More than 250 students, staff and professionals gathered in the Nelson auditorium Wednesday evening to listen to Scott Ganeles, CEO of Ipreo speak about his expertise in entrepreneurship and offer suggestions in starting a business in the first Wells Fargo Executive Series lecture of the semester.

Ipreo provides financial software and technology to companies and banks worldwide. Ganeles was named “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Ernst & Young in 2013.

During the presentation, Ganeles discussed potential steps to starting a business. He attempted to provide tips traditionally not taught in business classes, beginning with the first step to selling a business.

“If you are going to start a business, you cannot be afraid of it,” Ganeles said.  “The first person you have to sell is yourself. After you sell yourself, you have to sell your ideas to someone else.”

Ganeles stressed the importance of taking action and actively progressing beyond the idea stage.

“The key thing in deciding in what to do is don’t get caught up in the big idea,” Ganeles said. “It’s not as important as you think. Ask yourself: Is it plausible? Is it solving a need?”

Ganeles said it is important for an entrepreneur to identify the type of business he or she might want to create and the reasons behind it, stressing the importance of being honest with reasons behind starting a business.

“You might not own it your entire life, and you may not be the boss of it one day,” Ganeles said. “It is important to have a company that has sustainability, that your family can work for and that you can sell. “

Ganeles shared a story about a coworker who asked him to start a business together that the two later sold for $200 million.

“Bosses aren’t created by the management team,” Ganeles said. “This is also the beginning of your network. Your network starts with the colleagues you have every day.”

One final piece of advice Ganeles gave was to not hire people similar to yourself.

“There are certain things that are innate to people who are entrepreneurs,” Ganeles said. “But it does not mean that everybody cannot be entrepreneurs. You should partner with people who have characteristics you don’t have. Don’t hire people just like you.”

Desiree Devonish, a senior studying biology, said she thought the lecture offered useful advice. 

“It was a lot of things you think about, but it is different to hear it from someone who was once in your shoes,” Devonish said. 

Sunil Surve, an MBA student, said she found Ganeles advice on selling yourself to be the most important piece of the lecture. 

“I have been trying to do that for a couple of years,” Surve said. “I am trying to do something like Amazon Web Services is doing, but I don’t know how I would be able to compete with them and what should be the change in my products.”

Before going into business, Ganeles graduated in political science from Brown University. After an internship at IBM, Ganeles realized what he wanted to do.

“I thought I wanted to be a lawyer because in my family you are either a banker, a lawyer or a doctor,” Ganeles said. “Between my junior and senior year in college I got a great internship with IBM in their legal department, and at the end of the summer I realized I didn’t want to be a lawyer anymore.” 

Ipreo has an office in downtown Raleigh, and will likely be recruiting students for internships this year.

The second lecture in NC State’s Wells Fargo Executive lecture series will take place in April and will be presented by the CEO of Duke Energy.