I came across this excellent 3 minute video of Matt Greeley, CEO of Brightidea who was interviewed by Bambi Francisco of Vator.tv on the startup lessons he has learned. It is a good video interview and he has some great guidance for startups (and frankly small businesses too) including one that probably every startup and small business should follow: hire and surround yourself with people on your team who will roll up their sleeves. I will add one additional point to his recommendation. Make sure your team is full of self-starters that every day are helping the startup show tangible progress that contributes to meeting (and exceeding) the company’s goals. You can roll up your sleeves and get busy work done, but not show real progress. On the other hand, self-starters that contribute every day to moving the company forward are invaluable. The success of your startup is only on the line if you do not have a team made up of these types of people. For more information on team building for your startup, here is an earlier post on this subject.
Please tell us your thoughts on the video and your approach to your team.
I have had the Sprint HTC EVO 4G for a little over a month now and recommend the 5 Android operating system applications below for small businesses to use on any Android phone.
Exchange by Touchdown– This application integrates with the desktop version of Microsoft Exchange and automatically syncs your email, calendar, contacts, and tasks wirelessly with minimal setup. I really like this application because it cleanly separates my work and personal email and is works just like I am sitting at my work computer. This is actually the only application on this list that isn’t free and does cost $20 per license after a 30-day free trial.
Jorte– This is a calendar and “to do” list application that I think works much better than the calendar tool that came with my Android phone. This application seamlessly integrates with multiple Google calendars and also gives you over 10 different widgets to add to your homepage in order to better access your events and tasks.
Google Voice– Google created the Android operating system so it would make sense that they have some of the best applications for the platform and the Google Voice app is no exception. This application essentially replaces your default carrier-provided voicemail while adding a bunch of great features. You can create custom voicemail messages for any of your contacts, get voicemail messages transcribed and texted and/or emailed to you, visual voicemail, and also can be used to place extremely cheap international calls all over the world.
BuzzBox– This application can be configured to provide any RSS feed directly to your phone and comes pre-loaded with hundreds of the most popular feeds for you to choose from in many different categories. This application also comes with a handy widget for automatic updates and quick viewing.
Fring – This application integrates with Skype (and many other IM/chat applications) to bring video conferencing to your mobile phone for free. I actually prefer this application to the included (and highly promoted) Qik application on the HTC EVO because it is easier to use and has less latency. I would recommend using the video chat feature while connected to 4g or wi-fi but it works great and automatically imports your existing Skype contacts for easy calling.
What is your favorite Android application and how much more do you like Android over the iPhone 4?
I was reading this article by Dharmesh Shah on the OnStartups blog where he indicates that a Minimally Viable Product (MVP) is “a product that has the minimum set of features needed to learn what the market wants” and conversely he defines that Maximally Buyable Product (MBP) as “the set of features needed to capture the maximum potential opportunity in a market.” Dharmesh then goes on to give 5 features of the Maximally Buyable Product.
I think the interesting point that is made in this article is not with the MBP but instead the Minimally Viable Product (MVP). How does a company know when they have completed building their MVP? When is an MVP “finished” enough in order to increase online sales and not result in abandoned carts of potential customers at checkout? I know that when we were putting our finishing touches on our MVP one year ago for our KikScoretrust seal product that it was very difficult for us to know when it was more important to get the product to market and when to add that one last feature that our customers would love.
My point here is that I think that building the MVP is not the most difficult thing most of the time. Usually the entrepreneurial spirit inside of the people that are involved with MVPs is such that dreaming up and building the MVP is not the difficult part. The difficult part may sometimes lie in the area of limiting the scope and defining the lines of exactly what the first iteration of the ultimate product is going to look like. Initially, the MVP may be just a shell of what the founders of the company initially dreamed up but the team needs to decide as a whole when it is close enough to “learn what the market wants.”
How did your company define your MVP and how is your MVP different from your MBP?
This is a great 5 minute video of Laurel Touby, founder of Mediabistro, on tips for startups and running your business: In case you need some background on Laurel Touby here is a great Inc. Magazine article about her. In this video, she covers:
1) Hiring and using a Lawyer;
2) The need for contracts;
3) Marketing;
4) Creating buzz;
5) Online and offline activities to sustain buzz about your startup; and
6) Dealing with investors.
Check it out. It is a good, quick video. Let us know what you think.
Most of the country is still talking about the US’s last minute victory against Algeria on Wednesday (well except for New York who just cant quit Lebron James). I have watched a lot of sports in my life – so much that it drives my parents and my wife crazy- but that game may have been one of the most exciting sports moment that I have ever experienced. Then again the bar is not that high for me since I am a Cleveland sports fan. I digress. Wednesday’s match was so big that there are reports that the game set all sorts of internet traffic records and it brought Twitter to its knees right after Landon Donovan knocked in the game winner in the 91st minute of the game.
Now the US team that came into the World Cup was criticized and heavily scrutinized for a number of reasons. People said that the team had not jelled, there was questions about the leadership potential of key veterans, this was the coach’s first time to the World Cup and parts of the team were huge question marks like the entire defensive unit. So you can say there were lots of concerns and doubts about this US team. So what did this team go on to accomplish over the last few weeks: merely going undefeated in their group play that included the mighty English team, clawing back from dead after being behind from a nearly insurmountable 2-0 deficit to Slovenia, overcoming a terrible blown call that should have given them a monumental and historic victory against Slovenia and then finally winning their group after coming back from yet another blown call against Algeria when they scored in the final minutes of the soccer match of the century (at least for us Americans and our fans!).
The US team has a long way to go as they have just reached the “knock-out round.” Nevertheless, there are so many lessons learned from this team and the group of US players that are applicable to business, startups and life in general. These lessons are born out of how the US team played, were coached, executed their game plans and relentlessly played each game. Here are a few that come to mind.
1) Have a Strategy
2) Make Sure that Strategy is Flexible
3) Put Yourself & Your Team Members in the Right Positions to Succeed
4) When Needed, Substitute in Team Members to Help Drive Change in the Strategy
5) At All Times, Make Sure Your Leaders are in a Position to Create Opportunities
6) When You Get Behind, Be Super Resilient and Do Not Lose Faith
7) Even if You Initially Fail, Keep Trying and Taking Chances (i.e. keep shooting the ball!)
8. Move On & Keep Pushing Ahead Because Some Calls Do Not Go Your Way
9. Trust in Your Teammates
10. Always Play with the Passion Like Its Your Last Game
11. Even After a Big Win, Get Up & Get Ready for the Next Game
Now on the other side of the spectrum of the US soccer team is our friends in France. Their World Cup was a widely publicized disaster. The French team literally did the opposite of everything on the above list and were the antithesis of the US team in that they had serious infighting, their coach and players got into fights, they played with no energy and were a bunch of selfish malcontents that went out of the tournament in grand fashion with loss to the much lower rated host country South Africa. Their follies could be the subject of an entirely separate post on more lessons learned, but I point out the French team’s approach just to draw the contrast of what is also possible on the other side of the pitch.
So as you watch the rest of the World Cup (and especially tomorrow for the US v Ghana match)- see what other lessons you learn. Now that the “knock out” stage has started, the stakes will be higher and I am sure we will be able to learn a few things about leadership, strategy and team execution when teams, players and coaches are under far greater pressure than the first round games.
Please tell us what did you learn from the first round games?
When starting a small business, everyone wears multiple hats and jumps in to assist where needed. As your business grows, you work to hire people to fill specific roles so that:
1) the founders can focus on more strategic direction
2) to drive the business forward
3) effectively execute on key initiatives.
You proudly get your entire team staffed up and people are working hard in their roles and the business grows exponentially – everything is on the up and up, customers are fascinated with your product line and you have a backlog of requests to implement… and then, somebody quits.
So this perfect (well at least manageable) entourage you have created to implement your product roadmap now comes to a screeching halt, or at least imposes a very large mountain to navigate around. To keep business moving, you must revert back to wearing multiple hats, which in turn impacts growth and forces you to re-prioritize efforts, at least until you can back fill.
In larger companies, the back fill process can be lengthy and daunting. What tends to happen is until the position is refilled, the tasks of the resigning employee are dumped on other employees… it becomes a juggling process to continue forward momentum.
