I’ll be the first to admit that I feel bad turning down requests for help from entrepreneurs, students, people in the community, etc. It’s not that I don’t want to help them, rather I’ve prioritized a number of things I want to do well and have decided to allocate my time there. As Dharmesh likes to say, Dear Friend: Sorry. My heart says yes, but my schedule says no.
So, if helping entrepreneurs is a personal goal, but there isn’t enough time for the requested one-on-ones, I need to figure out how to help entrepreneurs at scale. Much like the conversation changes internally in a startup when going from 10-20 employees vs going from 20-200, I need to be thinking scale as well with helping entrepreneurs.
Here are three ways I try and help entrepreneurs at scale:
- Blogging – An amazing way to reach tens of thousands of people on a daily basis
- Atlanta Tech Village – Community, educational events, office space, and more that reaches thousands of people on a monthly basis
- Public Speaking – Last year I gave 20 talks on entrepreneurship to groups ranging from 25-500 people
Over time I hope to get better at helping entrepreneurs at scale with these three strategies while continuing to look for new ways to share ideas and thoughts.
What else? What are some other ways to help entrepreneurs at scale?
David Cummings on Startups 
Hello David,
I’m a student at Georgia State. I have a startup that I’m very confident in and passionate about. My partner and I are considering the Atlanta Ventures Accelerator, do you have any tips for applying?
Those are great strategies, very solid and benefit a lot on long term, specially the Public Speaking, 1 minute or a couple of words can be truly inspirational and life changing for an individual’s path, sometimes forever, don’t stop doing those Talks, they are great and are a great “investment” and medium/long term boost for entrepreneurs and thinkers.
I don’t know if this might help answering somehow, but I found it interesting:
http://pedroagdcalado.wordpress.com/2014/08/09/have-entrepreneurs-lost-the-will-to-innovate/
Great mindset and thank you for helping entrepreneurs, students like myself, people in the community, etc., “we” humbly appreciate it and thank your experienced insights.
Best regards,
Pedro Calado
Helping entrepreneurs is an interesting topic. Over the past few years, I have researched and applied various strategies and find it a perplexing challenge. A critical decision that has to made by a successful entrepreneur is “is it better to help at scale or focus on the few.”
I love what David has done for the Atlanta community and he (and his team) is really make a positive impact at scale. After some deliberation (and a bit of frustration) I have chosen a strategy of going deeper with a few entrepreneurs (quality over quantity) instead of the masses. I have many inquiries for engagements, so I filter out the serious with hard questions and hard actions. This eliminates most since they think being an entrepreneur is more about talking about things getting done instead of making things get done. After someone has moved to the next phase, then we develop a deep, long-term, candid, productive relationship that involves business and life.
So, we need folks that can help the masses (like David, who is very effective) and those that help the few. David’s approach will hopefully generate many times more millionaires that will, hopefully, carry on the responsibility of entrepreneurial development and grow our communities.
David, any TED talks in the works? Just curious…