events ñ weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs. He coined that fact Girardís Law of 250, and credited his business use of it with much of his success.

[Girard wasnít just a salesman, he was a decent researcher, as recent academic research on human networks seems to confirm that most people have networks of 200-250 people they know well enough to, say, stop and have a drink with if they ran into them at a bar.]

As Girard knew, each person you bring into your network, each person with whom you build a relationship, can put you a step closer to 250 friends, family members and colleagues, any of whom might invest in your company or work for it, buy from your company or cut you a great deal on the services and supplies youíll need to run and grow it.

Hiring, fundraising, sales ñ theyíre all numbers games. The techniques and tactics Iíll be sharing in subsequent chapters can help you boost your batting averages, but only networking can push up the number of times you get to go to bat.

2.1 Time to go Fishing?

Of course, if your network consists of an average number of people you know averagely well, youíre bound for decidedly average results. So, for a moment, stop and see exactly where you stand.

First, check your contact list ñ hopefully itís electronic, perhaps itís a Rolodex on your desk. If you donít have anything but numbers in your cell phone or a rough list in your head, at least you have nowhere to go but up.

How many records do you have? More than 250? More than 500? At the moment, Iím at 2,243, and I suspect I still have a very long way to go. Consider senators and presidential candidates, who in one study were all found to have significantly more than 10,000 live contacts each!

Importantly, thatís 10,000 ëliveí contacts, the only ones that really count: those people youíre still actively in touch with, those with whom you have strong and ongoing relationships.

How many of your contacts are really ëliveí? Head to the first contact on your list whose last name starts with the letter ëpí, then pull out the next ten to check.

Of those ten: how many have you spoken with in the last six months? How many have you not spoken with in more than two years? What are the odds that any of them, if called last-minute, would get out of bed to pick you up at the airport at two in the morning?

And, if they wouldnít make that airport run, what would possibly make you think theyíd come through for you in business situations, most of which involve them putting their own reputation on the line?

Next, take another look at those same ten people. Do you know their birthdays? Their spouseís and kidsí names? Where they were born, where they went to school, what they do for fun?

All of those pieces of information are invaluable intelligence. If you donít know them now, itís time to start collecting.

Which, basically, is the point. Wherever you stand, you can always improve. Read the rest of the chapter, put the ideas to work, then come back in a year and do the same self-tests again. I suspect youíll be pleasantly shocked by how far your network has come.

One last test, this one to simply gauge whether youíve been getting out to meet enough people in the first place ñ people who might eventually end up in your network, and point you towards the investors, employees, customers or collaborators your company will need.

This particular test is courtesy of Malcom Gladwell, as detailed in his great book on the power of social networks, The Tipping Point. On this page is a list of 250 surnames, pulled at random from the Manhattan phone book. Head through the list, giving yourself a point for anyone you know with that surname. For this one, use ëknowí loosely ñ if you sat next to a guy on an airplane who introduced himself with the same last name, thatís good enough. Give yourself a point for each, and multiples count ñ if you know three Johnsonís, thatís three points. Ready:

