Chris Gill: Silicon Valley is a state of mind.

Chris Gill is the President and CEO of the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs (SVASE). A serial entrepreneur, he has founded 8 companies with 6 achieving successful liquidity events. Author of the book "Learning from Silicon Valley Legends", after 30 years in the Valley he has become a Legend himself for thousands of entrepreneurs around the world.   

SVASE, the premiere organization for entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.  

<<SVASE was started by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. Unlike many of the other organizations, it was not started to tell people what to do. It was a peer-to-peer self-help organization>>, says Gill. 

<<We don’t try to tell anybody anything. What we do is to expose the entrepreneurs to what we are perceiving as best practices and to the people they want to meet: mainly, potential investors and successful entrepreneurs>>.   

Silicon Valley, world capital of Entrepreneurship. 

<<This is a phenomenal place to be>>. 

<<Here you have more startup companies than anywhere else in the world>>. 

<<Great amount of top talent, going from IT people to management people>>. 

<<Very experienced services providers: law firms, accounting firms… They have much more experience in helping startups than anywhere else>>. 

The attitude makes the difference. 

<<The real key is the attitude. Silicon Valley is a state of mind, it is not a place. That state of mind says that it is okay not only to try, it is okay to fail. Because failing is part of the learning process>>.  

<<We see in SVASE that it typically takes 3 or 4 attempts for somebody to actually get a successful company up and running>>. 

<<In other areas like Europe or South Asia people look down on the entrepreneurs who fail, and that is a significant factor that prevents people from trying. Think about it. How are you going to learn how to ride a bicycle?  You can read all the books you want, but you will not learn until you have practical experience by trying it for yourself.  And almost certainly you will fall off a few times, until you get the hang of it.  That’s standard.  No-one expects you to be able do it the first time.  It’s no different for starting a company, and many other things in life. >>. 

Immigrants and entrepreneurs. 

<<It has to do with the way America grew up. Everybody in America, apart from the Native Americans, is an immigrant. And the first generation of immigrants is always the best prepared to try time and time again until they start up a successful company, as they frequently have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. They come to America with the passion to live the American Dream, which is that everybody can make it, as long as you try. That was key to the birth of Silicon Valley after the second world war, and it is still happening now. More than 70% of start up companies in Silicon Valley have at least one first generation immigrant in their founding team>>. 

Crisis? What crisis? 

<<All our Entrepreneurial Events are still well attended, and frequently sell out. While it may do in the future, we do not see yet that the economic climate is affecting the Entrepreneurial Spirit here>>. 

<<Unlike the crash of 2000, when many would be entrepreneurs left their projects to seek full time employment, sometimes in other parts of the country, we are currently seeing Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley as being very lively, with many people coming from other parts of the country and the world, to benefit from the experience, talent, support services and finance available here>>. 

Can you replicate Silicon Valley? 

<<Most of the cases I know, there are government efforts made for political reasons>>.  

<<In some cases they spend a lot of money on buildings what they call incubators… I haven’t seen any building yet that has made a difference for a start up, but they provide great ribbon cutting opportunities for the politicians>> 

<<The successful start up team does not need an incubator. The people who tend to migrate to incubators are the people who are least equipped to succeed, and unfortunately they tend to want to focus on their idea or technology, instead of on the more critical aspects of qualifying is there actually a significant market looking for a solution, and what will potential customers pay for an innovative solution. There are some exceptions, but in general, my opinion is that these incubators are a waste of time and money>>. 

<<The attitude of Silicon Valley is very difficult to replicate. Failure is not tolerated in many places, and success sometimes is punished with high taxes>>. 

<<Some of the most successful businesses I have seen come from immigrant workers of Silicon Valley who return to their home countries and start companies based on business models they have seen work here.   These frequently disrupt the prevalent business models, but open up greater opportunities for job and wealth creation.  You only have to look to India and China to see examples of this in action every day >>. 

<<And then we have some great examples like Singapore. The government of Singapore is sending the best and brightest people of the country to the engineering and MBA courses of Stanford University.  They also get internships at companies here, which enables them to create useful relationships, which they can leverage when they return home.>>.  

<<The difference with Singapore is that they take a long term view, 30-40 years, while most other governments want to be seen doing something in 3-4 years>>. 

Recommendations for the newcomers. 

<<A newcomer will need several months, or even years, to know the opportunities of Silicon Valley. If you come here for a short period, the best thing you can do is to go to as many entrepreneurial events as you can, to pick up on what’s happening, what works and what doesn’t work, get a better understanding of the culture, and of course to meet people>>. 

First of all, find the right team. 

<<The main component of a start up is the team. The team is more important than the idea and more important than the money. Unfortunately, you generally won’t find a founding team going to entrepreneurial events.  You typically find a team among the people you have worked with for a period of time, so you can identify the ones that take responsibility, make things happen, get things done, regardless of the obstacles.  It’s difficult to identify people like this just from talking with them, or even if they’ve been a long time friend.  You really need to see how they operate at work, and particularly in difficult situations, and under pressure>>. 

If you want to establish your company in Silicon Valley. 

<<If you want to have your company here, be prepared to invest in a one or two years adaptation process. Build networks and selling channels takes a significant amount of time and money>>. 

International collaborations. 

<<We have approaches by organizations from of all around the world interested in trying to duplicate what we do at SVASE. It’s not easy, as few places have the concentration of entrepreneurs, investors and service providers required to make a viable, self sustaining organization using the SVASE model.  However, we are open to helping regions explore this, and we have created an SVASE Manual with the details of every program and event that we have run>>.  

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