The Pilot In Command: Facing Unexpected Obstacles Head On

Moe Glenner (photo: Huffington Post)

As a professional pilot, I meticulously pre-plan my flight including strong and continuous consideration and planning for the weather. I can’t control the weather, but I can control how I react to it, including choosing to divert or not fly in it at all. However, there are times that, despite the planning, Mother Nature has her own little surprises. Regardless, as Pilot in Command (PIC), I must continue to safely fly the plane.

It is no different with life’s surprises for any of us. Sometimes, we can anticipate them and pre-empt either the change itself or its impacts. Other times, we may not be able to control the events themselves, but we can certainly control how we react to them and our consequential actions afterwards.

Ask yourself this question: Do events control you or do you control events? Or better yet, are you influenced by life events or do you influence life events? How many times are we faced with a situation that seems hopeless and resign ourselves to whatever fate presents?

Resignation is insidious. Sometimes when “the chips are down,” we will defer our own free will and ability to take charge of the situation and instead wallow in whatever was presented. Typically, this will happen at what I call a “failure moment.” For many of us, the failure is a fait accompli. It is time to accept the reality and finality and move on.

But if we look at the failure as not the end itself rather a means to an end, then the failure is just a speed bump to be traversed and not finality. In fact, failure might not be a bad thing in itself. Failure can spur as to be more innovative, better at what we do and possibly reach an even better solution than originally intended. The key is not to resign and/or give up when confronted with failure. After all, failure is an opportunity to be even better if we alter our mindset to accept it as an impetus for being better.

Once, an early morning airline flight was cancelled before I even left for the airport and then mysteriously reinstated with a long delay. Despite written notice of the cancellation, the airline refused to reschedule me without their requisite $250 rescheduling fee. Escalating the situation to senior management did not satisfactorily resolve the issue. In essence, I was out of luck and money.

At first, I was quite angry. How could the airline not take responsibility for its own screw-up? Why do I have to pay extra just to get them to rectify their own error? Why do I now have to placate my client about my non-arrival, even though it wasn’t my fault? What am I going to do about this in the future?

After the initial anger subsided and a calmer head prevailed, I decided to do something about it. I always wanted to be a pilot and fly to different places. Twenty years ago, I intended on taking flight lessons but somehow “life got in the way” (or rather, I allowed it to detract from my goal). Ten years ago, I intended to take flight lessons, but again “life got in the way.” Now, I was ready to do it and not have to rely on the airlines and their arbitrariness. With careful planning, I was ready to go.

Through considerable effort and dedication to learning, practicing and flying nearly every day, I was able to gain the various certifications necessary to not only fly myself in good weather, but even in poor visibility weather and to fly others around as well. As a professional pilot, I even have additional income opportunities available by being a corporate pilot for local companies. I was able to take an adverse experience, that for some is routine, and channel that into positive action. I was not and am not willing to concede to a culture of victimhood. I refuse to believe in “it is what it is.” I will only believe that “it is what you make it to be.” Of course, it helped that I was motivated to make the change and that I remained motivated throughout.

We are constantly faced with changes in our everyday lives. Some of them are (or can be) reasonably anticipated and perhaps even planned for. Others are sudden and/or involuntary. Either way, the only thing constant in life, is change. How we plan and react to these changes is critical to personal success and realization of our goals.

It is too easy and convenient to simply blame others for our own lack of success. We blame our society for all of its ills. We blame our government for their ineptness (even though it was us that elected them). We blame and blame and blame some more but with all of the blaming and pointing fingers, we ultimately concede control of our own destiny. As such, we have taken ourselves out of our optimal state and instead moved to the United States of Denial.

Denial is a powerful psychological weapon that we self-employ to keep away the truth. With apologies to Jack Nicholson (A Few Good Men), we can’t (and don’t want to) handle the truth. It is easier to close our eyes, ears, and brains and pretend that whatever ails us is not our fault. And it is therefore acceptable to blame whatever culprit happens to be convenient. We see what we want to see and believe what we want to believe, regardless of the actual reality or the truth. Except that we can and should handle the truth. How else will we improve? How else will we make ourselves and the world around us better if we won’t even concede that it is our problem to solve?

It would have been too easy for me to simply blame the airline and leave it at that. What guarantee would I have had that it wouldn’t happen again? I refused to be a victim and took concrete action that would reduce the likelihood of a repeat occurrence. This action required an investment of time, effort and money, but it would be difficult to argue that a solid return wasn’t achieved for that investment.

