Startup Tips Archives - Page 37 of 66

Do You Have These 4 Kinds of Mentors?

Finding a mentor or personal advisor can be intimidating to female founders. Women often have a Superman complex — we rarely seek advice because we believe we should be able to do everything, know everything, and be everything to everyone. But my co-founder Brittany and I have found that to truly harness success, it really does take a village. You need outside perspectives to stay balanced and develop an holistic view of your business.

In order to keep growing my own support network, I started grouping my mentors and advisors into four distinct categories. This trick helps me make sure I always get advice from individuals varying in age, gender, socioeconomic status, and other demographics — thus opening the door to new conversations and perspectives.

Below are the four main categories I’ve identified, and where YOU can start looking for an advisor in each:

Category 1: Inside the Industry/Knows You Personally

From in-the-trenches stories to best-practice scenarios, these are the individuals who not only know what you are going through but know how you personally handle situations. These people know your strengths and weaknesses. They can help you come up with solutions to improve your weaknesses or toss out new revenue ideas to play up your strengths. Their advice is usually very specific and is often extremely helpful for dealing with short-term goals, problems, or delicate business scenarios.

Potential Advisors: An old boss, a fellow entrepreneur/friend, or a friend at similar company.

Category 2: Inside the Industry/Acquaintance

From boardrooms to client relations, these are the individuals who know what it’s really like to work and live in your industry. While they know you, you wouldn’t call them out of the blue or invite them out for dinner. These people are great for giving you an honest look at the industry without worrying about your feelings. They give straight-to-the-point feedback, and you are often only meeting or speaking with them for around 30 minutes, so as to not clog their day. These individuals are valuable resources for bouncing new ideas off, discussing business pivots, or giving you ideas about restructuring.

Potential Advisors: A friend of an industry friend, your lawyer, or a past client you have a good rapport with.

Category 3: Outside the Industry/Knows You Personally

From fielding emotional meltdowns to trading personal workday anecdotes, these are the individuals who can lend an ear because they know you well. While they don’t work in your industry, they give a brilliant outside stance on the bigger picture. These individuals can give you personalized advice on your reactions to various situations and relationships such as clients, internal colleagues, or even overall business practices. They can also be solid sounding boards regarding a new product or service, as they have no background knowledge of your industry and likely have a consumer-based opinion.

Potential Advisors: A close friend, a relative, spouse/significant other, or a roommate.

Category 4: Outside the Industry/Acquaintance

From business-building advice to a third-person perspective on your life and your business, this type of mentor is one of the most important. For this category, I believe having a business coach is of the utmost importance. Coaches have a background and knowledge of entrepreneurship that can spark poignant conversations and drive business decisions. At ‘ZinePak, we work with a business coach named Marla Tabaka. She knows us well, but not well enough to take sides or spoon-feed us what we want to hear, and that’s what matters. These individuals can also help you gain perspective on the bigger picture, inspire long-term goals, and provide unbiased industry and personal feedback.

Potential Advisors: A recommended and trusted business coach or consultant. Make sure he or she has a current client list, so you can check references!

Kim Kaupe is the co-founder of ZinePak, a custom publication company that creates engaging fan packages for entertainers, brands, and celebrities. She graduated with a B.A. in marketing from the University of Florida and roots loyally for her Gators. Most recently, she was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30. Previously she was named to Advertising Age’s 40 Under 40 List and featured in The Wall Street Journal’s Start Up of the Year Documentary.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

Are You Really the Best Person to Lead Your Startup?

Are you doing your job as a leader, or are you hampering your employees’ abilities through misdirected delegation? Should you step down in order for the company to step up? Are you aware of your individual impact on the bigger picture?

You may have started out as the strong, inspirational skipper of a smooth-running ship, but everyone and anyone can potentially burn out – even founders lose interest and the ability to inspire others. Companies pivot all the time, and whether you’re a CEO, manager, or employee the same principles apply to your role as a leader.

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth

If you’re a leader of a team, and asking how you should lead or follow, you may have already failed. “Lead” and “follow” are not actually mutually exclusive. Leading is more complex, sublime and decisive, but it also entails a bit of following.

Entrepreneur Mark Suster speaks of a time when his company was trying to produce too many products at the same time. One of his managers pulled him aside and advised that the company should narrow their focus. After a company-wide discussion he cut down the number of items in production from four to just one — the one that would ultimately turn out to be an industry-leading product.

Everyone remembers what happened when Steve Jobs resumed leadership over Apple. Double-down focus — minimize in order to maximize. Sound familiar? In Suster’s case, he effectively followed his employee in order to lead, and the company benefited greatly as a result.

On the other hand, when every team member is trying to tell everyone else what to do, and simultaneously listening to no one, it is no longer leading. That’s just (dis)organized chaos, and an effective leader knows how to cut through the noise.

What It Means to Lead

A leader’s job is to ensure the success of the organization — no matter who reports to whom in any given group. At every moment she should be examining, scrutinizing, and constantly asking, “Is what I’m doing helping all of us to succeed?”

Or, in the words of entrepreneur and author Jason Baptiste, ”If that means taking out the trash and picking up low fat, low carb, organic pizza for the team so they can work straight through, then so be it.” You can’t be too proud. Do what needs to be done to help your business thrive.

Leadership is also about empowering, and 31 percent of employees leave if they don’t feel they’re empowered to do their job properly. Are you empowering your employees? If not, it’s time to move out of the way and let someone else take the lead. There still may be many important jobs to do.

Do You Project Great Leadership?

There is more to leading a team of employees than simply telling them what to do. Are you perceived as more than just a manager? Do they respect you as such? Ask your employees. They will tell you.

It’s also okay if you’re not the Leader (capital L intended). Oftentimes, there’s only room for one visionary. However, equally if not more importantly so, the company and organization needs a strong Executor. The one that can see the steps to actualizing the big idea.

The doer. The hands-on manager. The person who dots i’s and crosses t’s. Every “shaper” needs a “finisher” – someone to complete the picture. Nothing is accomplished single-handedly. Just because you might not sit in the CEO seat, doesn’t mean your leadership is somehow less valid or valued. People tend to respect the ones they engage the most with and everyone on the team has the opportunity to lead, even if it sometimes looks like following.