While you cannot 100% prohibit turnover from happening, you can implement processes to ensure smooth transition in the event and also back fill (or redistribute effectively) so that you don’t end up pushing further resources out the door from overload. People leave for a variety of reasons, but when building a team for a small business and growing your company, retention can be critical. Then again, sometimes, that resignation is music to your ears…
How do you motivate your team to stand by you? What transition plans do you have in place in the event of a mutiny?
So we at KikScore have our brand name and a picture of our logo as our Twitter picture (avatar is shown above). It has suited us just fine over the last six or so months as we have been on Twitter after we launched KikScore. We really have not received many complaints or even questions about our Twitter profile picture. Frankly that is not surprising as we would expect the Twitter universe to ask us other questions if they came across KikScore – like tell me more about your product, or what is your background or give us comments like you have a cool service and homepage etc (all actual questions and comments received on Twitter).
In a prior post, we posed a question whether it is better for your company to have a personality on Twitter? We generally came out with the answer that a personality is good because it gives the community, your customers and your followers something to identify with when they think of your business. For example, if you spark a conversation, express an opinion on matters, have funny tweets, retweet interesting content, it probably will be good for your brand as people know what you stand for as a business. If your customers and the community know more about your company, the greater the chance that a bond/relationship can form between you and your customers.
So what about your company’s Twitter profile picture? Should you have a your brand logo or should you put a real person in your Twitter profile? I have now heard from multiple people at numerous events and conferences – these would be the social media gurus that live and breathe social media everyday – who almost all suggest having a picture of a real person along with your company’s logo. They suggest the person pictured could be your social media manager, a group picture of some of the folks from the company or maybe even a rotating picture of different employees every 60 days or so.
Why do they recommend this? I have heard psychologically that customers, the community and people in general will generally identify more with a person’s face than a picture of a company’s brand name. I actually think there may be some merit to that. Think about it. If you see a logo, it is generally nameless and faceless and has no personality. It is just a logo and you really do not get much of a connection with that logo. Logos can even become largely interchangeable after you see enough of them. Now change that logo, even to someone that has a picture of a real person standing in front of a company’s logo and make that a Twitter profile picture – you will probably get my attention. First, you get a sense of who is behind the Twitter account for that company. Second, you can now in some ways put a face to a brand name. Thirdly, I have to say this because I do this even now – when you think of that brand name you actually think of that person’s face. So in some ways a picture of a real person with a logo could appear to create a great connection, even if it is just a subtle psychological one.
So where does this all lead us? Look out as I think we will be changing our Twitter profile picture for KikScore later this week. I will make sure its not a picture of me because that will scare too many people off. Lets see if it makes a difference to people and if we get any reactions. We will let you know.
Do you think who or what is on your Twitter profile picture matters for a business?
This article about Netflix on TechCrunch gives a summary of a 128-page PowerPoint deck (that is also included in full at the bottom) that was apparently originally intended as a communication to new employees in order to share the “Seven Aspects of our Culture” at Netflix.
Most of the ideas in this deck seem like they were written by asking a group of employees of any company, “What policies do you wish your company had?” A couple of the Netflix policies in this deck that fall into this category would be the “take as much vacation as you feel you need” policy and the “pay employees more than they could get anywhere else” policy. These sound like great ideas if you are a potential candidate to work at Netflix but I think that these policies can only work in certain cultures where only the cream of the crop work.
There are also a few Netflix policies in this deck that really seem like good ideas no matter where you work. One of the policies basically says that if you think about one person on your team that you would do anything to keep from leaving you should then look at the other people on your team and consider firing them so that you open a spot for a new “superstar” employee to take.
Another idea in this deck that is very interesting to me is that Netflix apparently doesn’t believe in offering their employees training or “career development” as they put it. They think that they are helping develop their employees by simply allowing them to interact with their other colleagues at Netflix. They also make a good point that high performance people are often very resourceful and will find ways to develop their own careers and should not rely on a corporation to do this for them.
There are a lot of other interesting ideas in this Netflix deck…check it out and let us know what other ideas you like.
