5 Tips for Young Entrepreneurs Who Want to Be Taken Seriously

I was a 21 year-old entrepreneur when the dot-com bubble burst in 2001. Given the unprecedented volume of dying startups, investors and other business partners became less and less inclined to partner with new companies — especially those led by young founders.

But I felt compelled to win over potential investors, customers, and team members. If I didn’t succeed, neither would my venture.

Here are some of the tactics I used to help establish my credibility as a young founder, and grow my business in spite of my age:

Show others that you’re committed to the venture. Find visible ways to demonstrate your willingness to serve the company. I was always the first person at the office. The signals founders send speak louder than their words.
Present yourself like the most successful people in your industry. Given that most of our revenue came from brand managers and advertising agencies, I couldn’t show up to meetings looking like the college sophomore that I was. I ordered and wore bespoke dress shirts with my monogram on my cuffs. When advertising buyers started our meetings asking where I had my shirts made, the subsequent discussions usually went well. Don’t take this too far and spend beyond your means, of course, but first impressions still count.
Find creative ways to inspire confidence. My team was fired up when well-known leaders like Fred Hoar, the late VP of Communications at Apple, and Dana Summers, Nordstrom’s former VP of Marketing and CIO, joined our board. Sometimes I would ask board members and other well-known advisers to come in and share their lessons with my team. Most leaders love to give back to motivated young entrepreneurs, and this helps improve your credibility in a very noticeable way.
Set and deliver on objectives. Goals and guidelines will go a long way towards establishing momentum and lifting team performance.
Develop your character. While nothing builds trust faster than delivering results, nothing destroys it faster than a failure of integrity. As you see your dream grow from an idea to an enterprise, your opportunities to cut corners will multiply. Grow your character as you grow your business so the latter doesn’t crush the former.

Kevon Saber is the CEO of Fig, a mobile startup focused on personal well-being. Prior to Fig, Kevon was VP of Sales & Marketing at GenPlay Games, a mobile games developer he co-founded which has created fifteen games and $40+ million in consumer revenue. Kevon holds a BS in Finance from Santa Clara University and a MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Kevon and his family live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Saber is a member of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Fueled By Cardboard: Kidpreneurs Kid President & Caine’s Arcade Spark Happiness & Entrepreneurship

5 Things You Need to Know About Interviewing at a Startup

Everything that I learned in college about interviewing is essentially worthless. After speaking to those that are close to me who will soon be graduating, I decided to jot some pointers down.

Most pertinent to a startup or early-stage environment, the following points stem from hundreds of hours of actual interviewing experience. Tech interviews will be more tech-centric and sales interviews will be more dollar-centric, but all interviews with an entrepreneur will require an entrepreneurial approach.

1. The person interviewing you would rather be doing something else.

Don’t kid yourself. Very few entrepreneurial hiring managers look forward to spending hours of their day interviewing candidates. There is always a critical problem to solve, email to be answered or money to be made buried in their hectic schedule. Interviewing candidates is a need and not a want.

Make the experience as memorable as possible for them and capitalize on their limited attention span. Use the first 15 critical minutes of pitch time to communicate your personal executive summary. Succinctly highlight how you make a difference, how you help the bottom line, how you deal with problems, why you can be player and coach, what motivates you and why you’re there for that opportunity.

2. The person interviewing you will speak to dozens more like you.

You likely have been “chosen” to interview less than you think. With stacks of resumes piling up and a never ending to-do list, the entrepreneurial hiring manager has made a quick, educated guess to speak to you based on the need to solve an immediate problem. Something in your resume, LinkedIn profile or referral has gotten you in front of them.

Make it worthwhile. Be the first appointment on their schedule or the last appointment that day. Give them a reason to remember you throughout the day or during their evening commute. Connect on a personal level and appeal to their emotions. Work days will be stressful, highly charged, energetic and sometimes painful. Give the hiring manager a sense of comfort that when difficult situations and long hours arise, you can be the professional family member that they can count on.

3. The person interviewing you knows the textbook garbage.

Just like you already know how to respond to textbook interview questions, assume that the entrepreneurial hiring manager knows when they are asked by a candidate. Further, if you get the textbook interview questions, run away…run far, far away. It’s a sure sign of things to come but that’s a different topic. Instead, craft questions that are intelligent, pertinent, thought-provoking and challenge the hiring manager.

Likely, you will come up with something that’s already been thought of. The key is to find the sweet spot where the question/thought was previously their own or introduced by someone that they respect. This is impressive and says a lot about your ability with creative problem solving. Understand the business and craft questions related to expanding the business rather than defining it. Repeating facts from a Google search or simply perusing the website is classic, textbook mediocrity.

