PCB2 - Lessons of a Serial Entrepreneur - Jeff Pulver

[This write-up is very choppy.  I thought about not posting it, but I feel there is really some great stuff in here.  This was probably one of the best sessions for me this weekend.  So I wanted to share it with yall.]

“Back in early 95 I was asked is it possible to interconnect the technology of the telephone and the computer, I said sure”

All this time I had a day job - but also had a night job.  The night job was way more fun.  On the day after Thanksgiving of 95 I was on the back of a London paper with Free World Dialup. 

-March of ‘96 a bunch traditional phone execs got together in DC and petitioned the FCC that this software be banned.  Within 3 days created a coalition to prevent the unnecessary ban of voice over ip.   

May ‘96 started planning my own conference for December.  I soon after got pushed out of my day job - which happened to save my life.  Since the office was in the world trade center - over 700 of my friends and coworkers perished on Sept. 11. 

VOIP saved my life.  I was on the edge - my burn rate was high.  When you don’t know what is going to happen - you just push.  So for me to make a little money I was hoping 50 people would come to the conference.  Turns out 200+ people showed up from all over the world.  All just from marketing on the net. 

April ‘97 I changed the name of the conference name to VON.  Few things happened.  Global voice of ip was formed, many people have grown their own spins out of these since. 

Jeff Citron who invested in minot called one day (good product, but it could be better) - then he changed the name to vonage.  If you don’t stay on the edge with things nothing will happen.  You gotta have that push.  When you get yourself to a certain point - many things start to happen.  Many people have dreams - I place the seed in those dreams.  I find that to be the real sweet spot.  When I meet these dreamers I pick the one who have had past failures over the rest.  Many times I’m asked to speak with companies about re-evaluating, re-direction etc.  If you go to your friends with a hot idea and they don’t like it - go get new friends. 

One thing I’ve learned through this whole process is the power of one.  One person can really make a difference. 

Sept 10 ‘01 I sold the VON conferences (the company later went bankrupt and I bought it back). Which I’m pretty sure they would not have bought if it was post 9-11. 

After the telecom crashed and the dot com crashed - I realized that voice over ip really had something.  I went to the FCC and filed my own petition.  “to put out the idea of voip not being considered telecom as long as it stays on the net”.  10 days later the FCC put the petition out for public comment.  So for 30 days the public has the right to attack.  And they did.  Mostly from the phone company execs - ripping into me from many different angles. 

Feb 12 ‘04 the law was passed in dc. Friends call me the Forest Gump of telecom.  Maybe all these things happen because I was a little too focused on it.  So many of you may be asking why did I host that party last night - and open up the bar? I take having fun seriously.  Maybe I never grew up, but I want to share this energy with other people. 

If there is something you want to do that drives you - do it.  The next thing I see coming is tv over ip.  Everything has changed because of the Internet.  And we’re a very small piece of it.  I rally in DC because I don’t want to see the government take away these opportunities. 

At age 3 I got my kids on the computer.  Their first website was pbs.org and within three days they were navigating around the net.  Then one day my son says I want to go to thomastankengine.com - that was all I needed to convince my kids that everything out there had a site.  Then the top things in the browser were McDonald’s, Wendy’s, etc.  So my boy just created his own website because he wanted a bigger allowance.  So I said start a blog, get google ads, and you can go from $40 to $500 maybe. 

When starting a new company - The Golden rule of success “never hire people who know what they’re doing”  If you’re starting voip don’t hire ppl who worked for the phone company.  This way the founding members will have a different way of doing it and dig harder to find a way to make it work. 

“There is no idea that is too small to be found”. 

Starting Startup To Do’s:

1. Get Fired

2. Believe in yourself

3.  Boot your friends

4.  Don’t let what you don’t know stop you

5. Take fun seriously

3 favorite words - Fear, Greed, Disruption - If you’re doing something that scares someone enough that they must buy it - you’ve won.