Algazi, Alvarez, Alpern, Ametrano, Andrews, Aran, Arnstein, Ashford, Bailey Ballout, Bamberger, Baptista, Barr, Barrows, Baskerville, Bassiri, Bell, Bokgese, Brandao, Bravo, Brooke, Brightman, Billy, Blau, Bohen, Bohn, Borsuk, Brendle, Butler, Calle, Cantwell, Carrell, Chinlund, Cirker, Cohen, Collas, Couch, Callegher, Calcaterra, Cook, Carey, Cassell, Chen, Chung, Clarke, Cohn, Carton, Crowley, Curbelo, Dellamanna, Diaz, Dirar, Duncan, Dagostino, Delakas, Dillon, Donaghey, Daly, Dawson, Edery, Ellis, Elliott, Eastman, Easton, Famous, Fermin, Fialco, Finklestein, Farber, Falkin, Feinman, Friedman, Gardner, Gelpi, Glascock, Grandfield, Greenbaum Greenwood, Gruber, Garil, Goff, Gladwell, Greenup, Gannon, Ganshaw, Garcia, Gennis, Gerard, Gericke, Gilbert, Glassman, Glazer, Gomendio, Gonzalez, Greenstein, Guglielmo, Gurman, Haberkorn, Hoskins, Hussein, Hamm, Hardwick, Harrell, Hauptman, Hawkins, Henderson, Hayman, Hibara, Hehmann, Herbst, Hedges, Hogan, Hoffman, Horowitz, Hsu, Huber, Ikiz, Jaroschy, Johann, Jacobs, Jara, Johnson, Kassel, Keegan, Kuroda, Kavanau, Keller, Kevill, Kiew, Kimbrough, Kline, Kossoff, Kotzitzky, Kahn, Kiesler, Kosser, Korte, Leibowitz, Lin, Liu, Lowrance, Lundh, Laux, Leifer, Leung, Levine, Leiw, Lockwood, Logrono, Lohnes, Lowet, Laber, Leonardi, Marten, McLean, Michaels, Miranda, Moy, Marin, Muir, Murphy, Marodon, Matos, Mendoza, Muraki, Neck, Needham, Noboa, Null, O’Flynn, O’Neill, Orlowski, Perkins, Pieper, Pierre, Pons, Pruska, Paulino, Popper, Potter, Purpura, Palma, Perez, Portocarrero, Punwasi, Rader, Rankin, Ray, Reyes, Richardson, Ritter, Roos, Rose, Rosenfeld, Roth, Rutherford, Rustin, Ramos, Regan, Reisman, Renkert, Roberts, Rowan, Rene, Rosario, Rothbart, Saperstein, Schoenbrod, Schwed, Sears, Statosky, Sutphen, Sheehy, Silverton, Silverman, Silverstein, Sklar, Slotkin, Speros, Stollman, Sadowski, Schles, Shapiro, Sigdel, Snow, Spencer, Steinkol, Stewart, Stires, Stopnik, Stonehill, Tayss, Tilney, Temple, Torfield, Townsend, Trimpin, Turchin, Villa, Vasillov, Voda, Waring, Weber, Weinstein, Wang, Wegimont, Weed, Weishaus.

Now compar
e. In most groups, the aver
age score floats somewhere between thirty and forty. Well networked people score above ninety or a hundred. Where does that place you?

Here as well, however, there isnít a ërightí score. Simply gauge where you stand, follow the ideas in this chapter, come back in a year for a retest, and find yourself pleasantly thrilled by how far your networking skills have come.

And, trust me, itís well worth the effort. As I said before, literally every aspect of starting a company ñ from hiring and financing, to sales, execution and business development ñ all are largely made possible by the same thing: knowing the right people, or being a single introduction away. Made possible, in short, by building the right network.

2.2. How to Fish

Building a network is really a process in three parallel parts:

ï First, you need to identify and meet people who make valuable additions to your network.

ï Second, you need to establish the initial relationship ñ meet with the person one-on-one to bond and build an initial tie.

ï Third, you need to constantly build and maintain that new relationship, keeping it strong enough to draw upon when you need to, possibly years down the line.

All three are crucial to a successful network, so letís look at them each, one by one.

2.3. Where the Fish Are

In some ways, networking is one the easiest and most enjoyable parts of your job as an entrepreneur. Sure, itís technically work, but it certainly doesnít feel like it. Your rat-race employee friends will be insanely jealous ñ you get to meet interesting new people, have breakfast or lunch with them at new restaurants, and you get paid to do it? Hard work indeed, youíll reply, but someone has to do it. (Hah!)

Because networking is so fun, however, because it likely wonít seem like real work to you either, itís very easy to slack off as the pace of your company picks up. Donít! Donít let networking fall by the wayside. The more successful your company becomes, the more youíll need the flow of new and growing relationships that persistent networking provides.

To that end, make networking a habit. Start now, and donít stop doing it, ever. Meet someone new every week. One new person a week is exceedingly easy, doesnít take up much time. But, by the end of the year, those fifty new contacts will put you one introduction away from over 12,000 new people in their respective networks.

Never giving up, the most important part of entrepreneurship, is a mental stance you need internalize; networking, the second most important part of entrepreneurship, is a behavior you need to habitualize. Making sure youíre building that habit is the point of the one new person a week minimum.

In other words: no matter what else is going on in your company, always find time to meet someone new each week.

That leaves you, minimally, 50 new people to find this year. Which begs two questions: what kind of people should you meet, and where do you find them?

[Cliffhanger of an ending, I know; as this chapter (like most of the coming ones) is rather long, I’m splitting it up over several subsequent postings. Stay tuned.]

[The third chapter of Radical Entrepreneurship, and the last one for this week while I go back to rambling per usual.]

Before we dive into the specifics, letís first take a look at who this book is meant for, the broad areas it covers, and how you can best use it to generate maximum results.

