Xplana founder and Chief Executive Officer Hakan Satiroglu said in a lecture Monday evening that the key to becoming an entrepreneur is taking personal experience to the next level.
“There is no failure in startups,” he said. “Just start it up with adaptability, drive and curiosity.”
Satiroglu, a Boston University alumnus, joined three other business leaders to recount their experiences to a crowd of about 120 students at the Entrepreneurship Club’s “Students Startup America” in the Photonics Center. The lecture, sponsored by TEDxBU, featured not only the businessmen’s accounts, but also strategies for startups.
“One of the main things we wanted for this event was bringing in different perspectives,” said College of Arts and Sciences junior Eduardo De La Garza, vice president of the BU Entrepreneurship Club. “We wanted to have the highest amount of contrast between each speaker and the highest amount of experience in that discipline or industry.”
Speakers included Satiroglu and School of Management professor Vinit Nijhawan, as well as College of Fine Arts professor Hugh O’Donnell and Android co-founder Rich Miner.
Satiroglu said that while growing up in Turkey, he dabbled in several innovative ideas, including starting a bicycle shop as a child. Eventually, he launched a basketball league that competed against the NCAA, until he decided to move on to the education industry.
The key for entrepreneurs, Satiroglu said, was dedicating time to networking.
“Bounce ideas off other people,” he said. “Your team tremendously impacts your business. Passion and interest are key. Figure out those and work on those areas.”
Nijahawan, a serial tech entrepreneur, said in an interview that the number one thing he would like to see from the BU community is that it’s students become more ambitious.
“BU students are as smart as students at [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] or Harvard [University], but sometimes don’t have the same ambition as you’ll see in students across the river,” he said. “My number one focus would be on how to get BU students to be more ambitious in what they’re doing.”
Nijhawan presented to students a 10 point list about the qualities of successful entrepreneurship and told students to associate with good brands, to make friends with likeminded people and to be inquisitive.
In his lecture, “Art in Context: Border Crossing Collaboration Invention Innovation,” O’Donnell told students to follow Ted Turner’s mantra of “early to bed, early to rise, work like Hell and advertise.”
“Don’t ask anything of yourself that’s less than being a genius,” he said. “Find a way to say things in your own experience.”
Miner recounted the days when he owned a small business and got caught up in the software wildfire of the 1990s. He spoke of the growth of Android and his partnership with Google and focused on the importance of following one’s passions in entrepreneurship and taking risks.
“The key thing is to be passionate and believe that you can do it,” he said. “Go create something amazing.”
Santiago Jaramillo, an SMG senior, said it is important to have entrepreneurship talks that will enhance and motivate those struggling with startups.
“When we have speakers, and especially influential speakers in our community, it’s very important that students come and integrate themselves and see that entrepreneurship can be achieved,” Jaramillo said.
SMG professor Ian Mashiter said that it has never been a better time to start a business.
“Find a big problem that you can solve, come up with a product concept that solves this problem and then work hard to validate it,” Mashiter said. “In the end, the ambition has to come with students themselves.”
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