What happens when we inevitably hit that “bump in the road?” We must continue to fly our airplanes. When a pilot is on final approach for landing, he lines the plane up to land on the centerline of the runway with no drift and pointed down the runway. If he encounters a strong crosswind and doesn’t take positive corrective action, the plane will drift in the direction the wind is blowing. The plane might not be pointing straight and on landing might actually go off the side of the runway, damaging the airplane and possibly resulting in injuries (or worse). By taking immediate corrective actions, such as slipping or even a go-around to land on a different runway or different airport, the pilot affirms his control of the situation and allows for a positive and safe outcome.

Our intended goals should not be setback by a strong crosswind, a bump in the road, or even severe turbulence. We need to immediately recognize the situation and then take corrective action to stay on-track and continue pointed straight down the successful goal achievement runway. We are in command and we must stay in command to achieve positive results.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Moe Glenner is the founder and CEO of PURELogistics, a leading consulting firm that specializes in change management, and a regular speaker at trade shows and industry events. Glenner earned his MBA at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification from Villanova University. In Selfish Altruism, Glenner explores the personal motives and emotions that can impact organizational change. Selfish Altruism ($13.95) is available at www.amazon.com.

Now check out this Guest Post, Startup Marketing Lessons From Everywhere Else.

Myth Busters: Money Does Not Grow On Trees In Silicon Valley [video]

Neil Parikh,Communly,Silicon Valley,startup,startup tips,launchyourcity

Communly co-founder Neil Parikh talks with Memphis based entrepreneur Ryan Ramkhelawan at the LaunchLounge on location in Silicon Valley (photo: NMI 2013)

We just wrapped up the LaunchYourCity, nibletz.com mission to Silicon Valley. On that trip we spent lots of time connecting to investors, accelerators, incubators, entrepreneurs and startup founders from San Francisco to Mountain View and everywhere in between.

As the voice of startups everywhere else, we kept our minds open throughout the trip and soaked up every nook and cranny of information that we could.

In working with hundreds of startups across the country, and around the world (everywhere else), we have found that a lot of people think money grows on trees in the valley.

In talking with a variety of Silicon Valley based startups in various stages we found that, that’s not the case. In some cases it’s actually harder to raise money in the valley because there’s much more competition.

Silicon Valley is like the Hollywood of statups. Founders move to Silicon Valley in droves in hopes of getting their big idea discovered. It certainly isn’t that easy.

You have to figure for every idea out there, there are three more people working on that same thing. Sure the biggest VC’s are based in Silicon Valley but they’re getting pitched every minute of everyday. One VC we spoke with said he, like Mark Cuban, routinely gets pitched in the bathroom.

Sure all startups are looking for their big funding break and all VC’s are looking for the next Facebook or Instagram, but the chances that the two will connect are very difficult.

More than one startup founder told us that they had raised money at home, and thought that was the signal that they were ready to raise in Silicon Valley and now they’ve moved onto another startup.

There are several factors that could account for this happening. One is that when you grow your startup in your hometown and can pick up any bit of local traction, your local investors know you. They’ve seen you grow and seen your failures and victories. When you venture out to Silicon Valley you quickly become just another startup.

There’s also a much better chance that an angel or VC in Silicon Valley has heard your particular idea hundreds of times, where your local investors have only heard it once, from you.

Does this mean that you shouldn’t move to Silicon Valley? Not necessarily there are advantages too that we’ll be posting about later. This is definitely some nourishing food for thought though.

We got a chance to talk to 21 year old serial entrepreneur Neil Parikh of Communly about the myth that money grows on trees in Silicon Valley. Check out the video below and check out communly here.

Find a lot more great startup tips here at nibletz.com

Dave McClure: Buying A House Is Far More Risky Than Investing In Startups

Startup people love to hear about Dave McClure the founder of 500 Startups and early stage investor. Most clamor at the opportunity to get just a glimpse of facetime with him and everyone hopes that their startup makes it into the 500 program so they can learn from one of the masters.

A lot of people love to hear him speak because his speeches and appearances are always riddled with curse words, GASP, but really he’s just using language that allows him to communicate as fast as his brain is moving.

In talking with a mutual friend who grew up with Dave McClure, the friend said “Dave is like a whirlwind, like the tasmanian devil. I used to worry that his brain would explode”.

So needless to say people listen because McClure is always making great points. One of those points was in his appearance last month on This Week In Startups (TWiST).

