6 Startup Lessons From Man’s Best Friend

Recently, I wrote an article about how dogs can be an asset to entrepreneurs and their startups. I thought it was a fun topic, but I was not prepared for the overwhelming response. Entrepreneurs from all over the country emailed me with stories of their own dogs and how much they’ve learned from them. The advice was just too good to keep to myself.

Below, a selection of entrepreneurs (all fellow members of the Young Entrepreneur Council) share the wisdom they’ve gleaned from their furry friends:

1. Live in the present.

From Snoopy, our office mascot and a vivacious maltipoo, I’ve learned that living in the present moment is the best gift you can give yourself. He loves it when he gets a treat, but he is just as content taking a nap on my pillow.

– Shama Kabani, The Marketing Zen Group (@Shama)

2. If it’s not rewarding, don’t do it.

My dog won’t do menial tasks without promise of a reward, and neither should entrepreneurs. Sure, Zoe will sit on command or come when called, but it’s always because she enjoys the treat or attention more than the alternative. I too try to only do things that are fun, rewarding and enjoyable. Life’s just better that way!

– Alexis Wolfer, TheBeautyBean.com (@AlexisWolfer)

3. Maximize fun.

Spending time with my Wheaten Terrier Lulu reminds me not to take life too seriously and to leave plenty of time for relaxation and play. For instance, without taking a breather from the go-go startup mentality, I wouldn’t think of creative solutions to some of the problems I face on a daily basis that are programming related, project management related, etc. In general though, I’ve learned from her that you have to maximize your fun as much as possible. That way, work isn’t really work!

– Matthew Ackerson, Saber Blast (@saberblast)

4. Never stop trying.

Growing up, I had Desert Tortoises as pets. The oldest and largest of the two actually learned how to open our back screen door. In the summer, she would open the door and hide under a bed where it was much cooler. We got smart and started locking the screen door so she couldn’t get in. However, that didn’t deter her. She would try every day to open the door, and from time to time we’d forget to lock it and she’d come right in. The moral of the story is that, as an entrepreneur, even when the door is locked, never stop trying — because one day, someone will leave it unlocked, and that’s when your perseverance will pay dividends.

– Mark Cenicola, BannerView.com (@markcenicola)

5. Find a sounding board.

My min pin, Frisco, and I have been “working” together for the last couple of years. Working with him has taught me that our own headspace can be our worst enemy. What sounds like a good idea in your head might not be a great idea in practice. To prevent bad ideas, I tell Frisco what I’m thinking. By talking through my idea out loud with him, I can find out what needs to be improved or get confirmation on my concept. If Frisco were a human, he’d be really annoyed with me. But since he’s a dog, I can bounce ideas off him without any worries.

– Brett Farmiloe, Markitors (@BrettFarmiloe)

6. Don’t take work (or life) too seriously.

I adopted a puppy about a year into my startup, and it definitely enhanced my quality of life. Watching her play reminds me to follow suit. Don’t take work or life too seriously. Sometimes, you just need a break. This realization has done great things for my energy and creativity, and for my startup!

– Martina Welke, Zealyst (@zealyst)

Does your dog inspire you, too?

David Adelman is the Founder and CEO of ReelGenie, an online platform that will revolutionize the way family stories are told and shared. David is also Founder of Reel Tributes, the premier producer of high-end documentary films. Reel Tributes’ films preserve timeless stories and memories for families and family-owned businesses.

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

Wait you’re a dog owner, this New York startup is FitBit for dogs.

5 Advantages To Forgoing An MBA

Where you choose to learn is one of the most important decisions you’ll make in your career. The choice between attending graduate school and working in the real world is in fact the choice between two different models of education — and two very different outcomes. Each will enhance and challenge you as a professional, but you will emerge a fundamentally different person depending on where you spend your time.

Meanwhile, the world is changing. The cost of a graduate education is at an all-time high, but employers are entertaining candidates from a range of backgrounds and fields, with an increasing interest in productivity and results. The Internet has opened up new channels for employment, networking and professional development, as well as entire industries, tools and communities. Resources that were previously locked up in the hallways of the university are increasingly accessible in the real world.

So as you navigate the decision, you must ask yourself whether grad school — particularly an MBA — will help you accomplish the things you want to achieve and become the person you want to be. Answering that question honestly is a critical step for every business professional.

I’m an entrepreneur, and my view (particularly in this unique era) is that working in the real world is a far more valuable, enriching experience than grad school. I therefore chose to opt out of an MBA and pursue my education through real-world startup experience. Here’s why:

1. Doing Over Learning

The old adage that you learn best by doing has never been truer. Two years hard at work in your field, as opposed to two years in a university learning about your field, will always be a more valuable experience. All theoretical training must eventually find its application in the real world, so why not play there from the start? Even with a graduate education, most candidates will find that employers care far more about real-world experience than business school training. Ask yourself: How best can I spend the next two years? I’m confident that for most people, a truly productive two years will center on the real world.

2. The Value of Paper

It’s a glamorous, interesting degree, but the MBA is no longer a requisite passport to the kingdom of business. Nor is it always reflective of the real world: Discussions in the classroom only simulate the dynamics of the working world. Real-world experience, in contrast, always speaks for itself. It also says a great deal about you — your priorities, your passions, and your abilities. What’s more, the market is teeming with MBAs, and companies in this increasingly specialized world want more than a degree. They want a person, and one who can achieve real results.

3. Life On Hold

In addition to the sky-high costs of grad school, there is also the significant opportunity cost that all candidates take on when they head back to school. Two years in a classroom also means two years not spent making money, developing relationships, enhancing skills and learning about your field. Many candidates find that personal lives are put on hold as wedding and family plans are delayed until after graduation, even though the burden of these costs (tangible and intangible) can last years. Part-time and fully-employed graduate programs are designed to manage that downside, but many students end up straddling both school and the real world without getting the full experience from either.

