Live blog­ging from LeWeb 2011

Bill Gross, Founder & CEO, Idealab

“Learn­ing From Fail­ure: 20 Years of Entre­pre­neur­ial Lessons in 20 Minutes”

Bill Gross has raised over $1B over the years. In a very fast-paced pre­sen­ta­tion, he shared 12 lessons of being an entre­pre­neur, of which I cap­tured 9 …

1. Mar­ket Power Rules — Try to find a rapidly grow­ing mar­ket, it’s like run­ning a race with a strong wind at your back.

2. Mas­ter the Demo — Learn­ing how to sell, to pitch, to explain, to demon­strate is one of the most valu­able entre­pre­neur­ial skills.

3. Pur­sue Your Pas­sion — Work at some­thing you love — Every busi­ness will face huge chal­lenges that you will only over­come if you have deep pas­sion for the idea.

4. Focus, Focus, Focus — Focus is almost always bet­ter, even if you focus on the wrong thing. Do a few things extremely well and you will con­nect bet­ter with the customer.

5. Rec­og­nize Your Strengths — Design a struc­ture around them, and bal­ance that by hav­ing com­ple­men­tary skills

6. Test, Test, Test — Find a way to test your core propo­si­tion with cus­tomers as soon as you can, as often as you can

7. Stick With It — When you know you have some­thing, stick with it despite what the crit­ics say

8. Find Esssen­tial Part­ners — If you have a large, world-changing ideas, you need to find the right part­ners to help you grow

9. All Truth Passes Through 3 Stages — First, it is ridiculed. Sec­ond, it is opposed. Third, it is adopted as if it was self-evident.