Barry Thornton on Ideation - Aug 8, 2008

Knowledge + Action = Power (Barry's Equation)

Serial bootstrap entrepreneur Barry Thornton, "the guy that looks like Santa Claus," shares his riveting and far-ranging wisdom with the Bootstrap Austin Ideation Subgroup. ClearCube, Monster Cable, are just a couple of the companies he cofounded. He opines on the uselessness of patents, logos, education, degrees and getting consumed with ideas. Conversely, the importance of self-understanding, taking action, demonstrations, solving a pain, making decisions, customers, finding partners along the way, swapping the "sell" and "demo" steps and combatting fear and inaction by telling people. During Q&A, Barry uncovers the true game of venture capital and its evolution over multiple generations

A smattering of topics Barry covers: Jethro Tull, Joe Cocker, Gödel Escher Bach, Fugues and the mind, Thomas Jefferson, the lies people tell you and who you really should talk to, long tails, the evolution of the mind, homo sapiens as "decision maker," where ideas come from, how entrepreneurship is co-creative, being on an excursion versus being in business, starting in the garage and leaving it as soon as possible, the role of employees, changing lives, salespeople, gaining strength from the ideation process, Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm, & Inside the Tornado, creating wakes, careers versus entrepreneurs, vanity items, provisional patents and "entremanures!"

BootRap ATX is produced by Brian Massey of the Intended Consequences Podcast.