Larry Chiang writes about what they don’t teach at b- school. After a Harvard Business School event, they wrote:  “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“. He spoke at a Stanford BASES event, did Q&A  via text message and now teaches us what about a recipe too dangerous to try. If you liked his BASES keynote, the Q&A  via text message,  “What They STILL Don’t Teach You at Stanford GSB About Scamming” and, “What They STILL Don’t Teach at GSB About Screwing Someone Hard” you will like his latest post: Engineering Up Some Momentum.

by Larry Chiang

Here is your momentum

Pattern replicate it. If you need help, contact a Stanford student that I taught this to (and pay them $80-$500)

http://bit.ly/vc0116f

http://bit.ly/vc0116d

http://on.fb.me/vc0116

http://on.fb.me/vc0116a

http://read.bi/vc0116b

http://bit.ly/vc0116sfc

http://bit.ly/vc0116qb

http://bit.ly/vc0116sfm

Below is my post on “Tipping”

It is how to get homefield advantage on the road. I copy-pasted this whole thing so that the “engineer up some momentum” post will be dark on google SEO and not have a cached copy

Members of this secret society experience a hotel like an owner of an NFL franchise with an AOL email. Your entry into this secret society depends on your ability to communicate by tipping. In the same way that opposing cold war admirals would move 13 submarines a grand total of 250 yards to communicate acceptance of a back-channel offer, you’ll read first-hand how to out flank 100 Stanford Business School graduates in front of you.

If you’re working the conference circuit to promote yourself or your business you’ll need these five tips for “Tipping Bribing and Comping” which can be found in my YouTube video channel: “What They Dont Teach You at Stanford Business School”

-1-… 8-10 nickels will significantly change your hotel experience.
A nickel here means a $5 bill. A hitter I know tips 8 five dollar bills before he steps into his hotel room. Instead of shunning the bell-hop, he seeks him out and tips him two nickels. Instead of cringing at the $65 day rate to park, he tips 3 more 5s to take the care, pull the bags out AND CALL UP TO THE FRONT DESK from the parkway/driveway.

The last person to tip is 3 5s for the front desk manager with the statement, “Anything you can do by way of a room upgrade I’d greatly appreciate. I apologize for being such a bore to deal with )

-2-… Outmaneuver everyone at a marquee conference hotel location.
First thing that you must know is the lay-out of the facilities. Second thing you need to do is put your lap-top bag down or check it. An advanced strategy is to host something “after hours”. Another advanced strategy is to buy Wall Street Journals (and do an insert or staple an teaser) and pay the bell captain to deliver to the conference attendees (at many conferences, I also get the list).

-3-… Goal is to turn a strange hotel into home-field advantage.
You must work out 10-20 min in the micro hotel gym facilities. It’ll help metabolize the seven gin and tonics you ingested last night.

-4-… Tip $20 at an open bar and use man-charm
Most conference cocktail parties are open bar so tip a $20 and order bubbly and remember the bartenders name.

-5-… Profiling who you are gonna tip at the hotel
This is critical at the front desk when there are five people checking in guests… I pick a person that’s most likely to upgrade me on these criteria
- are they just waiting to go on break?
- are they fresh outta HRM school like NAU (HRM- Hotel Restaurant Management and NAU is Northern Arizona University) and can’t risk breaking any rules?
- My favorite is the most senior of staff… they’d most appreciate the Andrew Jackson I’m slipping underneath my credit card

-6- Bonus Tip. These even work when you Priceline.com the room
Usually, those room sold online are low-floor crap rooms. You won’t get a corner room high floor unless you bribe and tip your way there.

The biggest tip (pun intended)is to be a vacation for the hotel staff. Any type of self deprecating humor goes a long way in breaking up the monotony of dealing with the public.

Enjoy membership into this secret society… If you have questions email them to chiang9@duck9.com and include your cell phone in the subject line. I’ll ping back all emails.

Good luck hustling hard and watch your back. If you sponsor a party, I am hosting events at Sundance and SXSW, don’t change my deal

***** ARTICLE END *****

Follow me on Twitter @larryChiang or join my 7 9 person fan club on Facebook. Remember, my book’s 14 chapters are reprinted free at a website called BusinessWeek. If you cannot sleep, watch my 90 minute panel that would’ve put half the room to sleep were it not for my dog Baxter storming the stage to co-moderate.

Good luck hustling hard and effen follow up. If you have a start-up, you can sponsor a party I am hosting at Sundance and SXSW

DISCLOSURE: I don’t make money from Fraiche. I don’t make money from Topix. I do appreciate the monopoly that Congress  granted and the FTC is enforcing: It’s the law that states only companies that get college students to high FICO scores (Duck9) can sell a credit card to that college student.

Larry Chiang scandalously teaches at a school he used to crash classes at: Stanford University . He edits the Bloomberg BusinessWeek channel “What They Don’t Teach You at Business School”. After Chiang’s Harvard Law keynote, Harvard Business wrote: “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“ (it is the same title as his NY Times bestseller). He is Entrepreneur in Residence at Stanford University and a VC. If you read his hilariously awesome “What a Supermodel Can Teach a Stanford MBA”, Enroll in Stanford Engineering 145 and “How to Get Man-Charm”, you will like his latest post: “Getting Over Your Pre Entrepreneur Fears”

By Larry Chiang

Congrats on recognizing you have fear and that you need to reach out to me to bust that fear in the face.

Ok, I never answer startup questions but the below answers all happen to suck. A lot.

Ok so lets say you’re launching and you’re decently well-versed with Lean startup method (trademarked by Eric Ries), and now you’re on to getting over your fears and executing.

It seems like you’re a super intelligent, well read first time entrepreneur so here are some patterns I recognized so that you can pattern replicate (and iterate but mostly replicate)

- Fear of getting circumvented.

This is super counter intuitive but you actually want people to rip you off and copy your exact thing.

What??!!

Yes, because it validates you and pushes you higher. For example, I have a presentation called “How to Do What Duck9 Does Without Having to Hire Duck9″

I cold call a conference producer in banking or credit or credit card banking and say: “Pow. I wanna do this preso that in effect kills my business. Want the duck? Err the deck. Do you want my slide deck.”

They say no but ask the name of the speech I want to give.

I say: “How to Do What Duck9 Does Without Having to Hire Duck9″

They then get wet or get wood. Or both

What is the conclusion to the presentation: “How to Do What Duck9 Does Without Having to Hire Duck9″??

Too much work. LETS hire ‘em.

ITs always the conclusion.

Do not fear getting circumvented.

Another example is my venture fund. I live in ground zero of 60% of the vc money in America: Palo Alto CA. I had a VC register ‘every-animal 9′. VCs copy stuff. So I have this idea for a venture firm with a strategy that is pretty easy to copy.

So what do I do??

