Steve Jurvetson on Entrepreneurship

Steve Jurvetson, managing director for the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, says that there is a common human desire that ties philanthropy, raising families, creating art and literature, and entrepreneurship together. Stephen Covey talks about it. It is the desire to create a legacy — something that will last beyond our short time here on earth.

Successful entrepreneurs are rarely lone rangers, but more often come in dynamic duos, so Jurvetson recommends that students who are hopeful entrepreneurs pay close attention to their classmates — keeping an eye out for uniqueness, persistence, and infectious enthusiasm among their peers. After all, his own classmate Jim Yang went on to start up Yahoo! Most importantly though, he says to look for ways you can harness what you’ve learned from past experiences in new and perhaps unfamiliar territory. How can you apply the things you learned from Chem 105 to starting a new side business, for instance?

That is you shouldn’t let job descriptions discourage you when you’re looking for something new — if you’ve accumulated experience across many different job types it will lend itself to being a flexible team-worker in different settings even if you haven’t worked in that field before. And for students, experience leading teams successfully in your academic career will translate well into being a fair and effective leader in business. You take the lessons you learn, and just apply them in a new setting.