Sharel's Blog

Why business owners should use social media in a more personal way?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Mon, 16 May 2011 08:26:00 +0000

Broadcast marketing has its advantages, you can communicate your message to a large crowd, and over time, you will build brand awareness that will result in more business value...

However, more and more users on social media, learned to filter the noise, and focus on what matters to them...

Here are the facts:

"10% Of Twitter Users Account For 90% Of Twitter Activity" - BusinessInsider.com
"Nearly half of all Twitter users don’t read a word you say." - TheNextWeb.com

What does it mean to us?

That relationship building and online marketing is constantly changing to a more personalized way...

Mention a person, DM him, Engage with him on a personal level seems like a more productive way to reach your business goals online... however its not a scalable way... hopefully more and more tools will appear that will help business owners better engage their community on a more personal way :)

Make sense?

What Commun.it users are saying about us?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 20:01:00 +0000

Commun.it helps online businesses to build meaningful, personal relationships with focus on the high-value relationships (Influancers, supporters, Most engaged members etc.) which helps them to achieve their marketing goals to grows engagement, build real connections within the social space, grow market awareness and eventually grow sales and customers life-time value.

All in a stress-free, easy to use and actionable social CRM platform.

Our company name is GR8PPL, and our passion is people, and the relationship between them...

Here are some customer testimonials about us, we are very proud to share it :)

Testimonials:

"A great tool for community management for Twitter (Commun.it)... I mention a great tool for Twitter community management called Commun.it. I highly suggest you check it out." Definingnewmedia.com
"Finally a social media tool that grows engagement and is actually useful to creating real connections within the social space. Since the team here at You Brand, Inc. first got introduced to Commun.it we've used it daily. If you want a tool that will help you build real connections in social media you will love this tool." Scott Scanlon, CEO, You Brand, Inc.
"In the language of Commun.it, they are our supporters."- ItinerantEntrepreneur.com
"Commun.it – I use it to better monitor those who follow with me and engage." - BenjaminBeck.com
“Looking for the next great #SCRM tool? We're loving @commun_it to manage online leads. Imagine #hootsuite, but targeted for salesppl...” - @TA_Vision
"Commun.it: community management software (social CRM)" - ItinerantEntrepreneur.com
"It was a genuine response instead of an auto-responder and it didn’t include a sales pitch. I was shocked, and it wasn’t until this point that I decided to check out his website Commun.it" - BenjaminBeck.com
“Very cool stuff here in commun.it - I'm digging into the influencers. Great thing here - showed me someone that retweeted my post without using my name. How else would I know? That's freaking cool” - @rdempsey
More:

What is social sales? what is social engagement?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 11:46:00 +0000

"Sales is changing constantly, and what has changed now is the nature of the engagement between sales person and his customers."

Each person who is active online via social media want to make a difference, and manage the meaningful relationships that help him to make the change...add value to the world and his personal brand or business brand.

This post include a recommended 5 min movie that talk on social sales, and soem quoters from julien post on "how to survive the social-crash"....

In order to make a difference, we need to understand the ecosystem we live in and what was changed... i think that the biggest change is the way sales are being done.. all of the free social networks are great for the social networks, but what is the ROI for your community menders, what is the value to you or your business...

Check this post by @julien http://inoveryourhead.net/how-to-survive-the-social-crash/:

"There are those who know how to really turn networks into an income stream, by the way. They are called SALESPEOPLE."
"Do you consider yourself a salesperson? This is not most of us. Most people are anxious about turning weak ties into money, but for some, it may be necessary.
So your options are to step out, or to learn to create value from what you have built by stretching your social contract to include selling to them."

So why this "social salespeople" has changed and entered our life? two reasons according to the movie below:

Social media explosion - the way people consume and get information has changed... sales person are not needed... each consumer validate his buying with his social community and the web

Not every consumer is a business person, but every business person is a consumer - so the consumer buy habits has changed to to B2B relationship, consumers dont need to get the info from their sales person... they can get it online..
The pre-sales process has become harder... since the brand and his online review sale, and not the salesperson...so salesperson need to work much much harder to gain the trust of their prospects, REALLY understand the market and the prospect pain and ecosystem.