Team Building Is Hard

Leaders are powerless without their teams. They can’t possibly do everything themselves. Finding and keeping the right people is absolutely essential.

Create small teams led by people with a wide range of skills and be generous with your knowledge. That way, if you do have to hand over the reins, you already have someone ready to take over (or at least keep the company running while you search for a successor).

As a startup, we look for ambitious (entrepreneurial-minded), flexible and adaptable people to bring into 15Five. Hiring a new employee on a 90-day mutual trial period is nothing new. What we do is put them into a position, show them what we know and then ask them to find a better way of doing it. By the end of three months, we want them to have grown into a position where they could essentially hire themselves out of the job we originally brought them on board for. And if they’re culturally a great fit, then we know we’ve found a gem.

An Outside Perspective

It takes some fortitude and fearlessness to step outside your role and look objectively at your involvement in an organization. Try putting yourself in the shoes of a stakeholder who is not wrapped up in the day-to-day work, like an investor or advisor. Would they determine that you’re the best fit for your current job description?

The best person for the job should be the one doing the job, and if it means that someone else needs to be the leader of your company, then step aside. It doesn’t mean you have to banish yourself and voluntarily walk out the door with your tail between your legs. It means you’re operating in the best interest of your company. Besides, there may be a capacity that is a better fit for you and ultimately you might just end up more happy, productive, and fulfilled.

Anybody know of a story where a founder or employee successfully handed over the reins or stepped into another position in the best interests of the company at large? Would love to hear from you!

David Hassell is a serial entrepreneur and presently Founder & CEO of 15Five, a SaaS company focused on helping individuals and organizations reach their highest potential. Hailed by Fast Company as the “15 Most Important Minutes of Your Work Week,” 15Five creates an internal communication process that enables the most important information to flow seamlessly throughout an organization.

Your Complete Guide to Working the Conference Scene

I have been going to conferences for startups, technology, and video games for the past 10 years. There are some subtle and massive differences between them that can give an edge depending on your situation and personality.

People attend conferences for three reasons:

Learn
Network/Meetings
Show off their company/product

Knowing why you are going is key. This will help shape your “presence” at the conference. In this case lets define presence as: The way you act, look, dress, and when you take your meetings. Next week I am attending GDC (Game Developers Conference) in San Francisco. It is the most important video game development conference and I have a certain presence for the show.

How to Dress

Video game conferences are not much different from tech & startup conferences. There is plenty of time and room for the top three reasons I listed above but the video game conference trumps all conferences in ability to look dress and act like a rock star.

Next week for GDC I will wear interesting dresses and clothing that I would wear on stage while playing with a band, I used to play keyboard in a couple of bands. I am a big fan of modcloth.com. My husband, Jared, will also wear clothes that make him stand out. The ability to make an impression is important. With a whole week of drinking, meetings, networking, and learning it is very important to be remembered at the end of the conference. Looking and acting like everyone else may help you in a corporation, but in the startup world I feel you need to have a different presence.

I believe this also works for tech and startup conferences but with a more subtle approach. Tone down on the bright colors and look a bit more professionally dressed. Potential investors and partners want you to be interesting, but they also want to make sure you can fit in at a corporate meeting to close deals.

Perfect Your “Meeting Attitude”

Do your homework before you get there. Find out who is going by searching Twitter and LinkedIn updates. People love to schedule meetings before a conference because it provides a schedule to plan their life arround. Before and after meetings prepare for the possibility of serendipitous meetings. These are meetings that could happen through the introduction to a new person from the meeting you have scheduled or through watching twitter while at the conference. It can easily get overwhelming but just keep a cool composure and take a couple of deep breaths. You can do it!

The attitude I try to take to meetings is the same I try to have throughout the entire conference. Be positive, polite, and open. Act like you own the place and care about everything. These actions and feelings help people open up and you can get your agenda accomplished easier while meeting new people. Most of the true deals will wrap up after the conference, allowing you to be more aggressive with terms. I find this is true for both video game and startup conferences.

Manage Your Meetings

The main difference between a videogame conference and a startup conference is when you schedule your meetings. Rule of thumb is at a videogame conference like GDC you never schedule a meeting before 11:30 AM. Video game development is a long hours profession with most workers getting up later in the day and working long into the night. The conference is a place for people to escape the grind by going to parties, concerts, and sometimes doing a lot of drinking. It is important to be courteous to this rule and it also allows you to send out emails in the morning to your team.

A startup conference is all about hustle. Packing in as many important things at one time has its benefits. Most meetings kick off at breakfast and continue through lunch. Making sure you get a good night sleep is important for all conferences, but you really need to be sharp and well rested for startup conferences. If you have any tips regarding other types of conferences please feel free to leave them in the comments below.

Shannon Steffes is the Founder and Art Director for Furywing. She has been involved in tech and video game startups since 2005. Follow her at @shayozzy

3 Key Strategies for Pricing Your Product

When we first launched Ministry of Supply, we sold our Apollo shirt for a whopping $128. Our price for the shirt then moved down to $88, back up to $108 and finally landed on $98.

During all of these changes, we talked to our customers a lot about pricing. We watched conversion rate, listened to what our customers said, asked them what else was in their closet, and thought about the value our shirts give our customers: no more dry cleaning, lots of durability and a shirt for every occasion. Mostly, we debated about how all these factors should influence how we priced our clothing.

We get a lot of questions on pricing from fellow entrepreneurs. How’d we decide to sell our Apollo shirt for $98? What’d we do to test what prices are right? And, how should costs play into pricing analysis?

Given that my co-founder Aman and I were students at MIT Sloan when we launched Ministry of Supply, pricing was a topic that we talked to our professors a lot about. In the end, there were three main things we kept in mind when figuring out pricing:

Understand your customer’s willingness to pay. In pricing class, we learned that 80 percent of managers know how much it cost to produce their product, but only 23 percent know their customers’ willingness to pay. As a customer-centric company, we wanted to understand everything about our customers, including how much they value our products, and what prices made our customers happiest. To do this, we tested pricing a lot, and, analyzed quantitative data such as conversion rate (given different prices), as well as qualitative data, such as their sentiment after we followed up with them for feedback.
Think of the 3 C’s in tandem: cost, customer, competition. None of these individually should cause you to dictate price, but rather, they should form a comprehensive view that allows you to triangulate the price. We viewed our pricing strategy through these three lenses as we adjusted our pricing: we knew what our costs were, we developed an understanding of who our customer was (what does he usually pay for a shirt? Is he price-sensitive?), and we understood our competition’s pricing. However, rather than letting one of these factors dictate our price, we used all three to inform our final decision.
Don’t set prices based purely on cost. As any startup knows, costs depend on sales volume. Sales volume depend on prices. Because your costs will change as you scale, pricing based on cost alone is a dangerous practice. But pricing based on cost also ignores something important, which is the value you create for customers. Think about it: had Pet Rock been priced on cost alone, a lot of money would have been left on the table.