While everyone is waiting for the SEC to stop twiddling their thumbs on crowdfunding, McClure was talking about what a pain in the ass it is for someone to invest in startups and get “accreditation”.

It’s much easier to buy a house than it is to invest in a startup, but as McClure pointed out in the interview with Jason Calicanis, buying a house is a far more risky endeavor.

There’s a certain amount of money that anyone should be able to fucking burn or blow on startups. We encourage a ridiculous amount of money to go into the residential real estate market which has burned people fucking terribly in the last five years. Ridiculous numbers of people in this country are upside down on their mortgages and bankrupt because legitimate, regulatory-approved agents have shoved real estate fucking mortgages down their throats. We have subsidized this with our tax dollars, we are the people.

Like you fucking blame the investment bankers? Fuck You.

It’s you voting for your representatives who are in the pockets of Sallie Mae Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae, whatever who are shoving shit down the pipe. Like Moody’s and all these other people who have crap verification. . .

If you want to protect the small investor, don’t let them buy a house in this country, because that is the most dangerous thing you can do with your money. Period.

Investing in startups which might fail? You only lose $1. You invest in a house, you put 5% down or sometimes 0% down and you can lever up a ridiculous amount of money. You can lose 20 times your investment and people do it every day and they think it’s a good idea. McClure said on the show.

When you trace back the super genius that is Dave McClure, Sith Lord of 500 Startups you’ll come to find that he isn’t some Zillionaire throwing money at startups for fun. He’s done well for himself but he’s still raising money as fast as he’s investing it. Sure, like everyone else he wants to make money but he’s looking more at making an impact on the world through the technology companies he and his partners touch.

Many people don’t realize that even if they saved up say $50,000 over the course of two years to do some small angel investments, if they’re only making $150,000 they can’t technically be an accredited investor. Of course they could put a down payment on a house, or two.

See the TWisT here.

Source: Ian Kennedy’s Everwas

We’ve got more from 500 Startups here.

5 Rules For Naming Your Startup: Memphis Firm Offers Advice In SXSW Panel [sxsw]

60 year old Memphis advertising and PR firm archer>malmo presented their panel “When Bad Names Happen To Good Startups” last Monday at SXSW Interactive. Over 100 people attended the panel discussion and stayed throughout the entire hour long session.

archer>malmo Chief Creative Officer Gary Backaus and Senior Copy Writer Justin Dobbs presented the entertaining hour long session for startups curious about naming. The duo of advertising executives mixed humor with the session which made it quite entertaining.

Despite having a client roster that includes names like Pfizer, Verizon and RJ Reynolds, Dobbs broke the ice and established credibility by making light of the fact that the firm is located in Memphis. He showed a few slides of new technologies that archer>malmo currently employs including; email, and intranet. He also showed a slide of a rack card rack that you would find at a hotel, saying they were creating something new called the “Take One”.

When it came down to content though, Dobbs and Backaus gave out some great tips in their “5 Rules for Naming Your Startup”.

1) you’re not naming a startup you’re naming a brand.

2) Create a first impression that’s positive, intriguing and clear

3) Don’t create conceptual or technical hurdles

4) When necessary be descriptive, whoa whoa not that descriptive

5) If it ain’t broke.

It was during the fifth rule where Backaus discussed the work that the firm is doing with nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else. (disclaimer: nibletz is a portfolio company for archer>malmo a>m ventures arm).

One of the biggest takeaways we got from the panel wasn’t an actual rule “You don’t need a big idea for your name you just need a name for your big idea” Backaus told the audience.

Find out more about archer>malmo here and a>m ventures here.

Here’s more of our great startup coverage from SXSW 2013

AustinPreneur and Angel Investor Jason Cohen On Deal Flow [video][sxsw]

On Friday at SXSW Jason Cohen the founder of WPengine, AustinPreneur and Angel investor sat on a panel with other local Texas angels to talk about angel investing. The standing room only crowd was made up of people who want to be angel investor and of course startup founders who want the inside track on what angel investors look for.

Cohen has invested in several companies and prefers a hands on approach. In the video below he says you can treat angel investing like a numbers game. The more deals you get into, you could sit back and relax and probably see some results. But what Cohen, and good angels do, is help cultivate the companies and the founders.

Angel investing can be a heavy gamble, but with the right angel investors, who are actually interested in helping the startup become successful, there’s a better chance of survival. When an angel investor invests their time and mentoring, even if the first deal is a bust, that founder or that team may have another idea that ends up being “the big one”

Cohen also warns that good angel investors need to have an investment thesis. They need to create a plan for their investment strategy that aligns with the things they know and where the investor can understand the deal, the idea, the team and the potential. Investors should then target deals that fit directly into that thesis.