No sales/marketing budgets - the recent financial crisis forced business to make sales and marketing in less funding.

So, when a person want to sell, he need to think social, and understand:

What value I as a sales person bring to my prospects and customers.
How do I get involved in this process.

One simple answer is you need to "JOIN THE CONVERSATION", hang out where your customers hang out... since they get information from others... no you...

In addition need an ability to:

Filter the right data for you
Contact with customers with context of their world...

So... building meaningful relationship via social media is probably the best strategy to make a difference..

Question: a person have a limited amount of time a day, so you have two options build canned relationship or build a strong relationship but it takes more time... the tradeoff is the # of followers... what would you choose?

A. have 50k followers on twitter, yet with no strong meaningful relationship
B. have 500 followers who are fans, follow you back and in touch

I think that all of us should start thinking about B...

The wrap it up, please take 5 min to watch this movie that talk on the above issue, it will open your mind of what is social what is sales and how they merge in our life...

p.s.

This is why i write this blog... its not professional , has many speling and grammer mistakes and mostly read by a really small amount of people... however this are the people i know, and interact with... this are the people that will be around for years, and together we could grow and learn from one another...

What is social CRM? Social Businesses?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:29:00 +0000

Great questions...
Not sure there is a right answer... however there may be the "right answer to you".. based on your business, it's maturity level, your target market, your customers target market, your social presence, your social brand, your marketing goals, your social media maketing goals, your budget, the company maturity towards social marketing , the tools the company use now and their ability to integrate, your need to scale, future plans, they way you drive traffic now, your CPA, your customer LTV...

This post include quotes and references from market experts who talk more on this subject...

I'm very passionate about people, and building strong relationship with people online and offline, I'm so passionate about it, that I read about it, try it myself and talk to many business and power users, try to understand how they do it, what are the good and bad things they do and together find a win win that create value.

If your in the business of value creation, like I do (a.k.a entrepreneur ) you know how hard it is to create value, and how powerful it is once you do it.

So, how things looks now:

For SMBs:

75% of small businesses will do even more social media marketing in 2011 (Source: businessinsider.com)
63% thought social networking drove their sales and increased revenue (Source: businessinsider.com)

For corporates:

“Gartner’s first Magic Quadrant for Social CRM responds to the growing interest and investment in social applications to support sales, marketing and customer service business processes. Social CRM application spending will grow at a faster rate than traditional CRM spending.”
"New study from SugarCRM: Only 26 percent said they currently integrate their customers' social networking information with their existing CRM data. 72 percent said they plan to do so within the next year. " (Source: 1to1media.com)

So what is social CRM:

“Social CRM is the business strategy of engaging customers through Social Media with goal of building trust and brand loyalty” (Source: Thoughts on Social CRM)
"Social CRM incorporate social media efforts into overall customer strategies - links a company's social activity with its overall business goals and customer strategy" (Source: 1to1media.com)
"It's a philosophy about engaging customers in all you do and be more social as a company. It's still very much in the experimental phase." (Source: 1to1media.com)

What is the ROI of social CRM:

“a recent survey by Econsultancy found that 47% of the companies it surveyed said they were “not able to measure” their campaigns” (Source: Mashbale)
“The most important formula in social media is your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). In a very basic sense, Customer Lifetime Value is the amount of revenue a customer will bring to your company over the course of their lifetime with your brand."

How most companies use social media CRM:

"Most businesses use social media tools to connect with customers for branding, customer service, information sharing, and collecting voice of the customer insight. Most also have CRM systems and other customer data initiatives in place around their traditional customer touchpoints. So it would make sense that social media programs be integrated with a company's overall customer strategy." (Source: 1to1media.com)

Why Social CRM is hard:

"Social CRM is easier said than done, says Akula of NICE Systems.Challenges include data privacy issues, culture change management, and technology limitations. very difficult to connect the dots from third-party systems to internal systems " (Source: 1to1media.com)

The Social CRM future:

The consensus among experts is that there's no looking back when it comes to social CRM initiatives. Morgan predicts even further advancement through personalization and customer collaboration to drive social business. "Customers will have more of a say in how they create and distribute products, and companies will be more transparent and willing to co-create."

as the social CRm evolves, so is its definition, and deep understanding... more to be followed...

