startup ventures – DanHerr.com

Meditation: On Fear & Success

*********************

Is fear anything more than just that: Fear? Any fear we have likely has no basis in reality – it is often not an actual harm to the body, but merely an un-choice based around perception of outcome without testing for bounds of actuality. Fear by nature assumes the worst outcome while not allowing for the possibility of the best.

What if instead we chose to try? Try for the best whilst controlling for worse cases all while attempting to not be presumptuous?

Fear is black and white.

But life – Life is clearly grey.

Life allows for a hue of successes and failures on a curvaceous path filled with serendipity, nuance, finesse, idiocrasy, opportunity, despair, illusion, doubt and achievement.

Life allows for more than one outcome, no outcome and all outcomes together. Perhaps the only true hurdle between fear and success is choice – with the rest being determined action? Doing what is feared one step at a time until what was once feared becomes commonplace and even mastered.

*********************

I welcome your thoughts

Project Vesto – A call to arms

Out of the ashes of recession
A state born of the battle, reinvents itself
Makes opportunity in a deserted land
Turns loss into opportunity
And gives new life in an empty void

$100,000 pooled
To start new hope
To launch a new Nevada business
Not what the Project wants
What we the people need
Not California rebranded
Not in Nevada for the sake of a state-shaped logo
But because we are from here
We were born in a great struggle
We were born in the sage and the Basin
We don’t show up to party in the black rock
We were in the desert before the desert was hip
This is not a conglomerate and outside consulting firm
This is not Silicon Valley money
This is not an out-of-state investment
This is Nevada money for Nevada people
This is us, pulling ourselves up
This is our own grunting hard work
Our own get-it-done
Our own micro-brewed, down-home, self-serving revival of Nevada business
Investing in ourselves for ourselves
Reinventing how we, the real Nevadan’s, revive our economy
Revive our business culture
Rebuilding; one startup at a time

We the people of Nevada
Launch Project Vesto
In Nevada
For Nevada
On Nevada Day
Giving new life
With our battle-born business rebirth

Elko to Host Startup Weekend for Entrepreneurs

Reblogged from SWElko:

Elko to Host Startup Weekend for Entrepreneurs
Startup Weekend Elko will connect local innovators
and startup enthusiasts to share ideas and launch companies

ELKO, NV – Startup Weekend, a national grassroots business-launching event, is coming to Northern Nevada, September 28-30, 2012. Startup Weekend Elko will connect local entrepreneurs, developers, designers and startup enthusiasts with mentors and resources for a weekend of sharing ideas, forming teams and launching startups. The weekend-long event will take place at the Great Basin College campus in Elko.

Whether participants found companies, find a cofounder, meet someone new or learn a skill outside the usual 9-to-5, they will be better prepared to navigate the chaotic and exciting world of startups.

“Many of us in Nevada had the rug swept out from our feet the past few years and we’ve had to adapt; become innovative and entrepreneurial to survive,” said Daniel Herr, life-long Northern Nevadan, organizer of the event and a recent participant in the Las Vegas Startup Weekend. “Northern Nevada has a lot of hidden gems and I am really excited about bringing this fast-paced startup proving-ground to Elko. It will be great to bring entrepreneurs from many of Nevada’s smaller North-Eastern communities together.”

On Friday night, attendees will take the open mic to…

Venture Socialist? – Value Over Risk & Return

One June 16th, 2010 I wrote the following on my old blog @ dananimal.blogspot.com:

If I could give one thing to the world… one thing that would change it and sustain it… it would be the oxymoron of a non-profit organization that’s goal and purpose in life is to create, invest in, support, and build sustainable businesses… an organization that reinvests what is earned into the community and the world around it… building businesses not merely with the intention to get rich and the desire become the largest of the Fortune 500’s, but the goal of becoming the best business they can possibly be… choosing instead of big, instead of gargantuan, to be great.

This speaks to the heart of what I believe in and have experienced. There are handfuls of people out there with great ideas and existing small / struggling businesses. Venture Capital does not accept the returns of local startup ventures; they are looking for promising ideas that are geared toward huge growth. Banks don’t care anymore; they have shut the doors to businesses and become completely risk adverse. Personal investments today are based upon large multi-national conglomerates and large company funds instead of local, valuable, longer-lasting (more sustainable) quality businesses. To me this smells strongly of opportunity.

I have heard talk of a third metric entering the business investment space, and that is social impact. Risk, Return, and Social Impact. I might call that third term societal value, or simply value. In all the hype of the DOt cOM 90’s and the booming Real Estate Triangle-scheme like 2000’s we lost sight of the fact that return is related to value. That the market price of a stock and the appraisal of a property need to be rooted in its actual value. For years we have based return on comparable return; valuation based upon growth instead of tangible and sustainable value, real estate based upon comparable sales. Perhaps what is really missing is taking that step back to say, “how will this business change and improve our world?”

Do I have the complete answer; nope, not yet. But I believe a great start is to investigate the root of local success, share those behind-the-scenes stories, and allow the people to bring some of that money invested back home, to the businesses they trust and interact with daily. I want to start by showing why Reno / Tahoe is a great place to live and do business. I want to encourage people to come here, start businesses here, and invest here. Not a new silicon anything, but a local us thing.

What do you think? I welcome your comments…

Photo Sources: