Chad Lynch – networking maestro of Orrick Total Access

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Chad Lynch is the Director of Corporate Business Development at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. In our interview on August 12, 2012, Chad discusses how he developed his Total Access program at Orrick. Total Access is a series of workshops, panel discussions and networking events that take place on weekday mornings in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Chad is an important figure in the Silicon Valley and has brought together some of the brightest and most successful people in the history of the Bay Area to share their insights and knowledge with other entrepreneurs.

Chad is an entrepreneur himself and talks about his career and why he chose the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe to be his home for his outstanding programs.

For more information about Chad and Orrick’s Total Access program follow these links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/orricktotalaccess
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/OrrickTotalAccess
Blog: http://orricktotalaccess.wordpress.com/

Additionally, you can find most of the links on Orrick’s website at www.orrick.com/totalaccess.

ScanCafe co-founder Sam Allen shares his success story

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From dedicated Marine Corp veteran to the Co-Founder of the highly successful Scan Cafe, Sam Allen shares his story of bravery and entrepreneurship on the Free COO radio program.

In this lively and funny conversation, Sam talks about how he moved a 12 year military career, to becoming an mergers and acquisitions specialist for Cisco Systems and on to the MBA program at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he and some fellow classmates decided to form and internet startup. Fast forward to today and ScanCafe has almost 1,000 employees and is the leading provider of digital scanning services on the Web.

Join us each Thursday at 4:00pm PDT to learn how you can make the next great start up company. Only on Spreaker

Do the right things and do things right – Bill Shepard

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Bill Sheppard of the COO forum was my guest on The Free COO podcast on March 8, 2009. Bill is a seasoned executive and entrepreneur who has created an organization dedicated to the support and growth of COOs. His company the COO Forum has chapters across the US and is growing at a great clip.

In the interview, Bill talks about his highly successful career and how he is now devoting his time to helping entrepreneurs and C-level executives reach their goals.

Hear advice such as a CEO’s role is to guide a company to do the right thing and a COO’s role is to help a company do things right.

The Free COO airs Thursdays at 4:00 pm Pacific Time on Spreaker.com

Facebook IPO filing dispels first mover advantage myth, again

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In the summer of 2011, a panel of distinguished VC’s was convened for a typical Silicon Valley morning symposium on the state of funding for startups. In early 2011, it seemed like every entrepreneur was pitching an idea or shifting their startup’s strategy to offer a Groupon-like service. In their opening remarks, each VC quipped to the audience of aspiring entrepreneurs, “don’t bring me another coupon deal”. Were they acting in a manner any less herd-like than the entrepreneurs? No.

The VC’s were really saying, “If your company is not the first to market with an idea, we’re not interested”, the conventional “first mover advantage” theory. Read more…

Setting a Vision

Posted on Leave a commentPosted in COO, Priorities, Setting Goals

Setting a clear vision for an organization is perhaps the most important task for a CEO. Sharing and instilling the vision throughout the organization is perhaps the most important task for a COO. A clear vision that is understood by everyone in the organization and continually reinforced by the leaders will provide an intangible force that seems to be driving the company. Read more…

Getting Started – Learning to Let Go

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There is a big difference between being a CEO and a COO.  I know, because I’ve been both.

At my first startup company I didn’t have a COO and, while the company was a success, it wasn’t until I learned to let go of certain tasks that the company flourished.  Entrepreneurs, almost by definition have a vision of how things should be and how their company should be run, but first time entrepreneurs, myself included, often spend too much time on internal details which can be crippling to a startup venture.
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Getting Started – Setting Priorities

Posted on Leave a commentPosted in COO, Foundation, Getting Started, Priorities

My first job out of college was a corporate engineering position with a $3B multinational aluminum and chemical corporation.* My branch of engineering was highly specialized so, as a 22 year old, I was able to pick and chose which of several dozen multi-million dollar projects I wanted to work on at any of the company’s manufacturing facilities worldwide.  My list of projects was a mile long with some involving serious health and safety concerns of employees.  Every project required reconciling the production and financial needs of plant managers with the demands of corporate execs to maintain control over disparate operations.  For a foot loose young man with an unlimited travel budget, I needed to balance my responsibilities with a desire to see the world.

You see, if you’re 22 years old and can choose between working in a can factory supplying a major European brewery with access to all the beer you can drink for free, or standing next to an 1,100 degree extrusion furnace on a 107 degree July day in the panhandle of Texas which would you choose?

Well… not so fast.
Read more…