In short, pricing takes a lot of understanding — and a lot of testing. At MoS, we tested prices constantly before settling on the price that was best for us.

Remember: if people are complaining that prices are too high, that tells you something. Conversely, if nobody is complaining about your price, then it’s likely too low.

As for why all of of our prices end with an ’8′? Because it’s a lucky number and looks nice. Hey, not everything is a science – even if you are a business school student.

Kit Hickey is the co-founder of Ministry of Supply, a brand which is inventing the future of men’s professional wear. The company has been featured in NYT, TechCrunch, Inc., Forbes and Elle Magazine. In addition, Kit is a lover of mountain sports and has half an MBA from MIT. Follow her: @kit_hickey

The Ultimate Guide to Bootstrapping Your Next Conference

Editor’s Note: Conference speaker and startup friend Jared Steffes has some great tips on making conferences more affordable. Thankfully, we’ve done a lot of the work for you with our Everywhere Else Tennessee conference. Grab your tickets before the super cheap early adopter discount expires!

I want to share some tips about how I make the “biggest bang for the buck” while traveling out of town for a conference.

Conference Pass

Free Expo Pass!

Most of the time you do not need a main conference pass for larger shows. I go to shows to meet new clients and network with people. Typically you can get all the main points talked about at a conference through Twitter or video feeds after the show.

Getting into the show is the most important part and scoring a free expo pass is usually pretty easy. Search Twitter for anyone giving away free expo passes for the show you are planning to attend. It is pretty common because many shows gives exhibitors a bunch of free passes for their employees, but most exhibitors are 2 person shows. Some exhibitors will give away their free passes as a marketing tactic on Twitter or their Facebook leading up to the date of the show! I have a lot of luck with this.

Networking at the conference hotel bar the night before the show is usually a good place to meet an exhibitor. Make friends and kindly tell your bootstrap story. Usually they are happy to find you a pass or give you one of theirs. Return the karma by bringing people you meet to their booths if there is a possible business relationship. This is a huge win for everyone and the exhibitors won’t forget you the next time you need some help.

The last way to get a pass only works if you have an “in” with a decent sized blog or news site. I go to a lot of shows each year and usually my big blog friends are happy to get me a press pass in return for some articles about the show.

No Free Pass?

That’s ok! Search for “promo code” or “discount code” on Twitter and the internet for the show you are going to attend. There are usually always promo codes floating around somewhere for big %’s off the main price.

Travel

Driving

There is a huge benefit driving to a show. Gas is cheaper than flying if you get decent MPG’s. My rule is if the show is 12 hours or less from my home to reach then I will drive to it. It is cost effective for traveling in a group, you don’t need to rent a car, no plane tickets, and you can save on taxi costs.

Flying

Southwest has been my bootstrap staple for years now. Their credit card used to require $1000 in spending to get a free flight but their points system changed and now it requires around $1200. Still not too bad. You also get enough points by signing up for a card to get a long round trip flight.

If you are going to either coast from the Midwest both JetBlue and Virgin America are great to purchase flights from.

It is pretty important to plan your conferences at least 2 months ahead to get the best prices on flights. It is easy to do and dumb not to. There were times at Tap.Me I would get a $200 round trip flight to the Silicon Valley just by planning ahead, while others were paying around $700 and I knew they were going to go. Procrastinating is an expensive date!

Using a low frequent flyer miles to get there and back for free is awesome! The key is to travel on the not popular days and times. Tuesday and Saturday are typically the cheapest. Early morning and late at night are also typically the cheapest times to fly.

Parking

It is important to know what parking costs you may have because parking in a large city may defeat the costs saved by driving. Hotels and conference halls often charge around $15 a day and I have seen hotel parking in San Francisco for around $40 a day. Crazy!

Jared’s Pro Tip #1 – Parking at a recent convention was $20 a day and I secretly found out you can have the ticket validated by any restaurant for the price of an entree. $20 for a meal got me free parking! I could have gotten away with a cheaper meal but I deserved something good for dinner since I skipped lunch!

Rental Cars

Do not rent from a location at the airport. It will typically cost double compared to a place off site. I was able to get a Mitsubishi Lancer for $50 for a 5 day rental through Fox Rental Cars. They have a free shuttle from the airport and it was a nice place with well kept cars. The big rental companies at the airport would have cost me $110 for a smaller car.

Skip the insurance! Check your credit cards to see what they cover. American Express provides some free coverage but it does not include the important collision. With just a little search I was able to sign up for a program that costs $24 a rental for good ‘covers all’ insurance for up to 41 days. Awesome savings to CYA (cover your ass). At the car rental the insurance is $18 a day.

Scam.

Places to Stay

Friend’s Place

Almost free! It is almost because you should definitely buy your pal a meal and a gift. Being grateful keeps the good karma going that all entrepreneurs need!

Hotels

Conference rates tend to be useful for expensive cities like San Fran, NY, Seattle, Chicago, and LA. It is important to book early because the blocks often fill up and pretty soon you can’t get a room a the conference rate.

You can often get a cheaper hotel further from the conference and just pay transportation costs. I like to take public transit during the day and save the taxi for night. Usually I am exhausted or sometimes intoxicated at night after networking and just need to get back to the room to rest up and shoot out emails.

Starwood Resorts like the W, Westin, and Sheraton are often good to stay at because the big industry players will be staying there. I have met some important allies in the elevator or at the bar in these resorts. I have a Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card which is great for free rooms, upgrades, and cheap rooms. I suggest signing up for one the next time you need to use a Starwood resort. Search online for promotions for the card. You can often get more sign up points!

Share a room!

