´╗┐ I think it's safe to say that you are a natural entrepreneur. Yet I'm curious to know if you were ever tempted to take a position working for someone else?
I actually have worked for other people. I am able to work for other people as long I'm in a position to affect change and stay at the strategic level of the business. And that's been consistent no matter how old I've been. As long as I'm structured in that kind of environment, I've always been able to do well. But it's how I function, whether I'm running my own business or working in someone else's - it's identical. It's not like you act differently working for somebody than you do working for yourself. If you do act different, then your entrepreneurialism may not be as strong. You tend to be consistent, and everyone I know, whether they are working for themselves or someone else, those behavioural characteristics are embedded within them.
Speaking of characteristics, what kinds of traits do you think a successful entrepreneur needs?
I think the first one is optimism. I remember in the early days of my business, meeting with people who were successful and them saying Great idea, but it's never going to work because of all these reasons," so I don't know whether you need to be optimistic or a little bit insane, but somewhere between those two things lies success. If you think about it rationally and statistically, the things that you are doing won't make sense on paper and won't work out. However, if you look at and think about it with an optimistic view, and you don't look at the odds, and you ride through them at all costs, it will ultimately work out.
Your work requires you to sit down in a room with big league clients, many of whom are from the Boomer generation, Gen X, etc. You are also talking to them about technology, and social media ÔÇô two things that are notorious for confusing people. How important is confidence in these situations? Does your age play a factor?
Confidence is obviously super important in being able to go forward. I think research and knowing what you are talking about makes a huge difference in being able to speak in the same language as the people that you are with. The one thing about age is that people go from being too young to being too old. You'll hear people in their teens saying I would do this, but I'm too young, and then in their thirties I would do this but I have a family now and I'm too old. Age is more of a perception that lies within people; there is ultimately nothing saying that you can or cannot do something based on how old you are. There are things that say you can or can't do something based on how much you know or how much information you have, but those are problems you can go out and solve; you can read, you can research, you can ask people questions ' you figure that stuff out regardless of whether you are 14 or 40.
What do you look for in the people you hire?
Our culture is based off a meritocracy, which means the more you contribute and the more positive success you generate for the organization, the better rewarded you will be, whether you are 25 or 50. Being somewhere for a long period of time and seniority? Those things aren't cultural drivers behind our enterprise. We tend to work with really smart people from a wide selection of backgrounds who have high E.Q. and high I.Q. skills to figure things out. We're really figuring out problems for the first time, so we have to have the right people who are excited by solving things, who are excited by change. Those people ultimately do much better here than those who do not.
Any advice for new entrepreneurs?
One, focus on doing. I think a lot of people spend a lot of time thinking and spend time processing and will take six or 12 months to do something. If you have a hunch or you know what you need to do, start doing it and make it happen and go day by day. As you do it, you're going to learn more than you would thinking about it for six months. The second part, to grow, you really need revenue. products are important, but sales channels and marketing and being able to drive revenue for the organization in the short term are ultimately what's going to be able to affect your organizations ability to grow and become a larger entity. jp
Michael Scissons is the founder, president, and CEO of Syncapse. He was the ACE National Student Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006.