Make sense? what do you think...

Thanks,
Sharel

The reason is Why? Why Apple is so innovative?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 14:37:00 +0000

"People don't buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it" (@simonsinek)

Many people say their product or company failed to win for the following reasons:

Under capitalized
Not the right people in the team
Bad market conditions

Yet, many people who has the above failed...read more ...

So what make business win... i guess you should have the above ;) but also a DNA of people who BELIVE in what they do...the "believe" always start with WHY you do it...

"Do business with people who believe in what you believe... Hire people who believe in what you believe..."

Apple elevator pitch as an example:

With no WHY, no company believe: "We make great computers, they are beautiful design, simple to use and user friendly, want to buy one?"
With WHY: "We believe in challenging the Status quo we believe in thinking differently, the way we challenge the Status quo is by making our product beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly, we just happen to make great computers, want to buy one?"

Drill down:

WHY - We believe in challenging the Status quo we believe in thinking differently
HOW - Our products are beautiful design, simple to use and user friendly
WHAT - Make Great computers

How does it work in product adaption.... check the "The low of diffusion of innovations" -- Diffusion of Innovations is a theory of how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures.

What the The low of diffusion of innovations tells us: If you want mass market success or mass market acceptant of an idea... you can't have it without achieving the tipping point between 15-18% market penetration... which can achieved with people who believe in WHY you do it... since its a long road...

Inspiration to this post by the TED presentation by @simonsinek:

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action | Video on TED.com

Check more of Simon message here: http://www.startwithwhy.com/

What are the characteristic of a leader?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 16:01:00 +0000

I have seen this movie and was very inspired by it, I showed it to my wife and asked what she think about him, she said: "Nice guy, seems very smart and that he achieved some things in life, who is it?" and I said this is the "legendary investor Warren Buffett", a man whos fothern is estimated at 45 billion dolars, and a notable philanthropist, having pledged to give away 99 percent of his fortune to philanthropic causes!

This is my example of a leader...
, in this talk he says there are 3 important things in a leader, and at the end of the day its not about your graders, your Intelligence, you passion or your skills, its about integrity and your ability to create vibe around you and inspire others to do great things with you... its a person who give credit to others for his own success, a person who people love to love and a person who build thing's which are bigger them himself...

Two live examples:

1. How to evaluate who will be successful?

2. Another example of when he say "We" instead of "I" regarding a decision he made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc791is6X0o

What is the DNA of a startup CEO / Lead entrepreneur?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:00:00 +0000

Well, I don't think there is such a thing, if there were, then entrepreneurship will be easy :)

I believe that action speaks louder then words and that with success no one can argue, so what makes a good CEO... a LEADER, who just do it and curve step by step to create a reality from a vision...

A leader - and leadership cant be learned but earned :)

gr8 quotes and video inside from Naval from VentrureHacks, Art Williams and more...

This is from the "The ABCs of American Culture":

You can’t argue with success.
Just Do it or Just fucking Do it.
No pain, no gain / no guts, no glory!

So, what are the results we expect to see? an ability to build a team with the right DNA inside, take vision and turn it into reality, raise funding, sell the company to customers and investors...

Here is a list of the charterers we expect to see, that can lead a startup from vision into reality:

First you must be an entrepreneur, I like this definition by Naval Ravikant (@naval) from venture hacks (Movie here):

DNA of an entrepreneur:

Passionate
Irrational optimistic
highly committed

and should be a people person, Its the people! stupid - Find a great partner,

DNA of a co-founder:

Very smart
Very high energy
High integrity.

Video: Gigaom.com: Entrepreneur DNA video by Naval Ravikant

But you must also be a team player and have the DNA of a co-founder, are you a personal contributor or a leader ?