Angel investors shouldn’t be looking for the get rich quick ticket. “The really hot ones go fast and they’re invisible” Cohen told the audience. He likens that to real estate in Austin and San Francisco. If you want prime real estate you’re buying it from someone already in it.

Check out Cohen’s remarks on video below:

Jason Cohen talks about the value of AngelList in this video from SXSW

Eric Ries, Author Of The Lean Startup Offers Great Advice At SXSW [sxsw]

Eric Ries, the author of “The Lean Startup” and creator of the Lean Startup methodology gave a keynote discussion at SXSW on Sunday afternoon.

He offers an entrepreneur some great advice on testing product and preparing for launch. He also comments about the new movement that is becoming Lean Startup and how they are looking to grow the organization both nationally and internationally.

Check out the video below.

Check out even more of our awesome startup SXSW 2013 coverage here.

10 Tax Tips For 1099 Startup Employees

By Kevin Sandlin, Founder at @deductmor

It’s tax time. For tax accountants, it means filing extensions and sifting through piles of papers for clients. For W-2 employees, it means getting your stuff together to give to your tax guy. But for 1099ers, it means paying your taxes.

Didn’t use to be that way. Before 1943, everyone got all their pay in their paycheck, and everyone had to file and pay their federal taxes on or before April 15. During WWII, Congress introduced payroll withholding and quarterly tax payments with the vote of the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943. The U.S. Department of Treasury describes tax withholding as follows:

“It also greatly red

uced the taxpayer’s awareness of the amount of tax being collected, i.e. it reduced the transparency of the tax, which made it easier to raise taxes in the future.”

You gotta love Congress, don’t you? There’s your history lesson for the day.

It’s 100% your responsibility to pay Uncle Sam just because you got a 1099. YOU and you alone are responsible for paying the full amount of payroll taxes on the amount listed on the Form 1099.

“The 1099 form by itself is nothing. A 1099 means you’re liable for self-employment tax.” – Thomas Jensen, managing partner of Portland, Oregon-based Vaerdi Financial

Here are ten 1099 tax tips that should help you get through April 15 a little easier.

Health insurance premiums are tax deductible for the self employed. If you are self-employed, you may be eligible to deduct premiums that you pay for medical, dental and qualifying long-term care insurance coverage for yourself, your spouse and your dependents. Read the rules here.

Do your 1099 taxes quarterly. Doing something painful a little at a time makes it less painful. Keep that in mind for # 4 as well. You generally have to make estimated quarterly tax payments if you expect to owe tax of $1,000 or more when you file your return. Do the math: if you make ~$5k/quarter, pay estimated quarterly taxes.

Mileage: it’s your BIGGEST deduction. To get the maximum deductions for your business vehicle, you must maintain a written log of business miles. I don’t know anyone who does this. Instead, take a picture of the odometer every Monday. Make it a habit. Fifty-tive cents per mile adds up quick and big.

Set 25% aside from every single payment you receive. If you were a W-2 employee, you would pay (ok, the government would withhold) half of your Social Security (FICA) and Medicare tax. Your employer pays the other half. But you’re not W-2, are you? So guess who your employer is? YOU! You pay ALL of your FICA and Medicare tax. Put it in a savings account so you can’t touch it.

Know what you can and cannot deduct. Your taxable 1099 income is the same thing as your “net profit”, which is your 1099 income minus your deductible (‘ordinary and necessary to operate your business’) expenses.

The home office deduction. Do. Not. Miss. This. Deduction. Create a dedicated space to work from home. Measure it in square feet. Figure out the percentage of that space in relation to your whole house. You can deduct that percent of all your home expenses: utilities, mortgage interest, cleaning, repairs & improvements, water, etc.

Retire! OK, don’t retire yet, but think about it and put money towards it. The best tax write-off for the self-employed is a retirement plan. A person with no employees can set up an individual 401(k). As of 2012, the individual can contribute $17,000 as a 401(k) deferral, plus 25 percent of net income.

Go back to school. Any educational expense is potentially tax-deductible.

Keep every receipt. “Every receipt” means every receipt. Create a system that fits your 1099er lifestyle and stick with it. You want to reduce your taxable income (aka ‘net profit’) as much as possible. The IRS requires receipts for deductions.

