Everyone says that startups are fast-paced, innovative and able to take bigger risks more quickly than large companies. But the reality is that too many startups are not prepared for the risk-taking and innovation that has to take place.

Just because a startup is small doesn’t guarantee that it’s agile or decisive.

The agility and decisiveness in a startup comes from its founders. The founders have to be ballsy, risk-taking, innovative and aggressive. If they’re not, they can very quickly find themselves running a “small company.” Small companies are fine, but they’re not startups.

A lot of people want to work at startups because they’re small. They believe that a startup has more camaraderie and less politics than a bigger company. They expect more innovation in a startup, and they expect their work to have more impact and meaning. And all of those things could be true but they’re not automatically true.

The truth is you can get a lot of the benefits described above in a small company that’s not a startup. The difference is that a startup is at a stage where it has to be more innovative, aggressive, soul-searching and decisive. If it’s not, then it’s not a real startup.

Founders: If you’re not decisive, aggressive, soul-searching and capable of pivoting and adjusting (sometimes drastically) then you’re not running a startup. You’re running a small company. That’s OK. Just don’t get the two confused.

Employees: If you’re not genuinely interested in pivoting, adjusting, taking risk, and sometimes flipping on your head with huge change, then you’re not really a startup employee. You’re a small business employee. That’s OK. Just don’t get the two confused.

Startups aren’t small companies. They have a lot of similarities, but they’re not the same. Understanding and executing on the differences is critical for startup success.

Join me for my latest obsession: Surprise.

In thinking about Surprise and how it relates to my business and the Web in general, I realize that there’s absolutely not enough surprise on the Web.

How often do you visit a website and get surprised?

Sure there are crazy, silly, surprising videos on YouTube. And those often spread like wildfire. But what about corporate sites? Startup sites? Business sites? News sites? Personal blogs? Is there ever any Surprise there?

Whether it’s with the copywriting, design or something else, where’s the Surprise on the Web?

Turns out, people like surprises. Who’d a thunk it?

Actually, some surprises may anger, disgust, scare or shock people — but that’s a good thing!

And most important for businesses out there: People will pay for surprise.

Andy Nulman is Mr. Surprise. Go read his blog on surprise. But come back, ok? Better yet, stick around here for awhile, but bookmark his blog link in a separate browser window or tab for later enjoyment.

Beyond being a flamboyant, extravagant genius, Mr. Nulman is also an author. His book is Pow! Right Between the Eyes: Profiting from the Power of Surprise. Go buy it. You won’t regret it. In fact, John Cleese (who wrote one of the book’s forewords) spells it out for you, “But this book. Or you will die.”

People buy a lot of stuff. But what’s really interesting is the motivation behind their purchases. Why are people willing to put out their hard-earned cash for something? There are a few reasons, but one of the most important and lesser-appreciated reasons is Surprise. It’s clear that surprise in business is misunderstood, misused and under-utilized.

People will give you their money if you surprise them. And I don’t think enough people realize the value, importance and power of surprise.

Andy Nulman easygoing writing style makes this a fast read. He has some great, hilarious and poignant examples of how companies have successfully used surprise to make money. And in some cases, lots and lots of money. In some cases, companies have built nearly their entire business existence on surprise. Implementing surprise strategies isn’t easy. It’s both a science and an art, and Andy gives you the guidebook on how to do it properly. Think of the book as one giant motivational kick in the pants.

I want to leave you with Andy’s four surprise theories. He writes, …”all you have to keep in mind are the four key theories that permeate just about every action that causes a delight-filled reaction:

1. Everyone’s a Kid in Disneyland: Andy reminds us that surprise brings out the inner-child in all of us. It doesn’t matter who you are, surprise levels the playing field, opens people up and makes everyone (and everything) more accessible.
2. Balls Beat Brains; Balls Beat Budgets: Big marketing dollars and huge budgets don’t guarantee success in the world of surprise. The truth is you need more guts than brains and more guts than money to pull off huge surprise wins. And action beats inaction any day. Action beats endless planning too; sometimes you have to just “go for it”.
3. Little Things Mean a Lot: And while you’re at it, remember that big wins come in small packages. Success surprise marketing campaigns don’t have to be massive projects. People will notice and hugely appreciate small surprises.
4. Sometimes, There is No Reason: It turns out not everyone does need a reason. In business that may be challenging to accept as we always look for practical step-by-step understanding of what we’re doing and why. But surprise doesn’t have to work that way. Sometimes you have to do something, “just because” and it works like a charm.

