Zig or Zag?

“Taking cues from technology companies like Intel and Qualcomm, Disney launched its own in-house VC fund in 2000 to find emerging entrepreneurs and products in media… Now other industry players are following Disney. Last year, NBC Universal started a similar vehicle, hiking its size from $250 million to $1 billion in April…

“Steamboat operates like a traditional VC fund. John Ball… and his team scour conferences and work the phones, looking for media startups in the U.S. and China with promising products, technologies, or services into which they can plow $2 million to $15 million. Once they decide to invest, a team member will often join the company's board or make hiring suggestions...

“Although Disney executives have oversight through a six-person committee… they have yet to overrule an investment idea. ‘We decided that if we were going to get into the VC business, we had to do it in a way that looked, smelled, and behaved like a disciplined venture capitalist,’ says Ball. Translation: The team members, who get a percentage of the fund's returns, had to be free to swing for the fences without Disney second-guessing them.

“Of course, being part of Disney has its benefits. Steamboat sometimes taps Disney executives to help scout investment opportunities. It called on folks from the theme parks' retail crew to help vet Pure Digital Technologies, which makes disposable digital cameras. Disney used its hit ABC show Ugly Betty to promote the scrapbook site Scrapblog, a Steamboat investment. ‘They're really good at opening doors for you,’ says Michael Yavonditte, the former CEO of online ad company Quigo Technologies, another holding…

“So far… the hits appear to outnumber the misses. Disney says it made $37 million on an estimated $6 million investment in Quigo, which AOL bought in November. Steamboat also made money on a stake in flat-panel display maker Iridigm Display; the entire company was sold to Qualcomm for $188 million. Overall, Steamboat's first $75 million fund is expected to return at least $150 million, according to sources familiar with it. That's a middling return in the VC world but not bad for a fund started in the depths of the last bust.”

(“Disney: When You Wish Upon A Startup; Its media-oriented VC fund, Steamboat Ventures, is quietly nurturing entrepreneurs.” Ronald Grover. Business Week: June 16, 2008. pg. 85)

WHEN EVERYONE "KNOWS" that something won't work, or you just can't do that now, see if your competence really can be applied distinctively. Try a different angle at the seemingly impossible; take a different tack.

Focus on what you know best; and remember that to be outstanding, you must stand out.