In his book, he shares his wealth of experience and business savvy and covers everything from how he went from selling powdered milk and sleeping on friends’ couches to owning his own company and becoming a multi-billion dollar success story.

At Grasshopper, our mission is to empower entrepreneurs to succeed.  So that’s why we decided to buy 10,000 copies of his book for our customers.

We hope this book will not only inspire you as well but also give you some new ideas to grow your business this year.

Download your free copy here before we run out >>

We’d love to hear how this book inspires you to grow your business this year! Tweet us, share your story on our Facebook wall or leave a comment below.

Let’s get to know Darren…

Biggest pet peeve?

People putting non-recyclable stuff into the recycle bin. Plastic bags, pizza boxes and other food-encrusted papers can’t be recycled.

Go to karaoke song?

Kan Guo Lai by Richie Ren

Describe your ideal Saturday in 7 words or less.

Long bike ride, then lounging around exhausted

If you were pulled over for speeding, what would your excuse be?

Don’t make excuses, just be apologetic and respectful. Or cry, but not everyone can pull that off.

If someone made a movie of your life, what movie star would you want to play you?

Well I’d want the movie about my life to win lots of Oscars, so I’d go for Tom Hanks. Or Meryl Streep. She has such acting range.

Fun facts – have anything interesting people should know about you?

I ran a triathlon barefoot, and I’d do it again if my wife would let me.

On Google+?  Add Darren to your circles!

We’ve ignored the warnings about the insanity that may ensue and are packing our bags and heading south for the most epic startup event ever – LessConf.

What attracts us to LessConf you ask? Tweets like this. “You should attend if you like pudding, karate chops and lasers (in that order)”and this, “you may not bring fireworks to LessConf this year.“

As you can see, LessConf isn’t your average event.  It’s recommended that you only attend if you “want to learn, grow, and challenge conventional thinking.” This is definitely our kind of event and something that we not only love to attend but we also love to support.So, what can you expect from us at LessConf?

We’ll be co-hosting the pre-party with our friends Dynamic Wear on Wednesday night.  To go along with the ridiculousness that is LessConf, this won’t be your average pre-party.  There will be:

• Food – delicious appetizers like pub wings and sliders
• Drinks – pick your poison. We’ll provide drink tickets for your first couple drinks.
• Networking – an opportunity to meet the folks you’ll be spending the next 2 days with. Make new friends and catch up with old.
• Photo Booth – What happens at LessConf stays at LessConf – unless it happens in our photo booth.

Basically, everything you could ever want in a pre-party and the chance to take awkward photos with people you just met! What’s not to love?

Pre-party details:

• Date: Wednesday, February 22^nd
• Time: Party starts promptly at 8:00 PM
• Where: Ri Ra Irish Pub

Come for a drink or five and kick LessConf off the right way. Sessions don’t start on Thursday until 10 AM, so you’ve got no excuses!

Will you be there too? Be sure to find Stephanie, our Ambassador of Buzz! If you’re lucky, she’ll hook you up with a $50 gift card to give Grasshopper a try!

Some say that you can’t learn how to build a successful company, you’re either born with the right stuff or you’re not.

But if that’s the case, then why are so many successful business people pouring their own money into funding entrepreneurial programs in colleges and universities?

The entrepreneurial nature vs. nurture debate goes far back, but with entrepreneurship on the rise, perhaps it’s time to take another look.

Nature vs. nurture

A researcher and professor of entrepreneurship, Scott Shane, has been comparing the entrepreneurial activity of identical twins, who share 100% of their DNA, with that of same-sex fraternal twins, who share only 50%.

Such comparisons can potentially tell how much of entrepreneurial behavior is genetic and how much is environmental or learned. Using complex quantitative genetic modeling to compare behavior, Shane has found that the tendency for entrepreneurship is about 40% genetic. While this finding only represents one study, it does lend support to what many people feel is the truth: real entrepreneurs are just born with something different.

Well, that might be only partially true.

Other studies take the more refined and plausible theory that there are certain identifiable skills that can make anyone a successful entrepreneur.

These skills, such as risk taking and the ability to see promising new opportunities, are usually thought of as innate, but that doesn’t mean they cannot be learned. Just as there isn’t one definition of success, neither is there one type of entrepreneur.

For the same reason, some skills are much more useful for certain opportunities than others. So it’s more meaningful to measure success in terms of making the right match between opportunity and personality type, and then focus on building the necessary skill set. This is the reasoning behind teaching entrepreneurship and focusing on self-discovery and how to match opportunities to personal qualities.

Randy Komisar, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, sees the benefit in entrepreneurship education and the possibility of teaching entrepreneurial skills. He himself teaches at Stanford and notices that his classes give students basic conceptual tools and a greater sense of confidence to take risks and challenge the status quo. However, the role of education isn’t the last word in the debate either.

Education or experience

A  report by Ernst and Young has found that out of nearly 700 business owners, most of them became entrepreneurs after a significant stint in the corporate world. When asked about their most important source of learning, the most frequent answer was experience as an employee (33%), followed by higher education (30%).

This goes to show that not every entrepreneur is a college dropout, and that higher education is in fact a good investment in one’s future. Since startups are responsible for more than a third of all new jobs in the United States, colleges and universities should put more emphasis on properly preparing students for choosing to become entrepreneurs.

The payoffs to such education reforms might be a lot larger than expected.

One of the more interesting points that came out of the Ernst and Young report is that entrepreneurship is actually addictive. Of the surveyed business owners, 60% said they had started three or more companies, 20% had started six or more, and 10% said they had founded more than 10 companies in their careers up until now.

Considering how important startups are for job creation, this should be good news for all those who are pushing for greater access to entrepreneurial opportunities and education.

What’s your take on this? Nature? Nurture? Education? Tell us below in the comments!

Let’s get to know Craig…

Dogs or cats?

Fish

Most passionate about?

Music

Biggest pet peeve?

No idea

If you could have an endless supply of any food, what would it be?

Chinese

If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Top of Mt Everest

Fun facts – have anything interesting people should know about you?

I moonlight as a musician with a performance resume that spans three continents (music was my first career).

Stay tuned for next week’s spotlight on Darren Rosebrugh!