How much are YOU worth?
Jackie Danicki arrived in Cork last night and a bunch of friends got together to welcome the Valley Gurl to Cork.
Dinner in Taste Of Thai, laughs and lots of fun, I wanted some friends advice and asked a bunch during the night “how much are you worth?”
I love helping people and start-ups I get as much pleasure from seeing friends and acquaintances companies grow than I do my own at times, but its becoming an issue and we spoke and spoke about this.
So lets take this week as an example
6 meetings in two countries, 13 hours of time and 2 board seats offered.
All totally free and just arrived home to another one regarding TC50
So the problem is
(a) Not how to turn this into an income
(b) How to focus this into helping winners
(c) How to say no.
My time is limited at present and if you are mentioned above its not that I don’t want to do it but I want to do it better, which helps you more than me.
Anyway its out, how do I help me to help you better.
I am going to asking the people who attended dinner last night for their advice, Damien Mulley, Jackie Danicki, Alexia Golez, Tony Duncan, Sabrina Dent, John Handelaar , John Peavoy, Pieter Oink and Tom Raftery
14 comments...What do you think?
Trackbacks...
- Sabrina Dent: Pixel Pushing Ireland » I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say No
- Jackie Danicki » To serve or not to serve?
- The Time Deficit : Alexia Golez
Pat, there are 24 hours in a day. Given that you have work, and a family that means you have a very limited amount of time to help others.
The best use of this time is to give the most to those with (in your opinion) the most potential.
The ones with the least potential the best feedback you can give them is that you are literally too busy right now.
Or tell them that you don’t see the potential so you are not the right guy to help out.
A great advisor can only do so if he or she is still on top of their game. If they are spending too much of their time meeting people and helping them out then they can’t have time to keep improving their business and their own ability.
But I also think that helping others, giving advice and discovering new views and ideas from these people looking for advice is an education in itself for you. Blogs and websites are great for finding gold but meeting people (the right people) will open up new ideas and business avenues that you’d have never forseen.
Were I in your shoes I’d set aside time each week for almost random unscheduled meetings with people if you had some time or you wanted to take a quick one hour break from work. If a company or person wanted more of your time after that then it’s time to decide whether this regular gig is worth time away from your own company.
I think it’s important for the (hate using this word) ecosystem for someone like yourself to be an advisor to a few companies as it’s good for the whole and not just the few but you have to be compensated in some way for that, via equity or via the fact that if they become a success they’ll break open new markets that can benefit a whole lot more people.
That’s a diffcult one. It seems the number of relationships you’ve seeded have crossed the threshold. Between community scale and audience scale.
You’ve inspired a community of people around you by just being Pat Phelan and doing what you do. But that community has scaled to a point where your ability to attend each individual personally is just beyond the capacity of any one man. Even when that man is your good self
Crossing that threshold can be a painful experience as it often means changing the nature of the way you relate to the people you inspire. People handle it in different ways. Some become remote and lose the common touch that is so essential to what wasan essentail part of what brought the community together in the first place.
Its especially difficult if you get a lot of your personal energy from helping people personally. And recoil from the conception of trying to measure the worthiness of one person against another to determine who you should help.
It may be a question of focusing on what parts of being ‘the essential Pat Phelan’ are scalable and what parts are not. The number of businesses you can contribute to in a constructive manner is limited. As is the time you can give to personal assistance and advice.
However, the number of people you can inspire by doing what you do at full power is unlimited. Inspiring people by beating the drum for rattling the incumbents and fighting the good fight for disruptive innovation …well that’s extremely scalable.
Richard Branson would be one example of someone who has handled the transition well. Another person to look at would be Paul Graham.
Perhaps, you could establish a Y-Combinator setup for innovative startups dedicated to disruption in the telco. I imagine the best people would flock to it. Especially as it would be set up against what BT, Eircom, Swisscom, and others are doing in that space
Don’t I feel great for having rung Pat yesterday looking for some time!! I am at the stage of putting together a business plan, met with some, and still want as many sanity checks that this concept is right. Those that have trod the road ahead may have valuable lessons to impart which I’d like to hear. I appreciate the value of a persons time - so no is absolutely an acceptable answer and better than the feeling that somebody doesn’t want you in front of them. If I’m going to take offence I’d better not get into business in the 1st place. Go for it Pat and say no…my attitude “It never harms to ask” Eoin
Interesting dilemma although one does not have to be a star to face it. Recently Penelope Trunk blogged about mentoring and amongst the dialogue that the post generated was a question - how do I find a mentor? It is, in my book, on par with ‘how do I find eternal love?’. One does not find it by chasing it. The chemistry either is, or is not. Similarly with the kind of ‘connection making’ that you seem very efficient at.
I think the laws of natural selection apply here too. You do it because at some level, it gives you happiness. When it ceases to do so, you will reduce the time you give it.
Whether to convert it into revenue generation is an altogether tricky question, which I struggle with too. I have introduced many friends to other friends, which has resulted in revenue generation and long-term relationships between them. I did not think of a share but then a 50-year veteran of PE recently advised me that he always negotiated for himself a share of the profit. As my work brings me to more and more investors, and people want me to use my UK and my India networks to help them, I am increasingly having to come up with a pitch. It is high-risk and in both cultures - India and UK - people love making money but not discussing it, making it very tricky.
I should be glad to hear what you come up with and how it works.
PS: Found my way here through Jackie Danicki’s blog.
In the second para - natural selection bit - I should have added that you probably do it because nobody asks you blatantly and you recognise value anyway. If people started taking advantage of your generosity, it might be a damper too.
Thanks.
Not very web 2.0 but PA is the answer.
After all both Denis O’Brien and Michael O’Leary started out as PA for Tony Ryan.
There is a young accountant somewhere in Cork and he or she is going to make your life 100 times easier.
Brevity not being my strong suit, I ended up with a post by way of reply.
And thank you for dinner, again. It was a great crowd and a smashing evening.
Here’s an idea.
Set aside a specific time and day each week.
EG: Monday 5-6pm where startup entrepreneurs/techies can phone you or meet up and ask for your advice on startup issues during those times only.
Pat, I think that “D” is pointing in the right direction. Set some time aside every week (or month) for an open pow-wow. Sit down listen to people and at the end say “yes” or “no” (based on your opinion if you can or want to help). If it goes beyond that there should be compensation and equity is a good option. It doesn’t even have to be up-front equity, agree some milestones with them and tie equity (for you) to these milestones. I for one would happily give you part of my venture in exchange for advise and assistance…
Well Pat, there have been lots of good comments so far, but here’s my 2 cents worth:-
You obviously can’t afford to take your eye off the ball with your current business(es), or with your family and friends; so you have essentially 2 choices -
1. Hire a “mini-me” Pat Phelan - this would need to be a very competent person who you can offload much of the general / day-to-day admin, and some of your other business activities to.
This would allow you to have more time to think strategically or indeed get more involved in other ventures and/or give some advice.
It is obviously only appropriate if you believe that you can get the return on this investment in someone.
2. Possibly take on a couple of “pet projects” where you would mentor some businesses you believe are viable and have significant potential.
Maybe you should have a standard approach where in return you are allocated a % of the business - if you are committed to invest your time in helping someones business succeed, then they should be prepared to reward you with a small share in the business.
Pat, there are only so many hours in the day, and so much of this you can do, so you will need to be very selective, and indeed brutal in some cases …
However, this will always be an issue for you - with your strong networking skills and wide business knowledge and vision, you will frequently come upon great ideas and concepts. The trick is to either align with those that are complementary to your own business, or if in a different business sphere, those that you believe will succeed.
Hope this helps in some small way.