Month: February 2012

“They can’t kill you and eat you” – Unknown

When I was with a former employer who was a rather large multi-national corporation, there were, of course, meetings.  Lots of them.  Usually you were reporting to people who reported to other people who didn’t really know about what you were doing but they wanted to provide value anyway because they got paid a lot of money to “help” you.”  This is all a nice way of saying that you usually got your butt handed to you no matter what.

My colleagues and I would remind each other while preparing for the meetings, “Just remember, they can’t kill you and eat you.”

For those who worry about making that funding pitch in front of a crowd of strangers, that’s pretty good advice to remember.

“Don’t Panic.” – Douglas Adams

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all great knowledge and wisdom… it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.  First, it is slightly cheaper and second, it has the words Don’t Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.”  from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

If you’re an intergalactic space traveler who encounters strange civilizations, cultures and species…not all humanoid… this is pretty good advice.

So it is if you are an entrepreneur.

“The second mouse gets the cheese” – Rayford Johnson

This is a witty response to “the early bird get’s the worm.”  There are a lot of ways to interpret its relevance but here are a couple of thoughts:

  1. The first mover carries a heavy burden.  It takes a lot of time and money to change the culture and you will probably be short on both.  If you have an entrenched competitor, you have to convince your market to not only buy something new, but to rip out what they have been using for a long time.  This is called change over cost and it can be prohibitive.  In fact many business models leverage it.  Take SalesForce.com.  It’s a great app that is  cheap and easy to get started with and by the time you have all your business processes running in it, you will be very reluctant to move to something else.  Then they have you.  A good strategy is to find an underserved nitche that no one else is competing for and dominate it.  Then move to the next and the next.  Geoffrey Moore calls this the “bowling pin strategy.”
  2. The second thought is to be constantly observant of the the market, your customers, your competitors.  A certain amount of paranoia is healthy for a business.  Be agile so can can adjust to a sudden change in technology or the winds of a new market.

Happy Birthday to “mama Gazelle”

“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.” – Herm Albright

If you can’t be passionate about your ideas and your company, why would anyone else care?  I see a lot of researchers present their world-class technologies with the very objective, emotionally measured presentation style.  At the risk of passing judgement on that community I often find myself asking why I should care; or even more basic, how is this going to make a difference in the world.  This reflects more on my limited technical view of the universe perhaps and to be fair, researchers are out to do good science and the thought of market potential is anathema at worst and at best, not part of the equation.

For the startup, it’s ALL about the big “So What?”.  The innovation has to find it’s way into something people will want to buy because they believe it while change their lives.

If you don’t believe it, why should anyone else?  Passion counts.  Make us believe you know how to change the world.  Annoy some research scientists!

“Because it is its purpose to create a customer, any business enterprise has two basic functions: marketing and innovation… ” – Peter Drucker

One of my all time favorite business quotes is from Drucker and goes, “The purpose of the business is to have a customer.”  This is the direct follow up in sort of an “if, then” setup.

Innovation is the fun, exciting and invigorating part of entrepreneurship, especially for the technology based startup.  It’s temping to believe that if the app is cool enough, it will sell itself.  Business history is littered with examples of where the best technology did not win.  Xerox never realized the benefits of success of many of its stellar innovations because they chose not to market them.

Marketing is the communication of your value proposition to your customers.  It should commence early, long before the product is ready for beta.  The feedback you get will help you not only develop a cool technology, but it will also help you develop the product people will buy.

The marketing/innovation balance should be at least 50/50.

“Now then, that is the tale. Some of it is true.” – Mark Twain

This sentence is how Mark Twain chose to close his autobiography.  Twain was the consummate story teller and even his autobiography was dictated to a stenographer in order to maintain a conversational feel to the work.

CEO’s do wear a lot of hats but perhaps one of the most important things a CEO must do is communicate.  For the startup, that means telling your story over and over;  to customers, prospective staff, partners, and of course, investors.

Great story tellers get to be great because they tell a lot of stories.  As Twain’s quote seems to imply, the stories get better over time as the teller practices, getting feedback from the audience and refining the message so it resonates with the listener.

Guy Kawasaki says you need to practice your pitch 25 times before it’s ready to unleash in the world.  By that time, you have it memorized and your mind can begin to focus on the delivery of the message rather than the words of the message.  Only then can people really see the passion of your ideas.

Start pitching as early and often as you can.  Look for angels groups, tech councils, inventors clubs Rotary Groups.  Every club struggles to fill their programs.

If it’s been a few weeks, go find an opportunity.  Keep it fresh.  Make sure that some of it is true.

“If Mayans were good at predicting the future, there’d be Mayans” – Jon Lovett

There are plenty of people that make a living telling us what we are all thinking.  There are still more that tell us what is coming and what is dead.  They have to get people to listen or read what they have to say.  They don’t have to be right.

The opinion that really counts is the customer’s.  If you listen to what they need and respond to what they tell you, they will be more likely to choose your solution over the others available.  Then all the industry “geniuses” will be talking about you.

Everyday, you should ask yourself, “where is my customer going?”  That’s where the future is.

“It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.” – Mark Twain

Guy Kawasaki says in “Art Of The Start” that you have to practice your funding pitch 25 times before you are ready to pitch.  Here’s the point: until your can internalize your message so that it comes out like a good story, you are not ready.  If you don’t know what’s on the next slide, you’re not ready.  If you can’t tell the story without the slides, you’re not ready.

If you want someone to give you a million dollars, your story should be worthy of it.  Practice!