I drop my pants and do the version of “How to Do What Duck9 Does Without Having to Hire Duck9″ but but for my venture firm— SO I blogged it http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2011/11/22/7-questions-lps-should-ask-vcs-but-dont/

Do you think that the top five venture firms have more resources, more money and more ability to execute my li’l CS-major-CEO-farm-system maneuver than me and my 7 hours per week?!

YES, they have more resources.

But I work and hustle my little venture firm with my one little LP and I am getting to 13,000 cs major ceo cell phone numbers come Noah-the-ark or high-waterj

BUT LARRY CHIANG I DON’T WANNA LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT

ok, here is the thing about entrepreneurship. You are gonna look like an ass 70-90% of the time

You name the legendary entrepreneur and I will tell you the 3-10 times they looked like they had an IQ that hovered below IQ 88

Google IQ 88.

I documented them.

Oh and Friendster was genius. And so is Jonathan. He runs Founders Den. Sure that evite sequel business didn’t pan but learn from Jonathan’s pattern — don’t avoid it completely

I am tired from answering this question. Vote it up at Quora and I will share some mo’

Google me… I’m sort of a big deal :-]

Reprint. This first appeared on STANFORD BASES blog.

Other stuff to read from my all day workshop in Hawaii:
- Leverage other people’s momentum (by doing a sequel to a company, book or film you did not create) (Ch 3 of my book)
- Learn from other people experience by getting superstar, junior and co-hort mentors (Ch 5 of my book)
- Get access to other people’s money “Venture Capital Secrets” and more
- Cut and Paste other people’s work (Ch 3)
- WORK a CONFERENCE: Booth Sales (lead generation, tag team selling and getting expo visitors into the red zone) and Speaking to Get Deals (Ch 6)
- How to Tip, Bribe, Comp and Tip your way past 100 Stanford MBA’s

Follow on Twitter @larryChiang. Remember, my book’s chapters are reprinted free at a website called BusinessWeek
If you cannot sleep, watch NBC 8, KHNL

Larry Chiang writes about business school. After a Harvard Business School event, they wrote:  “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“. He spoke at a BASES event, did Q&A  via text message and now teaches us what. If you liked his BASES keynote, the Q&A  via text message,  “What They STILL Don’t Teach You at Stanford GSB About Scamming” and, “What They STILL Don’t Teach at GSB About Screwing Someone Hard” you will like his latest post: Raising Your FICO While You’re in an MBA Program.

by Larry Chiang

There is a secret society that I’m going to introduce you to.

Members of this secret society experience a hotel like an owner of an NFL franchise with an AOL email. Your entry into this secret society depends on your ability to communicate by tipping. In the same way that opposing cold war admirals would move 13 submarines a grand total of 250 yards to communicate acceptance of a back-channel offer, you’ll read first-hand how to out flank 100 Stanford Business School graduates in front of you.

If you’re working the conference circuit to promote yourself or your business you’ll need these five tips for “Tipping Bribing and Comping” which can be found in my YouTube video channel: “What They Dont Teach You at Stanford Business School”

-1-… 8-10 nickels will significantly change your hotel experience.
A nickel here means a $5 bill. A hitter I know tips 8 five dollar bills before he steps into his hotel room. Instead of shunning the bell-hop, he seeks him out and tips him two nickels. Instead of cringing at the $65 day rate to park, he tips 3 more 5s to take the care, pull the bags out AND CALL UP TO THE FRONT DESK from the parkway/driveway.

The last person to tip is 3 5s for the front desk manager with the statement, “Anything you can do by way of a room upgrade I’d greatly appreciate. I apologize for being such a bore to deal with )

-2-… Outmaneuver everyone at a marquee conference hotel location.
First thing that you must know is the lay-out of the facilities. Second thing you need to do is put your lap-top bag down or check it. An advanced strategy is to host something “after hours”. Another advanced strategy is to buy Wall Street Journals (and do an insert or staple an teaser) and pay the bell captain to deliver to the conference attendees (at many conferences, I also get the list).

-3-… Goal is to turn a strange hotel into home-field advantage.
You must work out 10-20 min in the micro hotel gym facilities. It’ll help metabolize the seven gin and tonics you ingested last night.

-4-… Tip $20 at an open bar and use man-charm
Most conference cocktail parties are open bar so tip a $20 and order bubbly and remember the bartenders name.

-5-… Profiling who you are gonna tip at the hotel
This is critical at the front desk when there are five people checking in guests… I pick a person that’s most likely to upgrade me on these criteria
- are they just waiting to go on break?
- are they fresh outta HRM school like NAU (HRM- Hotel Restaurant Management and NAU is Northern Arizona University) and can’t risk breaking any rules?
- My favorite is the most senior of staff… they’d most appreciate the Andrew Jackson I’m slipping underneath my credit card

-6- Bonus Tip. These even work when you Priceline.com the room
Usually, those room sold online are low-floor crap rooms. You won’t get a corner room high floor unless you bribe and tip your way there.

The biggest tip (pun intended)is to be a vacation for the hotel staff. Any type of self deprecating humor goes a long way in breaking up the monotony of dealing with the public.

Enjoy membership into this secret society… If you have questions email them to chiang9@duck9.com and include your cell phone in the subject line. I’ll ping back all emails.

Good luck hustling hard and watch your back. If you sponsor a party, I am hosting events at Sundance and SXSW, don’t change my deal

***** ARTICLE END *****

Follow me on Twitter @larryChiang or join my 7 9 person fan club on Facebook. Remember, my book’s 14 chapters are reprinted free at a website called BusinessWeek. If you cannot sleep, watch my 90 minute panel that would’ve put half the room to sleep were it not for my dog Baxter storming the stage to co-moderate.

Good luck hustling hard and effen follow up. If you have a start-up, you can sponsor a party I am hosting at Sundance and SXSW

DISCLOSURE: I don’t make money from Fraiche. I don’t make money from Topix. I do appreciate the monopoly that Congress  granted and the FTC is enforcing: It’s the law that states only companies that get college students to high FICO scores (Duck9) can sell a credit card to that college student.

Larry Chiang writes about business school. After a Harvard Business School event, they wrote:  “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“. He spoke at a BASES event, did Q&A  via text message and now teaches us what. If you liked his BASES keynote, the Q&A  via text message,  “What They STILL Don’t Teach You at Stanford GSB About Scamming” and, “What They STILL Don’t Teach at GSB About Screwing Someone Hard” you will like his latest post: Raising Your FICO While You’re in an MBA Program.

Before he’s done, your FICO credit score will jump even while you take on thirty grand more in scholarly debt.

By Larry Chiang

Congrats on getting into your MBA program.

If you are one of the lucky few on company scholarship, count yourself fortunate. If you’re financing it yourself, lets boost your future school loan financing alternatives by raising your FICO score.

Yes, my soon-to-be captain of industry, you CAN manipulate, hack and alter your FICO credit score for the better. I am your mentor for “deep underground credit knowledge” and am a master of all things insightful and mundane with regards to credit score. Google me… I’m sort of a big deal :-]

Thank me by sending text message love to             650-283-8008      . Call it and be freaked out when I answer it. Or be overly courteous and email chiang9@duck9.com, but include my cell to bust through my spam filter.

