Whether you are the GM of a professional baseball team , the President of a mid-sized services business or in my case an interested pot-stirrer of the RTP tech community – you want to see that you have a lot of assets to deploy. Assets equal success with execution. No assets you are in trouble.
Assets can mean many things and for this discussion I am referring to people. Bodies. Minds. Experiences.
When I got started doing this back in the fall of 2009 (already over 4 years ago) a lot of people told me that we have no bench (aka people assets). If our startups are to succeed, we will need a bench of experienced middle managers or executives to help drive these companies to the next proverbial stage I was told.
Funny, now that I think about it, none of these people ever did a startup. Seriously. None. At least a successful startup.
So, without playing GM of my beloved Phillies or harking back to my previous life of an operating GM, let me share some thoughts on this community and the “bench”.
There are plenty of people assets. I previously wrote about the influx of experienced executives coming here from SF, NY and all parts in between. We have not seen a slow down even from that post of October last year.
Today I want to share my observation of the ongoing wave of young 20-somethings to the tech club. Today I was reminded of this trend at our Open Office Hours (scheduled every other Thursday by our office manager and lasting 30 minutes) . I don’t know if any of today’s visitors are TSF-worthy for this session. But, they were good. They were thoughtful. They were smart. They were passionate. And whether they launch this startup or join another startup they will add to the areas bench.