1.1. Should I Read This Book?

Perhaps you have an existing business that youíre looking to kick into hyper-growth. Perhaps youíve been tossing around a great startup idea, but havenít actually launched into it yet. Or perhaps you simply know you want to start a company, but arenít yet sure exactly what that company will be.

In any of those cases, youíll love Radical Entrepreneurship; over several hundred pages, Iíll share with you absolutely everything you need to find ideas, turn those ideas into companies, and then grow those companies extremely quickly and effectively.

At least three other groups of people can benefit from this book as well.

First are the heads of nonprofit organizations, or anyone thinking of starting a nonprofit. Not only do the guerilla tactics I present for building successful companies apply to nonprofits, but the results-driven organizations the tactics create also make fundraising vastly easier ñ donors give money to organizations they believe can really get things done.

Additionally, many of the ideas in this book also apply to people who work for companies rather than start them. An entrepreneurial approach to your job can make you a more effective employee, and can help you reshape your company from the inside ñ two great ways to quickly climb the corporate ladder. Much of the information presented can also make finding a new job much easier, should you want or need to move on from your current post.

Finally, students of business will also benefit greatly from Radical Entrepreneurship. Learning these ideas ñ really learning them ñ then filing them away, will arm you to launch into action when youíre ready. But, just because youíre still in school, donít think you canít get down to business! I sold my first company while a sophomore in college, and sold the second by the time I graduated. And Iíve seen many other students achieve similar business success while in school. Hereís your chance to make ëbecoming a young mogulí your extracurricular activity.

1.2. But Donít Just Read This Book!

A recent study of business book buyers showed that about half of the buyers never actually read the books they bought. Of those that did, fewer than 10% then actually put the information they learned to work in their own companies. In other words, 95% of the people who buy business books are completely wasting their time and money.

I hope thatís not you. Because, while this book makes for reasonably entertaining reading, it only becomes truly valuable when you actually use the contents, when you figure out how to put them to work in starting and growing companies.

To really take advantage of this book, Iíd suggest reading it with a pen and notepad by your side, and using them often. If something makes a lot of sense, spurs specific to-do ideas, or launches you into a fit of brainstorming brilliance, write it down. When youíre done reading, youíll then be ready to jump into action.

Additionally, bundled with this book is a series of chapter-by-chapter checklists that, combined with your own notes, should help you actually put all of the ideas to work, step by step. The checklists may not make much sense until you read the associated chapters, and as most chapters depend on similar and interrelated ideas in other chapters, Iíd recommend you read through the entire book before launching into action.

When youíre ready to implement, you can use the index or table of contents to go back and review specifics things youíd like to think through again.

Finally, a few months down the road, once youíve had a chance to actually try out some of the ideas the book contains, Iíd also recommend re-reading the entire book; at that point, youíll likely pick up all kinds of things you didnít the first time through.

1.3. Telling You What Iíll Be Telling You

As you may have noticed, Radical Entrepreneurship is fairly long. Fortunately, itís also structured rather logically, with each chapter reflecting a major aspect of building a successful company. Hereís a quick overview of what youíll be learning along the way:

Next up, in Chapter 2: Itís Who You Know, I talk about the extreme importance of building a large and active contact network. The chapter covers some of the very best ways to meet people, build relationships with them, and then leverage those relationships throughout the process of building a company.

As the quality of your contacts plays a huge part in determining your effectiveness in every other aspect of starting a company, learning to network well is a great place to start.

In Chapter 3: Whatís the Big Idea?, I cover the logical first step of starting a company: deciding what kind of company youíre going to start. I talk through the different kinds of companies, with some of the advantages and disadvantages of each, before moving on to discuss ways to generate specific company ideas – from combining or improving existing ideas, to generating paradigm-shifting ones from scratch.

In most cases, you canít ñ and shouldnít want to ñ go it alone. So, in Chapter 4: Loading the Bus, I talk about building your team. First and foremost, youíll need to bring in some other executives equally committed to growing your company.

Youíll also want to put together a board of directors, and a board of advisors. And, over time, youíll likely hire in increasing numbers of employees to handle your companyís growth.

Your decisions while building a team can make or break your company, and so Iíll focus particularly on how to recognize and recruit the right people.

After that, in Chapter 5: Getting Down to Business, I walk through the (admittedly, often not terribly exciting) process of laying all the infrastructure groundwork for your new company. From decisions about office space, to building a team of outside service providers (such as lawyers and accountants), itís all here, with lots of guerilla tips for maximizing the benefits gained from each.