After reading Andy’s book I want to find ways to create surprise in everything I do. Not just because it’s fun, frivolous and more interesting to think about than most other business endeavors, but because people pay for surprise. And as a businessperson I like people paying me for stuff.

image courtesy of shuttershock.com

We often hear, “Creativity loves constraints.”

The premise is that real creativity, insight and innovation come out of situations that are constrained in some way. Oftentimes it’s a lack of money that forces startups to be smarter, faster and better. But there are a whole host of constraints — time is another big one — that serve as the sparks of success for the best entrepreneurs out there.

But the truth is that true creativity, innovation and success take constraints and blow them right out of the water. F-ck constraints! What happens when you ignore them completely and look beyond them?

That’s exactly what we see in this incredible video of Tina Seelig (Executive Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program) talking about a class she had given where the assignment to the budding entrepreneurs was this: How much money could you make in 2 hours with $5 of seed funding?

She gave each team $5 and 2 hours to make as much money as possible. They had as much time as they wanted to brainstorm, but once they started, they only had 2 hours to generate the results.

And the results are incredible (and hilarious too). The constraints are so severe, you have to believe that most people given this challenge would give up or spend weeks on end trying to come up with the “perfect plan”. The teams that had the most success blew the constraints out of the water. I don’t want to ruin the surprise, so you’ll just have to watch the video below:

A few more interesting tidbits:

1. At least two of the groups actually iterated and pivoted during their 2 hours. Talk about fast iterations! They started down one path, only to discover better ways of going about things after they got started. Genius!
2. There’s no substitute for doing something. That’s clear with the groups that had success. It’s not that they didn’t think about it, plan, brainstorm, etc. (and it’s not clear how much time they worked on “solving the problem” before they started) but it’s their actions that were important. There were no business plans or slide presentations — just action, evaluation and reaction.
3. The teams that succeeded had a very strong sense of what was going on around them. It’s about having an awareness of your surroundings, to pick up on people’s needs, subtleties in the market that others might not recognize. It’s a good reminder that running straight ahead with your head down like a bull charging a red flag isn’t going to give you the perspective you need to succeed.
4. It’s not clear from the video how big the teams were, but in my mind this is the kind of exercise that only works when you have a tight knit group of 3-4 people. Incidentally that’s the size of team I think is best when starting a company. And by “tight knit” I don’t mean these people had to be childhood friends, but their ability to communicate, delegate and work together had to be exceptional.

I’d love to try this challenge with a group of budding entrepreneurs. Maybe with some university students in an entrepreneurship class. Five dollars and two hours — what would you do?

You certainly wouldn’t let the constraints hold you back, right?

…until you’ve actually done it.

If you’re running a startup, or thinking about it, or have an inclination that some day you want to, or you work at one, go read Paul Graham’s latest essay, What Startups Are Really Like.

For me it reads like my “startup autobiography”. He’s publishing a list of “surprises” that he asked Y Combinator members to send him about startup life. Nearly every single one of them is something I’ve experienced. And I can guarantee you that’s the same for most startup founders.

• People can tell you all they want about what it’s like to run a startup (including me!), but until they’ve done so themselves, they really don’t know.
• And on top of that, you won’t really listen anyway – until you’ve jumped in, started a company and you’re off to the races. Then, as you experience these “surprises” you’ll remember what you were once told (or read) about startups, and hopefully benefit from that knowledge.

But you have to experience it to believe it.

Writing a great survey isn’t easy. At first it might seem straightforward, but after banging out a few questions with your favorite survey tool (I use Wufoo most of the time), you start to see the complexity and intricacies involved.

More and more startups are creating surveys as a means of collecting data from early prospects and customers. I’ve seen a few examples of this implemented; there’s a landing page with an email sign-up, and once you’ve converted, a survey pops up. This is a great way of collecting user feedback. But only if the feedback you collect is useful.

Recently I’ve been helping a friend collect data through surveys for a project he’s working on. (Sadly I can’t go into more detail than that, but it’s definitely interesting!) I logged onto Wufoo, created a new survey, and started writing questions. As I looked back at the questions, I asked myself, “What’s the point of each question?”

Good question.

Actually, out of all the questions I wrote (or asked myself in my head) that was the best one. What’s the point?

In reviewing the questions, I wanted to be crystal clear on each one’s objective. It took me a fairly long time re-working the survey before I felt it was ready for action.