Someone is thinking the same thing as you, “Damn this is going to be expensive!” Ask on your social networks who is going to the conference. Once you know you can privately talk about sharing a room. I don’t think it is smart to broadcast you are looking for someone to share a room with. It is a sign of desperation. Being frugal doesn’t mean you have to stop being classy.

Time Shares

These can come in handy and everyone knows someone with one. RCI is the biggest catalogue for units, but they can often require 8+ months to get a room near your conference.

I purchased a Wyndham Vacation Ownership in their Las Vegas location. It allows me to stay in the places I travel most which are San Fran and Las Vegas. I can also convert the points to RCI. I was able to get a Wyndham Room six minutes from a conference I attended in Orlando for hardly any points because I waited to book the room within a 30 day half points discount window. It is risky but I noticed there was a lot of rooms 3 months from when I was planning this trip so I felt comfortable with the risk.

Meals

Luckily the Wyndham rooms come with a kitchen. I have some strange food allergies so it is nice to be able to cool some meals. I also like to travel with Cliff Bars and oatmeal packets. Breakfast is my favorite meal but let’s face it, you are very unlikely to have a breakfast meeting at a conference. Save your money for dinner where business gets done!

This trip is 5 days long. A meal is $20 on average. That’s $200 spent eating out for breakfast and lunch. I often go to the supermarket and buy my allergy friendly food for $29. Cereal, almond milk, tortillas, lunch meat, OJ, and cookies. Huge savings!

Jared’s Pro Tip #2 – Get your coffee, water, or pop outside the conference. Most hotels have free Starbucks in the morning. The cost of anything is exaggerated once you step into the conference doors.

Marketing Materials

Why do a large order of marketing materials when you are not exhibiting at a conference or you don’t know how the message will resonate with your target market?

Don’t!

I once designed a 4×6 flyer for a company I started, Matador, and had it printed at a Walgreens ready for pickup 20 minutes later. Look for a promo code for prints online and place your order. I was able to get 50 prints for the price of 25 with a promo code I found online. The price: $5.09. Pretty awesome deal and great quality!

Internet

Hopefully Internet is free at your show. I recently discovered Freedompop.com which provides 500 mb a month at 4G speed for free a month. You just need to purchase the device.

The next plan is to ask someone staying at the hotel for the pass code. People are typically cool with it because paying for wifi is sort of ridiculous now a days. If that strategy doesn’t work I can always jailbreak my iPhone and share its Internet.

Gifts & Swag

I am a strong believer of making sure my loved ones, partners, and employees know you were thinking about them while traveling. The smallest gifts can make people really happy, especially software engineers.

I tend to put a duffle bag in one of the pockets of my luggage and fill it up with swag from shows for my team. I’ll also pick up some gifts that relate to their personalities. Treat people like you want them around and you can expect the best from them!

The Secret Startup Resource You’re Probably Overlooking

For successful startup founders, it is critical to understand the distinction between unavoidable challenges and unforced mistakes. Too many startups fail as a result of the same set of predictable mistakes: poor planning, poor timing, poor understanding offinance. It is poor business intelligence. Starters who lack access to the right information or the skills to put that information to work are at a disadvantage.

Smart startup founders look outside their own networks to bring in new skills and gain better access. For better business intelligence, the best person to add to your information network is a librarian. Whether online via chat or at your local library, she can help you navigate the library’s vast, free resources to find the information you need and avoid common, costly mistakes.

Failing to know the market

You have a fantastic idea for a product you’re sure will change lives and make a fortune. But sometimes a passion for an idea can blind you to the realities of the market. Your librarian can help you access databases and the hidden web where you can research patents and use tools such as LexisNexis, JSTOR and Standard & Poor’s to conduct the market research you need to complete before launching.

Lacking focus

Too many startups jeopardize their chances of success by attempting to be multiple things at once. The reality is that most startups struggle to master a single service or product well enough to survive. As you’re piecing together your business plan, a librarian can assist you in researching market conditions, competitors and supply chains to help you focus where you’re most likely to succeed.

Unclear understanding of financials

You don’t need to be a CPA to start a business, but you need to understand the basics of finance. This will help you later as you begin to negotiate loans and equity lines, but more crucially, basic financial literacy will help you determine what is feasible for your business.

Librarians are trained to locate the highest quality, most reputable sources of information and will guide you to the correct resources for assistance.

Failure to listen to customers

Passion is the defining feature of an entrepreneur, and the force that drives success. But passion can be self-defeating if it makes you blind to the preferences of your customers.

Think of the library as a beta site or showroom. It’s a space where you can get your product in front of potential customers from an early stage and see how they react. It may turn out that once your product is in consumers’ hands it gets used in entirely different ways than you imagined. By incorporating the library into your product development process, you will always have real-world usage data to signal consumers’ preferences.

No plan

You need to map where your company will be in 6 months, a year, 2 years and sometimes even longer. Do your homework and determine what you would need to have in place to make it happen. Will it require outside investment? Leverage your library for the resources you need to put together your pitch deck. Will it require continued innovation? Use your library to access scientific and scholarly journals to stay up on the latest developments in your field.

Information is ubiquitous, but finding the right information can be frustratingly illusive. The difference to your success could be the librarians who have both the skills and the sources that could solve many of the problems you face in garnering good, fact-based information, research, statistics and data that could help you avoid many of these problems.

If you make the library a central resource in your business, and depend on the knowledge, training and skills of your librarian, you will find yourself in better control of the information you need to succeed. It’s no secret that founding a business is a difficult and allconsuming occupation, but with a librarian in your corner, you will be able to approach the challenges with a clear mind and deep well of information.

John Chrastka is founder of EveryLibrary, a library advocacy organization dedicated to preserving local library funding and ensuring access. As a former tech entrepreneur, one of John’s goals is to raise awareness of the resources libraries and librarians can provide to the tech community, for free with a library card. John can be found on Twitter at @mrchrastka. You can learn more about EveryLibrary at EveryLibrary.org.

9 Simple Tips to Actually Meet The Right People at SXSW

Learn Who’s Attending Ahead of Time

“Check in with people you want to catch up with to see when they’ll be onsite, and get on their calendars in advance. Once the event starts, send them a quick text or email to remind them about your meeting. Large conferences are too chaotic to ensure that you’ll just casually run into people. You have to make a concerted effort to ensure that the most innocuous of gatherings actually happen.”