Follow the steps in this chapter, and youíll have a real company. Then what?

Ah, yes, that pesky empty bank account. Time for Chapter 6: Show Me the Money, in which Iíll walk you through the full range of financing possibilities, sharing direct experience, and exploring how each financing route has changed post ënew economyí bubble.

Iíll also drill into the process of writing a business plan, explain why most of what youíll find in books on writing business plans is hopelessly outdated or total bullshit, and help you pull together a document that not only helps raise you money, but also clarifies exactly where youíll be taking the business, and how youíll be getting there.

Right. So now youíve got the colleagues, the corporation, and the cash. Nothing left but to get down to actually doing business. Chapter 7: One Foot after Another, shares my tactics for making that happen. Youíll learn about using a top-down, strategy-driven approach to determine what need be done, then delegate and hands-off manage those tasks to completion.

Iíll also talk about the role of honesty and over-communication ñ two things that will make running your company vastly easier (ironically, even more so during rough patches than in smooth ones).

And, finally, I walk through the various stages of company evo
lution, discussing how compa
nies change as they grow, and how your approach to running them has to change in response.

Excellent. The companyís off to a great start, and growing quickly. But how could it grow even faster? Almost certainly, the limiting factor is the number and quality of your customers. So in Chapter 8: Building the Cause, I talk about the first half of finding customers, the part that involves reaching large numbers of potential customers at once, and is often called marketing, building a brand, or evangelizing. Whatever the name, this is the first step in building and retaining a rabidly loyal customer base.

Since this book is about guerilla tactics, Iíll focus on lot on low- or no-cost approaches in particular that will bring customers beating a path to your door.

Of course, once they knock, it may still take a bit of work to get them to step inside. In Chapter 9: Selling the Dream, I talk through the one-on-one aspects of customer acquisition, the process of getting them to sign on the line that is dotted.

If youíre a natural salesman, youíll take away tips that will hone your game; if you hate the prospect of pushing to close, Iíll also share a number of win-win strategies that will make selling (a key part of any CEOís job) much less painful.

Speaking of the CEOís job, Chapter 10: Itís Good to be the King, goes into greater detail about what that job actually is, before launching into a rather extended laundry list of how to do it more effectively ñ from managing time better and taking control of email, to the ins and outs of business travel and the importance of buying good shoes (really!).

Taken together, all of this should make you as effective as you possibly can be, getting the most done with the least possible time and stress.

That leads me to the sister chapter, Chapter 11: Enjoying the Ride, which delves into the importance of maintaining your sanity (or, what little of it you currently possess) throughout the startup process, by building a rich, balanced and fulfilling life that doesnít entail you sleeping under your desk for the next five years (which, sadly, Iíve seen done),

With all the previous information under your belt, youíll be growing a company that will soon have you, too, on the pages of Forbes and the Wall St. Journal. Then what?

Given my own experience, and what Iíve seen amongst successful entrepreneur friends, youíll be gut-hooked by the absolute fun that building companies can be. And, frankly, the joy is in the starting, the making something from nothing, the cooking from scratch. So, in Chapter 12: Rinse & Repeat, I discuss exit strategies ñ how and when to cash in your chips.

Normally, that takes you back to the very beginning, as you go through all the same steps again in building your next company, though this time with the good judgment gained from your experience, bad judgment, and the words of wisdom in this book.

As my reprinting the first twelve chapters a second time to reflect that fact likely wonít help you much, instead, in Chapter 13: Last Call, Iíll bring things to a close, summarizing all thatís come before, and ñ for good measure ñ throwing in some verse by my most favorite poet, Dr. Seuss.

Thatís pretty much it. Go to it.

[As promised, the next chapter of Radical Entrepreneurship.]

Ready for the secret? All that it takes to build a company from zero to millions and beyond? Okay, here goes:

1. Start.
2. Keep going.

Thatís it. Seriously. Those two steps are all you need; everything else Iím going to tell you is just detail about one step or the other.

If youíre nodding your head in agreement but getting ready to skip ahead to the good stuff, youíre an idiot. Because anybody can pay lip service to those steps.

Actually doing them, doing them no matter what, is unbelievably hard. Yet thatís what it takes to build wildly successful companies.