The DNA of a co-Founder by Venture hacks (here):

Take responsibility for the outcome of the company.
Work above and beyond the call of duty repeatedly.
Stick with you through thick and thin.
Voluntarily sacrifice their salary or even things that might seem like it’s good for them, for the betterment of the company

Presentation:

How To Pick A Co Founder (Mini)

View more webinars from Venture Hacks .

Let me finish in what i thin is the most important character... be a winner! and no one say it better then Art Williams: The key to win in biz is not the superficial things like IQ, the way you talk or walk or dress, its not your degree etc. it's what inside a person, your heart and spirit

The DNA of a winner (By Art Williams)

Integrity
People ability
character
Mental toughness
Be Excited - Positive, existed enthusiastic and tough , for 30 years or how long it takes to win!

The most motivating speech ever from Art Williams:

Good vibe,
Sharel

Blogosphere market stats - how big and profitable it is?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:33:00 +0000

As you know, I am passionate about social media and blogging, and I think that this is a big growing fast market who is starting to become profitable...

Often people tell me that the professional blogging world is not big enough or profitable, so here are
some facts to show the world that its big and profitable and growing fast, really fast...

But how big it really is, and how much money we can find there? in this post you will read some interesting facts...

Here are the facts:
"In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers or computer programmers" (source: The Wall Street Journal).

The professional blogging market is a big, profitable and growing market: There are over over 20 million bloggers, with 1.7 million profiting from the work (average annual revenue from advertising alone is $15k), and 452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income (1% makes over $200k per month). That's almost 2 million Americans getting paid for blogging, more than lawyers! By 2012, the expected growth rate of blogs is 75%.(source for these stats: The Wall Street Journal , Technorati State Of The Blogosphere 2009 ,emarketer).

More drill down:

By 2012, the expected growth rate of blogs is 75%, and more than 145 million people (67% of the US Internet population) will be reading blogs at least once a month.

The Internet’s share of total media advertising spending increased by 15% in 2010 to over 20% in 2014, reaching $25.1 billion in 2010, (representing 10.8% growth over last year) and 36.3 billion in 2014, contentiously growing over newspapers that are losing revenue for 50 years.

, so a 40 billion online advertising market in 2014, where more then 70% of the target market is reading blogs equals to a very big market potential.(Source:emarketer: Online to take one-fifth of total ad spend by 2014, mediapost: Ads Up In Q1... Benchmarks for Planning)

How much a professional blooger make for a year in average: Evaluating positive and negative cashflows, we see that the mean profits for professional blogs with is $57,369.20" (Source:Technorati)

which include the following:
- Average annual revenue from advertising alone on professional blogs is $42,548 ($15,000 for part-timers bloggers, and $120,000 for self-employed):

In addition to advertising there are more blog-related revenue in the form of speaking fees and payments for contributing to print media or participating in broadcasts. (Source: technorati)
The average annual spending on blog is over $11,000
"It takes about 100,000 unique visitors a month to generate an income of $75,000 a year." (Source: WSJ)
Pros-bloggers who work for companies are typically paid $45,000 to $90,000 a year for their blogging. One percent make over $200,000.
(source for these stats: The Wall Street Journal , Technorati State Of The Blogosphere 2009, eMarketer, Forbes, emarketer: "Blogs Blossom into a Big Business").

So big enough? profitable enough? growing fast.... i say YES :)

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, how to make it simple?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:11:00 +0000

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." ~Albert Einstein
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." ~Leonardo DaVinci
"How many things are there which I do not want." ~Socrates

We all know the Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

For example: 80% of the users use 20% of the product feature set, 80% of all cars drive on 20% of the roads...read more...

So, its our goal to create and use products that give us 20% of the feature set, and leave the 80% aside... 37signals in their great book ReWrok talk about their philosophy, they are proud of the features they are NOT adding, rather the ones they are adding...

Creating value to the world is hard, it requires hours of work, dedication, passion and vision, but at the end of the day it should be simple...

e=mc2 - a simple memorable equation, that changed the world and the way we look at time and space, I am sure this formula could be much more complected.... but then it would not be perfect and change the world :)

See more great quotes about simplicity here...