4. The person interviewing you is not mediocre.

Startups and early stage companies have little time, money, patience and tolerance for layers of mediocrity. You are likely interviewing with someone who is either the direct decision maker or a trusted previous hire. This means that they have either developed their own tests or have already passed the tests so never assume that a half-a**ed approach will fool anyone.

No organization needs mediocrity. Startups and early stage companies especially are not looking for the typical 9-to-5′er looking for defined vacation schedules. Set yourself apart by highlighting flexibility, adaptability, comfort with uncertainty and a general can-do attitude. There’s nothing wrong with living for work in the entrepreneurial hiring manager’s eyes.

5. The person interviewing you is a salesperson.

They have no choice in the matter. Every day they are either selling a product, a service, a solution, an idea or themselves to someone internally or externally. You need to have the same exact mentality in the “everyone sells” model. With limited experience, highlight entrepreneurial endeavors that you started in school.

For pros, highlight bottom-line milestones from previous engagements. Talk facts and figures and make it all relative. Focus on your personal brand and use your reputation as your strongest asset. This reputation can come from your studies, collegiate organizations, co-ops, internships, professional organizations, or employer experiences. No matter what the examples are, show that you identified an opportunity and capitalized on it. Be prepared to sell yourself or don’t bother at all.

There’s more, of course, but these five points should get you started. There’s no substitute for practice, practice, practice so if you are fortunate enough to have a trusted mock-interview resource, use them. The worst interviews in the world are the ones where both parties walk away feeling like the hours were completely wasted. No one has the spare time for that.

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Max Sobol is Partner and President @ IdeaEvolver. He’s passionate about startups: getting them built, staffed, supported, optimized, growing and then some.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Fueled by cardboard lessons you could learn from 2 nine year old kidpreneurs.

Is Your Business “Partnership” as Solid as You Think?

Good contracts make for good relationships. It doesn’t matter if you and your new business associate are the closest of friends, mere acquaintances or siblings. Yes, even siblings would be wise to ensure they’re covered, should anything go awry.

I urge every person considering entrepreneurship to resist putting personal relationships or financial well-being in jeopardy by failing to clearly delineate the terms of agreement in a professionally prepared, legally binding document. It is not a savvy choice to rely upon what has been said, what was written in an email, or even what was casually drawn up between the two of you. These measures to protect yourself may not hold up in court. They sure didn’t for me.

In 2004, I entered into business relationship that I thought was a partnership. My new “partner” and I were going to take the blogosphere by storm with a daily videoblog about Internet culture. (Note: these were the pre-YouTube days, so putting video on the Web was fresh and exciting.)

For nearly two years I acted as a company partner because, well, I thought I was one! Since I was told verbally that I was in a partnership, I acted as a partner in meetings with potential investors, set up the company’s bank account and filed our trademark paperwork. In fact, in order to set up a bank account, we needed a signed contract between company founders specifying the terms of the partnership. I wrote up a quick one-pager, and we both signed it.

The work commitment was as expected for the co-founder of a startup. Basically, I had no social life — everything was about making the show and business a success. Newly 23 years old, right out of college and living in New York’s East Village, I declined too many invites to count to events, parties and dance clubs. Some friendships faded over time because I was completely preoccupied with writing show scripts and responding to business emails until the wee hours of the morning. As is typical of the entrepreneurial mindset, I put everything on hold for the good of the company.

At first, the show was an incredible success. In fact, we were so popular we could barely keep up with the media inquiries and find the time to shoot our daily videos. Profiled in The New York Times and on CBS Evening News, among many other outlets, and emailed daily by interested investors and potential collaborators, it seemed clear we were on a rocket ship destined for greatness.

Unfortunately, the skyrocketing success of the business was met with the equally speedy downhill slide of our relationship. The partnership became increasingly rocky as we planned to move the show to California. The move was delayed for months, to the point where I found myself subletting a series of New York apartments as I waited for my partner to feel comfortable.

In the end, he never did.

Finally I was given an ultimatum — stay in NYC or you’re off the show. To my amazement, I realized I was being treated as an employee rather than a partner. Since we had only my quick one-page document for an operating agreement, there was nothing I could legally do.

Moral of the story: no matter how nice the guy or gal you’re going into business with seems, you always need a lawyer. I was naive to believe that talk and a self-created contract would hold up in court. That’s because I never imagined I’d need to go to court — why should I? My partner was a nice guy.

My first entrepreneurial pursuit was chock full of some of the highest highs and lowest lows I’ve ever experienced. Yet even with all the heartbreak of this first endeavor, I’m still at it, reaching for more highs with one significant difference: in the two companies I’ve co-founded since co-creating that first one, I have protected myself by hiring a good attorney. Yes, lawyers can be pricey, but it is money well spent. When everyone knows there is a legally binding document signed before the venture starts, expectations are plain and clear to all parties from the get-go. If not, there might be some funny business or eventual rewriting of history.

