Your Baby Is Ugly

"Find people as crazy as you are and make them a co-founder...the best time to do this is in college." Dharmesh Shaw, the founder of HubSpot challenged entrepreneurs at MIT this past weekend to take action and to stop making excuses. The opening remarks were followed by several panels and a networking event that brought together entrepreneurs and organization leaders from around Boston. Although the goal of Underground 2008 is to inspire, connect, and create, the overarching goal was to bring influential leaders together in attempt to start connecting entrepreneurial organizations on various campuses for the first time.

Dharmesh, who also blogs at OnStartups.com, and made some interesting points on why people don't take that dive and start. The first excuse he comments on is that people don't have an idea, or they don't think that their idea is good enough for that matter. People say, "Why should I do a startup?"

The truth is, when first conceived, most ideas of early stage startups suck! "Your baby is ugly!" Everyone is excited and married to the concept in the beginning, and it's supposed to be that way. But your idea should and will change; it needs to evolve and morph. If it doesn't you're probably doing something wrong. Dharmesh is also an angel investor and explains that the 9 early stage companies he invested in all ended up not pursuing their original idea.

The second excuse is that you don't have funding. Most entrepreneurs feel pressured and think they need to raise venture capital financing. On the contrary, Darhmesh believes this is the last thing you should be doing. Raising venture capital is extremely hard to do in the first place, and the reality is they won't invest until you have taken some of the risk out of it for them and gained some type of traction. Although it doesn't make sense to focus on VC fund raising, it is important to start building those relationships, so that when the time is right they will already know who you are and have a foundation to build off of.

College Mogul looks forward to helping these campus organizations connect and collaborate. Congrats to Albert Park (Host), Harvard College Entrepreneurship Forum, MIT Science and Engineering Business Club, and StudentBusinesses.com for putting on a great event.