I learned quite a few things from the Randy Haykin, the Making of an Entrepreneur so I thought I would include a few things.
Randy Haykin: The Making of an Entrepreneur.
How did being a lifelong learner benefit Haykin's career? How could it benefit yours?
He placed a high priority on spending quality time at home with his family.
He started working at Apple Computer in sales. Eventually, he created the Apple Multimedia Developer Program. He also created a New Media Center program for higher education.
He became the director of Operation and Business Development at Viacom/Paramount’s operations, (the “Media Kitchen”)
Haykin founded Interactive Minds, “to meet this unmet need” of teach companies how to put multimedia technologies and the Internet into practice. Over time it evolved into a “venture catalyst”
“In my first year at Interactive MINDS, I tripled my salary and found myself doing amazing project with total choice and control over what I was doing.”
“The biggest challenge of the entrepreneurial situation was balancing family and work.”
Haykin convinced Carl Nichols, to join the company, and he became a partner thereafter.
“To me, a leader is someone who sets the creative direction for a concept and can harness the human resources to turn that concept into a reality, in essence, a leader is someone who creates something from nothing.”
He gained inspiration from Steve Jobs.
What was Haykin's "toughest hurdle" as a business leader? Why do the risks of entrepreneurship seem worth it (or not worth it) to you?
Toughest Hurdle: a start-up that didn’t go so well.
“The toughest hurdle that I have faced as a leader was one particular case
with a start-up where things just did not look like they were going in the right
direction. We ended up selling out earlier than we really would have liked. Some of
the funding that we had expected to come in was pulled, so we were left without a
way of keeping the company going. It felt like a failure. It was heartbreaking to have
to tell a team of fifteen people who had just put their hearts and souls into this project
for the last twelve months of their lives, which we all thought was going to have a big
payoff, that: “Now it is time to close this project down. It did not work, and it is
being sold off. You no longer have a job.” But I'd imagine it's an ongoing part of the
entrepreneurial process. Most venture capitalists will tell you that of ten deals that
they'll do, on average, two will be total failures, two will be not so great, and
somewhere between the remainder of one and six are going to be successful or
moderately successful. So, I know already going into the entrepreneurial situation
that something is going to fail. It still hurts, though, when you're going through it,
and real people are involved. You just feel like you misled people, or you could have
done a better job as a leader.”
Another struggle was his work/Life Balance. “In a typical week, I work 50-60 hours. I try to leave my office (which adjoins
my home) by 6 o’clock. I am on the road nearly every day, but I take very few
overnight trips, maybe one trip each month. I am never quite happy with the balance
in my own life and I am always trying to tinker with it. This includes person/work,
family/work, spiritual/work, and health/work balances. For example, making my
family or my health a priority is always a focus, but actually battling to keep these
things in perspective as I go through a busy week is not easy, nor am I always
successful. At any given stage in my family’s evolution, I’m striving to figure out
what my kids and my wife need. It proves very difficult. Even doing the simplest of
things like remembering to bring my wife flowers on a Friday night takes a lot of
effort with everything else going on. I think that’s where you lose your balance, when
you forget the simple things.”