4. A Demanding Vacation

Grad school is often celebrated as a vacation from the real world — that is, to some degree, the allure of the MBA for many professionals — but a rigorous program done properly is one of the most strenuous experiences imaginable. Assignments build up, extra preparation and teamwork become paramount, social and extracurricular activities beckon, and sleep becomes a distant memory. Many candidates end up wondering whether they wouldn’t rather be paid in the working world — where they would also be getting hands-on experience — to forego so much of their personal lives.

5. The Right Education

Take a moment and define your goals. Make them clear, honest and attainable. Invest the energy, emotionally and intellectually, to truly understand where you would like to go — and, most importantly, why. Then ask yourself how grad school will bring you closer to that goal. Oftentimes, grad school becomes a replacement for the hard work and choices you must make in the real world. Or it is a common path that was thrust on you by a company or encouraged by your industry. In many cases, the MBA isn’t as pivotal as it seems to getting where you want to go in life. Operating in the real world, where you ultimately want to advance, is the greatest education imaginable.

Bottom line? Education is a deeply personal choice. And it’s important. It helps define who we are, what we know and how we work. Where you decide to learn should reflect your goals in each of those areas.

But when it comes to advancing your career, your education and your life, the instincts and insights you acquire in the real world will always serve you better than the ideas and concepts you explore in a classroom. I encourage you to continue playing in the real world, as I did. I’m confident you’ll be a stronger, smarter person for it.

Jay Wu leads Innovation at A Forever Recovery. In his startup experience, he has built a digital marketing agency, a content network, and an e-commerce store. Jay speaks in the Bay area about social media marketing, SEO, and current trends in the internet-startup industry.

Cash flow is king, this founder learned the hard way.

3 Ways To Improve Your Startup’s Pitch Deck

As an early-stage entrepreneur, you must constantly keep your pitch materials up to date, even if you don’t seek venture capital funding until the future. Whether investors reach out to you or vice versa, there are certain questions that are almost always asked. In my observations of the startup market — and my experience of the million-dollar seed raise my company completed last year — investors usually end up focusing on three very specific items.

To maximize your company’s chances of pitching your startup successfully and securing venture capital, here are the three questions that every pitch deck should answer:

1. Does it look like your customer base is growing?

If it does not look like your customer base is growing, you are dead in the water. That may be an obvious point, but I cannot tell you how hard it is to communicate customer traction to prospective investors. Investors, like you, have limited time. You need to graphically depict that you are growing in as few words as possible, using a solid visual representation.

We have taken a lot of different cuts at this slide, but the version below seemed to resonate best:

2. Do your customers like your product?

I’m speaking for both B2C and B2B businesses here – you need to be able to demonstrate that your product is getting “stickier” somehow, and the usage patterns of your customers are getting more favorable. In our case, we choose to depict traction in terms of number of pieces of written content our customers purchase from us each month – fortunately, that is trending upward for us:

The reason you need to demonstrate that your product is sticky is simple: acquiring new customers is MUCH more expensive than getting existing customers to pay for your product again. Not only that, but happy customers are also your best salespeople — if you are able to successfully demonstrate that your existing customer base is happy, that in and of itself is a low-cost sales channel. I cannot tell you how often we get asked for the above slide, and we try to update the data on this as frequently as possible.

3. Does it look like your business/product can actually scale?

Remember that venture investors are not interested in ordinary returns — that is why they are in venture capital and not in the S&P 500. If you are not able to demonstrate a clear path to $100M within five years, your company is not a good candidate for venture capital. We constantly get asked about scalability, and truthfully, there is no great answer for any company – all you can do is take your best shot. For us, it is a product slide that looks like this:

We figured out that the bottleneck for our customers creating content was coming up with topics fast enough. We introduced a product (“topic pitching”) that allows our writers to pitch businesses on the fly. It had a nearly 52 percent conversion rate to paid business. Our writers are essentially doing demand generation for us. That is what we want to communicate to potential venture investors, should they come knocking at the right time.

Similarly, your business likely has a “magic” lever that will allow you to reach that 100M in revenue point (a big maybe, I realize) if you keep investing in a certain product, or channel. Once you figure out what the lever is, you need to figure out a way to communicate that.

It never hurts to keep your materials up to date, and it cannot hurt to have the above slides ready at a moment’s notice — should the right investor come along.

Sunil Rajaraman is the founder and CEO of Scripted.com, a marketplace for businesses to hire freelance writers. Scripted.com has a pool of 80,000 freelance writers, and ranks as one of the top five largest writer communities on the Internet. Scripted.com currently provides hundreds of businesses with thousands of blog posts, tweets, press releases and articles each month.

Cash Flow Really Is King: I Learned the Hard Way

At 23 years old, I started Infographic World, a data visualization company working with brands to tell their story in a more visual and effective manner. It doesn’t matter that I’ve practically studied business since childhood or that I have an MBA—there is simply no greater teacher than failure. I’ve had to acknowledge this truth more times than I can count.

My first lesson came about 10 months into starting the company. At the time, I had virtually no systems in place to track money: how much was coming in, how much a job would cost, how much I would eventually need to pay vendors, etc.

More importantly, I never stopped to think about the payment terms I was offering my clients. In my head, I had been conducting a fair amount of business, so the money would come in whenever it came in, and I would be fine as long as there was a nice, comfortable amount of money sitting in the business bank account. To make matters worse, I always wanted to pay my vendors, so whenever I received an invoice, I would cut a check immediately, every time.

On a particularly fateful Friday, I was printing out the invoices that were in my inbox. For some reason, a lot of my jobs had come to a conclusion around the same time, which meant that there were now a lot of contractors that needed to get paid. I laid out all of the invoices on my desk, added them all up and wrote down the total number. Just before I began writing out the checks, I randomly figured that I should check my bank account balance and see what I’d be left with after paying these vendors on time, like I always did.