Here are 9 tips to raise FICO.

-1- Urban Myths Sink Ships.
The credit industry wants you dumb, stupid and in the dark. For example, the industry quotes the average FICO score to be 678 or even as high as 700+. The real average credit score is 585.

-2- Get a FICO Mentor.
To the benefit of my twelve readers this week, you can use my cell number or Facebook Austin TX network page and I will mentor you. Who am I? A guy who has credit educated college students and wrote the bestselling, tell-all book: What They Dont Teach You At Stanford Business School

-3- Snail Mail is Your BFF.
Snail mail is mail sent with a 41c stamp. BFF is ‘best friend forever’.

I have made millions steering people towards a higher FICO score. The absolute biggest secret is that postage paid, old school stamps preserve your credit rights. Remember, FCBA stands for “Fair Credit Billing Act”  — not the Fair Credit Biatching Act. Yes, 800 number systems were set-up to short-circuit your rights because voicing a complaint does not document your problem in the eyes of the law (FCBA and FCRA –”Fair Credit Reporting Act”).

-4- Know Your Derogatories.
Dispute borderline negatives after running your credit report. A huge urban myth is that getting a credit report hurts your credit score… it does NOT. I repeat, getting your own credit report does not hurt your credit.

My mentor, Mark McCormack, who wrote the book, “What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School“.

Checking your own credit does not hurt your credit because it is a “consumer inquiry”. There are three types of inquiries; consumer, advertiser and credit. Credit inquiries are the only ones that hurt your credit. Print and mail the from HERE http://www.duck9.com/free-credit-report-form.htm

-5- Visualize Growth.
Track your FICO progress on a thermometer. Use one like the ‘Jump-rope-a-thon’ fundraising thermometer that you used in grade school.

-6- Get a Fake Mini Loan.
Make small purchases on a Visa/MC account and pay off in full. This is your fake mini loan: owing $20 to American Express, Discover or Capital One Visa. Credit bureaus make no distinctions between $15.50 paid on-time versus $15,500 paid on time. Ignore leveraging this TIP at your own peril. Procrastinate taking action on this TRUTH and risk wallowing in the lower percentiles.

ACTION: Take two seconds and fill this out and mail it in. http://www.duck9.com/free-credit-report-form.htm

-7- Give Good Google.
Get text message reminders you send yourself via google calendar. On the11th and 21st of every month, I login to EVERY ACCOUNT to make sure all are up-to-date.

I also list out every debt obligation on a manilla folder. For built in redundency, I also get paper bills (to my new dorm address).

-8- Bastard Bills Are Killer.
Find the bastard bill(s) and deal with it/them. An example of a bastard bill is a parking ticket from a city you visited. It grows from a $20 violation to some amount over $100 (almost always). Settle this out by negotiating directly with the original biller (and not the collection agency that bought the debt).

For example, City Of Beverly Hills cited you for a $20 ticket. You ignored it and now the bill is in collections for 5x the original amount. Paying the collector is a mistake. Dealing with the collector and listening to their threats and misinformation is a big, big mistake.

-8b- Orphan bills suck too.
Orphans develop when three people share a utility bill, but no one pays the last bill and YOUR name is on the bill. If your name is on the bill, your credit report will get hit.

SOLUTION: Pay bastards and orphans with a physical check. Why?! Checks are legal documents that tip to scale in your favor. Here is how: In the ‘memo section’ of the check, clearly label the bill to be paid and reference number, “parking ticket  6707-9805 + penalties PAID IN FULL”

Once the check is cashed, you now have the matter cleared if you keep a digital picture or photocopy to present to the credit bureaus.

-9- Document It All In Writing.
Complaining in written form preserves your rights. Emailing or calling does not. See my diatribe on FCBA — “Fair Credit Billing Act”. Complain in triplicate to get RESULTS: write in and cc Complaints.com and CreditCard.org.

-BONUS FICO CREDIT TIP- Pay It Forward.
Cut and paste this blog article to your Facebook in a note. Tell other people about what you learned here. This POST IS NOT copywritten so cut and paste to pass this advice forward

Follow me on Twitter @larryChiang or join my 9 person fan club on Facebook. Remember, my book’s 14 chapters are reprinted free at a website called BusinessWeek. If you cannot sleep, watch my 90 minute panel that would’ve put half the room to sleep were it not for my dog Baxter storming the stage.

Good luck hustling hard and watch your back. If you sponsor a party, I am hosting events at Sundance and SXSW, don’t change my deal

***** ARTICLE END *****

Follow me on Twitter @larryChiang or join my 7 9 person fan club on Facebook. Remember, my book’s 14 chapters are reprinted free at a website called BusinessWeek. If you cannot sleep, watch my 90 minute panel that would’ve put half the room to sleep were it not for my dog Baxter storming the stage to co-moderate.

Good luck hustling hard and effen follow up. If you have a start-up, you can sponsor a party I am hosting at Sundance and SXSW

DISCLOSURE: I don’t make money from Fraiche. I don’t make money from Topix. I do appreciate the monopoly that Congress  granted and the FTC is enforcing: It’s the law that states only companies that get college students to high FICO scores (Duck9) can sell a credit card to that college student.

Larry Chiang is an instructional humorist and has a PBA (Padawan in Business Administration). He will have you street savvy by Saturday. After a Harvard Business School event, they wrote:  “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“. He spoke at a BASES event, did Q&A  via text message and now teaches us what the underbelly of business looks like in, “What They STILL Don’t Teach You at Stanford GSB About Scamming“.

By Larry Chiang

UPDATE: If you’re a Stanford engineer, come to Scottsdale Gelato Spot at 4166 Scottsdale Dec 28 from 7:30-8:30pm for gelato on me. RSVP with your full name to my cell 650-283-8008

This should be my shortest post ever.

Here is how you ace public speaking: you follow up with gifts and internship opportunities. I may not be the smartest person to ever keynote the stage at Stanford, but I am the hardest working. I work and hustle for my audience members (and readers). Here is how I do it:

FOLLOW UP #1) I don’t just preach, I practice: How??  Text me and I will get you an internship offer or five.

FOLLOW UP #2) More Fraiche for you. Yes, those that came to my keynote at Stanford at Tresidder got free Fraiche courtesy of Ted from Dorsey. This time, I am getting you an engineering job lead and more Fraiche. How?? Read this or text me:  650-283-8008

If you missed the killer BASES keynote I gave about getting an internship. You can see it here.

Follow me on Twitter @larryChiang or join my 7 9 person fan club on Facebook. Remember, my book’s 14 chapters are reprinted free at a website called BusinessWeek. If you cannot sleep, watch my 90 minute panel that would’ve put half the room to sleep were it not for my dog Baxter storming the stage to co-moderate.

