Gurbaksh Chahal is all of 27-years-old, and he’s already made a significant mark as an entrepreneur. At 18, he sold his first company, Click Agents, for $40 million to ValueClick. At 25, he sold another, Blue Lithium, to Yahoo for $300 million in cash.
(Editor’s note: Be sure to catch Gurbaksh at Vator Splash. He’ll be sharing advice on how to build a startup. Click here to register for tickets)
Now, he’s onto his third, gWallet, a monetization platform for social networks. In this segment of “Lessons for Entrepreneurs,” Gurbaksh provides his lessons and experience as an entrepreneur.
Firstly, “don’t get emotional,” he said. You can be passionate, but not emotional, he added. “When you’re emotional, you’re force-feeding yourself to do something that may or may not work,” he explained. “When I started gWallet, I had the idea of being in the offer space with a coupon vertical. I tried this for two months and it didn’t work.” He quickly moved on to another strategy.
Most entrepreneurs are afraid to change from their original strategy. But they need to realize that their ideas will quickly change.
“I remember looking at PPTs, starting the year off with one idea and ending the idea with something else.”
Another piece of advice (which is a big lesson for many entrepreneurs) is to surround yourself with people who want to see you and your idea succeed.
Gurbaksh also gives advice about acquisitions and the art of being bought vs sold. Finally, he says that entrepreneurs need to grow their business without needing capital. They should only raise capital, ironically enough, when they don’t need it.