I cannot emphasize this enough. Growing a company is long and hard and tiring and difficult and overwhelming. Youíll want to stop at many, many points along the way. Most people do. The way you win is, donít. In the words of Winston Churchill, ìif youíre going through hell, keep going.î

Churchill meant it. Brought in as Oxfordís graduation speaker, he got up on the podium, looked around, said, ìnever, never, never give in,î and sat back down.

Never, never, never give in. Keep going no matter what. Come hell or high water, push the damn company forward one little step at a time. Thatís all it takes to succeed. Really.

0.1. More Keeping Going

Allow me to continue flogging the dead horse of this point, because itís absolutely the most important thing in the entire book: Radical Entrepreneurship is, more than anything else, a commitment to starting a company, and then doing whatever it takes to build that company into a success.

This shouldnít sound like a new idea. If youíve read a handful of biographies of unusually successful people, youíve doubtless noticed that the one thing, the only thing, they all had in common was the ability to keep going no matter what.

Thomas Edisonís journals show that he created more than 10,000 failed lightbulb attempts before making one that worked. Colonel Sanders pitched his chicken recipe to over 200 restaurants before one was willing to go into business with him. The list goes on and on and on.

Here as well, weíre really good at paying lip service. ìOh, absolutely,î we say. ìIíd have done the exact same thing.î But, in reality, when things get tough, we tend to wildly overestimate the amount of ënever say dieí weíre actually putting forth.

Thereís a great story about a guy who attends a Tony Robbins seminar, and complains to Robbins that, despite trying everything, he canít lose weight.

ìYouíve tried everything?î asks Robbins.

ìEverything,î the guy replies.

ìWhat were the last hundred things you tried?î asks Robbins.

ìWell,î the guy admits, ìI havenít actually tried a hundred things.î

ìThen what were the last twenty-five things you did?î asks Robbins.

ìI havenít tried twenty-five things, really, either,î the guy responds.

ìSo how many things have you actually tried?î asks Robbins.

ìWell,î says the guy, sheepishly, ìmaybe five or six.î

At various times, weíre all that guy. I know I am, frequently.

Iíll think to myself, ìjeez, Iíve gone to everybody, and I canít raise this round of financing.î And then Iíll realize that, by ëeverybodyí, I actually mean ëten or fifteen venture capital firmsí. Which leaves more than 3300 venture capitalists I’ve yet to approach. Thatís a lot of rejections to go before I can legitimately say Iíve tried ëeverythingí.

Fortunately, I canít tell you what itís like to get shot down by all 3300, because on even the toughest fundraising rounds, the ones that left me despairing and ready to quit at countless points along the way, we raised funding successfully long before getting that many rejections.

In my experience, thatís almost always the case ñ keeping going usually requires only that you somehow take the few steps beyond where you think you canít possibly take any more.

Still, if it ever came to it while fundraising, Iím absolutely certain I could force myself to work through the entire list of 3300, painful as it might be. If youíre not similarly sure you could make yourself do the same thing if necessary, save yourself some time, close this page, and start looking for a safe job in middle management.

To be a Radical Entrepreneur, you need to commit, one hundred percent, to what youíre about to do: start your company, and keep it going, no matter what.

[On the ongoing urging of a number of my friends in the VC and entrepreneurship world, I’ve been slowly pulling together my thoughts on starting and building companies, in book form.

While the book is primarily targeted at current and would-be entrepreneurs, I’m hoping it’s a reasonably entertaining enough read to keep everyone following along. As ever, your feedback and thoughts are most appreciated. So, without further ado, Radical Entrepreneurship, Chapter -1. What is Radical Entrepreneurship?]

The word ëradicalí is an odd one, as it means two wildly different things. Coming from the Latin word for root (radix), it initially referred to the juice in fruits and vegetables, and, by extension, to the very essence, the core substance of things. Then, as the word evolved, ëradicalí took on a second meaning: extreme and unusual.

Given those two opposing definitions, ëradicalí is a great word to apply to the style of entrepreneurship laid out in this book.

On the one hand, Radical Entrepreneurship is about the core tasks of starting up a company, the simple steps, small details, and nitty gritty of actually making a company work.

On the other, because so few people talk about these things, really lay them out in careful detail, some of the ideas presented may initially seem rather unorthodox.

Still, most of the strategies and tactics in this book are of the ëhow did I not already think of that?í variety. I know, because I didnít think of most of them myself, at least when starting my first company. (Or, in come cases, even when starting my second or third or fourthÖ)

Instead, I learned them the hard way, one mistake, and one subsequent climb back to success, at a time. Itís an ugly way to learn, but it works.

