Entrepreneurs will lead us out of this mess

Mariana Danilovic shares advice on direction and responsibility of the entrepreneur

Recently, I met with Mariana Danilovic at the Always On Venture Summit in Half Moon Bay.

Danilovic, who currently serves as the Vice President of Business Development for MediaZone, founded Hollywood Portfolio, LLC, a company that operated several digital media companies in July 2002, and directed Hollywood Portfolio's operations until June 2006. Prior to that, she founded and directed the Digital Media Incubator at KPMG, LLP, which developed numerous entertainment and digital media companies. 

In this video, Danilovic shares three pieces of advice to the Vator community.

"Stay the course," she said. "Don't give up, even though the times are tough within all of the global economic markets." Her advice reminded me of a post written by Mark Cuban, titled: "Mark Cuban to Obama: 'Entrepreneurs will lead us out of this mess. Talk to Them." Cuban thinks that small businesses will help ignite the economy. In like vein, Danilovic was essentially saying to entrepreneurs that the economy relies needs them.

Danilovic also spoke about what venture capitalists are looking for and how entreprenurs need to prove themselves.

"There is still money around for the business models in essence, that are going to shift the playing field for everyone involved. So if it's not purely not an ad-based or a business model seen in the past, the VCs are still spending on companies that can prove to them that this is really groundbreaking and shifting one of the major industries."

Danilovic's third piece of advice is that entrepreneurs should definitely continue to prove out their business model and generate revenue, even before taking in a Series A round.