Alexandra Levit, Inspiration at Work

Don’t Listen to the Talks

“Most speakers are covering material that can be found all over the Internet. If you want to meet people, hang out in the lobby and the hallways. Strategically position yourself in places that everybody has to walk through, which maximizes your likelihood of bumping into the right people. If you have friends attending, ask them for help with intros to the right kind of people.”

Emerson Spartz, Spartz

Leave Room for Serendipity

“You’ll want to line up some meetings ahead of time, but don’t forget to leave room in your schedule for grabbing lunch with the people you just met or sitting down for an impromptu talk. The benefit of being in the same place as a bunch of interesting people is that you can get very lucky and meet someone without any planning.”

Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

Partner With Connectors

“The best way to meet interesting people is through a warm introduction. There are two ways to find introductions at events: through individuals or through brands. Figure out how to add value to an individual so he or she will take the time to make introductions. Similarly, you can volunteer to help a brand at the event so you will be around when others contact them. “

Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

Get Exponential Introductions

“My strategy is to always meet a few awesome people early and ask them for the best one to two people they know that I need to know. Meet new people, then repeat this process as often as possible. With the right seed connectors, this can last through the whole event.”

Neil Thanedor, LabDoor

Book All Your Essential Meetings Ahead of Time

“When we send employees to a conference, we often have up to 25 meetings set in advance for them, along with specifically tailored agendas for each contact. By doing an aggressive email campaign before the conference, you can often confirm meetings well in advance so all you have to do once you’re there is go from appointment to appointment.”

Michael Costigan, Youth Leadership Specialist

Go Without a Schedule

“I have settled on the opposite of strategy — I just go and see what happens. If you go with a plan, you’ll struggle at SXSW because there’s no way you’ll stick to it. There’s no point in setting goals you can’t meet. SXSW is a week of serendipity. Who are the right people? You don’t know yet. Random meetings turn into meeting the right people.”

Andrew Angus, Switch Video

Be a Good Date

“There is a preparation process every time you’re about to go on a date: time, place, outfit and even a prospective conversation plan! That’s true of conferences as well. See what events are happening and who will likely attend in order to plan your agenda for a big industry conference. Select a couple of key events, meet some out-of-town business prospects and let the conversations start!”

Lauren Perkins, Perks Consulting

Forget Going to the Conference

“If you are seriously interested in only meeting people, forget the $600 conference badge — just go for the weekend to hang out. You don’t meet many people sitting and listening to talks, but if you know how to work the room over cocktails or know someone to get you into the right parties, then you will have accomplished your mission.”

Matt Wilson, Under30Experiences

Thankfully, the best startup conference is currently only $150, but time’s running out on early adopter tickets. Join us and some great speakers and investors on April 30-May 2. Head over to eetennessee.com to get yours now!

How to Delegate to Get the Best From Your Startup Employees

delegate

When you first launch your company, you have to micromanage to some extent – there’s little or no team infrastructure and, since you’re building a company from the ground up, every decision builds and shapes the future of the company. As you scale your business, however, there comes a time when micromanaging actually damages your organization. It also makes running and working in your business a lot less fun.

Assuming you have the right people on the bus in the first place, real growth comes in realizing when to nitpick and when to simply let go and delegate. I believe a dedicated individual delivers far more value performing in an environment of freedom than when someone is continually looking over her/his shoulder. So as my company has grown, I’ve had to learn how to be an efficient boss who lets his employees take the reins and, thus, grow personally and professionally. Doing so leads to happier employees and an overall enhanced team performance.

In my opinion, the most effective management style is summed up in the words of Shunryu Suzuki, a Zen Buddhist expert and author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. In his book, Suzuki suggests that the best way to control people is to give them a great deal of space, allow them to mess around, and then to just watch them. “To ignore them is not good; that is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them; just to watch them, without trying to control them.”

Suzuki’s suggestion may seem oversimplified or silly, but I’ve actually found that it’s dead on. If your employees feel like they have freedom to be themselves and your confidence, all they need to know is that you’re watching them. This, combined with some basic structure, will lead to the best performance.

Here are four strategies we use at my company, HUMAN Healthy Vending, to boost employee productivity without micromanaging:

Create a system to share “crucial results” across the company. Employees and managers must be able to share their daily and weekly goals. First, create a way for your employees (managers, too) to share the most important action items they have for the week and have them list, daily, what they are going to accomplish in order to achieve those weekly goals. This provides a way for employees to be accountable to their own goals, allows managers to see what their direct reports are doing (and provide adequate feedback and guidance), and provides a way for teams to track progress toward shared goals. The key here is to also go over these goals in a quick huddle every day to ensure that the goals chosen for the day and week are actually the most valuable to each department and to the company as a whole. While there are software programs like Asana that make it easy to share goals, I have found that a shared Google spreadsheet works just as well. Each employee at our company is on the same spreadsheet, though for larger companies it may make sense to break it down by department. At the end of each day, employees color-code each daily goal — a green highlight signifies the task has been completed and a red highlight signifies the task was not completed.
Start the morning with a huddle. Morning “huddles” have consistently proven to be a great way for companies to energize their team and make sure everyone is set up for success. Broken down by department, each team member has 30 seconds to list his or her number-one most important objective of the day, share any big wins, and let others know if he or she needs help or guidance on a specific issue or problem. This way, everyone is on the same page and feels aligned, and potential problems are solved much sooner than they otherwise would be.
Conduct weekly “direct report” meetings. Just like professors have “office hours,” managers should have an ongoing timeframe where employees can come to speak to them about specific projects. I have a recurring weekly appointment with each of my direct reports to discuss progress on goals and to provide feedback. This helps cut down emails since my staff knows that they have a recurring appointment to discuss action items, questions and problems in person. I always ensure that I have an agenda for each meeting a day in advance so we make the best use of our time. Recently we’ve been using 15Five software to lead these meetings, and serve as a kick-off point for our conversation together. Having a set template for each meeting, and reviewing action items from last week, is absolutely essential.
Have a company-wide email policy. It is one of my personal policies that email does not dictate my actions or my schedule. Instead, I prefer to use my time to create, rather than react. It would not make sense, however, for me to be the only one with this constrained email policy. So, we are all “mindful emailers.” We do not allow internal emails to the entire team before noon each day. This helps us ensure that the most vital hours for productivity (the morning hours) are reserved for crushing it. This is especially useful for a team with a sales staff, and ensures that people’s crucial results are handled early in the day rather than at the end.