Good luck hustling hard and effen follow up. If you have a start-up, you can sponsor a party I am hosting at Sundance and SXSW

DISCLOSURE: I don’t make money from Fraiche. I don’t make money from Topix. I do appreciate the monopoly that Congress  granted and the FTC is enforcing: It’s the law that states only companies that get college students to high FICO scores (Duck9) can sell a credit card to that college student.

Larry Chiang is an instructional humorist and has an IQ of about 88. What he lacks in academic prowess, he more than makes up for in wisdom. He is not a Jedi but has instincts stronger than Obi-Wan Kenobi when it comes to boardroom shenanigans. Read this and the force will be with you too. After an Harvard Law keynote, Harvard Business wrote: “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“ (it is the same title as his NY Times best seller). After a BASES keynote, he did Q&A  via text message, revealed “What They STILL Don’t Teach You at Stanford GSB About Scamming” and now uncovers, “What They STILL Don’t Teach at GSB About Screwing Someone Hard“ (this first appeared as a Stanford BASES blog).

By Larry Chiang

If you work in business long enough, you are going to meet a person you read incorrectly and that person will try to screw you. It won’t feel good, but maybe reading this article will help you a tad.

I can read people pretty well. When I was a pitcher, I wanted to read batters as well as Jesus or the devil reads people. I wrote about reading people in Chapter 4 of my book and called it “character compassing”. I first learned about reading people in business situations in my mentor, Mark McCormack’s, book, “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School“.

TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington just got screwed by his friend, Chandra Rathakrishnan. As a fictitious example case study inspired by real events, here are the best ways to screw someone hard: (note: many of these are taken from my BusinessWeek article)

-1- Ambush.

The element of surprise is important when facing a superior force. If you’re screwing over a business partner, ambushing entails springing new facts, introducing a last minute project change or just plain ex-communicating them in an abrupt manner. Ideally, your ambush involves whacking them when they least expect it.

Countermeasure: Call out the ambush maneuver. Don’t get mad but do assume the worst. Assume all of your assets are compromised. Get a war room organized immediately that includes resources, real losses, anticipated losses and a plan to stop the bleeding.

-2- Higher Authority.

A higher force is blamed for so much so let us use it to screw people. This unseen higher authority is your imaginary bad cop that you are just a puppet pawn to. Claim that this higher authority is the evil one that is making you behave badly. Repeat after me. Your deal is changing…

- because of gas prices (higher force: OPEC),
- due to higher interest rates  (higher force: the Fed),
- because of my boss (higher force: my wife’s father)
- mostly due to my shareholders’ limited partners (higher force = bull shitake).

Countermeasure: Call out the higher authority maneuver. Tell them that you are holding THEM accountable. Don’t even bother asking for their higher authority because you will only get stonewalled.
-3- Play Dumb.

Playing dumb also couples well with playing foreign. “No noh nuh no, I deed nut say tenty five. I’s said forty five”. You have two choices in this situation. Get just as foreign and kick his ass verbally to enforce the original deal or lay down like most midwesterners and sit for the screw.

Countermeasure: Fantasize for a moment that they are in hell… smile and take it in the butt.

EDITORS note: the writer, Larry Chiang, is foreign (sort of) and is playing the foreigner card which mandates that all foreign people can pretty much be as racist as they want to be. The writer is not caucasian. I repeat: the writer is not white.

-4- Undo Written Agreements

Remember, the FTC has a very small enforcement budget so you can repeatedly change the public’s deal. There may be a hail storm of fury in the blogosphere, but the FTC doesn’t even own the website called FreeCreditReport.con because they were forced to register AnnualCreditReport.com. True story.

Hire a huge legal team and undo your written agreements. Yeah it will be strange that legal expenses are 25% of your operating budget, but if screwing people by changing deals is a part of your business, 25% is cheap. Read Video Professor case study.

Countermeasure: “If you have it in writing, you’ve got a prayer. If not, you’ve got nothing but air”.

-5- Drag Out Putting It In Writing.

Use the word of your freshly minted partner and their GSB contact to NOT issue them a contract. Blame corporate. Blame the CEO. Blame the Chairman’s shih tzu. Drag out the contractual inking as long as possible. Verbal contracts are way easier to gerrymander and Shanghai.

If a contract is unavoidable because they read this a Larry Chiang, street smart, BASES blog post… leave lots of “wiggle room”, “escape clauses” and “future addendums”.

Countermeasure: Sign this napkin with this sharpie NOW or we are parting friends immediately.

-6- Fake New Info

There has been no peace in the middle east for two thousand years. Is there new information?! No! So you’re gonna have to fake some new info before you ink your next peace agreement. Make sure you use the software called Peace Agreement version 270.0

Countermeasure: Ask for proof of life.

Friends No More Photo credit: TechCrunch on Facebook

-7- Get Emotional Commitment.

Dancing and romancing your victim softens them up before you change-their-deal. If you’re a publisher dealing with an author, fill their heads with thoughts of marketing support, resources and bestseller-ness. Kill them with kindness, get them emotionally in at a 45 degree angle and then, WA-BAM, change their deal.

News flash: They will all sit for the screw.

Countermeasure: They call it “show business’… not show friends. And to quote Gorden Gecko, “If you want a friend, get a dog”.

Les Grossman, played by Tom Cruise, does not let deals change in “Tropic Thunder”. Here he almost covers his cellphone with a gallon of spit and a bucketful of explicatives.

-8- Opt for the Thermonuclear Option

This is also called the “No One Wins Option”. The person doing the screwing normally says, “I hate showdowns, no one wins”.

Watch out because this works a couple of time before karma catches up.  Character compass right before opting for nuclear option. Read people and character compass them wrongly and you’ll be on the fuzzy end of the lollipop.

Countermeasure: Get a gas mask because it will feel like it is helping after the nuke goes off. Plot spoiler: gas masks are useless when the nuke goes off.

If you would like custom advice in brainstorming countermeasures to keep your deal changing, paypal me $495.00 to larry@larryChiang.com with your cell in the subject line. JK, I just changed your deal from five hundie to ‘free’. Text me at             650-283-8008       during office hours.

****

Follow me on Twitter @larryChiang or join my 9 person fan club on Facebook. Remember, my book’s 14 chapters are reprinted free at a website called BusinessWeek. If you cannot sleep, watch my 90 minute panel that would’ve put half the room to sleep were it not for my dog Baxter storming the stage.

Good luck hustling hard and watch your back. If you sponsor a party, I am hosting events at Sundance and SXSW, don’t change my deal

***** ARTICLE END *****

Larry Chiang is an instructional humorist and has a PBA (Padawan in Business Administration). He will have you street savvy by Saturday. After a Harvard Business School event, they wrote:  “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“. He spoke at a BASES event, did Q&A  via text message and now teaches us what the underbelly of business looks like in, “What They STILL Don’t Teach You at Stanford GSB About Scamming“.