Over the last few months, I have come across three really good blogs that consistently have excellent information and incredibly useful tips for small businesses and startups. Since KikScore’s blog is focused on both of those areas – and pop culture with our recent posts about the Human Centipede, AC/DC and Lebron James – it is great to see the great content that these blogs are putting out. So I thought I would pass these blogs along for the community in case you have not come across any of them.
The three blogs are:
1. The Small Company Blog – This is an excellent blog that covers all things small business. But it goes beyond that and focuses on providing real practical tips for operating your small business. For example they have an excellent post on Developing a Comprehensive Marketing Plan for your small business as well as this post on 5 Ownership Mistakes that Will Kill Small Company Growth. That and many of the other posts there are worth a read. Also follow @TSCB on Twitter, Eric Rudolf the founder of this blog put out some great tweets.
2. Startup Marketing Blog – This blog goes way beyond its name and covers much more than marketing. If you have a startup, this is a must read blog because of the breadth of topics that it covers related to building and growing a startup. Beyond covering issues for marketing, this blog also has great tips on startup strategy, approaches to running your startup and tips on bringing your product to market. The caveat is this is not an every day blog that you check since the content is generally updated about once or twice a month. Nevertheless, when there is new content, it is excellent. The blog is the brainchild of Sean Ellis who has run the marketing for two startups that have gone from launch to IPO so he has super street credibility.
3. Keys to Growth Blog – This blog is focused on giving guidance for software startups and especially their CEOs, but I have actually found that the content is just as applicable for small business owners. The thread that weaves through most posts is positioning yourself and your company for growth through having the right people and right leaders in your startup. There are also highly practical tips that are included such recent posts on strategies to cutting your company’s expenses. Adam Ross runs this blog and he has two mantras: “Call your shot, then execute”. “Leadership is action, not position”. That spirit is the basis for this blog and that is why it made this list of ours.
As we come across other good blogs, we will continue to tell the world like we did previously in our Go To Small Business Blogs Part 1 and Part 2.
Let us know if you have any good blogs that you have come across lately.
Last week was a very busy week at KikScore. We had meetings all over the place on many different fronts. We had lunch meetings, phone calls, various team meetings, checkins with partners, drinks with some of our favorite corporate development friends and meetings with friends and colleagues that also double as advisors. On the way back from one of our last meetings, my partner Mike and I were debriefing on all of the meetings we had just completed. Then it dawned on us that nearly every one of these meetings came from a team member of KikScore, a friend of friend, colleagues from previous and current jobs and folks that KikScore team members have done business in the past.
Over time and especially at the inception of a startup (and small businesses too), a company’s contacts and rolodex can immensely help the strategic direction of a company. That is why we all hear from so many people that we should all on a regular basis network and get out and meet people. But I would say even more importantly, there are probably many people that lie dormant in an entrepreneur’s contacts that the entrepreneur met many moons ago. These “hidden rolodex gems” should not be forgotten.
Entrepreneurs and owners of small business should be proactive in maintaining and cultivating these forgotten contacts. I will be the first to admit that I have not been great at cultivating some of these gems. But one of my mentors once said the easiest way to engage these buried contacts, is just pick up the phone and call them or send them an email. What do you really have to lose? Now in your re-introduction call or email to these folks, make it clear to them that you are not looking for a job or something and instead are looking to chat and get some guidance. You will be amazed at the responsiveness that you may get.
Here are just some of the ways our contacts have helped KikScore and could help your startup (and small business):
1. Providing great feedback on our business model;
2. Ideas for new channels to pursue;
3. Ideas on potential new enhancements to our product;
4. Introduction to partners; and
5. Referrals to other advisors and thought leaders.
As you grow you company’s contact list, return the favor to people that contact you looking for guidance and counseling. Pay It Forward so you do not look like your company is only looking out for itself. And you never know when someone asks you for guidance, it may end up helping your company like it has with us at KikScore.
Please tell us how you develop your company’s rolodex.
So as you watch the rest of the World Cup (and especially tomorrow for the US v Ghana match)- see what other lessons you learn. Now that the “knock out” stage has started, the stakes will be higher and I am sure we will be able to learn a few things about leadership, strategy and team execution when teams, players and coaches are under far greater pressure than the first round games.