The next moment was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had in my life—my bank balance wasn’t enough to cover the amount I had promised my vendors. It wasn’t even close, actually.

I closed the office door and sat there at my desk with a pain in my stomach that completely overwhelmed me. For the first time in my life, I felt like a complete and utter failure. How could I have been so stupid to allow a situation to arise where I had to pay out more money than I actually had in my bank account? I didn’t want to upset my vendors; they were the lifeblood of my company in terms of producing something for my clients. In my head, my business wasn’t going to survive the next 30 days.

I decided to visit my parents’ house that weekend and speak with my father, who has always been a mentor of mine and someone in whom I confided in times of trouble. I explained my situation and we sat there for hours, discussing what caused the problem and different ways to remedy it in the future.

With a hard look, I realized that my first problem was obvious: I wasn’t enforcing any sort of payment terms with my clients, and I was paying my vendors too quickly. Essentially I was paying for jobs long before I was actually being paid for them—a model that will eventually catch up with you, as I’ve learned. I proceeded to set up new terms both for the clients and the vendors: I began to require a certain percentage of money up front from the client, and also came to an agreement with vendors to pay them in a manner that’s more realistic for me as a business owner.

In order to enforce these new policies and prevent myself from making such a great mistake again, I found that I also needed a better way to track what money was going in and out of my company. My father insisted that I set up a “reserves” bank account for my business: whenever money was received for a job, I would set aside what I knew to be the future costs of this job into this separate bank account. This way, regardless of when the job got done, the money that would be needed to eventually pay the vendor would always be there.

This truly was my great mistake, but what matters is surviving it — and learning from the experience.

Justin Beegel is the founder of Infographic World, Inc. He left the big corporate world at 23 to help companies transform the way they communicate their messages—essentially taking things people don’t want to read (long and boring PDFs, text-heavy articles and dense subject matter) and turning them into captivating visualizations that people actually want to read.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

11 Tips For Transitioning From Employee To Employer

Question: What’s your best leadership advice for going from employee to boss — of yourself, and maybe others too? (name one tip)

Get Ready for the Investment

“You’re used to managing a crushing workload, difficult clients and phone on perma-ring, but when you’re the boss, you get to handle ego and emotions too. An important lesson is that managing personalities, expectations, egos and abilities is just as important as everything else on your plate. A happy, healthy, productive team is a product of time and energy spent caring for your team on a personal level.”

– Yael Cohen | Founder, President, CEO, Fuck Cancer

Pick Up the Boss Work

“One of the most common thing that employees do when they become the boss is they still do employee tasks.That kind of work is supposed to be done by employees and you are supposed to do boss work! When we run a business, it is our job to build systems and manage people to run these systems. If you find yourself doing the work, keep asking yourself, how can I replace myself for this task?”

– Louis Lautman | Founder, Supreme Outsourcing

Remember the Other Side

“One thing I find important as a boss is to remember what it was like on the other side, as an employee. For example, I used to hate when a boss would micromanage me. I sometimes catch myself doing that with my employees, and then stop and remember how much it bothered me, and try to stop the habit myself. You want the people working for you happy and productive, so remember what made you happy.”

– Justin Beegel | Founder, Infographic World, Inc.

Seek Perspective

“Always know where your organization is in its life cycle and where you are as its leader. Your role and the company’s needs will change at the pace of growth and you need to be steering the ship through its various phases. Regular reflection, time off and insights from outside will help you to zoom out.”

– Christopher Kelly | Co-Founder, Principal, Convene

Learn to Delegate

“The hardest part of moving up the ladder is knowing what to hand off to someone else (or even to automate). Most of us assume that as the boss, we have to do everything. The reality is that we’re responsible for everything — but who actually does the work isn’t important.”

– Thursday Bram | Consultant, Hyper Modern Consulting

Keep Up the Confidence

“Believe in yourself and your decisions and get comfortable with managing employees. Stay firm in your resolve, but not rigid and inflexible. Don’t be afraid to ask more experienced mentors for advice and to utilize the services of consulting firms. If you keep focused, stay calm, and are willing to work hard, you will find it extremely rewarding and fun!”

– Zach Cutler | Founder and CEO, Cutler Group

Maintain Transparency

“I strive to be really transparent and open with my employees. I’ve experimented with varying levels of openness, but ultimately, being more transparent and honest with everyone is the best option. If they understand me, and my drive to push them to be the absolute best they can be, we can have success both individually and as a company.”

– Justin Beck | Co-Founder and CEO, PerBlue

Create the Systems

“Focus on creating systems and getting organized. If you do not have systems in place with clear directions and checkpoints, then you’re going to struggle to manage and lead your team. Once you have systematized your business and organized your own projects and tasks, then you can lead by example.”

– Pete Kennedy | Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Main Street ROI

Start Planning Ahead

“Planning is the key to having perspective on what’s most important now and working ahead to proactively address potential challenges. If you are the boss and you don’t plan, you not only create stress for yourself, but also for your employees. Make this a daily habit so that you know how to lead best.”

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

Discipline Makes a Difference

“When you’re an employee, you can usually rely on upper management to guide you and prod you when work needs to get done. When you’re the boss, the responsibility lies completely on you, so you need to practice discipline and focus. If you don’t, who will?”

– Steven Le Vine | CEO/President, grapevine pr

Build Your Brand

“Make sure you focus on building your professional brand. The more credibility and authority you have, the more opportunities will come your way and you will be able to lead more effectively.”

– John Hall | CEO, Influence & Co.

Image: kwwl.com

Startup Tips: 5 Elements Of An Effective Business Meeting

Entrepreneurs spend time quizzing themselves on business particulars for their meetings with important new contacts, but often forget the human side of the interaction. However, knowing your business “ins and outs” is not enough – they must also be effectively conveyed.

