Just got back from a great evening with Scott McNealy, web entrepreneurs and their friends. Before I forget, here is some of the advice I took home to the North West:

- Be controversial and embark on a startup that others do not get immediately
- Don't use your money, use someone else's
- Facebook, myspace, etc - digital tattoos of personal diaries, there is no privacy anymore
- Fire those who do not perform - don't keep employees for the wrong reason
- Do not take ethical, financial or legal risk. Take business risk on.
- Work for the people who report to you
- Ideal number of people reporting to you is 11 and not 6 or 7 as management gurus preach
- Above help drive culture across the organisation
- 9% should be managers, no more to ensure retention of message down the chain
- A meeting is not a place to make decisions. Listen to everyone. Decide 24 hrs after.
- “Good Luck, kick some butt. Google ain't the last answer here”

Had the pleasure to meet many new faces and enjoyed the train journey home with Anish Kapoor of Yuuguu. Couple of vital information came out of my conversations with Anish for those budding entrepreneurs:

- Regional investors are now following some of the thought process of the Silicon Valley, i.e. concentrate on user numbers instead of revenues.
- Brand equity is more important than revenues. Beware of building a channel at the detriment of end-user ownership

By the way, my feelings are opposite to the last two with respect to edocr.