What do you think?

Is simplicity is the right way to go? how can it involve innovation, creativity and ease of use while thinking of the product growth, premium features and buisness scale...

What are the recommended inspiration books for entrepreneurs ?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:19:00 +0000

Lately I found myself reading a lot... Or, more correct hearing a lot, I am a HUG fan of audiobooks, I mostly use www.audible.com. you must try, it's a life changing experiance to hear a books, suddently I can't wait to go shopping, since I can hear Seth Godin (@ThisIsSethsBlog) or Chris Brogan(@chrisBrogan) or Malcolm Gladwell (@gladwell) talks to me for an hour :) Yap, most of the times the book author reads his own book, so he pays special attention to intonation and pass a message as reading....full list below...

Some people ask me what was that book you told me about, or i have a few days off which book should i read... so here is my latest list of book I recommend all entrepreneurs to read in order to be inspired.

So here are my favorite "inspiration" authors (some of which I had to pleasure to meet or talk.. whoo):

Seth Godin (@ThisIsSethsBlog)
Chris Brogan(@chrisBrogan)
Malcolm Gladwell (@gladwell)
Jason Fried from 37signals (@jasonfried)
Clayton M. Christensen

And here are the books and some thought bout them... have fan, and please tell me if you think i missed someone, i will love to read his book, get inspired and add him to this post :)
---

Outliers: The Story of Success

by Malcolm Gladwell

Comment: "The story of successful people, what is in there DNA... at the end of the day its a lot of hard work, dedication, don't quit and believe in yourself for days, months and years... well over 10,000 hours of dedication..."

The Innovators DNA (Harvard Business Review)

by Gregerson, Christensen, Jeffrey, Hal, Clayton H., B., M. Dyer

Comment: "Another great short article by Clayton M. Christensen and others who talk about the DNA of a successful CEO.

Great short read and very inspiring, show us that only with hard work, and thinking big we can achieve something that provides value to the world."

The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth

by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor

Comment: "Clayton M. Christensen the writer of the must read book "The Innovator's Dilemma" in a book where he talks about big companies, and the important of a scalable business model.
More relevant for big companies CEO's, but can and should inspire young entrepreneurs to think big, act big and succeed big :)"

The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)

by Seth Godin

Comment: "Old one by Seth Godin, who talks about when to quit and when to stick...
I wrote a blog post about it here: http://www.sharelomer.com/2010/06/kung-fu-of-quitting-like-attracts-like.html
Loved this book and read it also several times (small easy light book).
a must for anyone who ever thinks about quitting..."

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

by Seth Godin

Comment: "The amazing Seth Godin in one of his best books, not just about marketing but about creativity, art, passion and the true understanding that we are all artists (if we want to)
Read it two times, and loved it!!!!!
A must read for every entrepreneur !"

Rework

by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson

Comment: "Amazing book by the founders of 37signals, who talk about a different way to build internet startups and sustainable companies with: NO FUDNING, NO EXIT STRATEGY.
I loved it and learned a lot from it... (Read it 3 times already and can't get enough :) ) Jason and the team did a great work!"

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

by Malcolm Gladwell

Comment: "Amazing book about out cognitive thinking can convert into method, a system that let you get better decisions and improve your intuition :)"

Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust

by Chris Brogan, Julien Smith

Comment: "The world is changing,there are no more barriers between biz and personal and brand, all want personal relashship to achive more bix opp.

We provide to [biz and social persona and brand == trust agent] a personal and professional and social relationship management system.
Brand is a person person is a brand."

--

What's your favorite inspiration book?

When to quit ? When to stick?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:07:00 +0000

"Pain is nothing, compared to what it feels like to quit"

This post was inspired by Seth Godin (@@ThisIsSethsBlog) (books: "The dip", "Linchpin"), Art Williams (Just do it Speach) and Richard Branson (@richardbranson)... with such a great team we can't lose :)

Include two great videos and quotes...