Whether communicating to an important distributor or venture capitalist, entrepreneurs must be strategic about how they influence others to join their side. Meetings are not just information exchanges — they are also “relationship-building” sessions. Establishing these relationships enables your efforts to take root and make a difference for your business.

To that end, based on research and best practices, we have developed the “five C’s” of an effective meeting:

Compelling: Tell a story to help illustrate your point. Everyone responds to a story and research has shown that stories increase message retention.
Clarity: Be focused and clear. Often, entrepreneurs, especially those who are experts, want to share everything they know in the first meeting. This is not about impressing your audience with the breadth of your knowledge. Be restrained in what you share – summarize the high points. A great meeting will lead to follow-up discussions.
Consistency: Do your homework on meeting participants. Connect to their interests, including past decisions or common interests.
Conversation: Allow for dialogue. Creating an opportunity for a two-way conversation will allow for questions and clarifications, which leads to greater buy-in.
Close: End the meeting effectively by including a direct request. Never let an opportunity pass to ask for support – for dollars or for introductions.

So as you plan your meetings with new contacts, remember it is important to start small and build a solid foundation for a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship.

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Suzanne Smith, MBA is a serial social entrepreneur and bridges many disciplines, including serving on the National Board of the Social Enterprise Alliance, coaching nonprofits as Managing Director of Social Impact Architects and Co-Founder of Flywheel: Social Enterprise Hub, and educating future leaders as Adjunct Professor at the University of North Texas. She holds an MBA from Duke University, where she was a CASE (Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship) Scholar and continues to serve as a Research Fellow.

Startup Tips: 5 Website Mistakes That Are Costing You Customers

You love your website like your baby. It represents your startup perfectly — except when it doesn’t.

Your website might not be delivering the message you thought it was. Here are five of the most common startup website mistakes that I see founders make when creating their own website or hiring a designer to create it for them — and what to do about each:

1. Designing for the “Cool” Factor

You want your startup to stand out from all the others out there, so you design your logo and your site with lots of flair. Figuring that a flashy design will stick in people’s minds, you forgo clarity.

While people may think your site looks good, they won’t remember what your service or product is all about. They might not even grasp your concept while they’re on your site, which will cause them to hit the back button or move on without a second thought.

Ouch. Visitors can be fickle, so make sure to focus on explaining what your startup does and how it will help make your customers’ lives better.

2. On-Page Overwhelm

In an effort to tell people all the reasons they need to sign up for your service or product, you might go overboard and cause more harm than good.

If you have more than three major pieces of information or options on a page, you’re likely overdoing it. When it comes to designing effective websites, keeping the visual options to a minimum always results in better conversions.

Instead of packing your website with the 20 different reasons to try your product, focus on the big three benefits that you can deliver. Think of what your startup helps people get more or less of, whether that’s sleep or anxiety.

3. Not Testing On All Devices

Your website looks great on your computer and maybe your phone. But have you tested it on a variety of different devices? Have you considered making it design responsive, so that it will resize based on the dimensions of the screen?

These are all great questions to consider before you hit publish on your new startup website, but it’s worth going back and checking different browsers and devices even if your site is live.

4. Forgetting to Ask for Contact Details

Most visitors who land on your website will not buy your product or service. It’s just not going to happen — but it doesn’t mean that you should let these curious folks walk away into their busy lives, never to return.

Instead, make sure you have a simple and prominent way for them to stay in the loop with your startup’s progress. Make the offer to join your email list an inviting one by focusing on what benefits they will get from hearing about your startup.

If you can’t think of anything, consider creating free content in the form of articles or videos that you think will be of interest to your ideal customers. No one can turn down a highly targeted freebie that’s designed to solve their exact problems.

5. Not Offering a Taste Before Asking for the Sale

Speaking of freebies, do you have anything on your website that people can try before they buy? Depending on your product or service, you might be able to offer a taste before asking them to commit by plunking down their credit card details.

If you offer an ongoing service, it’s a great idea to let people get used to your software or services. They’ll be hooked and won’t want to stop using it. Try offering a free trial, and be generous — if you did your job right in creating your offering, people will take you up on your paid version, too.

Think outside the box on this one, because offering a sample is one of the best ways to get people open to buying from you.

Do You Make Any of These Mistakes?

Now that you know what to watch out for when creating or updating your startup website, it’s time to be honest with yourself and assess your own site. And if you need an unbiased opinion, ask a friend or colleague — someone who isn’t as close to your “baby” as you are.

Nathalie Lussier got her Bachelors in Software Engineering then promptly turned down a “stable” job on Wall Street to start her own online business. She’s a sought after digital strategist who teaches people how to get techy with their business. Get your Free Website Checkup at http://GetTechyNow.com.

Dan Martell: How to Build A Real Connection With Your Customer

You’ve spent 12 months building the most wicked product on the planet. Now what?

Now, you need customers, revenue, and growth. Here’s the sequence most entrepreneurs follow:

Step 1: You launch a blog
Step 2: You launch your Facebook page
Step 3: You start promoting your writing to your fan community of 50.

Then you wait. You’ve built it; why aren’t they coming?

You get pissed off. You hop in your car, go to the gym, or take a walk outside to take your mind off things. Then you see that big Coca Cola billboard with shiny, happy stock-photo people and blinding, bright colors — you can’t help but swoon. You’re craving Coca Cola’s fizzy goodness and wishing that Santa would bring you a $10 million paid advertising budget.

Hold it — the glamour of paid advertising is a total illusion

Get it together. Get back to your computer immediately and watch the first cat video that you can find. Little do you know it, but that’s your brilliant plan. It’s twice as powerful as any paid channel advertising strategy, and it’s free. Word of Mouth Marketing (WOM) is your new growth engine.

According to the McKinsey Quarterly, “word of mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising in categories as diverse as skincare and mobile phones.”

And thanks to digital media, it’s not about neighbor A knocking on neighbor B’s door for advice anymore. Social media, content marketing, and online commenting platforms take WOM marketing to data-driven scale.

