Tag Archives: entrepreneur

Sarah Tenisi: Supporting Employee Growth

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Sarah Tenisi is the CEO of TenisiTech, an IT Service provider firm. They to help companies build the IT foundation to support their business goals and manage the IT as the business evolves to ensure that the IT continues to be a tool not a hindrance. Sarah also hosts a podcast for people interested in technology and leadership called Tech Me Seriously. She is used to interviewing people but has agreed for today to be the guest and be interviewed.

Highlights:

Q: How did you become interested in IT?

Sarah describes how she was actually discouraged from studying computer science and engineering in college, and how she held true to herself and made her way in.

Q: What is your work experience?

Sarah describes how she started out as an administrative assistant at Hewlett Packard and Adobe, but her managers knew she had studied computer science and supported her growth to move into an IT role.

Q: How did you transition to starting your own IT company?

Sarah talks about how she developed skills in the area of organizational growth in one of her IT jobs and how that gave her the confidence to start Tenisi Tech. She talks about what she learned about IT from the business perspective and how to produce seamless IT transitions for her clients.

Listen to the episode to hear Sarah describe how she supports her team so they can have lives in addition to work, how she overcame a tendency toward perfectionism, listen to her team, and support their growth. She also discusses her experience as a woman in tech and how to get more women in technology.

Words of Wisdom:

IT is about being resourceful.

Perfectionism will ruin your team.

We all have an interesting story.

Leadership teams don’t want to talk about technology; they want to talk about productivity, service, security, and scalability.

Contact Sarah Tenisi:

Tech Me Seriously podcast

Sarah Tenisi on LinkedIn

Tenisi Tech company website

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Steve Hoffman: People Skills for Founders

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Joanie has a conversation with Steve Hoffman, CEO of Founders Space, one of the world’s leading startup accelerators. Steve has trained hundreds of startup founders and corporate executives in the art of innovation and provided consulting to many of the world’s largest corporations, including Qualcomm, Huawei, Bosch, Intel, Disney, Warner Brothers, NBC, Gulf Oil, Siemens, and Viacom. Steve is also a venture investor, serial entrepreneur, and author of several award-winning books, including “Surviving a Startup” published by HarperCollins. Steve has also worked in the television and gaming industries and has some great tips and stories to share.

Highlights:

Q: Steve, you’re known as Captain Hoff in the gaming world. Tell us about your work in the television and gaming industries, as well as what games you play.

Steve is known in Silicon Valley as Captain Hoff because he’s a game player and designer.  He started out playing Dungeons and Dragons, RuneQuest, and almost any board game you can think of, as well as video games of all kinds.  He worked for Sega on Sonic the Hedgehog, and eventually started a company and created the award-winning strategy game, Gazillionaire, and many other games that are still available on Steam.

Q: What skills did you have learned along the way to expand your ability from developing to lead teams and companies?  How did you learn to manage people?

Steve learned the hard way.  He was an introvert and extremely shy.  Even though Steve comes across as an extrovert now, he said it was all trained.  He said he started out being really bad at presenting, interviewing, making sales pitches, and so on, but just did it.  He said the way he learned was to notice every time what worked and what didn’t and never do the same thing twice.

He learned how to go from telling people what to do to asking them what they think they should do, what problems they are facing, and what they need.

Listen to the podcast to hear how Steve came to start Founders Space, what some of the most common challenges he see tech startup founders running into, and what kinds of barriers technical founders create for themselves.

Shout Out:

Steve’s book called Surviving a Startup: Practical Strategies for Starting a Business, Overcoming Obstacles, and Coming Out on Top.

Words of Wisdom:

The only way to meet a challenge is head on.

Don’t sell people on what you’re doing; figure out what they want.

You cannot motivate people by standing over their shoulders and nitpicking them.

Get people on board by asking them what they should be doing.

Instead of convincing yourself that you’re the best, ask yourself “how can I be better?”

Contact Steve Hoffman (Captain Hoff):

Founders Space: https://FoundersSpace.com
Books: https://FoundersSpace.com/books
Podcast: https://www.CaptainHoff.com/
Facebook: https://Facebook.com/groups/FoundersSpace
LinkedIn: https://LinkedIn.com/in/FoundersSpace/
Instagram: https://Instagram.com/FoundersSpace/
Twitter: https://Twitter.com/FoundersSpace/

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JV Crum III: Conscious Strategies for Entrepreneurs

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Joanie interviews JV Crum III, author of Conscious Millionaire: Grow Your Business by Making a Difference. In nerd speak, JV is a Jedi Master.  Not only has he mastered the art of helping entrepreneurs make money, but he also uses the Force for good.  JV says you have to get in touch with yourself and know what your purpose is before you will be able to take focused action and have the biggest impact. The people skills for this episode center around communicating with one person: yourself.

Highlights:

Q: What is your book, Conscious Millionaire, about and what inspired you to write it?

“It really starts with purpose.  I start in a different place from most people.  Most people start with something external to the entrepreneur: ‘here’s what you need to do, do some research, and build a business based on that.’  I agree you need to do all that, but it’s not step one.”

“Step one starts with what’s that internal sense of purpose that you have that’s within you, that’s bigger than you, that makes your life really meaningful.  If you bring that in at the core of your business, you’re going to create a bigger vision of what your business can be, who you can help, and the impact you can make.”

Q: What does it mean to be conscious?

“It took me a while to figure that out.  I use conscious in three ways.  The first way is that conscious comes out of psychology—being aware, having an awareness of how to build a business.  The second way is visionary consciousness, like Steve Jobs or Martin Luther King or Ghandi’s visions.  This is where disruptive businesses come from.  The third way is social consciousness.  In the past two decades, people have become more socially mindful, but it has also been where big money is being made solving these problems.”

Q: There are so many companies that fail.  What’s your advice to help entrepreneurs thrive?

“Create the business model that will achieve your objectives.  My process is: conscious focused action.  Most people want to skip the conscious step.  That’s where you get clear about your number one priority, whether it’s for ninety days or three years. You can’t take the action until you’re clear about what your number one priority is.”

Words of Wisdom:

“There’s a fulfillment piece out of doing something that matters.”

“Ask yourself: what can you do that can have a thousand times the impact and have a thousand times the revenue than what you’re doing now?”

“The biggest way that you can win involves others winning and society becoming a better place.”

“The entrepreneurs who are just saying “what’s in it for me” are missing the biggest money that’s on the table.”

“You can’t have too much good will.”

Free Gift:

Download JV’s High Performer Formula at ConsciousMillionaire.com/highperformer.

Contact JV Crum III:

Text JV on his personal cell phone at 303-641-0401 and include your name.

Website: ConsciousMillionaire.com

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