When we start somethings its new and fun, we are passionate and excited, but, like in all cases, as we continue the wind shifts, we are facing with reality, and in our quest to provide value to the world we start to get difficulties, and we start to ask our-self do I really like what we do, why not move to another adventure, I may need another partner to help me, how can do we grow from here....and you may quit.

Quit once - good, quit twice - great quit three times - not so good quit more and you are a serial quitter who quitter for the right reasons, just too many times...

Many people say: Show me a winner and I will show you someone who did not quit, a person with an heart, passion and vision who see the light at the end of the tunnel and fight his way with passion for days, weeks, months and years.

Check this great video from Seth Godin and Richard Branson: learning from failure:

People can be passionate for a month, others for a year but only real winners are passions as long as it takes to win.
Check this video I love by Art Williams:

Like Seth Godin say in his book the dip: "Its almost impossible to over-invest in becoming the market leader"
Like Art William say:"people can do 99% of the things right, yet, if they don't possess that 1% of mental toughness they will lose."

So, what is new here... the perspective, how can you turn a need to quit into passion to keep on going, how can we Kung-fu our need to quit for a real passion to stay...

Important note: The opposite of quitting is not waiting around and see what happens, its to Kung-fu the need to quit and reverse it into re-dedication by adding a new strategy to break the problem apart.

Embrace the need to quit with a need to change and evolve from there, like all things in nature we evolve when its hard, not when its easy, we grow from our mistakes.

So... fight the resistance, stop attracting quitting as an option to become a winner :)

Pivoting... a key sucess factor for startups, but when and why ?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 06:22:00 +0000

There are several great posts about pivoting, for example:

Mark Suster (@msuster) a VC and ex entrepreneur from from GRP Partners: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/12/17/what-makes-an-entrepreneur-310-ability-to-pivot/
Chris Dixon (@cdixon), CEO of Hunch.com http://cdixon.org/2010/06/14/pivoting

In order to pivot you need to let go of the old and focus on the new, no one knows if the new is better then the old, and its hard making a decision that may turn bad on you...read more and hear a gr8 movie...

The book 'Innovator's dilemma' (by Clayton Christensen ) talks about this issue of pivoting in companies and why it most of the time fail... mostly since they are focused on there current business and current customers and can't pivot without taking a huge risk... this is on of the reasons why most startups do things that big companies can do in a sec, but don't.

A good advice to follow is by Steve Blank the man behind the book 'The four steps to the epiphany' who talks about customer development plan: First find a repeatable and scalable businesses model and only then build the company around it and grow...

Check Steve's keynote at startup lessons learn conference here:

Why Accountants Don't Run Startups

How to build a successful software company: vision, pivot, team harmony, tight feedback loop.

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Mon, 10 May 2010 11:12:00 +0000

“A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.” (Eric Ries startuplessonslearned.com)

Most Internet consumer startps fail! (over 95% of them :( ) Imagine the process: get an idea, passionately find co-founders and recruit a team, start building a product, start engaging with customers, build business plan, financial reports, establish a company, bootstrap your way, somehow financial getting by while keep on passionately believe in the vision and pump it up to the team, pivot all the time from the original plan believe in your to gut feeling and team feedback's... then raise seed funding, then maybe round A and then FAIL :( ... like most startups... include 2 great success stories, videos and more inspiration...read more...

We need a lot of successful startups, we need more investments in the Internet consumer sector, so how can we try to fail less and succeed more? Check the movie below by Eric Ries and the study case of Xobni. They way i see it:
1. helping one another, even if its a potential competitor - his success is your success!
2. build the right echo system of founders who can balance one another, and drive the sheep towards its lighthouse... (Inspired by Yaron Galai lighthouse methphore)
3. Pivot / Mind flexibility- and the maturity to make the right decisions (hard ones) if its fit with the team and product and customer echo system.
4. Tight feedback loop with users and customers - build what they want and need, solve them a real pain. as Venture hacks say (page 16 on pitching hacks by venturehacks): "The product doesn't need to be great; it just has to basically work. And, the market doesn't care how good the team is, as long as the team can produce that viable product. Customers are knocking down your door to get the product; the main goal is to actually answer the phone and respond to all the e-mails from people who want to buy."