Go digital! And there’s an app for that (shameless plug). Sign up for the beta at deductmor.com and you can get this service completely free forever. deductmor lets you knock out #9 and #10 simultaneously. Keep every receipt by going digital. Take a picture of every receipt. deductmor stores it (securely, forever), and organizes all your receipts every quarter (#2, check!) and every year into a report your tax accountant will swoon over.

Full disclosure: I founded deductmor. There are several other very good services for capturing receipts with your smartphone. I encourage you to check them out, and use the one that’s best for you.

Is Your Startup Launch Ready? Add These To Your Checklist

(photo: Floridatoday.com

For some the real joy in a startup comes from actually launching. Some startups spend a few months preparing for launch while others have taken up to two years (if not more). There are hundreds of things that can go onto your launch checklist.

Spencer Fry, a 28 year old serial entrepreneur who founded TypeFrag (2003), Carbonmade (2007) and Uncover (2012) has a lot of experience launching startups. He penned “Startup Launch Checklist” on his blog at spencerfry.com. Here are some of the highlights from his checklist.

Web and Marketing tips:

Complete Homepage copy: One of the pages we left for last – and I know many new startups do – is the copy for the homepage. You need to write about whatever you’re selling in a clear, concise and engaging way. If you can’t quickly capture the interest of a visitor to your service then you’re going to immediately fail. This leads to my next point.

Contact page copy: For us it’s a matter of making sure that we list all of the different ways visitors to our service can reach us. It’s not enough to simply provide an email address nowadays. Lots of customers want to reach you on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks.

Determine FAQ strategy and write it: One of the things I like to leave to the last minute is writing the Frequently Asked Questions. If you write it too early, then chances are your service will have changed and it’ll become outdated. Writing the FAQ will also help put you in the mind of a customer right before launch. It’s a great last-minute exercise in making sure your app is clear.

He has five more web marketing tips here.

Modeling

Model our potential revenue: You should never found a company without a good idea about how you plan on making money. Even better, you should project how your potential revenue stream will grow over time.

Set monetary/sales goals: After you’ve modeled out your potential revenue growth, setting sales goals will give you a better understanding of when you can raise money on good terms or quit your day job and bootstrap. It’s great to have numbers to work toward that aren’t arbitrary. Knowing exactly how many users you need over a projected time frame helps to determine whether you’re matching projections.

Launch Day

Add to various services around the Web: To help with SEO and to possibly get the word out, sign up your new app with Crunchbase, AngelList, StartupList, Listio and others.
Press Coverage: Every successful app has a great short term and long term press plan. However, right after launch you should ask yourself how much press you actually want. Do you want to reach out to blogs for coverage? Do you hope to get on Hacker News? Sometimes you might want to delay press coverage until you’ve had a chance to fix up the bugs.
Email friends and family: Last, but not least, you should email your friends and family about the new app you’ve built. Chances are that leading up to its release you’ve been so busy that you haven’t had time to update them. Now’s the time!

There are plenty more tips including 17 programming tips, sales tips and more here at spencerfry.com

We’re sneaker strapping again across the country and at SXSW13 Check this out

Scott Case: “If You Build It They Will Come, BULL SH!T”

Scott Case, Startup America, Startup Arkansas, Startup Tip,startup communities

Scott Case, CEO of Startup America addresses the audience at Think Big Arkansas, Startup Arkansas Kick Off (photo: NMI 2013)

If you’ve ever heard Scott Case, the CEO of Startup America and founding CTO of priceline.com speak than you are very familiar with the subject of the headline. Case often talks about the movie Field of Dreams and it’s most popular line, “If you build it they will come.”

A lot of startup founders have the same philosophy, they think that no matter what they do as long as they build it people will come. It goes along the same lines as growing organically, or magically.

Sure there are huge grand slams every now and then but most of them either come from founders with long pedigrees in startups or because they caught the backing of name brand venture capitalists and angel investors early on. For others, gaining traction requires marketing. For bootstrapped (or sneaker strapped) startups that often times means grass roots marketing, crowdfunding, and good ole donations.

When speaking, Case follows the Field of Dreams example with, “if you market it they will come” a valuable lesson.

In the video below he talks about his first big venture into entrepreneurship. He built a product in 1994 that was packaged software and still available to this day. He talks about buying a full page advertisement in the biggest industry publication for his product. The problem though, the phone never rang. That’s when he set out to learn marketing.

