How to Become a Street Fighter Entrepreneur

12-Aug-2014

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An eternal optimist, Liu-Yue built two social enterprises to help make the world a better place. Liu-Yue co-founded Oxstones Investment Club a searchable content platform and business tools for knowledge sharing and financial education. Oxstones.com also provides investors with direct access to U.S. commercial real estate opportunities and other alternative investments. In addition, Liu-Yue also co-founded Cute Brands a cause-oriented character brand management and brand licensing company that creates social awareness on global issues and societal challenges through character creations. Prior to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Liu-Yue worked as an Executive Associate at M&T Bank in the Structured Real Estate Finance Group where he worked with senior management on multiple bank-wide risk management projects. He also had a dual role as a commercial banker advising UHNWIs and family offices on investments, credit, and banking needs while focused on residential CRE, infrastructure development, and affordable housing projects. Prior to M&T, he held a number of positions in Latin American equities and bonds investment groups at SBC Warburg Dillon Read (Swiss Bank), OFFITBANK (the wealth management division of Wachovia Bank), and in small cap equities at Steinberg Priest Capital Management (family office). Liu-Yue has an MBA specializing in investment management and strategy from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Marketing from Stern School of Business at NYU. He also completed graduate studies in international management at the University of Oxford, Trinity College.







By Josh Linkner, Inc.com,

Having built four startups from scratch and now investing in them full-time, you could say I’m in the business of “entrepreneurship.” But I don’t think that’s the right term anymore. At all.

The word entrepreneur was borrowed from the French language and implies an aristocratic polish.  It conjures up images of back room deals with white men in three-piece suits, perhaps even wearing top hats or donning pocket watches.  Visions of the neatly-manicured and highly-coddled elite issuing orders from afar to sweaty and tattered workers round out this proper old-world ideal.

But that just ain’t the way you win today.

Successful company-builders today don’t ring a silver bell to have their afternoon tea delivered by white-gloved attendants.   Instead, they wake up at 5am and eat a bowl of nails for breakfast.

Both the term and the notion of entrepreneurship are outdated.  If you believe that your idea to conquer Facebook is so good that eager investors will whisk you away in a limo to riches and stardom, you may want to consider playing the lotto or buying a bridge instead.

Truth is, building a company is hard work.  To me, a more fitting metaphor is that of a Street fighter.  The implications here are much more closely matched to what it actually takes to win.  Here are eight lessons you can learn from the Street fighter:

1. Rely on grit and determination – Be willing to get your hands dirty and do whatever it takes to succeed.

2. Get scrappy – Adapt in real-time and figure out how to do more with less.

3. Ignore tradition – Find fresh new ways to achieve instead of being weighted down by dogma.

4. Use what you’ve got – Lacking formal training or fancy tools, Streetfighters must use whatever is at their disposal.  Often, these are internal tools (heart, passion, courage) instead of external ones (fancy tech, formal degrees, country-club connections).

5. Prepare to engage on a moment’s notice – Make sure you’re ready for battle and prepared for competitive attacks from any direction.

6. Have a chip on your shoulder – Embrace a healthy disregard for the status quo and a willingness to stick your finger in the eye of the current territorial leaders.

7. Lean and grow from adversity – Realize that your most important areas of growth are just outside your comfort zone.

8. Fight from behind – Have an underdog sense of urgency. Be ready to outwork your competition ten-to-one.

It’s probably time we returned the word “entrepreneur” to the French and give a new term to the adventurous journey of building something out of nothing.   Defying the odds, daring greatly, and leaving your fingerprints on the world are too big and too important to give them a label that is so soft and refined.

If you’re planning to win in today’s intensely competitive and complex world, it’s time to ditch the polish and get scrappy.  It’s time to let your inner-Street Fighter out of the cage.

For an inside view into my world as a VC, entrepreneur, author, and keynote speaker, visit JoshLinkner.com and order my new book, “The Road to Reinvention,” on Amazon.

 


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