Читать книгу The Way of the Wall Street Warrior - Dave Liu - Страница 35

Frank Baxter, former CEO at Jefferies and later the U.S. ambassador to Uruguay, advises young people just starting out to think of themselves as their own CEO, their own Internet brand. “You're not John Smith,” he tells them. “You're www.JohnSmith.com.”

Present yourself as if you're the investment opportunity of a lifetime. That's what your parents thought when they plowed all that dough into your education and extracurricular boondoggles. Prove them right by transforming yourself from a money-losing dotcom into a cash-gushing staple.

Show your value by leveraging one of the most fundamental tenets of investing: the Greater Fool Theory. It states that the price of an object is determined not by its intrinsic value, but rather by irrational beliefs and expectations. As a result, an investor might pay a price that seems foolishly high because one may rationally have the expectation that the item can be resold to a greater fool later. The entire market economy is based on this principle. Don't believe me? Tell that to Diana Duyser, who was lucky enough to sell a partially eaten 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich with the Virgin Mary's likeness on eBay for almost $30,000. Believe me now?

In other words, be the fooler, not the foolee. The only way you're going to stop living off the Bank of Mom and Dad and leach onto the payroll of a real company is to convince someone you're an excellent investment. The way to do that is to know what a prospective employer is really asking.

Here, I'll make it simple for you. The following table is loosely based on the pitch deck template of Sequoia Capital, the venture capital firm which backed Apple, Google, PayPal, Yahoo!, and YouTube, among others. You get the picture—they're rich as hell.

When You're Asked	What They Want You to Answer
What's your purpose?	To make you rich(er)
What problem do you solve?	A fresh body to replace the people who quit
What do you uniquely offer?	Three Bs: Brains, brawn, beauty
Why now?	One can only live on bread and water so long.
What market can you go after?	The sky's the limit.
Who else wants you?	Who wouldn't?
What's your function?	Your wish is my command.
How do you make money?	Giving you leverage on your time
Are you a team player?	There's no “I” in team (but there is a “me”).
What's your ROI?1	Infinite! I'm not in it for the money.