a quiz about the audience’s definition of an entrepreneur, false stereotypes about those who start companies, and what Milwaukee needs to do to improve its entrepreneurial community. Places like 96square, Startup Milwaukee’s co-working space where Aulet spoke, will change the local culture “from the inside,” Aulet said.
“This is becoming very cool, becoming an entrepreneur,” he said.
Here are a few of Aulet’s keys to entrepreneurship and best witticisms from the events:
—Successful entrepreneurship requires the “spirit of a pirate” combined with the skills and execution of a Navy SEAL.
—Entrepreneurs need to focus, focus, focus on solving one problem, especially early on in the business when they don’t have a lot of resources. “You can only catch one rabbit at a time. If you try to catch two rabbits, you end up with no rabbits.”
—A Madison audience member asked Aulet how his basketball career relates to entrepreneurship. (Aulet played point guard on Harvard University’s basketball team in the late 1970s and played one season professionally in England.) Aulet said there was no better entrepreneurial training than pickup games of street basketball, where he would do whatever he could to keep winning so he could stay on the court. Like startups, basketball is a “perfect meritocracy,” he said. “If you did your job and trusted the people on your right and on your left, you could do things… But I can’t shoot anymore, so they don’t let me on the court anymore.”
—Entrepreneurship shouldn’t be about the money. “If you are coin-operated, don’t be an entrepreneur.”
—Aulet told both crowds that he has made more mistakes with startups than everyone else in the room, losing hundreds of millions of dollars for investors and himself. “But I’ve made more than that, so I feel like I’m winning 3-2 right now.”
—Having a strong team is paramount for startups, more important than ideas. Investors often miss the boat here, giving lip service to “investing in people,” and then heavily analyzing the company’s idea, Aulet said. “Ideas are cheap. It’s execution that’s everything.”
—Aulet sees plenty of promise nationally in healthtech, an industry that could be an important play for Madison’s startup community. Despite the relatively slow adoption of new technology by doctors and healthcare providers, Aulet said he is more bullish about healthtech than education technology and energy. But “we have to do all three, and a lot of other things.”
