Ted Leonsis came to speak to a group of us in Washington, DC. He is an amazing storyteller, and has been successful from an early age, selling his company for a multi-million dollar deal at the age of 23, although he was raised in near-abject poverty.

Ted is now the majority owner of the Washington Wizards, Capitals, Nationals, and Mystiqs, chairman of a few boards, and a big believer in filmantrophy (a word he coined to describe independent film making for positive change).

Below is a summary of my notes (although I didn’t write the summary — will explain later). Regardless of an entrepreneurial bent, IST promotes managing people and technology, and much of this advice is transcendent of specific job or career, and is very relevant to a young workforce.

General characteristics of most successful entrepreneurs:

1. Young and not tied down. Launching a startup is a big risk. This risk is magnified when there are spouses, children, and mortgages in the picture. For that reason, many successful entrepreneurs tend to be younger and more able to accept risk.

2. Not a defensive bone in their body. In order to succeed, it is essential for an entrepreneur to take criticism and feedback from advisors and team members. Ted asks, “do you want to be right, or do you want to win?”

3. Obsessive about the product. Another commonality that Ted has observed in successful entrepreneurs is their zeal towards perfecting the product. At AOL, Ted would start every day by taking a tour of the service and correcting or improving any issues he encountered.

4. Built teams and partners based on an intense reflection about their strengths and weaknesses. Great leaders understand that they too have weaknesses, and they surround themselves with other great leaders who fill those gaps. Building teams and knowing as a founder what you are good at and where you need help is one of the most important characteristics of success.

5. Double bottom line: do well, while doing good. The best businesses are ones that create a win-win situation and help make the world a better place. This type of thinking is reflected in Google’s “do no evil” mantra.

The pursuit of happiness. Ted has done a great deal of thinking and research about what makes people happy. His view is that happy people are successful people. As a result of survey information from over 50,000 households, Ted has found these five variables to be the most correlated with happiness:

1. Active participant in multiple communities of interest
2. Avenue for personal expression (there is a reason why there are 77 million blogs)
3. Empathy and gratitude
4. Volunteerism and giving back
5. Pursuit of a higher calling

Tags: Entrepeneurship, Filmanthropy, Pursuit of Happyness, Success, Ted Leonsis

Categories: Entrepreneurship