Author: blogginggazelle

“The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and a lack of discipline .” – Jim Collins

At some point, you have to have policies and procedures. It’s usually because there are a lot of people to manage and it’s easier to point to a set of rules than it is to effectively communicate the desired outcome. It’s certainly easier than going through a complex hiring process to find good people.

And of course, we are people and we don’t always get along.

I remember counseling three employees who were at odds with each other. They wanted me to issue a decree that defined how everything was supposed to turn out. I replied by saying I could do that…create a new rule, but it would come with a price. That rule would apply to everyone regardless the circumstances and I assured them that in the long run it would be a net negative. In the end they took my advice and worked it out.

Before you make a policy, question why it’s needed. If you bump into problems with a rule or policy, question why you have it. Is there another, better way to solve the issue? And above all, don’t resort to creating a rule that affects everyone just to get out of dealing with a specific situation with specific individuals.

“Man was made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.” – Mark Twain

God’s ultimate creation was given a great gift; the ability to choose. Consequently, the ultimate creation is burdened with imperfection. Our journey on the planet is in part to learn how to get past imperfection.

Companies are plagued with imperfection. In fact, the successful startups and large corporations I’ve been honored to work with have all managed to succeed despite some profound stupidity and bizarre decision making.

Your company will never be perfect. You will make dumb decisions. Your ego will be bruised. You’ll hire deadbeats and you will have doubts. Your competitors will lie about you and you may get sued.

Guess what? Every CEO has these same problems.

That’s why it’s important revisit your Core Ideology regularly and stay focused on delighting and solving problems for your customers. Your Core Ideology is where your Core Values and your Purpose come together to define the enduring character of the company. These are the things that do not change over time.

Write down your core ideology and keep it handy. Post it in plain view. Share it on your website. It’s what brings you back when you lose the path.

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

“It’s a nice name. You should keep it.” – Dr. Who

I have been working with a couple clients on branding lately. Sometimes a great name just comes. But often, its a challenge choosing a name that is descriptive but catchy, or “sciency” without sounding incomprehensible.

A good tag line can help by adding just the right description to a cool sounding name.

It’s good to get help. A good graphic designer has a process to understand what you do and get to what you want. Their process will force you to describe your product or service to a complete novice and that in itself is a very valuable exercise. They will know how to combine colors and shapes in a good visual icon.

Your name is the utmost elevator pitch. It says in one or two words everything there is to say about you and it’s the picture of who you are that people will take with them. Be deliberate about choosing your brand and make sure you try it on others who care.

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

“Experience makes liars of us all.” – Dr. Who

Having accomplished some great goal, we all tend to look back and find out things about the journey:

It’s usually harder than we thought
We ran into problems we didn’t anticipate
It cost more money than we planned
People we respect and admire may have gotten hurt in the process
There are mean people out there
(Fill in your own blank)

So when you are pitching your company, there is no way you can know what will happen in the next 6 months, let alone 2 to 3 years. Your pitch today will not be what it is a year from now. You will pivot – perhaps several times as you learn more about the market you want to play in. Your financial projections are lies the moment you make them. You may have to invite friends and good people to leave the company.

It’s OK!

You have to get started and you can’t wait until all the truth is revealed. Otherwise someone else will solve your customer’s problem before you do.

Start with what you know now, but start nonetheless.

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

“Take your best shot at analysis, place your bet on the table, work your ass off, and don’t look back. That’s how you build a great company.” – Guy Kawasaki

Planning is important. Analysis is as well. It is useful to search for patterns that could reveal some repeatability and predictability.

You need to do the market research and you need to pour over your financials, but as Pete Seeger wrote, there’s “a time for every purpose under Heaven.” Planning and analysis must soon end because neither generates cash.

Confirm your instincts, get the data for the pitch and make sure the numbers tie together. Then go get your product in your customer’s hands!