Have your legal counsel make certain everyone is on the same page, because believe you me, that’s the only place you want to be.

Amanda Congdon is a California based on-camera personality, new media pioneer and healthy food entrepreneur. She has produced and hosted many web and mobile TV projects; her show, AC on ABC, made Amanda the first video blogger for a major network, ABC News. She is currently Co-founder and Director of Operations at Vegan Mario’s™ Organic Kitchen.

11 Founders offer advice on getting a job with a startup.

11 Tips For Increasing Customer Loyalty

Now that your product is launched, tested, iterated and you’re getting customers, how do you keep them? Our friends at the YEC asked 11 entrepreneurs, founders and experts “What’s your best tip for increasing customer loyalty?

Always Over Deliver

“First and foremost, meet the needs of the customer, then take it up a notch and over deliver. Whether you provide deliverables ahead of schedule, throw in bonuses or surprise and delight with cool new features, continue to give more.”

– Kelly Azevedo | Founder, She’s Got Systems

Ridiculously Good Customer Service

“To quote a recent customer email, “I really appreciate your thoughtful and professional response. I don’t get that a lot from customer service. Usually, it’s scripted nonsense that makes it seem like I’ve done something wrong. You’ve single-handedly improved my perception tenfold. Someone there ought to give you a pay raise.””

– Matt Mickiewicz | Co-Founder, Flippa and 99designs

Treat ‘Em As You’d Want to Be Treated

“Empower your employees to help customers the way they would want to be helped. Ditch scripts and “company policy” in favor of dialogue and intuitive problem solving. Customers want to be treated like human beings, not sales figures.”

– Vanessa Nornberg | President, Metal Mafia

Try Genuine Transparency

“If you screw up, be willing to openly acknowledge it and take responsibility for it. Always be real with people, and cut out the “robot act.” Show a genuine desire to improve, even if you’re already doing a good or great job in servicing them. Customers really appreciate that sort of interaction, especially when you show you understand them and actually give a darn.”

– Matthew Ackerson | Founder, Saber Blast

Love Them and Thank Them

“As Gary Vaynerchuk says in his book The Thank You Economy, you need to “shock and awe” your best customers. This means actually giving a crap and rewarding them for no particular reason with thoughtful gifts. I agree 100 percent. Are you telling me the best you can do is an automated Happy Birthday email?”

– Patrick Curtis | Chief Monkey and Founder, WallStreetOasis.com

Customer Loyalty Works Both Ways

“If you want customers to be loyal to you, don’t forget to be loyal to them. Focus on your core, die-hard clients. The fringe customers will come and go, but your core will stick with you through the good times and bad. Keep those customers happy at all cost. Customers reward loyalty with loyalty.”

– Nick Friedman | President, College Hunks Hauling Junk and College Hunks Moving

Build a Broader Relationship With Clients

“If the only times you talk to a customer is when you’re getting paid or providing support, you won’t exactly be their favorite person. Creating a broader connection makes you someone that they’ll want to seek out. Something small, like forwarding a relevant article, can be enough to create a positive association, but keep your eyes out for bigger opportunities.”

– Thursday Bram | Consultant, Hyper Modern Consulting

Sincerity, Seriously

“Customer loyalty is, in my opinion, built and substantiated with honesty. But more than honesty, it’s really about sincerity. Clients or customers want to look into your eyes and know that you don’t just mean what you say, but you are what you say. They know that everything you do and say is a part of who you are. Because of that, they know they can trust you, and that keeps them loyal.”

– Steven Le Vine | CEO/President, grapevine pr

Send the Message Clearly

“How much would it mean to you if the founder or president of one of your vendors called you up on the phone to ask you how your business was doing, and if there was any more that they could provide for you? Don’t say you care, show you do. Pick up the phone and make it personal.”

– Benjamin Leis | Founder, Sweat EquiTees

Reward the Remaining Ones

“Make your customers feel special by rewarding them for their loyalty. A thank-you gift, access to an exclusive event, a special offer, they all go a long way. And now, there are many services that can help without requiring a major capital investment. For instance, at Merchex, we’re working with dozens of luxury merchants to identify their best customers and effortlessly reward them.”

– Michael Tolkin | CEO, Merchant Exchange

Keep Their Best Interest in Mind

“I believe the best way to increase loyalty is to only offer people what they truly want and need. If someone isn’t the right fit for my company or they no longer need the services, I tell them. Coming from a place of total authenticity not only turns clients into raving fans, but also wins the hearts of people who are amazed you didn’t try to pressure them into a sale.”

– Elizabeth Saunders | Founder & CEO, Real Life E®

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

11 Founders give advice on getting a job with a startup.