WOM is about street smarts, not rocket science

What does it take to get you talking about something? Most likely, it’s made you laugh out loud, saved you time, and solved your most pressing problems. It’s caught you by surprise and has struck an emotional chord.

As Wharton Marketing Professor Jonah Berger puts it: “Any product can be remarkable. Any product can be emotional.”

It’s about the connection you build with your end-user psychologically, functionally, personally, and emotionally.

Take one of the most ordinary products on the market, for instance — a blender. Does the word ‘bada*s’ come to mind? Probably not. Now read the following story about a company called Blendtec.

“In my favorite video, for example, they stick an iPhone in the blender,” Berger says. “They actually drop an iPhone in. They close the top, they press the button, and you watch the iPhone get torn up by this really, really strong blender. It gets reduced to shreds. Little shards of glass and all the other things that make up an iPhone. Lots of smoke. At the end of the day, it’s basically powder. Now you’ve never seen a blender tear an iPhone. You’ve never imagined that a blender could do that to an iPhone. Yet you see it, and it’s pure remarkability.”

What happens next?

You share the video with everybody, and all of a sudden Blendtec is bada*s. You need it in your kitchen to replace the frou-frou blades in your cupboard.

The “mystery” of WOM marketing

Like any good marketing plan, it follows a standard framework. Amazing marketers take the same basic skeletons and flesh them out.

“It doesn’t take a marketing genius — though they are smart marketers — to think about this,” says Berger. “What it takes is understanding the psychology behind social transmission — what makes us talk about and share thing.”

The trick is to stop thinking of your brand-building as a stream of consciousness, creative endeavor.

Think like a system with the following steps:

1. Take Control: Controversy Gets People Talking

Want to be a powerful influencer? Then own it. To be an authority, your brand persona needs to project confidence and charisma. No matter what you do, this mission-critical component will be your wow-factor.

Don’t be afraid to polarize people. If you’re scared to put yourself out there at the risk of pissing people off, you’ll be missing out.

Controversy gets people talking, and in terms of WOM, that’s awesome.

2. Value = What Your Customers Care About

It’s simple, folks. Know what your customers care about. What keeps them up at night, what motivates them to go to work in the morning, and what holds them back. It’s your job to give them exactly what they need.

3. Quit Being Properly Polite and Be Authentic

You probably hate the fluffy ‘be yourself’ advice. Thing is, you need to hear it. It’s natural to feel self-conscious and to hide behind a ‘professional’ mask. It’s natural to want approval from others. Thing is, it’s only going to hold you back. If you’re constantly trying to please others by looking like everyone else, you’re not going to stand out.

For example, take James Altucher, a financial expert and entrepreneur who built some of his biggest businesses through blogging. As he puts it in his Twitter bio: “For some reason, I’ve turned myself inside out and all my guts have spilled onto my blog.”

Why’s he so popular? Well he writes about topics that make us human, not rich. He helps us understand why our bosses are jerks and why we should think twice before judging a genuinely good person.

Ask yourself some questions: Would you say what you’re about to say to your best friend over a beer? What makes you passionate beyond the cubicle? That is what you should bring to the table.

Here’s a fun hypothetical exercise; wear a rubber band on your wrist. When you catch yourself saying something that doesn’t represent you, or that echoes someone else, pull the rubber band and snap it onto your wrist. Not only does that condition you to be more honest, but it is a funny talking point and will make you more remarkable (re: quirky, weird).

“Oh, yeah — I’m trying to be more honest, and I caught myself trying to be someone else. That thing I just said? I didn’t really mean it.”

You know when you meet that really boring person at a networking event or party. Yeah, they’re plenty smart and articulate, but man will they put you to sleep. Don’t be that guy. When you’re authentic, you’re interesting.

Tucker Max is interesting because he’s a jerk. He stands out. You don’t need to be a jerk, but you can and should embrace your inner edge.

4. Where Technology Meets Social Psychology

WOM is not about knocking on your neighbor’s door. It’s about tapping into social psychology to connect with customers on a human-to-human level. Technology amplifies that process and helps you do it at scale.

The brilliant growth hackers at AirBnB, for instance, have built a technology model to auto-post to Craigslist.

“It’s a win-win for everyone involved — both the people renting out their places by tapping into pre-build demand, and for renters, who see much nicer listings with better photos and descriptions,” wrote Andrew Chen for his blog.

5. Be Relentlessly Emotional

Logic keeps people intelligent and informed — but emotions move them. Word of mouth marketing depends on your brand’s ability to keep people engaged, energized, and inspired. It’s about love, anger, and humanity that’s powerful and raw.

Never, at any point in the game, let the fire of your emotional hook die. Write with emotion, tweet with emotion, and no matter what the hell you do, do not hold back. You’re lightning in a bottle.

A version of this post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Dan Martell is the CEO/Founder of Clarity.fm. Co-Founder of Flowtown (Acquired ’11), Founder of Spheric Tech (Acquired ’08), Mentor @ 500Startup. Investor in many.

Founder Spotlight: Danny Boice Co-Founder Speek.com

Danny Boice is the CTO of Speek, a 500 Startups funded startup that lets users do conference calls with a simple link (speek.com/YourName) rather than using phone numbers and PINs. Danny contributes regularly to the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, PandoDaily, Fast Company, and other publications. He attended Harvard undergrad and did advanced studies at MIT. Follow him @DannyBoice.

Who is your hero?

Lemmy from Motorhead.

What’s the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today, and why?

“Find what you love and let it kill you.” – Charles Bukowski

I take this quote to mean that you should find the thing that you are intensely passionate about first and foremost. Once you have found that thing then spend the rest of your life working your a*s off to be great at it.

What’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your business, and what did you learn from it that others can learn from too?

Only get in bed with people you really like. This applies to co-founders, partners, you name it.