I’m far from an expert survey-writer. And below I’ve included a number of great resource links to help you learn more about writing great surveys. But I wanted to share what I’ve learned to-date:

1. Take the necessary time to write a great survey. Don’t rush this step because you’re eager for customer data. And don’t rush this step because you “just know” that all the answers are going to be what you want. Take your time. Do the research. Think things through.
2. Surveys don’t have to be static. Feel free to iterate on your surveys, changing them as you see data coming in, adding / removing / editing questions as appropriate. I wouldn’t take this step lightly, because it could make the analysis more complicated, but don’t assume you nailed the perfect survey right away. And I think it’s reasonable to try A/B testing your surveys too.
3. Focus on actionable data and metrics. You need results that you can actually do something with. There have been some great posts on actionable metrics. I encourage you to read them all.
4. Be strict with yourself. I found when writing surveys it’s easy to let things slide a bit. You throw in a question, even if you’re not sure it’s right. Or you don’t edit the language carefully enough, assuming people will understand questions clearly. You need to be ultra-vigilant. And you need to be unafraid to kill a question completely if it doesn’t meet the proper standards.
5. Don’t worry too much about length. I’ve experimented a bit with various survey lengths, and haven’t found it’s made a huge difference in completion. I suspect this is similar to the debate between long and short landing pages — it’s not the length that matters as much as the quality and effectiveness of the content.
6. Ask tough questions. You have to force yourself to ask tough questions. You can’t be afraid, otherwise you won’t get enough honest, raw and actionable results. The survey.io tool (for very simple but useful customer surveys) asks, How would you feel if you could no longer use the product? That’s a tough question to ask, because you might not like the answer.
7. Stay open-minded to discovery. As I look at the survey results I’ve collected, I’ve noticed that there’s lots to discover that was unintentional. This may not be a great thing, but it’s still interesting. I have a couple of open-ended paragraph-style questions in the surveys and the results are absolutely fascinating. They lead me to think about new ideas, and also make me want to follow up with respondents to dig further. It’s just about staying open-minded to the possibility that you don’t know everything about everything (which is fairly easy in my case!)

I have a lot to learn about writing great surveys. But one thing is certain: You need to recognize the importance of collecting actionable survey metrics, testing surveys and putting a lot of effort into getting them right.

Here are some resources for writing great surveys:

• Qualtrics Blog – They did a 5-week blog series on writing great survey questions. Here are all the links: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
• Survey Design
• Writing a customer satisfaction survey
• 6 easy steps on how to create customer surveys
• Writing objective survey questions
• Online employee and customer surveys — Great line: “If in doubt, throw it out.”

HubSpot recently raised $16M dollars in a new funding round. The total capital they’ve raised to date: $33M. That’s a huge amount of money. Dharmesh Shah, one of HubSpot’s founders isn’t in love with the idea of raising venture capital (but he did it, and explains why too.) He considers himself a bootstrapping guy.

After raising all that money, Dharmesh tweeted:

Startups: Closing a funding round is not value creation. It’s the *opportunity* to create value.

So what’s the deal?

The reality is this:

• Raising capital is extremely hard. So you can’t deny that it’s an achievement, and one that very few startups ever accomplish. And if one of your goals is raising money, you should recognize the success.
• But where startups fall flat on their faces is when they think that getting investment is THE achievement.

It’s not. But it sure is easy to think that way. Someone hands you a big, fat check (sadly they don’t do it with those really big checks that lottery winners get photographed with, although that could be fun!) and tells you to go spend the money.

But as Dharmesh points out, raising money by itself isn’t real value creation. It’s just one of the tools in your startup toolkit that can be useful. And as much as startups say, “We know this is just the beginning…” it’s clear that there’s an obsessive focus on the importance (some say necessity) of raising capital, and once done, an over-indulgent sense of success.

The biggest challenge for any startup isn’t raising money, building a product, acquiring customers, marketing, hiring, etc. It’s focus. Focus is so hard to accomplish for startups – both in terms of what to focus on and how to focus properly. It’s so hard to take a macro-level focus on prioritizing everything that has to be done, and then be able to get into the insane little details as well.

And when everyone obsesses too much about raising capital it enforces a disproportionate amount of focus on the process and need to do so. And that creates a disproportionate sense of success from getting it done (or the opposite if you don’t.)

Too many startups lack market focus. They don’t really understand their target customer and what that customer wants. And that lack of focus kills startups.

It’s easy to look at and define a big market as a single entity – a giant, amoeba-like blob where everything and everyone in it is basically the same. This is an appealing tactic because it looks good in spreadsheets and presentations. Big markets mean lots of customers, lots of revenue and huge success, right? The “1% of a big market” argument becomes even more appealing when you look at a market with a 20,000 foot view. And one of the most common pieces of investor feedback to entrepreneurs (as to why they won’t invest) is that the target market isn’t big enough. So naturally, entrepreneurs want to focus on big markets.