If you’re running a startup, chances are you have your hands in everything. This is fine, and necessary when you’re in the early stage of your business. But you can only scale your growth if you hire and train employees to take over certain aspects of the business so that you can stick to your high-leverage activities. There’s a fine line between being an engaged manager and a micromanager. The above steps will help you discover where it is.

Sean Kelly is a Johns Hopkins and Columbia-University-trained biomedical engineer and nutrition-focused social entrepreneur who co-founded HUMAN (Helping Unite Mankind And Nutrition) in 2008 to make healthy food more convenient than junk food while turning the $42B vending industry on its head. HUMAN is now the world’s leading socially-responsible franchisor of healthy vending machine businesses and healthy micro-markets with hundreds of franchisees and thousands of machines and markets placed across the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Sean has landed on many coveted business lists, including Forbes’ “30 Under 30,” CNN Money’s “Top 10 Generation Next Entrepreneurs,” Business Week’s “Top 25 Young Entrepreneurs” and Mother Nature Network’s “Innovation Generation: 30 Fresh Thinkers Helping Humanity Adapt to What’s Next.”

4 Simple Reasons Every Startup Should Bootstrap

greenpalCEO Last year, three friends and I decided to make the plunge and embark onto the journey of building our tech startup GreenPal. At the time, none of us knew how to code or design a product. The only strengths we really had were a great idea and strong work ethic.

Over the course of a year’s time, two of my cofounders taught themselves how to code; one taught himself Photoshop, and I learned a full stack of digital marketing skills. We knew that we would need to become a dynamic self-sustaining team because we simply couldn’t afford to outsource any of these needs; we were bootstrapping our way through our journey.

Bootstrapping may not be feasible for some startups. I believe it will depend on the product idea, its complexity and development difficulty, and its founders’ personal life situation. Needless to say, it’s much easier for two young hackers in their mid-twenties without kids or house payments to bootstrap compared to founders in their thirties who might be have these obligations to service while starting their company.

With that being said, I am a still a proponent that in most cases, tech startups should bootstrap (funding the company out the founder’s pockets) for as long as absolutely possible. My reasoning is based on several principles:

Discipline:

A lack of capital forces efficiency. This forced function requires a startup to make small, meaningful experiments with their own money. A startup burning their own cash will make smarter bets and will measure the outcomes of these bets intensively. Return on investment from the implementation of a new feature, or your Google Adwords spend, and the ROI of outsourced talent for example, will be under a more intense scrutiny when the founders’ cash is being burned. In a startup, capital preservation and measurement of everything, every decision and every expenditure is critical. Scarcity forces these not-so- fun disciplines.

Pain, Sacrifice, and Commitment:

It’s uninspiring to see an entrepreneur burn all of his angel money on a pipe dream. He might have made tighter, more thoughtful decisions and measured his progress better if he had been burning his own cash along the way. Especially in the beginning, when it’s their money, they will make more sacrifices, put in longer hours, put in work on Saturdays and maybe even Sundays when it’s their chips on the table.

When inventing a product an entrepreneur must build quickly and cheaply, measure, and learn. This takes endless hours of commitment. When it’s their money, they will be more inclined to make the sacrifices to commit the time. Time is the blunt object that an entrepreneur can use to break down the walls that stand in the way of your success.

Validated Learning and Team Growth:

With constrained resources (the startups’ own money) they will be forced to do everything themselves, and that’s good because it’s the only way to learn. Alternatively, when funded by outside investor money, the team might be tempted to outsource needs like design, development, SEO, sales etc. When the team is forced to self-execute these disciplines, the start up will grow in that process, creating a group of ruthless warriors that can and will do anything to succeed.

Once entrepreneurs start scaling their team, founders can say, “I’ll never ask you to do anything I haven’t done myself.” More importantly, the team will know what kind of potential team-mates they are looking for. It is infinitely easier to make a solid hire when the core team is proficient in the skill sets that candidates will need to have.

Dilution and Control:

Lastly, when a startup defers seed capital as long as absolutely possible (or ever at all); they preserve their most valuable asset, their founder equity. Challenging the team to defer outside capital and establish traction and problem market fit on its own dime, and challenging the team to monetize day one will allow it to raise funds further down the road at a much higher valuation and less founder equity dilution. The team will also preserve more control. Some angel investors are helpful, but sometimes they can be illogical and overbearing. Bootstrapping ensures the team can side step this potential headache and distraction.

Raising angel/seed capital is relatively easy. With a smart team, a good idea, and a big market, there will have no problem raising angel/seed capital. The reality is, that sometimes, I observe teams burn a year, along with a substantial sum of seed money, and the only progress is the validated leaning that the co-founders have acquired in that time. Unfortunately, in many instances that same learning could have been acquired bootstrapping along that while way. Yes it’s tougher, and a lot less fun, but it makes for a stronger foundation and a team that owns more of their company.

Lastly, I will share a quotation I read on Paul Gram’s blog that I feel embodies bootstrapping: “The best way to do something ‘lean’ is to gather a tight group of people, give them very little money, and very little time.”- Bob Klein, chief engineer of the F-14 program.

Bryan Clayton is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of GreenPal

How to Engineer Some Serendipity at SXSW

sxsw

SXSW is one of the only times a year you get some of the smartest, wealthiest and most powerful people in the world all in one place in a relaxed environment. You didn’t really spend thousands of $$ to come to Austin to get drunk with a bunch of people you already know, did you? Engineering your own serendipity at SXSW isn’t that hard. All it takes is a little work, a little hustle and a little “luck” but it can get you the whole ROI of your trip in one night. I put “luck” in quotes because you create this by being prepared and placing yourself in the right positions.

Right Place, Right Time

Take my Saturday afternoon and evening for example. At about 5pm I was “air traffic controlled” by one of my mentors, Larry Chiang, to a private mixer being hosted by Goodwin Procter taking place at Parkside on 6th. I arrived a little early to beat the line (always smart) and grabbed a spot at the bar to wait for the festivities to begin. While waiting none other than my good friend Suraj Kumar Rajwani, Founding Partner of Double Rock VC, sat down next to me with his friend Lou Kerner, Founding Manager of the Social Internet Fund.