Check this Lessons Learned movie by Eric Ries:

I often use the ship heading to its direction as a metaphor (Inspired by Yaron Galai lighthouse methphore): A team of people on a ship heading to a lighthouse far far away, one that is not seen. the team navigate with the stars alone, in the ship there are different people with different abilities and different responsibilities, working in Harmony to get the ship running towards the right direction. There are a lot of unexpected challenges, underline currents, storms, clouds and wind, but the ship keep on sailing forward, pivot from time to time till it reach its destiny, a lighthouse that was there all along, waiting for a ship to arrive :)

Case study: Xobni "The 5 stages of Xobni's growth; 5 pivots along the way":

Smile to the world, and the world will smile to you, help others and they will help you....circle of life!

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 22:09:00 +0000

We all grow and learn from others success - i think it will make us more successful.

Sometime we may think that a competitor/other company progress is bad for our company. I don't, at the end of the day, any progress that happen in the startup world had a direct connection to other startups success.

The more that we help others to succeed, we grow ourselves and make us more successful.

Look at investments for example, the more startup will succeed, the more investments will come, when and internet startup will get an IPO (FB, twitter ...? ) then more VC money will come, more money will be direct to the industry, attracting better people, create new initiatives, adding new angle investors and provide to the end users more selection to choose from, ultimately adding more consumers to each industry.

here is a small example of how i promote Balsamiq Mockups (Balsamiq page), note that this video was seen by almost 2000 people, i hope it added new clients to Balsamiq :)

So Smile to the world, and the world will smile to you, help others and they will help you....circle of life.

The Mindset of a Winner: what get's you out of bed after you succeed once?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:03:00 +0000

Success is a journey, filled with endless opportunities and challenges.

The uniqueness is what makes the different, and the difference is made by passionate people doing what they are in love with.

Seth Godin explains why being exactly like every one else is not the way to go, and its all about taking another ski slope down the mountain before the day ends:

"Just like skiing, the goal is not to get to the button of the hill, the goal is to have a bunch of good runs before the end of the day." Seth Godin
... That's what life is, a serious of good runs down the ski hill, time after time after time...

So what is your passion? what will get you out of bed after you succeed once, and twice and so on...

"People don't know what they want" ?

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:50:00 +0000

"People don't know what they want" (10:20) - People won't tell you what they want, its a mystery! People should be provided with the right choices that will lead them to happiness.

The one and only Malcolm Gladwell, talks about the nature of choice and happiness.

Another key message is the power of horizontal segmentation in consumer products - different kind of product to provide value to specific people -- "human variability"

We see it a lot in products, give people what they need, not what they want..

If you would ask people if the next big thing is going to be micro-blogging they would say no way, we have SMS, we have blogs, we have mails, why do we need a micro-blog that contain only 140 characters to communicate with others? pitching it to investors will problem fail as well... but.. people use it and use it a lot sine they suddenly understood - i need a marketing tool to get the msg across fast, to the point and to my community of followers.

Do the right thing!

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:19:00 +0000

On my last trip to the US i was in NY, for the WEB 2.0 Expo I heard Tim O'Reilly Keynote, talking about the web and core players influences.

I will love to see a world of unified apps and real ecosystem mashup.

Web 2.0 Expo NY 09: Tim O'Reilly, "The O'Reilly Radar":

there is a great post by Mark Suster: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/02/17/app-is-crap-why-apple-is-bad-for-your-health talking about apple "dominance in mobile is not good for the industry." which made me think about apps and their influences in a large scale.

Companies spend millions on apps like maps,cloud computing, smart mails, search engines, mobile phones, speech recognition, picture recognition, automated translation, online docs,search books and Google give it for FREE, and as we speak on day 1 Google buzz is bigger then twitter.

Its not science fiction to hear that Google just launched a satellite to space in order to provide wireless high speed internet :).. and for free :) to anyone uses Google.