By Larry Chiang

I remember learning negotiation from a school in Pennsylvannia.

There was a diagram where there were three axis. The Y-axis had negotiation experience high to low. The x-axis had tenacity. The z-axis had morality.  The conclusion I came to is that someone highly experienced, highly tenacious and had no morals would do the best. The Video Professor is that theoretical case study incarnate: they’re hungry to cheat, very experienced and had no qualms taking money from new victims.

Let me stress this point: If a business is hungry to cheat, experienced at cheating and ok with hurting people, they will temporarily do great.

TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington wrote about it on November 28 in a series on Scamville.

Other thoughts about scamming if you are a B-school student

-1- Gov’t protection: The FTC doesn’t have control over website that was a clear mandate to offer a free credit report. FreeCreditReport.com is a lead generation site but AnnualCreditReport.com actually offers free reports. Remember, if the FTC can’t get the URL, the true power lies in private industry.

-2- Getting a law passed and enforcing that law are two different things. Recently, Congress enacted legislation that bans the sale of a credit card to a college student. Enforcing that new law beginning in February 2010 will be interesting.

-3- Fair Credit Laws from the 70s. There have been laws written to protect Americans on credit. The amount of money allocated by the FTC to enforce the laws are a fraction of the money that the credit bureaus dedicate to pushing the boundaries.

-4- Greed. Guys that do lead generation either push the boundaries and cheat or make less by being honest. If you’re greedy, you have to love Scamville. If you’re honest, you can avoid Scamville.

-5- The FTC relies on self-regulation. It also relies on people voicing wrongs. Most people sit back and do nothing even when a crime is commited. Most people do not get involved. On the Internet, most will not write a complaint to post on Complaints.com or Yelp.

My next month’s post will be how to battle and bring down a Scammer company like Video Professor while getting yourself rich. It will take just 15 easy steps that only take 3-5 years. If you want the knowledge now, send $29.95 to my paypal account: larry @larrychiang .com. JK, just kidding, Just kidding.

But I am serious about the post next month. It is similar to how I started United College Marketing Services (UCMS) after On Campus Marketing Concepts, OCMC , kept scamming . Both sold credit cards to college students. Michael Pouls’, OCMC, is now six feet under.

I started UCMS because of my mentor’s company, IMG. Mark McCormack wrote the book, “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School“. It is available for $0.01 on Amazon.

UPDATE: Ok, I posted a rough mock-up of the 15 steps. I cranked this out on my Saturday over Thanksgiving so you’re welcome.

STEPS REQUIRED
-1- Work for the enemy.
-2- Set up a legal corp that your enemy pays. This is critical because you’ll be a super-affiliate. Don’t sign non-competes.
-3- Work for potential clients for free as a consultant
-4- Build relationships with auxiliary outlets or ANYTHING that will get you distribution
-5- Identify sales channels and attend every industry conference
-6- Make your enemy temporarily rich
-7- Claim you’re doing another line of work shortly and that you’ll quit (i.e. you wont be a threat because you’ll soon be a doctor, engineer, lawyer, or Ambassador to Timbucktoo)
8- Plot your exit
-9- Wage war and declare you’re going strait
10- Take the people that you were working for for free and convert them into paying customers
11- What do you stand for. Know this in your being. Know why you are rich
12- Wage a war with something larger than your evil enemy
13- Under-consume and save your money. This builds your war chest. You aren’t going to raise VC
14- Look into the abyss of darkness and refuse to become a scammer yourself
15- Keep under-consuming and keep your staff lean. Karma will reward you with something to turn this business into something bigger AND better.

****

Follow me on Twitter @larryChiang or join my 5 person fan club on Facebook. Remember, my book’s chapters are reprinted free at a website called BusinessWeek. If you cannot sleep, watch NBC 8, KHNL or read How to Tip, Bribe, Comp and Tip your way past 100 Stanford MBA’s

Good luck working it and crash my Sundance AfterParty on January 28th in Park City Utah.

***** ARTICLE END *****

Larry Chiang is an instructional humorist and has a self-reported IQ of about 88. What he lacks in academic prowess, he more than makes up for in wisdom / street-smarts. He is not a Jedi but has instincts stronger than Obi-Wan Kenobi when it comes to corporate shenanigans. Read this and the force will be with you too. At Stanford, Chiang teaches ENGR145 as EIR (entrepreneur in residence). After a BASES keynote, he did Q&A via text message, revealed “What They STILL Don’t Teach You at Stanford GSB About Scamming”. Harvard Business wrote: “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“ (it is the same title as his NY Times best seller)

If you read his hilariously awesome “What a Supermodel Can Teach a Stanford MBA” and “How to Get Man-Charm”, you will like his latest post: “What They STILL Don’t Teach at GSB About Getting Revenge“. It first appeared as a BASES blog post.

By Larry Chiang

There an old adage that states, “If you seek revenge, dig two graves”

For the most part, what Confucious said is true. I study revenge and quite frankly am really good at it (here, here and here). Here is what Confucious could have learned from me about revenge.

If you work in business long enough, you are going to get screwed. After you get worked over, you are going to want revenge… But there is a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Here are my thoughts:

-1- Just like comedy, timing is everything when it comes to revenge.

The difference between very funny and not that funny can be a few beats

Revenge is similar.

Timing a revenge act needs to be on your terms with countermeasures planned. You need countermeasures thought out two or three steps ahead for when your enemy attacks back.

-2- Revenge is like war… You annihilate your enemy and then offer to help them rebuild

Tokyo would have been hard to rebuild after the H-bomb, but Nagasaki is ok

Rebuilding is like good karma. The way that it applies here with revenge is that after you put them on their ass, you allow them to save face and help them rebuild a little.

If you rape Nanking and deny that it ever happened, you’ll get nuked later*.

-3- Resist the temptation to exact revenge on a weaker non-culprit.

Cliche example is little kid who is mean to small animals because someone was abusing them or did not love them enough. You take revenge to the doorstep of the one who harmed you NOT an innocent.

I repeat… You never take it out on some innocent victim.

You don’t kick the neighbors dog or harm other mid-size mammals.

My advice: you work hard, train hard and study hard. Then when your chance comes, you exact your revenge with a fury that is honed, exact and specific.
-4- Play for Chips

Chips here are favors. Get support before you go to war. If your port was seized or your land plundered, sign the peace treaty while you’re weak and play for more chips. Never go to war with a short stack

-5- Hope for bad behavior and spring your revenge maneuver

Sometimes, pretending to not understand the law lulls your opponent into making a mistake. For example, the credit industry has a two tier justice system in place that treats poor dumb people one way and smart rich people a different way.

If you pretend to be dumb, the credit official will incorrectly cite credit law and if you have proof via a voice recording (the offending party will rarely put their thoughts to paper) then you’ve got them. Spring your revenge maneuver after they clearly behave badly and hopefully illegally.