Along those lines, thereís a great story about a young man who goes to a very prosperous older man to ask for advice:

ìWhatís the most important thing in life?î the young man asks.

ìGood judgment,î replies the older man.

ìAnd how do I get that?î the young man continues.

ìExperience,î replies the old man.

ìBut how do I get that?î persists the young man.

ìBad judgment,î concludes the old man.

That pretty much sums up this book. The things I present here arenít armchair theories that sound good, or business school textbook truisms; theyíre the things that actually worked for me in building and selling companies, the good judgments I learned through years of bad judgments.

As most of the successful entrepreneurs I know seem to have made many of the same bad judgments, Iím hoping that by reading this book, and by putting the advice it contains into action, you can avoid making those bad judgments yourself.

That way, youíll be free to pioneer new and wildly creative bad judgments instead. Which is basically what entrepreneurship is all about.

As I’ve mentioned before, the back burner of my brain churns out ideas for startups all the time. And, by and large, I don’t follow up on them myself, instead floating them out to would-be entrepreneurs I run across more likely to actually execute. Every so often, however, I come up with something really, remarkably good, something I’m tempted to hang onto myself. Such is the case with one business that popped out in conversation with my younger brother David a few years back, which has become a perennial favorite topic of late-night strategizing ever since. Realizing I’m far too deeply ensconced in Cyan and Long Tail to take advantage of it at any point in the next couple of years, however, I’m finally throwing it out in the hopes that someone will follow it through to untold billions.

By way of introduction, a quick question: what are the two things that everyone does regularly? Yes, you guessed it! People go to bars, and people get haircuts. Now, imagine if you will, bringing them both together. No, no, not by taking the easy way out with a combination salon & lounge, but rather with a bar you can go to with friends and cut each other’s hair!

Brilliant, I know, but it gets better! The Sip & Shave (as we’ve christened this baby) is the ultimate viral marketing concept. Imagine further that you head on out to the West Village branch for a few rounds of tequila and some turns with the scissors one weekday evening. Then imagine, the next day, heading in to work. “What the hell happened to your hair?” your colleagues would doubtless ask. “Why,” you’d reply, “we hit the Sip & Shave, of course.” Word about this baby would spread like wildfire.

Savvy entrepreneur as I am, however, I know that building a market for a new product or service from scratch can be remarkably tough. Take the world of fast food, where McDonalds didn’t really take off until competitors like Wendy’s and Burger King jumped in to help collectively redefine how the world overdoses on saturated fat. So, to that end, the plan would necessarily include also launching a couple of wholly-owned subsidiaries as apparent competitors (perhaps, say, the Shoot & Snip, and the Chug & Clip) to really get things rolling.

Just think of it! A business that capitalizes on people’s regular needs, with a built in viral marketing angle and a chance to build from scratch and then completely own a whole new market. Yes, kids, I’ve got this one all figured out. Take it and run with it if you’d like, though with only one small request if you do: grant me a lifetime tab and the first Flowbeed whack at your pate. Other than that, this sucker is all yours.

For the past few years, I’ve had a running joke with my parents: they ask if I’m going to go to business school; I reply, absolutely, as soon as the school has my students ready.

Confirming my long-standing belief that, if you make dumb jokes about something long enough, it has to happen, a team of b-school students from Denver University’s Daniels College of Business (which leapt this year to the top ten in several of the Wall Street Journal’s b-school category rankings) is using the nascent Long Tail as a case study for their business planning class, and helping us flesh out the company’s strategy.

After spending a couple of hours yesterday afternoon giving them a crash-course lecture on the economics of film distribution, I realize I’m yet one step closer to my eventual goal: reconciling my desire for an advanced degree with my distaste for that pesky ‘going to class’ thing, by getting some hapless institution of higher learning to simply grant me an honorary doctorate.

When people comment that I seem to juggle an overwhelming number of interests and obligations, I usually joke that my secret is stopping sleeping and going to the bathroom to free up time.

And, frankly, I wish that were true. Some people seem to get by remarkably well on just three or four hours of sleep a night. Sadly, I’m not one of them.