This is a valuable lesson for all startup founders and the video is worth watching. Case was delivering the keynote at the recent Think Big Arkansas event in Conway Arkansas, a similar message to the one he delivered the week before that in Atlanta and the week before that in Memphis at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference.

In talking with Case we discussed “canned speeches” and how I’ve personally seen Case speak over 30 times in the last year. The thing about him though, is that he doesn’t do the same canned speech at every event, but he often resorts to the Field of Dreams story, because it’s not a valuable lesson, but the most valuable lesson.

Now go watch this hilarious video from the Startup Arkansas kick off.

We’re on the sneaker strapped nationwide startup roadtrip part deux, find out how you can help here

Startup Marketing Lessons from the Everywhere Else

Brandery,Startup Branding,Mike Bott, Startup Tips, Guest Post

Mike Bott GM of The Brandery and former P&G Brand Manager talks about Branding for startups at everywhereelse 13 (photo: Allie Fox for NMI)

By Joe Recomendes, Command Partners

I recently had the opportunity to attend the Everywhere Else conference in Memphis, TN to meet and learn with many promising startups from across the country – Dan Rogers of Millenium Search, LLC has outlined some of the most promising companies in attendance on his blog – but I was there to focus on marketing for the startup community. The conference was founded to provide a networking opportunity for startups not based in the hubs of New York or Silicon Valley, but rather those entrepreneurs cutting their own paths “everywhere else” in the country.

I was there not as a startup, but as a marketing agency looking to see what startups are doing to market themselves and learn from other successful founders. Scott Case, the CEO of Startup America, provided a crucial wake-up call to the founders in attendance – “It’s not ‘if you build it, they will come,’ it’s ‘If you market it, they will come.” Startups everywhere need to pay attention – you may have a great idea, but if no one knows about it, it will not work as a business.

A branding session by The Brandery outlined the following steps that every startup should consider when beginning a marketing strategy and build a brand pyramid, the foundation of all marketing messaging:

Brand Promise – The essence of your brand, and the highest-level benefit that your company or products contributes to the consumer.

Brand Positioning – The value statement of your company or product, similar to an elevator pitch. Why does anyone need the idea that you are bringing to market?

Brand Character – The portrayal of your idea that should convey truth and inspiration while demonstrating the need for your idea.

Brand Attributes – The base level of your brand, which should illustrate points of difference and points of parity between your product or idea and your competitors.

Once you have your brand defined, it’s time to consider how you will market your idea, and through which channels. Startups should consider the following strategic marketing initiatives:

A Website – Absolutely, a must have for traffic, leads, and information about your company. This should be the foundation of your marketing channels, and should be optimized to capture and convert leads. All other marketing efforts should drive people to the site. While I won’t go into detail here, it is also important to support your website through SEO, PPC, email marketing, and other website marketing efforts.

Public Relations – Depending on the quality of your media outreach efforts and the potential importance of your idea or business, public relations can either be a huge boon or wasted time. As a technology startup, getting coverage in Mashable, Techcrunch, VentureBeat, etc. can catapult you into the public sphere, but the chances of getting this coverage without properly curating your pitch and relationships are slim.

Social Media – While time-consuming, a well-groomed presence on social media can give an air of credibility to your brand, while allowing for communication distribution and engagement with your key audiences. Start with a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Angel’s List. These four networks will allow you to engage existing consumers, find new leads, and show a presence to potential investors.

A Pitch Deck – For getting new investors, a pitch deck will be a crucial piece of your marketing mix. Ensure that it is short but impactful by providing the information that investors need, and consider revising your deck for each pitch based on the conversations that you have had with the investor prior to your meeting.

Marketing a new startup can be time-consuming, but is of paramount importance to achieve awareness, recognition, and success. If you’re unsure where to start, hire a startup marketing agency to help define your brand and business goals, and execute your marketing strategy for you.

What have you found to be the most valuable channel for marketing your startup, or what other advice would you give? Let us know in the comments.

Command Partners is a Charlotte based internet marketing company with a passion and love for startups. Find out more at commandpartners.com

Don’t miss everywhereelse.co 2014 more information can be found here

Learn From Everyone You Can At SXSW, Advice From Joseph Kosper CEO Of RideScout

Tuesday we posted the twelve finalists of the HatchPitch competition who will be pitching at SXSWi this year. Last year’s contest saw some great startups. One of those was GoingMyWay which has now changed their name to RideScout.

