VentureBlog

Disintermediating CBS

Through bad planning and happenstance, I landed in Boston with my family smack in the middle of the Democratic National Convention. The DNC is, of course, an excellent explanation for why 6 months ago I was unable to get reasonable tickets into Boston en route to Cape Cod. Instead, I had to fly through Providence. But I digress. Since I was going to be in town during the DNC, I figured I might as well benefit from the hoopla and attend a convention party or two. But, thanks to the good graces of Dave Sifry and the DNCC, I was able to do one better than that -- I was able to get a blogger credential and attend the Convention itself on Thursday.

The fact that there was such a thing as a blogger credential at all is a testimony to the speed with which personal publishing technology has taken hold. Up in the rafters of the Fleet Center on Blogger Alley stood a couple dozen bloggers who had been granted the right to report on the convention from the convention. While some of the bloggers looked as much like journalists as the professionals on the floor, others looked more like sys admins. And, frankly, this new breed of journalists were just that -- sys admins in reporters clothing (or is that reporters in sys admins clothing). The geeky nature of this crowd was worn on their collective sleeves. When wifi connections went down, they shared private IP addresses. They debated the pros and cons of their respective digital cameras. I was even able to find someone with a Treo power adapter when my "personal communicator" started running low (man does the Treo's battery life suck when you're trying to blog on it).

Fanaticism Is The Secret Weapon

In the immortal words of Monty Python, "Amongst [the Spanish Inquisition's] weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms." Truthfully, not a bad formula for startup success. Ok, maybe not devotion to the Pope, per se, but fanatical devotion to your company. That brand of single-mindedness has long been the linchpin of success for entrepreneurs. (As an aside, the business about the nice red uniforms reminds me of a recent lunch I had at Google. My host giddily noted that it would be impossible at this point to collect all the Google shirts that have been printed. While I savor the sort of camaraderie that ubiquitous company swag can promote, I'm afraid it felt a little 1999.)

While the term fanatic is pejorative in many circles, I love fanatics. Fanatics make first class entrepreneurs. As long as I have been working with startups, I have seen the power of fanaticism in action. Entrepreneurs who go to sleep thinking about their companies, wake up thinking about their companies, and often times dream about their companies in the hours in between, are the ones who do everything it takes for their startups to succeed.