When my first company was acquired I was heavily incentivized to join the management team of the company that acquired us. I really did not get along with the founders of that company and we rarely saw eye to eye. I felt marginalized and believed that my talents were under-appreciated. It was an absolutely miserable experience for me and I spent a couple years being unhappy. It’s just not worth losing years of your life.

What do you do during the first hour of your business day and why?

I put together a to-do list for the day using todoist. Then I get myself to inbox zero. I like starting the day with a conscious plan of what I want to get done and I don’t like checking email throughout the day because it is a barrier to getting things done.

What’s your best financial/cash-flow related tip for entrepreneurs just getting started?

Keep your nut low. This applies to personal life and business. The lower the expense structure the more freedom you have.

Quick: What’s ONE thing you recommend ALL aspiring or current entrepreneurs do right now to take their biz to the next level?

Become an expert in the Lean Startup methodology. The best management approach I have found to date is using data and science experiments to make decisions.

What’s your definition of success? How will you know when you’ve finally “succeeded” in your business?

Success means having the freedom to do what I want when I want to do it. Money, time, obligations, and contracts should not be a factor. I call it “airplane money.” If you can wake up in the morning, isolate the place you really want to go today and jump in a plane and go there, then you’ve achieved success.

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

Danny Boice spoke at this huge startup conference last year and he’s back again this year.

10 Tips For Launching Your Startup At An Industry Event

It’s pretty popular to launch startups at big events. Think Foursquare at SXSW. We even had a couple of launches at this year’s Everywhere Else: The Startup Conference.

But, it can be tricky to launch at a big event. It’s easy to get lost in the noise, and when you choose to launch that publicly, you better have your act together. Here are some more tips from the veteran entrepreneurs at the Young Entrepreneurs Council:

Give a Keynote Speech

“If you want to launch a new company at an industry event or conference, try to secure an opportunity to be a keynote speaker. If you can’t organically secure it ,consider sponsoring and purchasing the opportunity to be a keynote. As a speaker, you’ll have your target audience listening to you and buying into your brand for 30-40 minutes. There is no better way to secure a flurry of leads.”
– Raoul Davis | CEO, Ascendant Group

Learn from Disrupt

“It’s very helpful to check out the winners of TechCrunch Disrupt. Lot to learn from their presentations and products which can you help launch most effectively.”

– Ben Lang | Founder, Mapped In Israel

Don’t Do It!

“Ignore awards, getting press, and all related “recognition” that will just be distractions when launching your company. Focus on your customers and your product!”

– Todd Garland | Founder, BuySellAds

Influence the Influencers

“Find out who will be the influencers at this conference and get them on board with your new company. Try giving away your product or service to them for free to experience if you have to, so they begin talking about it. There is nothing better than word of mouth, especially when from the mouths that influence more people.”

– Louis Lautman | Founder, Supreme Outsourcing

Try Out Sponsorship

“If you really want to launch right, sponsor the event. Get your brand on everything!”

– Roger Bryan | Managing Partner, ROI Marketing Department

Integrate Your Company In

“Most people that try and launch at an event fail because all they do is display a logo, hand out flyers or take an exhibitor booth. Find a unique way your company can be a part of the event and integrate your product into it, so that more people use it and get to experience it.”

– Aron Schoenfeld | Founder & CEO, Do It In Person LLC

Start Before the Conference

“Once the conference is in full swing, it can be hard to meet with the right people. A small amount of time invested in reaching out to key personalities before the event can yield tremendous results. Review speakers, conference organizers, sponsors and other key attendees, and introduce yourself and your product. You’ll have pre-launch momentum to leverage when going into the conference.”

– Christopher Kelly | Co-Founder, Principal, Convene

Get Outside the Board Room

“Business is done after the day’s events, so throw a crazy party! Get your face and handshake in front of everyone, and then create a forum where you can continue interacting after the formal events are over. They’ll remember your name.”

– Jordan Guernsey | CEO, Molding Box

Make Your Presence Known

“Don’t half-ass the event. Get there early and network to build buzz. Do something creative with your booth or product so everyone knows you’re there. Don’t leave until the end, when you’re sure you’ve done everything to let people know about your product or service.”

– John Hall | CEO, Influence & Co.

Get Mentioned Onstage

“Do your research in advance and know who the speakers are. Before the event, find ways to introduce your company and product via social, introductions, etc. Once there, have your team talking to presenters and panelist so what you’re working on is top of mind. Seeding the conversation prior to them hitting the stage improves your chances of getting mentioned by influencers, and peeking the audience’s interest.”

– Lauren Perkins | Founder and CEO, Perks Consulting

5 Things To Avoid When Raising Money For Your Startup

Of course, there are a lot of things you need to do when you’re trying to raise money for your startup. But there are also a lot of things you want to avoid. If you’ve landed a meeting with a potential investor, you don’t want to blow it. Avoid the following 5 “don’ts” and you’ll be on the right path to making a favorable impression:

1. Don’t raise more money than you will need. You may be tempted to think more is better when it comes to raising capital, but actually this is not true. Of course you’ll want to build in a little cushion, since nothing ever goes exactly according to plan in startup land, but don’t be tempted to create a huge cushion. We’ve seen time and time again that capital efficiency (that is, raising what you need and no more) is a more telling indicator than capital access of your startup’s success. In other words, it’s what you do with your money — not how much you get — that determines your success.

While the amount of capital you’ll need is dependent on the specifics of your company (e.g. your company type/stage), capital efficiency will stand you in good stead regardless. With less capital it’s harder to scale, and that’s a good thing. Scaling too soon forces you to grow and make decisions before your company is ready. Expectations are lower with less capital. Your milestones will be more manageable.

Also, larger amounts of capital lead to unnecessary dilution at a lower valuation. Conversely, smaller amounts of capital allow you to preserve more ownership—and can lead to higher valuation in future rounds.