-6- Beat the strong to discourage weaker, would-be culprits

I am 9 for 9 in court.

In legal conflicts I am batting over .950. Translated, I win 95% of the time there is a legal conflict. I win 100% of the time I go to court.

How do I win so much?! Every once in a while, I take on a strong large opponent that I know I can beat (How I do that is a very long article). Beating a large, strong opponents and documenting those wins discourages future culprits.

-7- Budget for revenge by taking the damage you suffer and doubling it.

Two is the number of graves you dig when you seek revenge. Double your damage is the rule of thumb when you are budgeting your little revenge project.

What I mean is that only attorneys win in a court battle, so you better pay up and get the cash reserves

Les Grossman, played by Tom Cruise, does not let deals change
Les Grossman, played by Tom Cruise, threatens terrorists with a revenge of epic proportions in “Tropic Thunder”.

-8- Opt for the Thermonuclear Option

This is also called the “No One Wins Option” from my post on how to keep a deal from changing.

Get a gas mask because it will feel like it is helping after the nuke goes off. Plot spoiler: gas masks are useless when a nuke goes off.

-9- Regular boring revenge

Regular boring revenge is just the strait forward legal channel.

My mentor, Mark McCormack, was a lawyer and I am sure he used his staff to protect his clients interests when deals changed or were misinterpreted. Read his book “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School“.

TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington is not above getting temporary justice by blogging his side of the story before filing court papers. His ex-friend and business partner, Chandra Rathakrishnan yanked out the CrunchPad days before the product launch.

In summary, revenge needs to be properly executed but is generally bad for everyone. I hope this article serves to merely entertain you versus your using this as a guide to really get revenge.

****

Follow me on Twitter @larryChiang

Larry Chiang is an instructional humorist and aspires for a JBA (Jedi in Business Administration). He wants us street smart by Friday. After a Harvard Business School event, they wrote: “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“. He spoke at BASES and got over a dozen questions that he will answer below.

By Larry Chiang

Thank you for letting me reprint this blog post. This first appeared on STANFORD BASES blog.

First of all, it was a pleasure speaking at BASES. Why?! Because it gives me goosebumps to help an awesome group of engineers get business street-smart. I know a thing or two about being academically competent but a little short on street smarts because I was an engineering undergrad too.

I was young and confused but then I read a bestseller from the 80s by, Mark McCormack; “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School“. He later became a mentor and helped me and build a business called UCMS modeled after Mr. McCormack’s IMG. He started the industry of sports agents by first representing Arnold Palmer. They now rep Payton Manning, Tiger Woods and more.

Here are the questions I got at BASES via text message, Twitter and live:

+1-818-687-xxxx
QUESTION: How do you ask someone to be your mentor?
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: You know how creepy it is to ask, “Wanna go steady?”… Well, it’s the same way with asking someone to be your mentor. Date your mentor for a while. Woo your mentor for a while. Take you mentor out. Publicly recognize them. Get your mentor a gift. Before you know it, you and your mentor will be going steady.

+1-818-625-xxxx
QUESTION: What about actually networking at the event?
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: I wrote about this in a post called, “How to Work a Cocktail Party” and read Susan RoAne’s book, “How to Work a Room“. Oh, I also cut and pasted her book title into a GigaOm blog post called, “How to Work a Room“.

+1-512-925-xxxx
QUESTION: How well does your strategy work on people much older than you?
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: Old people love getting their butt kissed. It makes them feel relevant.

QUESTION: Does this number even work?
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: It works better when I am not on campus

QUESTION: What kind of engineer are you?
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: The kind that go into sales engineering. I worked as a Chemical Sales Engineering for Nalco. My degree is in General Engineering from U of I. Yeah, I graduated #1 in starting salary. I hated my ‘advisor’ Chalmers Sechrist but it was good because I found out that people in positions of power can just absolutely have zero clue. Those same people will never mentor you or guide you even if they are paid to do so. Me, I will creepily mentor you for free just to eff with you. Yes, I am the opposite of Chalmers Sechrist.

QUESTION: What classes did you apply in your first job?
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: I loved Chemistry and Steven Zumdahl was a great, great Chem teacher. I placed out of my Chem requirements but sat in on classes anyway. Nerd I know. It is weird that I took zero Chem classes but still worked as a ChemE when I graduated. Zumdahl loved chem and cared about teaching. We are Facebook friends still!

QUESTION: What exactly is your job?
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: I am CEO of Duck9. I started UCMS when I was a sophomore in engineering after reading “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School“. UCMS did credit strategies seminars to sorority houses. I pretty much have the same job as I did when I was a sophomore as per my Austin Texas network Facebook job status.

QUESTION: How do you crash a party?
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: I don’t crash anymore But when I did, I would add myself to the waitlist. I would also elevator pitch myself and try to “be a vacation”. Sometimes, I’d bring a gift…
DAVID HORNIK: THIS WORKS. A couple years ago when we hosted the TechCrunch party, Larry’s intern dropped off flowers before the event at August Capital. My staff still remembers her.

+1-713-303-xxxx
QUESTION: Are you a pick up artist?
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: Funny. I think male models get picked up on versus picking up. (Right on cue there was a Stanford Fashion show next door to Tresidder Oak East)

+1-706-207-xxxx
QUESTION: How do you leave a good voicemail when you’re calling for an internship? Can you do an example
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: Hi, this is Larry Chiang! Yeah, I know. HI! I wanted to grab you on the phone for two minutes because YOU are coming to campus to do interviews. I can help. I can give you the ins-and-out of Tresidder: 1) bring your own WIFI, 2) bring your work-out stuff cuz you can crash Arrillaga Center for Sports and Rec, and three… …well, call me back cuz. Here is my number. Grab a pen. It is 650, Larry Chiang if you’re googling my resume… 650 do u have a pen yet. 650-2..8…3. 283-8…0…0…8

Also read, “How to Close a Deal via Voicemail“. It’s worth a month or three of tuition because it will get you three to five more internship job offers.

QUESTION: How do you get an email answered?
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: First you ping the email by asking “Is this the best email address for you?”. Always include your cell phone in the subject line.

QUESTION: How do you get a cell phone number of a recruiter?
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: You ask for it. You might get a no or push-back but ask anyone who went to the BASES session and they’ll give you strategies on how to handle objections.

+1-808-639-xxxx
QUESTION: Can you talk about networking at an event you’re not invited to
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: Read below

+1-330-564-xxxx
QUESTION: How do you network in a room that you’re crashing
LARRY CHIANG ANSWER: Ditto.

REPRINTED FROM Business Week:
Secrets to Networking at a Party You Were Not Invited To

Before I waltzed into events with my BusinessWeek press pass, I had to crash or sneak my way in. Networking at a party you were not invited to takes a massively different skill set from working a room you ARE invited into.

Here are eight unpublished tips to network at a party you were not invited to…

-1- The Karma of a Crasher

After you are in, do not plus one non value-added guests. It’s karmic.