Suraj gave me a glowing introduction then the three of us hit it off. It turns out that I was the first person Lou had ever spoken with that had previously heard about his semi-stealth startup. This is where you could call it luck that I happen to meet Lou and happen to know about his startup, but really it’s because I put a lot of work into knowing my space very well. In this case it gave me a little more credibility from Lou.

One thing to keep in mind is how you carry yourself when with people out of your league. Being kind and respectful is a given, but what is less known is the best thing to do is shut up and listen. This doesn’t mean be silent, but don’t try to dominate the conversation or talk a lot about your accomplishments. No one cares. Instead listen, learn and interject with intelligent answers and snippets when the time is right. Trust me this can go along way.

Go With The Flow

Anyways so after Suraj, Lou and I spoke for a little while, we began to mingle at the party. They made plenty of great introductions for me (thanks guys!) including one that led to a partner at Goodwin Proctor agreeing to speak about law for startups at our next conference. Score, closing deals at the party! At this point the mixer was winding down and I figured it was time to head our separate ways.

(Alpha males at events signal cues during networking parties. Asking if you are overstaying your welcome is great etiquette.)

Boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong. The night was just beginning.

Suraj invited me to come with him down the street to the KPCB Startup Salon taking place at the Iron Cactus. This is where you throw all previous plans out the window and go with the flow. After we arrived to the Iron Cactus, I decided to take off from Suraj for a while because you never want a VIP to feel like you’re clinging to them. It was off to work the room on my own. I ended up meeting so many awesome founders, angels, and VCs. All the while, I never stopped hustling or trying to close deals.

Surely I had gotten the complete ROI of my SXSW in this night alone so far, but Suraj had one more trick up his sleeve. He said that Sean Parker was holding a private Spotify Party at ACL. I was very grateful to Suraj for telling me about the party but didn’t want him to feel burdened with another +1. This is where a little ingenuity comes into play.

Know the Back Doors

I had two options. One) try to BS and say I was meeting someone on the list or Two) sneak in. Ninety nine percent of the time I go with option one but this party was too VIP so I had to go with option two. I knew there was a back elevator that went from outside the W Hotel up to ACL. All I did to get in was take this elevator to the party and walk out like I was supposed to be there. It’s amazing what walking with confidence will do.

This party ended up being the pinnacle of my whole week. Hell, maybe my life so far. Once inside I ended up rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mark Cuban, Ashton Kutcher, Coolio and of course Sean Parker. It was amazing. Now at a party like this, my previous advice about shutting up and listening comes even more into play. I gained a number of great nuggets of wisdom, heard some stories you just won’t anywhere else and found out Coolio was cooking dinner for everyone back in his room at 3 am. No, I did not try to attend, but if you caught any of Coolio on season one of Food Network’s Celebrity Cook-Off, you can bet those in attendance we’re in for a treat.

All in all, that night taught me you can never plan for what’s going to happen next at SXSW, but you can be prepared. Things surely would have been much different if I didn’t have someone like Larry helping me out, previous relationships from using similar tactics at other events, or didn’t know how to interact with VIPs. Engineer yourself some serendipity at SXSW next year by putting the work in beforehand and always having the right attitude.

3 Simple Ways to Recruit the Best Startup Talent

Adding to your startup’s staff represents a major challenge for many small business owners. While there’s no arguing that bringing on rock star employees can help advance your business objectives faster than bottom-of-the-barrel applicants, you may not have the leverage of high salaries, exorbitant benefits and other perks to offer these top players.

So how can you overcome these challenges in order to secure the best talent for your startup? Consider the following approaches:

Understand What Your Startup Offers

Startup life represents a distinctively different culture than is found within traditional corporations which, for many employees, is actually a perk. According to Rich Sloan, the co-founder of Startup Nation:

“People get involved in a startup for three reasons. One, they like creating; being part of something new. Two, they want to participate in the upside. Three, they want to live a meaningful life, and the closer you are to the success or failure of a business, the more meaning and purpose you feel.”

Knowing that people are seeking out opportunities like the one you have to offer may make it easier to connect with the right people. For example, knowing that employees want to be a part of something “bigger” could make it easier to identify prospective candidates who are experienced, but burnt out of traditional corporate life. You could also use the desire to participate in a startup’s upside. Find recent college grads who are skilled, but not yet tied down to need salaries that support families.

Once you do start looking for new employees, remember that the best people to advertise your company are your existing staff members. Providing a monetary incentive for employees who refer successful candidates can be a good way to quickly find talented people who will fit well in your organization.

Offer Flexible Work Arrangements in Exchange for a Lower Salary

Just because you can’t offer much in the way of compensation to new hires doesn’t mean that you have nothing to bring to the table. In fact, as a growing company, you can provide one major selling point that most corporations can’t – remote work arrangements.

A 2011 study of 3,000 current and recent college students conducted by telecommunications giant Cisco found that two of every five students surveyed said that’d accept lower-paying jobs that came with more flexibility in terms of device choice, social media access and mobility – compared to higher-paying jobs with less flexibility.

Today’s workers are more conscious than ever of their work-life balance, making them especially attracted to jobs that give them the necessary flexibility to run errands, balance child care and take care of other personal business as needed, on their own schedules. As long as you put the necessary precautions in place to ensure that the work gets done, startups are in an ideal place to offer this highly-sought-after perk to high-performing employees.

Provide Other Intangible Benefits

Along these same lines, for most people, work isn’t just about being paid to perform a set of tasks. There are plenty of intangible benefits that are considered part of the job selection process that exist outside of compensation negotiations.

For example, can you:

Offer to help potential employees secure the necessary work visas and permits to live in the U.S. Few companies offer this perk, though doing so can help give you exposure to a much wider pool of talent from around the world.
Provide outstanding training and development opportunities. In most cases, offering to assist employees with the cost of pursuing further certifications is much less expensive than providing higher salaries or better benefits – and may pack just as much of a punch. People want to be associated with companies that invest in them, and operating a training and development program is one way to demonstrate this commitment.
Give employees a percentage ownership in your company. Doing so will provide them with a potentially lucrative tradeoff that encourages taking lower salaries in exchange for future rewards.
Create an engaging, ideal workplace. Bring in a massage therapist on Fridays, treat your staff to weekly coffee outings or arrange for on-site dry cleaning pickup. All of this costs substantially less than what you’d otherwise pay top-performing employees, making it an economical way to create the type of work environment that will attract the best employees in a cost-effective way.