Sure, for short stretches, usually during production on a film, I’ve gone entire weeks with less than ten or eleven hours of shut-eye. But, by and large, as I scale back from a solid eight hours a night, I start to feel increasingly off. Most people pour on the caffeine to push through, but I often find coffee hits me the hardest – and least helpfully – when I need it most. Perhaps it’s my already manic, fast-talking personality, or my hummingbird metabolism, but several cups of joe after a few sleep-deprived nights mainly leaves me twitching, with jumbled thoughts and a tongue that can’t seem to form sounds in time with the thoughts my brain is trying to push out.

The past week, which so far has featured evening drinks each night followed by breakfast meetings each following morning, already has me piling up the sleep debt. And, after just a few days, the effects are already starting to wear on me. I lose my train of thought in mid-sentence, find myself frequently looking up in the air as if perhaps what I’m trying to say might be written on a tele-prompter just over a conversation partner’s shoulder.

This morning, though, in searching for a set of financials from an earlier company that I could repurpose into support material for Long Tail, I stumbled across an essay I had written a few years back for one of the slew of now defunct e-business trade publications. Reading it, I was startled by my own prior thinking. As Cyan and Long Tail are both undoubtedly long-hauls, perhaps it’s time to start taking some of my own earlier medicine: sleeping through the night and trying to live with a bit more sanity.

The article:

A few weeks ago, I sat down to lunch with a long time friend and tech CEO to talk about how his company had faired since the market soured a year ago. For the most part, he said, life was business as usual. Except for one thing: he had begun sleeping eight hours a night.

In most circles, that might not seem unusual. But in the dot-com world, lack of sleep has traditionally been seen as a badge of courage. This very friend, for example, often went for days sleeping only in quick power naps on a mattress kept under his desk, and was famous for the time that he fell asleep while walking down a hall. Dozing off mid-stride may seem a bit extreme, but more entrepreneurs than not have similarly bizarre sleep deprivation stories to tell. Intrigued by my friends somnolent confession, I spoke with several more. The consensus: most of the entrepreneurs I know are sleeping several hours a night more than they had been twelve months back. In the past, they admitted, they were stockpiling sleep options for that post-IPO vacation. But with company building once again a long-haul pursuit, they now wanted to pursue a more sensible and sustainable pace.

Certainly, well rested execs are a change in the right direction. After all, according to a recent study by the National Sleep Foundation, sleeping five hours a night (versus the recommended eight) actually decreases productivity by a full 43%. And with sleep deprivation a factor in 60% of car accidents, one has to wonder whether as many companies were dragged down by sleepless CEOs. But more interesting to me is whether this increased sleeping is indicative of a larger trend. With the dot-com rush petering out, has the actual pace of business life slowed down?

Consider the intriguing case of the Slow Food Movement. The Italian organization, symbolized by its distinctive snail mascot, works, according to its manifesto, towards ìa firm defense of quiet material pleasureÖ the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life.î The group, which organizes local chapters across the world, has begun to take hold in the US, organizing vineyard tours, cheese tasting workshops and mushroom picking expeditions. Most tellingly, the largest US chapters of the organization have sprung up on entrepreneurshipís most hallowed grounds: Silicon Valley and New York City. More to the point, even the new economy rag Fast Company (a magazine boasting the tagline ìeverything fastî) ran a glowing feature piece on Slow Food. When the number one proponent of new economy fast begins to extol the virtues of old world slow, certainly major change is under foot.

The question, then, is where to go from here. Perhaps adding a midday siesta, taking Fridays off, and scaling back to bankerís hours? Certainly, none of those options seem particularly likely. Like it or not, the world of entrepreneurship is dominated by passionate, driven individuals who keep going for no other reason than theyíre having too much fun to stop. Because at the end of the day, even the most sleep deprived exec is craving the endorphins that come from a solid pitch, a closed sale or a good contact at a networking event. Perhaps what we can expect, then, is a bit of sensible moderation. While entrepreneurs may continue to work and play hard, it seems theyíve begun to understand when even they need to take a break.

With the first official week of Long Tail well underway, my life has been exceedingly, overwhelmingly hectic. Though in a good way. I’ve been inking partnerships, rolling ahead towards the release of our first film (This is Not a Film, out February 1st), hiring on a team of people vastly smarter and more talented than I, and generally gearing up to take the movie world by storm.

And, frankly, I’m excited. Wet-your-pants excited. So excited that, today, mid-way through adding a few new sections to the business plan, I literally got up and did a little dance, only stopping when I realized the people in the law firm across the street could totally see in through my window.