To gather karma points, I ask myself, “Who do I know that the host of the party would want to meet?”. My plus ones have been value added here, here and here.

-2- Don’t Eat or Drink.

Remember, my goal is I want to migrate myself from crasher to VIP guest. There will be time to eat and drink later. If you’re hustling an event, I do not occupy my hands (or more importantly, my mouth) with food or drink.

-3- Don’t Weigh Down the Host or the One That Plus One’d You.

After Captain Kirk crashed his way onto the Starship Enterprise, he added value by joining the high-risk landing crew team. He was not a burden to Dr. McCoy who initially smuggled Kirk aboard. Read about “How Starfleet Academy is Like an MBA”

-4- Add Value as a Crasher.

Party humor is always welcome.

In Wedding Crashers, before they took home hot ass, they added value by doing balloon animals, telling funny groom stories or mingling with the older relatives.

-5- Hide if you Need PDA Time

PDA here stands for personal digital assistant, not Public Display of Affection.

It is perfectly understandable to take 5-20 minutes to break from a party. Take this break away from clear sightlines. I hide in a corner and or off in a side room. Try to never be on the fringe of the room with the blue-ish blackberry light illuminating your face.

If you are a marquee, tier one celebrity rising, PDA is ok the fun way

-6- Thank the Host.

It is counter-intuitive to approach the host as an uninvited guest. I do it so often I have THIS ready.

“Hi I’m Larry Chiang. I’m from here. I was NOT invited but wondered if it’s ok to stay?”

It begs the question, “what do you do”.

I then answer, “What do I do for money? Or for the community?”

They’ll say “either”.

And I say, “For money I help college students with their FICO and for the entrepreneur community I write about “What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School” at my blog. I blog at this site called BusinessWeek”

My two minutes are up… the host thinks I’m a funny pompous ass, psuedo celeb that scammed his way into a party. Later he’ll hear that a VIP guest came because of me and wallah; I’m now VIP too.

-7- Don’t Crash with Your GSB Attitude

GSB stands for Graduate School of Business at University of Chicago. Stanford University later hijacked those initials years later. Anyway, leave your b-school attitude at home.

Getting into the best b-school in America doesn’t equate with carte blanche entrance into all other organization, events and parties. On the other hand not getting invited does not mean you should not try to crash.

-8- Be Ok With Failing

“What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School” has a pivotal chapter about hardship and triumphing over it. Yes, Chapter 11 is about failing. Be OK with trying to get into an event and getting held up at the door.

For example, two years ago I was trying to crash Om Malik’s found|Read launch event. I was rejected twice at the door. The third time I man-charmed Om Malik and he walked me into the party and introduced me around. At that same party, he introduced me to Carleen Hawn, an editor, who later asked me to write at GigaOm if I were to divulge how I went from crasher to VIP. It was my one Techmeme wonder, “How to Work a Room”.
****
Good luck working it and crash my Sundance AfterParty on January 23rd.

***** REPRINT END *****

Other stuff to read from my all day workshop in Hawaii:
- Leverage other people’s momentum (by doing a sequel to a company, book or film you did not create) (Ch 3 of my book)
- Learn from other people experience by getting superstar, junior and co-hort mentors (Ch 5 of my book)
- Get access to other people’s money “Venture Capital Secrets” and more
- Cut and Paste other people’s work (Ch 3)
- WORK a CONFERENCE: Booth Sales (lead generation, tag team selling and getting expo visitors into the red zone) and Speaking to Get Deals (Ch 6)
- How to Tip, Bribe, Comp and Tip your way past 100 Stanford MBA’s

Follow on Twitter @larryChiang. Remember, my book’s chapters are reprinted free at a website called BusinessWeek
If you cannot sleep, watch NBC 8, KHNL

***** ARTICLE END *****

Larry Chiang scandalously reveals how stuff really works and breaks it down. He edits the Bloomberg BusinessWeek channel “What They Don’t Teach You at Business School”. After Chiang’s Harvard Law keynote, Harvard Business wrote: “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“ (it is the same title as his NY Times best seller). He is Entrepreneur in Residence at Stanford University.

If you read his hilariously awesome “What a Supermodel Can Teach a Stanford MBA” and “How to Get Man-Charm”, you will like his latest post:

Questions Limited Partners SHOULD Ask VCs… But Don’t

By Larry Chiang

LPs are miffed at VC results.

Limited partners (LPs) are the people who fund venture firms and financially back the general partners (GPs) that lead them. At secret annual LP meetings, LPs calculate total value: paid in (TVPI), internal rate of return (IRR), digest confidential past results, test the waters on new funds, jockey themselves into better funds and mentor their investor base as to what is new and emerging.

I get to go to these now that I’m a special VC. Its weird to be a fly on the wall. It’s extremely exclusive. And comprehensive. VCs and their specific funds were drilled down on. I was parallel track thinking after I arrived at the goal of the story and plot spoiler: VCs need to find a whopper of an IPO within every fund to meet IRR goals (internal rate of return).

Remember, my entire career has been doing credit card lead generation by crashing college campuses and migrating our campus efforts to legitimate VIP efforts. In the same way you do credit card application lead generation of a 19-year-old junior who eventually takes out a loan to buy a car at age 26, you also lead-gen 26 year-old CS major CEOs by finding them when they are 19. That’s the pattern that LPs recognize that I am attempting to replicate. But I am only be in the seventeenth day of being a VC, so it is still very weird to be a fly on the wall at LP investor meetings.

The meetings are extremely exclusive. And comprehensive. LPs drill down into the details of their specific VC funds –it’s all information the public almost never sees. While I listened, it hit me that the VC model is not broken. Silicon Valley is cyclical. LPs know VCs need to find a whopper of an IPO within every fund to meet TVPI goals and IRR goals (internal rate of return). But getting there is a numbers game. How many entrepreneurs, founders, CS majors, developers, pre-entrepreneurs are in your VC firms lead-gen funnel? Saying “deal flow is everything” does not put a concrete, executable plan into motion. I argue it paralyzes.

That led me to think up a few questions that LPs at these meetings should be asking their GPs—but don’t seem to.

1. What does playing Moneyball mean to your firm?

There is one right answer.

Your firm had better be building a massive farm system of IPO potential. We all might have zero clue about which firms will eventually go public, but the key is to have a specific, distinct, transparent, tactical, granular, measurable farm system program in place. That takes massive work. Executing Moneyball is about generating a large pool of talent, and making that large pool of talent more talented.

VCs have gone on record at public events talking about Moneyball. They have cited the OBP stat. The ‘on-base-percentage’ statistic does not have an equivalent in VC investing. (It is also inherently obvious that none of those VCs who poo-poo’ed the Moneyball concept never read the book or saw the movie.)

VCs who actually have read the book include Roelof Botha. He even recommended the book in public at MJAA conference 2006 in and around the time he invested in YouTube. In short, the data analysis of the Moneyball concept is not the nugget of knowledge… It is the work that scouts now must do to develop massive and specific entrepreneur farm systems.