2. Don’t talk to investors who don’t traditionally invest in your space or stage of development. If an investor has no history of investing in your space or working with companies at your stage of development, don’t go there. If they’re not familiar with your space, there’s just too big of a learning curve. You’ll be working overtime trying to sell them on the value of your offering.

Likewise, there are two major downsides to working with a potential investor who doesn’t have experience with companies in your development stage. First of all, without a relative benchmark, they may have expectations which are unrealistic for your startup. The may want to see you hit milestones which your company is just not ready to hit, or may push you to scale before you’re ready. Secondly, investors offer more than just money. They offer support, wisdom, and connections. So you want to find an investor who will be a valuable member of your growing startup eco-system, starting from wherever you are.

3. Don’t talk to investors who have invested in a company that is a competitor in your same space. This may seem to contradict my previous statement, but it’s just finessing the point. While you don’t want to work with investors who aren’t active in your same space, there’s no sense in talking with an investor who has recently invested in one of your competitors. Many investors will avoid funding competitors, but you can’t depend on this. An investor’s resources run only so deep. You don’t need a built-in conflict of interest getting in the way of your growth.

4. Don’t fail to do your due diligence on an investor prior to meeting them. Underscoring my previous points, you’ll need to do enough research to know what space and company stages the investor has experience with and what specific companies the investor has funded (keeping an eye out for your competitors). Look out for investor activity: has the investor recently made any investments? You also want to know the person behind the investment: who are they? If you can speak with other entrepreneurs they have backed, that can be a helpful way to learn more about investors personally and figure out if they are someone you can work with. If you don’t know this ahead of time, you are just wasting your time and theirs.

5. Don’t wing an investor meeting. If you’re meeting with an investor, it’s never just a casual chat. You are there to pitch. Have your pitch deck ready and be prepared to present it. See my previous post on Pitching Made Perfect for details on exactly what should be included in your pitch deck. Be ready to answer questions—and if you can’t answer a question on the spot, make sure you follow up.

If you can steer clear of these 5 “don’ts,” you’ll be demonstrating to potential investors an understanding of, and a respect for, the funding process. Observe the protocol and you and your company will be in good position to earn reciprocal respect from potential investors.

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

David Ehrenberg is the founder and CEO of Early Growth Financial Services, a financial services firm providing a complete suite of financial services to companies at every stage of the development process. He’s a financial expert and startup mentor, whose passion is helping businesses focus on what they do best. Follow David @EarlyGrowthFS.

How To Start That Online Startup You’ve Been Thinking About

Is this the year you will finally launch that brilliant new business idea?

It’s a good time to start — never before has it been easier or cheaper to build your own Web-based business. Technology has come a long way in the last few years in making tools for building sites more accessible to everyone (not just technologists).

Here are some easy ways to get a head start:

Map your “lean canvas,” not your business plan. Business plans are so last century. Don’t waste time writing multi-paged business plans that are just layer upon layer of hypotheses based on market research. Experienced entrepreneurs know the secret to success lies in execution rather than extensive planning. So instead, invest your initial planning in a Lean Canvas: a succinct approach to proving hypotheses about your business.
Pick a great domain name. The domain name of your site should be memorable and preferably have a dot-com. That means there are likely slim pickings, so you may have to pick the name of your site based on what domain is available. LeanDomainSearch is the perfect tool to figure this out. Just enter a word you like and their search engine will comb the Web for available dot-com combinations.
Find a developer to build your website. A great website takes a great developer who will help you build exactly what you want. Although you could outsource your site, in my experience, it’s better to hire someone you trust and can collaborate with directly — particularly if you’re building an e-commerce site. If you don’t have a referral or a developer in mind, check out matchist – a service we built specifically to bring together entrepreneurs and top U.S.-based freelance developers. The site helps you understand what technologies and skills are needed to build exactly what you’re looking for so you can find the right developer to make that dream a reality.
Put up a landing page ASAP. While your site is getting built, start building buzz (and collecting data) by putting up a landing page. New sites like LaunchRock make this super easy. You can start gathering email addresses for people interested in learning about when your site launches right away for a head start on marketing.
Start testing — and keep learning! Get up to date on Lean Startup Methodology, an approach to building a business (pioneered by Eric Ries) that involves making and testing hypotheses to figure out exactly what combination of product and marketing will make your business successful. And read blogs like KISSMetrics, Startup Lessons Learned, and Practice Trumps Theory to learn how other online businesses are paving the way quickly and cheaply.

Don’t spend yet another year dreaming of starting a business — instead, take these steps to get started as early as possible. The quicker you start learning, testing and collecting data, the quicker you will build that successful venture you’ve been dreaming of.

Tim Jahn is the co-founder of matchist, a curated service for freelance developers to connect with quality clients and projects. He’s also the co-founder of Entrepreneurs Unpluggd, an events and media company that helps entrepreneurs move their businesses forward. As an active member of the Chicago tech community, Tim has made his mark interviewing hundreds of entrepreneurs from all over the world.

Why You Shouldn’t Learn To Code For Your Startup

I get emails like this one all the time:

I am wondering if I could ask for help for a friend. Mike, a good friend of mine, has been working on a startup idea. …He is looking for really great co-founding developers who can help him build out the product in a short period of time. I am wondering if you could tap into your network for leads. Many thanks in advance!

I wish I could help. It can be very difficult for a non-technical entrepreneur to find a technical co-founder if he/she doesn’t already have friends who code. And these days, just about everyone would tell Mike to skip the talent search and learn how to code himself.

Journalists in TechCrunch, Business Insider, Fast Company and dozens of other publications, including VentureBeat, write frequently about how you, as a non-technical founder, are up a creek if you don’t learn how to code. Even Harvard Business School students are learning how to code – despite paying very good money to learn business skills. In short, if you’re starting an Internet company, you can’t go anywhere without hearing about how important it is to know how to code.