Sure, Cyan’s a startup too. But, in its day-to-day operations, it’s been completely different from any other startup I’ve ever dealt with. In movie production, everything you do, absolutely everything, is dependent on extensive collaboration with a slew of outside individuals and organizations. Which is part of what makes making movies fun. But also all of what makes making movies so frustrating. Unlike in most startups, no matter how hard we push, the vast majority of Cyan time is ‘hurry up and wait.’

Having the ball, primarily, back in my court, with the responsibility and potential that implies, has made this week rather jarring. If things aren’t moving ahead as quickly as I’d like on Long Tail, it’s my own damn fault. Which, I realize, is what attracted me to the world of entrepreneurship in the first place: the chance to build something extraordinary, bounded only by my own ability to think of amazing ideas and then put them into action.

And while I knew, instantly, from that first night of staring up at the ceiling, running through plans, too excited to sleep, that I would feel different with Long Tail underway, I didn’t realize how much that would bubble out.

So far this week, for example, on three separate occasions, I’ve had people tell me I was the best salesman they’d ever met. And, frankly, while flattered, I know that’s not true. I’m not really much of a salesman at all. Having seen the pros at work, the people who could sell proverbial ice to Eskimos, I know I’m nowhere near that ‘coffee is for closers’ league. But, as the first of the three pointed out this Monday, it seems I’m starting to channel a Steve Jobs-esque Reality Distortion Field. By the end of our meeting, he commented, he felt ready to sell a kidney if that’s what it took to partner his company with ours.

Reality Distortion Field? That I’ll own up to. And that, I think, is what the kind ‘best salesman’ commenters really meant. I’m sure a better seller’s pitch would be more eloquent, her responses to concerns more carefully reasoned. But I have trouble believing that anyone could be more excited, more thrilled to get down to work on fundamentally changing the way the movie industry works.

Will Long Tail succeed? In rational moments, I’d give it maybe 65% odds. But, given the will I’m ready to put behind it, given the passionate, talented people and companies ready to throw their full weight into the fray, it’s a bet I’m 100% willing to take.

Starting a company: it may not be cheaper than Zoloft, but it’s certainly more effective.

I am an information addict. For all of my life, I’ve loved ideas: facts and theories, concepts and conjectures, knowledge and wisdom. In short, anything I can pack into my brain. Which makes the internet a dangerous place for me. I can – and often do – waste hour upon hour, exploring, reading, surfing from verbose site to equally verbose site.

This morning, for example, my carousing took me from fractal geometry to the biological evolution of morality, from the feng shui of desk layout to the history of electoral math. And, frankly, it didn’t take me there quickly. Were I simply to click my browser closed, I’d easily free up hours each day, cross far more of my lengthy to do list.

But I don’t. And, for that, I’ve always harbored more than a bit of guilt. Oh weak-willed self! Oh procrastinating spirit!

Today, though, in between surfing stretches, I set out to write the start of yet another chapter of Radical Entrepreneurship, the unorthodox business book I’ve been slowly and steadily piecing together over the past months. The chapter was on ideas, and, particularly, on how and where to find good ones. Though I’d outlined most of the other chapters to a disturbing degree, this one was – to put it mildly – still a bit vague. Where, exactly, do ideas come from? And what, if anything, can we do to make more good ones?

Pondering that question, I flashed back to a point made by David Gelernter, an eccentric Yale computer science professor who – among other things – revolutionized parallel computing, got Unabombed, and penned a book proclaiming the 1939 World’s Fair as the height of world civilization. Gelernter, I remember, once pointed out that great ideas rarely come from people deeply entrenched in a single field. Instead, paradigm shifts depend on ‘top view’ – the ability to look down across multiple disciplines, to connect together disparate ideas that neatly interlock in ways nobody previously considered.

Starting a company, it’s remarkably easy to get pulled deeper and deeper into the minutiae of operations, to look no further than the balance sheets and business plans piled up on desktop. Which, frankly, is a huge mistake. It’s exactly that laser focus, that lack of step back and think things through with the new perspective of new ideas, that gets businesses into trouble, cuts off innovation before it even begins to take root.

And, with that in mind, as I pulled up pages on bookbinding and calligraphy this afternoon, for the first time I didn’t scold myself for time wasted. I didn’t even press to find links between the new thoughts packing my mind and any of my more day-to-day pursuits. I simply let the information sink in, confident that, somewhere, somehow, I’d be able to put it to good use.

As Da Vinci once observed, “men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.” Despite the name of the site, I certainly won’t lay claim to lofty genius. But least work? That, I think, I’ve got down pat.