Remember, you wouldn’t be a startup entrepreneur if you didn’t have a creative, independent spirit. Put these virtues to work on your human resources strategy, and you should be able to find ways to bring on top talent without overstepping your budget.

AJ Kumar is the co-founder of Single Grain, a digital marketing agency based in San Francisco. Single Grain specializes in helping startups and larger companies with search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media and various other marketing strategies.

Get Hired By The Startup Of Your Dreams–No Technical Experience Needed

From Mark Saldana

Joining the tech world might seem like a mysterious process, but I can assure that you don’t need magical powers, luck, or a blessing from Mark Zuckerberg to join a startup. Back in 2009, I was a completely non-technical recent grad (English Major, LOL) who didn’t know ANYTHING about startups. Somehow, I still managed to convince a now well-known file-sharing startup to hire me. If you don’t code or design, you probably won’t have the luxury of turning down offers from startups that are throwing themselves at you. But don’t let that discourage you; there are still plenty of ways to get a awesome startup to give you a chance. Here’s how:

How to Survive a Rebranding and Still Kick Ass

Question: After you go through the rebranding process, how do you build credibility again? Do’s (and don’ts) to share?

Don’t Panic

“In my first venture, there was a partnership divorce, forcing a much-needed rebranding. Because I am in the B2B space, it was not challenging to transition the name. We simply changed our marketing materials, made an announcement and continued on with business. We didn’t make a big deal of it or act panicked, and we found that because we set that example, no one else acted negatively, either. “

Darrah Brustein, Network Under 40 / Finance Whiz Kids

Remember the Proof Is in the Pudding

“Clients, funders and other stakeholders will connect with your brand if you can prove that “who” you are as an organization drives results. Cultivate opportunities to use stories in your conversations, pitches, sales calls, press and so forth that show how you have delivered the results your new brand purports. “

Alexia Vernon, Alexia Vernon Empowerment, LLC

Start by Setting Expectations

“Let people know that you’re still the same committed business owners/team, and the only thing that has changed is the way you talk about what you do — that’s all. Your heart is still in the same place, and you want your existing customers and clients to help you continue to move forward in the right direction. Setting those expectations early on will go a long way.”

Nathalie Lussier, Nathalie Lussier Media Inc.

Enhance Not Only Your Brand, But Your Credibility

“Levo League recently went through a rebranding process, and one of our primary focuses was to maintain credibility throughout. We took the time to host focus groups and surveys, and we used the feedback to stay true to our users’ perceptions of Levo. We wanted our rebranding to enhance the perception that Levo feels like there are real women behind the site, and that it’s a safe space to network. “

Caroline Ghosn, The Levo League

Don’t Wait for Consensus

“To me, the key lesson in branding is to always pick a select few people to be responsible for making the decisions, instead of relying on a whole team of people to come to some sort of consensus. Great design and branding rarely come from compromise.”

Derek Flanzraich, Greatist

Be Open and Honest

“Going through a rebrand is not easy; there are times when you feel like you are running multiple companies at once, working with old and (hopefully) new customers simultaneously. It’s imperative to be truthful with people as you undergo the change. If the rebrand is due in part to some previous weaknesses, be upfront with that information — you’ll be surprised how receptive people are to honesty.”

Charles Bogoian, Kenai Sports, LLC

Get Published

“After we rebranded, we ramped up our guest contributions. We wanted our company leaders to be established as thought leaders, and we wanted to draw people in to check out our company. It made our new brand appear more credible when people found our site via articles our leaders had written. “

Kelsey Meyer, Influence & Co.

Pretend the Old Brand Never Existed

“Pretend the old brand look never existed. Scrub it from the record. Bury it on the web. Pretend you are in a witness protection program, and if anyone ever calls you by an old nickname walking down the street, keep walking. Forward, but never straight. “

Michael Portman, Birds Barbershop

Use Video to Be Honest

“Most startups grow too quickly and sometimes don’t understand how important customer service is. I have seen thousands of bad reviews that will hurt the reputation of many companies as they grow. Rebrand, create a video, put it on your homepage, be honest about the past and talk about the day-to-day changes the company is implementing to avoid issues from the past. “

Ak Kurji, Gennex Brands

Explain (But Don’t Excuse) the Rebranding

“We marketed our services under different brand names and, a few years into it, we decided to consolidate under one company brand. We were clear on why the new brand was better and what changed — choosing to be transparent and using messaging with clarity — and stayed consistent thereon. “

Shradha Agarwal, ContextMedia

Stay True to Your Positioning Srategy

“Before you get into conveying your brand to the world through tactics — design, messaging, marketing — first solidify your positioning hook. At ColorJar, we call this your Golden Purpose — it’s the triangulation of what makes you remarkable, how you outplay the competition and what resonates with your audience. Stay true to this positioning, and everyone will feel your value and authenticity. “

David Gardner, ColorJar

Have a Strong Point of View

“When we went through rebranding, it was important for us to have a strong, singular point of view. We achieved this by having one person in charge of the brand identity, and then encouraged him to use bold visuals and a strong voice in order to create a brand that really grabs people’s attention.”

Kit Hickey, Ministry of Supply

Don’t Lose Your Network

“Even after rebranding, you’ll still have your original foundation of values and extensive network to enhance your credibility. Continue to grow your network and showcase your company’s values throughout a variety of channels. Remain consistent and honest to increase customer satisfaction and overall credibility. “

Heather Huhman, Come Recommended

10 Fundraising Mistakes You’re Probably Making

(image psmag.com)

From Sam Altman

There’s a lot written about what you should do when you raise money, but there hasn’t been as much written about the common mistakes founders make. Here is a list of mistakes I often see:

• Over-optimizing the process

A lot of founders try to get way too fancy with tricks that they think will help them raise money. It’s actually quite simple; if you have a good company, you will probably be able to raise money. You’re better off working to make you company better than working on fundraising jiu jitsu.