The problem is that once you look inside a big market you find an incredible amount of diversity. You find different types of customers. Different needs. Different pain points.

One obvious way of segmenting is based on the size of the customer. Software companies often do this – focusing on SMBs (small / medium-sized businesses) or Enterprise customers. Mark Suster has a great post where he says that startups should be deer hunters. But even within each of those “target markets” there can be incredible variance.

There are lots of ways to segment a market and focus on specific verticals. What’s important to remember is this:

It’s better to do an insanely kick-ass job for a small group of people than do a so-so job for a lot of people.

• You need to truly understand the differences within your “big market” and why they exist. Rest assured there are differences, and they can be significant. Steve Blank points out that a common mistake people make when giving advice is that all startups are the same
• You’ll need less capital.
• You can launch faster.
• You’ll build a stronger brand.
• You need to succeed (or fail) in a hyper-focused market first, so that you can take those lessons into other areas. With the knowledge gained in the first vertical, you can make smarter decisions about the potential in other verticals.

Ultimately it comes down to lowering risk.

Having a strong market focus reduces risk. It doesn’t guarantee success but it should increase the speed at which you learn, and allow you to stay more agile and pivot more quickly.

Remember: You can’t please everyone all the time, so don’t even try.

photo by rawheadrex

Hiring at startups is hard. Get a handful of startup people in a room and ask them about their biggest challenges and hiring is always at (or near) the top of the list.

Typically startups don’t offer the same salaries and benefits found at larger companies. Some argue that the risk is higher (although I don’t think so). At minimum, there’s a perceived higher risk working at a startup. And in a lot of cases (especially in markets that aren’t as startup-centric), university graduates don’t even realize that startup opportunities exist.

So how can you hire successfully for your startup?

First and foremost it takes work. Sorry, there’s no easy answer. When it’s time to hire for your startup, you need to invest a significant amount of time on it. I’m speaking directly to founders. Don’t delegate the task. Don’t rely exclusively on recruiters. It’s your startup – you find the right people to fit in.

And one of the best ways to improve your odds of finding people is to build a magnet.

Magnets attract things to them. Your startup needs to do the same — but instead of attracting shiny, metal things, it needs to attract an even more previous resource: people.

Get successful enough at turning your startup into a magnet and people will be coming to you for a job. That’s right, people will be asking you to hire them, even if you haven’t posted job openings; people will be referring their friends, recommending your company and more.

And how do you turn your startup into a recruiting magnet?

It really comes down to building buzz. You have to be careful that you don’t get overwhelmed or overly inspired by your own hype (because hype on its own is empty, and hype isn’t an end goal or measure of success) — but it definitely helps. You need local buzz. And it has to be as grassroots as possible, because that’s where the talent is hanging out.

Sidebar:

I’m convinced that in less-than-uber-startup markets like Montreal (and anywhere for that matter, outside of Silicon Valley and Boston) there are a significant number of highly qualified people working in small, unknown companies, just waiting to be plucked out of their boring environments and thrown into startup life. These small companies are breeding grounds for startup employees. For one, these people already recognize some of the benefits working in small companies. Secondly, these small companies are often not gaining any significant momentum, so their employees’ eyes are wandering.

Here are 10 ideas on how you can build local buzz and turn your startup into a recruiting magnet:

1. Attend events. This is obvious. Go to as many relevant events as you can. Even some that don’t seem totally relevant; go to those too. But you have to maximize your attendance…
2. Have your pitch ready. Pitches aren’t just for investors. They’re for candidates too. Actually, you want your pitch ready for pretty much everyone you speak to. You never know when you’re going to speak to someone that knows someone that knows someone that’s a superstar startup person looking for new opportunities.
3. Know the talent. If you’re hiring Ruby on Rails developers, you should have a list of 20 top ones in your area. It’s not hard to find them. Get the list, memorize it and make sure you go out and meet those people. Meet their friends. Get yourself involved with the best talent; even if they’re not ready to jump ship, they might know someone else.
4. Know the competition. I’m not referring to competition for your business, but competition for talent. Who else is hiring? What are they doing? How are they doing it?
5. Sponsor events. Sometimes attendance isn’t enough. Think about sponsoring a local event. Or volunteer and meet the other volunteers.
6. Speak at events. Don’t have the money to sponsor an event? Try and get a speaking gig then. Maybe it’s a pitch event (if it is, pitch at it.) Speaking, in general, is a great way of demonstrating a certain amount of expertise, and building your reputation.
7. It’s not just about the company’s reputation. Companies do have their own brands, but the founders better be damn sure they’re building and promoting their own personal brands as well. A lot of startup employees will base a significant portion of their decision to work for you based on you (and the other founders).
8. Get buzz outside the local area. Sometimes the best way of building buzz within your own city is to build buzz outside your city. Getting written up on relevant blogs, for example, can build up awareness at a local level. Another good idea: Get a guest writing gig on a popular, relevant blog. Promote that yourself, after the fact.
9. Write your own blog. I believe that company founders should be blogging. Again, it comes down to building and promoting of your reputation in order to attract others to you. People naturally want to work with other smart, successful people. So get out there and build that up as quickly as you can.
10. Attract local media. Meet and network with the local reporters. Pitch them stories. Offer to be a source for relevant stories where your expertise might be useful. Soon you’ll be quoted in the newspaper and may have your own feature piece about your startup as well. That’s great press.