Read Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

“We don’t need economic development. We need economic reinvention.” – Gov. John Kitzhaber

This quote came from Oregon’s Gov. Kitzhaber at the 2013 SSTI Conference. It was a gathering of technology based economic development organizations and the speech was right on topic but there is a much deeper meaning.

Gov. Kitzhaber acknowledged that the pathway to growth and wealth creation has indeed changed and the same old tricks to attract and encourage this growth will no longer work. So much is different; timeline of technology adoption, sources of capital, pervasive access to world markets, instant communication anywhere on the planet…

The cool thing now is markets are wide open for anyone to play. You don’t need $100 million to get started and although there are still a few closed monopolies like cable and media companies, they can’t last forever.

Chambers and local governments are finding the returns of traditional economic development strategies will continue to diminish as small startups take root, grow and churn. The community may get this for free as it is the nature of entrepreneurs to overcome their obstacles and chose for themselves where they do it. But how much more could these communities benefit if they could figure out how to create an environment that attracts and nurtures startups?

Hint: it won’t come from a standardized package of programs, rules and constraints.

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

“Eighty percent of success is showing up” – Woody Allen

A good one for a holiday Monday.

We are working with a company that is developing an app for a specific sales function. Their customer discovery process revealed that many of the sales people they are trying to help are lacking in some pretty basic discipline, namely showing up. For the sales call. For the demo. For the open house. They seem to want the 4 hour workweek but they haven’t done what it takes to get the machine going.

This is ok if you are working to pass time and make a little money but you should’t be surprised then when you are not making your monthly and annual sales goals; and you shouldn’t expect someone else to make it happen for you.

It’s early on a holiday Monday morning. Did you show up?

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

“People don’t buy paint. They buy painted walls.” – Seth Godin

Another way to say it is, “People don’t buy drills. They buy holes.”

There are a lot of features available today in the common hand drill; battery operated, variable speed, reversible, etc. Manufacturers use bright colors and interchangeable parts and price to try to differentiate their products. But features are just one part of the value proposition.

A product is acquired to enable a customer to accomplish a goal. The features that make that goal easier to attain are the ones that matter most. The rest are eye candy.

Read Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson

“There is nothing new under the sun” – Ecclesiastes 1:9

It’s compelling to contemplate the idea that every element that makes up our planet, plants, trees, animals and ourselves, was created at the moment the universe was created and has been around since then. And yet, these same elements get rearranged, transformed and reconstructed into something unique each time a new life checks in. In the end, those same elements dissipate and are returned to the universe for the next cycle. Ashes to ashes…

The same can be said of ideas. Humans needs are largely constant over time and therefor the problems in need of a solution can be traced back to some fundamentals. Music, movies, video games, books, etc. all serve to pass along the culture, distribute content and engage our attention. Technology and methods change but the needs remain the same.

Invention is important to entrepreneurship but it’s not the foundation. It may not even be necessary. A researcher pulled together disparate “green” technologies into a design for Habitat for Humanity homes where the home owner’s monthly energy cost was only a few dollars. All the technology already existed. The key was assembling the ideas of others into a new and unique solution.

Invention is about solving technical problems. Entrepreneurship is about solving problems for people.

“Why is there never a big red button?” – Dr. Who

We all want the obvious answer. We want all the customers to agree. We want the big bold sign to tell us which direction to take. We want to know in advance what will happen.

When it’s big decision time, we want the big red button; partly because of the fact that we need rituals to emphasize the importance of the moment, but mostly because we want the clear binary, black and white scenario where we know what happens if we push the big red button.

But it’s never that way. You can’t know the outcomes, one choice over another and you can’t collect enough data to make you comfortable making the decision.

The best you can do is be true to your core values and make the decision based on the best data you have available. Then you have to own it. If you’re wrong, fix it or pivot, but don’t sit around assigning blame. Move on.

You’re going to be wrong a lot. That’s the way it is. You probably won’t even be right half the time but that’s usually good enough. Sailing never follows a straight line. It’s a series of moves and counter moves that gets you where you are going.

Blogging Gazelle is published daily by Shawn Carson