Silicon Valley has followed suit. In the last two years alone, online education companies have developed a variety of courses to teach programming skills. Companies like Coursera, Udacity, Udemy, Treehouse, Codecademy, EdX, and Lynda, are just a handful of the many companies serving the programming education market. For those who prefer to learn in person, there are now a wealth of choices in developer training camps too, including Hack Reactor, Coder Camps, Dev Bootcamp, and the Hackbright Academy. These camps hold class every day for several weeks, teaching basic front-end and back-end skills.

The real reason startups fail (hint: it’s not bad code)

On the surface, it would seem the solution for finding a technical co-founder is to become one yourself.

But you have to question whether turning non-technical entrepreneurs into developers is really the best solution for starting a company. Startups become successful when they have users and customers — and they die when they don’t. Tech startups don’t fail because they have poorly written code. If you look at TechCrunch’s deadpool of startups, almost all listed companies failed because they ran out of money. They didn’t have enough users to make their business model work.

I started my first company, Beat the GMAT, without knowing how to program at all. Didn’t matter: I built a loyal following of prospective MBA students for my blog first, which was focused on solving GMAT problems. Later, this audience became active participants in my first forums. Finally, I hired developers to build the most recent version of my site before selling it to Hobson’s. Had I focused on building the site first, I’m not sure that’s how things would have panned out.

Don’t get me wrong: Increasing the opportunities for people to learn is great, and those who want to learn how to program definitely should. But if you’re learning how to code merely to launch a startup, you’re wasting valuable time.

The economic tenet of comparative advantage suggests that people should become really good at their core skills, use them effectively to make money, and then hire others to complement their skills. So, if you are mediocre at acquiring customers and know nothing about programming, shouldn’t you work to become awesome at customer acquisition rather than become a bad developer? I would’ve expected Harvard Business School to understand this better than anyone.

Paying it forward

In the Valley, entrepreneurs and investors often talk about how so many seed startups fail because they can’t get enough customers to become profitable. But we shouldn’t just talk — we should do something. That’s why Elizabeth Yin and I started Hustle Con: to teach non-technical entrepreneurs tactical tips in acquiring customers to build a sustainable business. Others, such as Noah Kagan, have done the same in creating his course called “How to make your first dollar.” And, there are a smattering of meetup groups trying to teach marketing and sales for startups.

But we can do better. If you know something about lead generation, sales, and marketing, I encourage you to pay it forward and teach other entrepreneurs to improve their customer acquisition skills. And finally, to the would-be founders out there: Stop talking about learning how to code, and instead, start hustling.

Eric Bahn is the co-founder of Hustle Con, a one-day conference on July 9, 2013 in Mountain View, CA. Hustle Con features successful entrepreneurs who will talk about how they grew their companies from $0 to $5M in just a couple of years, how they raised money, and how they grew an audience before releasing a product. Join us with this special code to get 25% off: yec-hustler

Sequoia’s Aaref Hilaly believes everyone should know how to code.

6 Reasons To Start Your Startup Now!

You don’t have to have a Harvard MBA to know that the economy hasn’t climbed out of its slump entirely just yet. Household debt has grown, unemployment remains relatively high, and Americans aren’t spending the way they once did. With all these obstacles, you’d think it would be the worst time to start your own business. But a struggling economy presents opportunities for ambitious entrepreneurs — you just have to know where to find them.

1. Real Estate Is Cheap
With so many businesses failing in recent years, commercial real estate is widely available. Do your research — find a space that’s conveniently located and reasonably priced. Once you narrow the field to a few candidates, play hardball with your prospective landlord. If you can’t get a reduced monthly rent, try to get other concessions, such as paid utilities, free renovations, or lease termination flexibility.

2. Staffing Will Be a Breeze
With the national unemployment rate hovering just under 8 percent, there are a lot of qualified workers out there looking for a good opportunity. Dig deep during the interview process to find folks who share your vision and passion. You should get a lot of resume submissions, so be discerning. When you interview candidates, try to get a sense of who’s in it for the long haul. Overqualified applicants may intend to coast through a job until the one they really want comes along.

3. You Have Protection Against Unemployment
When layoffs and cutbacks are rampant, the best way to avoid being fired is to be your own boss. You may not be able to control how successful your business is, but you can control every decision, work every hour of every day, and if your business fails, it won’t be because some faraway board decided to cut 10,000 jobs. Success or failure lie primarily in your hands when you run the show.

4. The Economy Doesn’t Matter
When Steve Jobs dropped out of college to found Apple Computer in 1976, the United States was coming out one of its worst recessions in recent memory. Do you think his parents thought that was a good idea? Ambition, intelligence, and drive are three entrepreneurial essentials that cannot be stopped, even by the weakest economy. If you surround yourself with the right people, create a work-friendly environment, and keep customer service at a high level, you can succeed in any economic climate.

5. History Is on Your Side
Not only Apple, but CNN, Microsoft, and Burger King were all launched during recessions. Add to that MTV, Hyatt, FedEx, and General Electric and you’ve got an all-star roster of American success stories. The founders of these companies didn’t let a challenging economy stop them from pursuing their dreams. If the entrepreneurial bug has bitten you, waiting around for three years won’t increase your chances of success. Work hard, market yourself aggressively, and don’t take no for an answer.

Final Thoughts
When you do pull the trigger on that startup, make sure you save on costs wherever you can. Market your business for free through social media, hire free labor from students looking to bolster their resume with internships, and negotiate with every contractor and vendor. Remember, they’re more likely to give you a discount in today’s economy. Success is out there waiting for you, so don’t let it wait any longer.

If you have a business idea in mind, what are you waiting for?

Andrew Schrage is co-owner of the MoneyCrashers.com Personal Finance website. The site strives to educate readers on a wide variety of topics, including how to budget for retirement, tips to increase your income, and the best small business credit cards. Schrage hopes to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives as they work to gain and maintain financial freedom.

Image: Transitionaldata.com