There’s an abundance of great transportation app startups out there. There are services like Uber and Hailo which allow you to use your phone to hail a ride via sedan or taxi. There are ride share apps out there like SideCar and there are apps out there like RideScout. RideScout aggregates ground transportation ride options which allows users to compare and then book transportation or link to it in real time.

“Our goal is to provide ground transportation information and connectivity so intuitively and efficiently that consumers experience the same on-demand flexibility and reliability that they do driving their own car.” RideScout CEO and Co-Founder Joseph Kosper said on the hatchpitch blog.

RideScout came in second place in last years HatchPitch contest. This year rather than spend time talking about how great RideScout is Kosper posted this piece, to help give some best practices to startups braving SXSW.

Through my radio career and then as a tech journalist I’ve had the privilege of attending a dozen or so SXSW events. If this is your first, or even second time attending it can be an overwhelming experience. Tuesday we posted these tips, most of which came from SXSW seasoned veteran Robert Scoble.

Kosper gives his best practice which really amounts to learning from anyone you can. See I’m not going to sugar coat it for you, SXSWi is a cess pool of ego maniac hipster founders. Everyone has the best everything out there period. In that piece on Tuesday we talked about the big reality that come next year at SXSW 14 not even a quarter of the startups we see this year will be around.

Swallow your pride and gel off everyone you can. You’ll undoubtedly have people that can learn from you, and in turn you will be able to learn from other people. If you knew everything you wouldn’t need to go to SXSW, right?

“Your startup isn’t going to “accidentally” succeed. RideScout and my other endeavors get better each day because I’ve spent time learning from those around me. Most of that learning has been experiential and in the shadow of others, so it is only natural that I try to pass it along. People will be what they can see– and I have been fortunate to learn from a lot of different people in the start-up ecosystem.” Kosper said in his piece on hatchpitch.

Get more wise words from a SXSW alum who’s a) startup is still up and running b) who finished second in last years Hatch competition, here.

SXSW is part of our Sneaker strapped nationwide startup road trip part DEUX, help us out if you can.

Beware the Ill-Planned Innovative Rollout

Startup Tips, Guest Post, Moe Glenner,nibletz,huffington post

Moe Glenner, Founder PURELogistics (photo: Huffington Post)

By Moe Glenner, Founder PURELogistics

It happens repeatedly. A company adopts a new technology platform that ostensibly will ease the workload, streamline operational processes and result in overall gains in efficiency and budget spending. The intention is spot-on but the execution is decidedly less so. A post-mortem will usually reveal errors in the execution but misses the real culprit: planning errors. While Garbage In – Garbage Out (GIGO) is true for any process, it is especially apparent in change initiatives. If the initiative is not planned properly, the end result will almost always reflect that lack of planning.

I frequently observe companies that attempt technology-based change initiatives with the latest and greatest new technologies. Many believe that the provider of this technology will also ensure that their technology will successfully effectuate the intended changes. They effectively defer the planning, execution and most importantly control to this third party. More times than not, this recipe fails and takes the change initiative down with it. The result; blame the technology and try to find a “better” technology. In other words, they blame the equipment and not themselves.

When my clients engage my consulting services to help effectuate change, I advise them that successful change involves a three-step process: Plan, Communicate and Execute. These are not mutually exclusive, as each step comprises elements of the other two steps.

Step 1 – Plan

Since planning is the most critical step, most of my attention will be here. Successful planning necessarily means an objective discovery of the real problem driving the change. Frequently the stated and/or obvious problem is not the real problem, rather a symptom of a bigger underlying issue. We can better discover the real issue by channeling our inner four-year old and repeatedly ask why. In Total Quality Management (TQM), the 5-Why Process is a useful tool to achieving real issue discovery.

For example, if we are having trouble staying compliant with the Unsafe Driving portion of CSA:

Q1: Why are we having this trouble?
A1: We’re ticketed too often for speeding, illegal lane changes, etc.

Q2: Why are we getting ticketed so often?
A2: Because our drivers are rushing to make their deliveries

Q3: Why do they need to rush to make their deliveries?
A3: Because their schedules require them to make x number of daily deliveries

Q4: Why do we need to schedule so many deliveries per driver?
A4: Because otherwise we can’t meet our service commitments

Q5: Why are our service commitments so tight?
A5: Because the competitive landscape requires them.

The 5-Why Process doesn’t have to repeat 5 times and it could actually be more than 5 questions. When we hit a why, that we don’t have a clear answer for, we likely are at the real issue.