From the movie:, “Every at bat is like a hand of blackjack played in a casino where your odds massively change based on each pitch dealt.” That has applications for farm team member mentorship and development. I want my fund to have entrepreneurs batting during 3-ball, no strike counts. Getting to a 3-0 count is more likely when you execute 2-7 guacamole recipes for entrepreneurship.

2. What matters more in how you recruit and develop venture staff: entrepreneurial experience or operations experience?

The answer I’d be looking for is entrepreneurial experience. You don’t have to have a team made entirely of former founders, like Founders Fund or True Ventures. But what experience do your GPs have as entrepreneurs, besides roping your one LP that launched Fund Uno?

3. How are you using board seats to generate leads and wedge your fund into the best deals?

The old way was to match an emerging hot portfolio company with sexy brand name partner at your firm. The partner or principal who sourced the deal might get bumped off the deal docket, but the marquee partner and team member gets a nice feather in the form of sexy new startup and an uptick in personal brand.

There is a new innovation in board participation.

Using board of director and board of advisor seats to do lead gen essentially increases the probability of buying stock at the best companies. This maneuver essentially adds you to the waitlist to buy stock in future fundraising rounds. It also allows a long look into the company. By adding value as a board observer or board advisor, you bump up the likelihood of wedging into future fundraising rounds. As GP, you and your partners should informally head up subcommittees with a specific purpose that builds shareholder value.

If the last formal training you got was a half-day seminar at Kauffman’s Center for Venture Education back when they were associates…, maybe you should spend some of that management fee and train your staff in Board of Director 2.0 stuff.

4. How are you planning to get your own presentation day at Y Combinator.

Sequoia gets their own presentation day at YC.
Kleiner Perkins gets their own presentation day at YC.

A presentation day allows for your firm to get a nice long look way before the 80 other venture firms. If the YC startup you love loves you back, you can have them pulled from demo day and just fund them without a bidding war. Buy some deal flow insurance and send all available partners to Demo Day anyway.

5. How are you formalizing sidecar, portfolio founder funds?

No one really knows what a sidecar fund is.

Sidecar funds are little funds with complex structures and more complex tax implications. Funds have founders bird-dogging new startups. By bird-dogging I mean lead generating new founders. Sidecar funds are meant to share the upside of the VC investment with the founder that brought in the new deal.

First Round Capital has a pooled risk where your startup owns a little stock in the rest of the portfolio companies. Formalizing sidecar funds might be worth examining, clarifying and formalizing. Sidecar funds do not have to be exactly the same fee structure as the parent fund. Sidecar funds can differ from the 2/20 structure in that it can be 0/20. 2/20 means 2 percent management fee and 20 percent carry. Management fee is percentage of total fund. Carry is percentage of the gain that is kept by the VC.

I like the concept of “pay me to do lead gen”. It is similar to a ‘reverse VC pitch’. I recommend a side-car fund with 0/0. The founder brings you deals and they do not get paid. Their reward is attendance to an industry conference where your firm pays expenses and the founder and their startup gets promoted. It is a glorified way of simplifying the sidecar fund to pay zero out, pay travel expenses out of the management fee, have full transparency with your LP, and get paid to do lead generation.

Having money not coming from an LP with a different 2/20 structure is just strange. 2/20 means 2 percent management fee and 20 percent carry. Management fee is percentage of total fund. Carry is percentage of the gain that is kept by the VC.

6. Do you ever eat at dorm cafeterias?

Jesus mentored his 12 co-board members by eating with them. A lot.

Eating at Stern Cafeteria on Stanford’s campus is demeaning, so let’s at least see if you as the GP can have partners willing to crash the dorm at 5:00 pm and eat with undergrads. This is the Fortune 100 executive equivalent to eating lunch with the third shift. The 3rd shift eats at 3:00 am, since third shift works from 11:00 pm – 7:00 am.

The Silicon Valley equivalent to third shift lunch is eating a 4th meal with CS majors at approximately 12:30 am. Plot spoiler: when you show up you’re treating. The difficulty is getting the kids to come out from under the rock where they are coding.

Have you trolled computer science majors at Stanford? How would you?

Sure it’s a hit driven business, but what drives the hits are CS kids.

How do you charm a CS kid? Where do you take these CS kids on field trips? You need a strategy to find the next Larry and Sergey. Remember, according to Silicon Valley lore and urban legend, KPCB found Sun on the second floor of the Stanford CS lab, but lost Cisco to Sequoia because KPCB didn’t check the basement.

7. How are you adapting to a world where some investors are offering $800k convertible note rounds with no board seat and no cap?

There is a problem when you are taking equity-level risk with near commercial debt lending-level returns. Getting all the downside risk with a small sliver of the upside is not going to help anyone’s TVPI. (TVPI distributed and undistributed portfolio value to original invested capital.)

Me, I am doing guaranteed exits while they’re in school and looking to fund pre-seed pre-preneurs.

By ‘guaranteed exits’ I mean having 2-5 CS majors executing 20-45 steps. Their startup isn’t concocted from scratch. It is a sequel business meaning it is 80 percent stuff that exists already and 20 percent new. The industry problem is sourced from some industry expert veteran. It is “guaranteed” in that it works about 60 percent of the time. It is done under the umbrella of a course called “Unofficial ENGR 145” at Palo Alto Community’s College (aka Stanford).

Upon ‘sale’ of company in the $20K-50K range, the CS majors commit the next two summers.

When I say ”fund pre-seed, pre-entrepreneurs,” I mean you should pay to get students pre-entrepreneurs into tech conferences like Web 2.0, TechCrunch, Launch, DEMO, SXSW, Summit at Stanford and CES. The management fee itself can and should be invested. It is the execution of ‘pay me to do lead gen’ from above point #5

LPs might be asking you tough questions, but hopefully this gives you, the VC, intel from inside their annual investor meetings.

If you liked this… Larry’s mentor Mark McCormack wrote this in 1983. His own book came out 09-09-09. It is called ‘What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School‘ *** BONUS *** a party invite for you… Online event registration powered by Eventbrite

This post was drafted in an hour and needs your edits… email me if you see a spelling or grammatical error(s)… larry@larrychiang com

Larry Chiang started his first company UCMS in college. He mimicked his mentor, Mark McCormack, founder of IMG who wrote the book, “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School”. Chiang is a keynote speaker and bestselling author and spoke at Congress and World Bank.

Text or call him during office hours 11:11am or 11:11pm PST +/-11 minutes at 650-283-8008. Due to the volume of calls, he may place you on hold like a Scottsdale Arizona customer service rep. If you email him, be sure to include your cell number in the subject line. If you want him to email you his new articles…, ask him in an email

You can read more equally funny, but non-founder-focused-lessons on Larry’s Amazon blog .

What A Super Model Can Teach a Harvard MBA About Credit