How to Pick a Business from Paul Berberian on Vimeo.

The 2009 CU New Venture Challenge began Wednesday night with a full house in the Wittemeyer Courtroom at the CU Law Building to hear Paul Berberian deliver the rousing and interactive session called, “How to pick a business worth starting.”

Paul ‘s first slide, “how to pick a winner,” set the tone for the evening. A kid with his finger up his nose, nearly up to the knuckle, brought lots of laughter. Paul continued to describe the essences of what types of businesses were worth pursuing, how to choose one that suits you, and a few hard realities of working in a startup. He talked about his failures. His personal reflections on one business experience selling plastic name tags which resulted in him marrying with a “negative dowry” was one many entrepreneurs see as a reality. Luckily, that experience appears to be humorous when it’s eclipsed by successes. And Paul has had a few, to say the least.

Paul is onto his sixth business (solar panels), and admits he’s the guy who wants to have lots of money raining on him. For him, that’s a key aspect of the type of business he chooses. He said though, that there are other factors that weigh in for consideration when deciding on a business to launch, and that the audience should look for something that suits and fits in all areas of who they were, and what they wanted to achieve. He described the process of looking at 14 different companies over the last year or so. One example was a company that produced bulletproof vests. “I’m a pacifist,” said the air force veteran, “I did that stage of my life and want to move on to other things.” So, while the bulletproof vest company might have been a strong one, it didn’t go further on his list to investigate.

In a highly engaging presentation, Paul invited the audience to ask questions and be interactive throughout – and they did. Numerous times Paul was asked to offer more detail on specific process, and simply to ask additional questions. Paul answered everyone, and kept a perfect balance of information, entertainment and informality so no matter where you were in your business journey, there was value in his message.

The broader message that while you have nothing is the best opportunity to go out on a limb and start a business was directly aimed at the students in the room. Paul’s encouragement was a great beginning to CU’s New Venture Challenge for 2009/2010. Following the presentation, everyone headed upstairs to network, enjoy some refreshments, and chat with some local startups looking for interns.

Paul Berberian was the perfect beginning to the CU New Venture Challenge and fired up the anticipation for next week’s pitch evening. A number of people have registered their intent to present their budding idea at the event, being held in the ATLAS building at 6pm on Wednesday 18^th November. All members of the campus, and the broader community are invited to come along, hear ideas (or present their own), and network with others to hopefully start something that could be the next big thing. As long as, according to Paul Berberian, it isn’t selling plastic badges.

For instance, Niel gleaned the following lessons from his experience with the failure of Newmerix, a company he co-founded.  He underlined that choosing your business partner is a vital process; it needs to be the right person for the business (as opposed to someone whose personality meshes well with yours).  He said he also made the mistake of letting the management team take big salaries from the outset; it set a cultural momentum in the company that was hard to come back from.  Another problem with that company was that it was so insular.  In retrospect, they should have gone out to talk to customers.  Niel learned that it is best to bring people in and get their feedback throughout the development process.

A seasoned veteran of venture-backed startups, Niel had the following advice for fellow entrepreneurs:
On how to protect your crown jewels (IP) when getting advice from others on your entrepreneurial idea, he said that it is a myth that if you talk to people about your idea, someone will steal it from you.  This rarely happens. He recommended talking to as many people that matter as possible before starting your company.  Talking to people is cheap.  It is expensive to actually start your business, and you want to be sure you are approaching it correctly.

Neil also advised two things to never skimp on or do later: Legal & Accounting.  On using advisors, Neil said to take advantage of your advisors – have them come in to your company for a limited time on a regular basis (ex: once a week for 1-to-3 hours) for a well-defined purpose and compensate them by having food at the meeting.  On starting a business and getting funding, Neil has been successful by establish relationships with potential investors first (before pitching to them).