I had the pleasure of speaking at the recent Oklahoma Entrepreneur’s Conference 2010 on a panel about the rules of the road:

Successes to Copy, Failures to Avoid – “Entrepreneur Panel – Moderated and structured panel discussion focused on the best and worst of the entrepreneurial experience and how they met each opportunity.”

I got a chance to talk about some of the best and worst hiring decisions I’ve made in my ventures over the years, as well as how intellectual property risks play into many of the businesses in which I’m involved.

The quick take-away from my answers? Hire slowly and fire fast.

Take serious care about whom you put onto the bus, and if you know someone isn’t performing or is poisoning the barrel, fire fast. It may be a cliche, but it best sums up how to avoid the worst mistakes I’ve made, and that most experienced entrepreneurs will admit having made.

Another entrepreneur mentioned one of my least favorite pitfalls: Client payment risk and defaults on large projects. Ouch. I’ve been through that one.

I also enjoyed talking with several audience members afterwards about their ventures and may have new portfolio companies soon to discuss as a result.

Put on by the Oklahoma Department of Commerce and organized by Shelli Todd, the conference was definitely entertaining this year, with social media educator and author Chris Brogan providing the keynote.

Hopefully the panel videos will become available soon from the Department of Commerce so I can share them with you here…

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Kraettli Lawrence Epperson

Managing Director at JumpPhase Ventures

This blog is dedicated to providing advice, tools and encouragement from one entrepreneur to another. I want to keep this practical and accessible for the new entrepreneur while also providing enough sophistication and depth to prove useful to the successful serial entrepreneur. My target rests somewhere between the garage and the board room, where the work gets done and the hockey stick emerges.

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