most of you are going about this startup thing completely ass backwards and no early stage startup that I know of is really dying to hire an MBA.  What they want is a ninja, and a hundred grand or so later, your diploma is not universally recognized as a “I haz ninja skillz” card. 

Instead of asking what opportunities there are for you, you should be telling me what opportunities you are going to create for the startups I know. (“Ask not what startups can do for you…”) 

startups assume that MBAs are going to look for too much money, have classroom knowledge that won’t likely transfer to the real world, and want things to be handed to them. You’ve got to counter that by providing immediate upfront value, differentiating yourself, and creating your own opportunities. From what I see, these aren’t necessarily skills most business schools are teaching well. 

Very interesting tips here. I agree with most of them. And if I may add, most of these points apply to *anyone* looking to work at startups, not just MBAs.

Ahem. Noted.

Click through here to read this insightful article by Charlie O'Donnell.

Go to work, if possible, for an organization or an individual that you admire.  I mean I offered to go to work for Ben Graham because there was nobody I admired more in the business than him.  I didn't care what he paid me. 

But I knew I wanted to work for Ben Graham.  And I knew I would jump out of bed every morning and be excited about what I would do and I would go home at night smarter than I was in the morning. 

Agreed.

The question he was originally answering was "What should we do if we don't know what we want to do with our lives?", which was posed to both, him and Bill Gates. It's interesting how different their answers were. And Buffett's answer speaks volumes to me. I don't say money is insignificant -- I'd be the last person to say that today, given how important it is for me to make and save money at this point in time. But it is equally important to value the learning in an experience than just go where you get the most money. If you think long-term, that knowledge will earn you a lot more than you can imagine making elsewhere. This might be a simple, oft-repeated thought, but it is very powerful.

A selection of students from my MBA class at the Leeds School of Business had the opportunity to apply for a trip to Omaha for a personal meeting with Warren Buffett in January 2010. He's a finance guy and I'm not. I knew he's awesome and all but I have absolutely nothing to do with finance. So I figured the trip may not be completely worth my time and money and hence did not apply. Yes, BAD DECISION.

One observation set me back. There are lots of people who wanted to do one thing but then got "practical" and did something else "first." The idea was that they'd be successful and sock away money doing the practical thing, and after that they could go back to the thing they loved. Bronson was sure that, among the hundreds of people that he interviewed, someone would actually have been successful with this strategy. It sounds so reasonable, after all.

But he encountered exactly zero people who pulled it off. Everyone who tried got sucked into the "practical" career and were never able to extract themselves from it. Too comfortable, too many expectations from friends and family, too easy just to keep doing what you're doing.

I cannot begin to explain how much I needed to read this. It’s like this article was written just for me. This changes perspectives for me. This article addresses the eternal question – “Should I really go for it?” This article is about building the gumption to leave what you’re doing and change your life. Make it what you want it to be. Because if you don’t make it change, it won’t change.

It’s hard. It’s hard to consciously bring yourself to a point where uncertainty rules your life. But you have to look at people around you who’ve done that and take inspiration. Then make that inspiration work for you. Despite all the resistance that will come along the way. That’s what I’m trying to do. This article goes on to say:

There's a quote that appears again and again in various forms: "close one door, another opens." It seems like magical thinking until you see it happen. And it only happens when you don't leave the door partially open, but instead firmly close it. For some reason, being certain that you're ready to move on does cause some kind of magic to happen, and I don't know why.

This doesn’t mean my life will magically change all of a sudden. It will be a long and hard battle – against my mind. And I will need to keep re-reading this article to remind me of my priorities.

I’ve been fortunate to be reading some really inspiring stuff lately, from people that I hugely admire. I intend to share them with you along with my thoughts on them. For now, do yourself a favor and read this amazing piece of text here.

Good luck.

my life’s work is to find the most compelling startups in the Intermountain West and I’m going on record to say that there’s no better place in the region to start one than Boulder, Colorado.

There’s a very unique culture there and I think successful regional entrepreneurs from all over the country should go visit Boulder to see the impact of the culture of caring which exists there.  Successful entrepreneurs, lawyers, VCs and countless others devote a very significant part of their lives to mentoring local startups not because there’s something in it for them, but because they simply care deeply about entrepreneurs and they’ll do anything they can to help them.

I've written about this before and I guess I'll keep saying it over and over again: Boulder is fantastic for startups. Okay, I haven't got a chance to experience the startup environment as closely as people like the author of this quote have, but it's only a matter of time before I do.

*So* psyched.