I told you it would take work. But honestly, there’s no excuse for not doing this stuff.

Three other key points:

1. Make it easy for people to apply. Don’t go to all the effort to build up buzz around your company and yourself (and other founders) only to realize that no one can find your job postings online, or a way to apply. Make it dead simple and very obvious how people should apply to your company. And I’d think about making the process interesting, fun and unique. That’s just going to add to the buzz around your startup.
2. Referrals are key. Most early employees at a startup are there because of a referral. And most of the time those referrals are one degree away – you know someone that knows the perfect person. But if you don’t have a big network, or you’re looking for someone that’s not a match for your network, you need to think wider. A startup magnet can be so powerful that it gets people through the door via referrals from people you might not even know. It’s possible.
3. Building buzz is good for business too. Building buzz has obvious benefits for your startup beyond recruiting. Just don’t “believe the hype” to the point where you think you’ve won before the game has really started.

Even in a relatively small startup community like Montreal, I’m always surprised at how many startups I don’t know. In some ways I’m pleasantly surprised because it’s an indication of the growing startup community in Montreal. But in other ways I’m disappointed because it means these companies haven’t built up enough local buzz. And I can almost guarantee that as a result of that, they’re not finding the people they need to grow their companies and succeed.

Without top talent you’ll fail. That’s about as close to guaranteed as they come. So if that’s the case, why aren’t you investing more time in recruiting?

Build a startup magnet. Attract the right people. It works.

I’m a fervent believer in the value of cultivating and promoting one’s personal brand. I’ve put a fair amount of thought and effort into my own personal brand and reaped considerable benefits. If you want to advance your career in some way (whether it’s move up the proverbial ladder, get a new job, break away and go freelance, change careers, etc.) you should be investing in the cultivation and promotion of your personal brand as well.

But not everyone gets it. And as such, there are risks.

The main risk is that it (both your personal brand and your efforts at promoting it) is seen as inauthentic.

This is critical to understand. Your personal brand can’t be a fabrication. You’re not attempting to develop a false persona for yourself, even if the Internet gives you the ability to do so from behind a computer screen.

Here are 4 things to remember:

1. You can be brazen. The Internet does afford you the opportunity to be bolder and braver; a lot of people have developed online personalities that are much more adventurous and outgoing than how they act in-person.
2. But don’t lie. Lying to people and to yourself will never work. You might be stretching boundaries online, but if your in-person efforts and reality don’t closely mirror how you project yourself online, you won’t find the same level of real success. You’ll come off as inauthentic.
3. Marketing is OK. Marketing isn’t a dirty word. Marketing yourself is OK. In fact, I recommend it. But a lot of people do consider “marketing” to be a dirty word; they think about irritating commercials online, or advertising that interrupts their day. They think “fake”. All the more reason your personal branding efforts need to be authentic and real.
4. You don’t have to make excuses. If you want something, go get it. That’s pretty much how things work. So you shouldn’t feel bad or ashamed for trying to move forward and succeed.
5. Personal branding isn’t cheesy. I’ll admit that when I say “personal brand” out loud a few times in a conversation it does sound a bit cheesy, but the principles behind developing and cultivating your brand do work. So get past the cheesiness of it.

Recently someone asked me, “Isn’t your personal brand just your reputation? And personal brand is just a new, silly buzzword?”

Not quite. I see your personal brand as an extension of your reputation. And I see you having more influence over your personal brand than over your reputation, in terms of how you promote and cultivate it.

But remember, there is potential to come across as inauthentic, and that can do serious damage.

For some great lessons and information on personal branding check out the book Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success by Dan Schawbel.

photo from a2gemma