"I think that all entrepreneurs should challenge the conventional wisdom that you need a VC or a big investor to get started. First of all, I don't like that because it indicates a permission-seeking mindset and as an entrepreneur, you can't have that. You got to be able to take the resources that you can pull together on your own to get started now, and that's the most important thing. The second reason I don't like it is that businesses tend to spend up to the resources or money that they have. If you got a million, you spend a million; if you got a 100 thousand, you'd be surprised at how often you can do the same amount with a 100 thousand than you can with a million. It's expensive to take money early on and you don't necessarily have to do it. It's conventional wisdom I think we should forget." -- Jim McCarthy
What conventional wisdom is totally wrong?
Jim McCarthy, CEO of Goldstar+
Jim McCarthy, CEO of Goldstar, focuses on business development through strategic marketing. Before launching Goldstar in February 2002, Jim was Vice President of Marketing for venture-backed Kiko, Inc., and previous to that developed highly successful sales products for GeoCities until its acquisition by Yahoo! in 1999. He has penned articles on e-commerce and niche marketing for such publications as E-Commerce Times, has been a featured lecturer at such conferences as InTix and Ticket Summit, and was invited to participate in the TED conference in 2008 and 2009. Jim is a graduate of the Anderson School at UCLA and Harvard University.