Once we have discovered the real issue, we need to properly define the scope of both the problem and its intended solution. A frequent planning occurrence is when the problem is clearly defined, but the solution slowly expands to include more than just the problem. In project management terms this is called ‘scope creep’. While it is admirable that a solution goes well beyond what it’s intended for, if the ‘well-beyond’ is not planned for, it could compromise the entire initiative. The signs of scope-creep will usually include budget and time overruns.

Once the scope has been established, proper risk management must be employed. What are the risks involved with rolling out this new technology? If it’s an EBOM rollout, will our veteran drivers have trouble with it? If they do have trouble, can we provide them the proper support? With the difficulty in finding new drivers, what is the risk with rolling out this initiative and possibly losing some veteran drivers? What is the plan if we do lose these drivers? While we cannot possibly plan for every contingency, we can plan for every category of risk. This will give us a significant head start in successfully addressing the problem and continuing on unabated.

Step 2 – Communication

There is no such thing as over-communication. The key is to provide honest, constant and relevant communication between the change team members, upwards to senior executives and outwards to those that will be affected by the change. This communication must take place in every step of the change process for the initiative to be successful. Since most of us resist change primarily due to the fear if the unknown, we must make special and concerted efforts to combat this through every form of organizational communication (i.e. face-to-face, email, video conferencing, etc.). Most importantly, if we don’t have an immediate answer, we must honestly and in a timely fashion, communicate this as well.

Step 3 – Execute

Assuming that we have planned and communicated properly, we still must execute according to plan. If we have planned properly, than the likely ‘hiccups’ inherent in any change initiative will have been planned for and can be addressed according to plan.

The end result will not be an ill-planned innovative rollout, but a rollout that encompasses the best of change management and, most importantly, accomplishes its intended goal(s).

Moe Glenner is the founder and president of PURELogistics, a leading consulting firm that specializes in organizational change. He earned his MBA at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification from Villanova University. Glenner’s new book, Selfish Altruism: Managing & Executing Successful Change Initiatives ($13.95 | Amazon), explores best practices in organizational change. For more information, visit www.moeglenner.com.

Here’s A Way Not To Get An Investment From Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban (c) hanging out with nibletz co-founder Nick Tippmann (r)

You may have heard through the grapevine that Mark Cuban is an aggressive investor in early stage startups. Take the Shark Tank out of the equation and Cuban is still eager to invest in good technology.

Many people also know that Mark Cuban is one of the nicest and most approachable billionaires in the world. You can pretty easily find his email address online and if you’ve got a good question or a good pitch he’ll actually respond to you. Heck he’ll even let you talk smack about basketball.

But earlier today one startup founder took the absolute wrong approach to win over Cuban’s ears and investment. It seems that this founder is in the process of closing a round. He apparently has a commitment from Peter Thiel and wanted Cuban to get in as well.

So what does he do? He emails Mark Cuban with the subject line: “Peter Thiel invested so you’re lucky I’m emailing you”.

Cuban took to Twitter for his response:

Cuban than tweeted this message to follow up:

Quick Tip A Fundraising Dealbreaker: Crazy Cap Table

So your product is out and your starting to get some traction (if you need more traction click here). It’s time to take that idea and go to the next level, but for that you need money.

Fundraising is the hardest part of a startups life. Many startup founders are inexperienced at fundraising, and perhaps the thought in itself is scary. Compound that with the fact that it’s traditionally it’s harder to raise money “everywhere else” and you’ve got the cards stacked against you.

So going forward with fundraising you need to make sure all your ducks are in a row. You want to make sure your deck looks great and your executive summary is clear and concise. You want to have your milestones and victories prominently showed off. You don’t want to waste an investor’s time.

Forbes recently posted some tips on deal breakers for inexperienced entrepreneurs. One of those is having a crazy cap table.

If you’re not familiar with a cap table, no worries, it’s the part of your corporate structure that defines who holds what in terms of equity.

A crazy cap table is a hodgepodge of small investors who may cause potential headaches for management and institutional investors.

How can you fix it?

While you may have given equity to anyone who liked your idea enough to give you a little bit of money, it’s time to start evaluating who gave you what, how much equity you gave them in exchange and what they will bring to your company down the road.

You can approach this and clean up your cap table by buying back your existing stock whenever you can afford it. You can also dilute those equity holders as you raise money. Be very leery of any investor that refuses to get diluted, and/or asks for preferred stock early on.

If you have an investor in your cap table that many not be a recognizable name to your future investors but bring something of real value to your company make sure that’s highlighted in your executive summary.