Microsoft dominates the world and got sued, Google dominates the world and i love them, i use all of their products and services. but the big question is, on the long term is Google like companies are good for the industry, entrepreneurs, businesses etc. i think that we have not seen many IPO's in the past years since big cooperation's simple "changed the game" (like Chris Brogan likes to say), which eventually causes less investments in the industry since in 5-7 years you cant see companies grow, its much more likely to get an exit.

Lets hope to see a vision that one day the internet will look like this:

When think of innovations, apps and life, we should do the right thing... who knows where it will lead us, make our own game:
"Do the right thing. you will gratify some people, and astonish the rest."
-Mark Twain

Convert vision into reality with product/ technology/ Team and Customers

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:25:00 +0000

Apple was established on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne.

Now 30 years later apple is an enterprise of innovation and creativity, that its visions of standing in the crossroads of Technology and Liberal Art stood in the test of time.

A person vision that converts into reality in his lifetime is simply divine! so unique you can compare it to a sun eclipse of rain of meteors (it happens, but there must be a 3rd party involved :) )

I believe that the visionary ability to execute his vision lay in his team, people who help him speak the language and make the vision a reality.

A lot has been said about Steve Jobs, mostly that he his an hard man to work with a "my way or the highway" kind of guy... but what can you expect from a man, that 30 years ago dreamed of something that others could not conceive ?

Not to say that this is the only way, look for example the CEO and Founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos who founded amazon in 1994, and I am sure that 20 years from today will release the first human robot or something like that :)

Vision execution is unique, ones who got the gift of doing so should apply it to make the world a better place, and enrich other people's life in the process

Stay hungry, Stay fullish! a mantra by Steven Paul Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:47:00 +0000

Stay hungry, Stay fullish! a mantra by Steven Paul Jobs

An amazing movie by Steve Jobs, it seems like he made all the amazing thinks just so we could listen to this 15 min presentation about the meaning of life:) my friends, i strongly suggest to listen and get some inspiration

Summary:
1. Connecting the dots...and follow your passion.
2. love and lost, lightness of being a beginner , don't lose faith, love what you do!.
3. death - life's greatest invention, life change agent.

Some inspiration

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:45:00 +0000

I recently stopped adding my twitter updated into facebook and updated my facebook account.
i would like to share some pictures about showing some of my trips to the us and IL events.

Me and Jason Calacanis (TC50, mahalo) , Chris Brogan (www.chrisbrogan.com), Iain Dodsworth (founder of tweetdeck), Max Levchin (Founder of PayPal, Slide) and me at Chris Brogan post http://www.chrisbrogan.com/19-presence-management-chores-you-could-do-every-day/

Networking Tech Crucn 50 here i come...

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:39:00 +0000

Next week i will be traveling to California to present our new web site at Tech Crunch 50.
Last time i was at an event i meet great and very influential friends.

I was invited to a private dinner powered by Yahoo with the top blogger's from Zdnet and Enterprise 2.o, meet and hang out with Chris Brogan, got my picture in one of Chris's blog posts and got very interesting talks with some CEO's from Box.net and others.

Who knows what TC50 adventure will raise, i already set a few meetings with some managers at Yahoo and plan to meet some friend from the social network world.

I hope that this event will be as good as the others...

Some highlights from the last event (Enterprise 2.0 at Boston):

The menu from the Oracle private dinner

My photos with Chris Brogan
Chris blog post with my picture :)

Speedy Startups -- the new agile way for success.

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:00:00 +0000

In our agile technology web2.0 / enterprise 2.0 world is it very hard to catch up on things...
Tr.im is closed and reopen, facebook buys freidnfeed, yahoo buys xoopit, Yahoo has "adopted" Microsoft's Bing as the search engine.... and everybody keep asking who will buy twitter... probably Google.

When you want to succeed in your initiative you want to have a good biz and product competitive edge....

Itamar Rogel my good friend and a brilliant entrepreneur send me a mp3 by Mr.Mike Cassidy who talks about speed and how to win big in startups in an agile spped methodology by "Mike Cassidy On Speedy Startups".

I was inspired by Mike's concept and encourage you to hear this mp3 and see his speed presentation :)

The speed mp3 audio:
http://audio.sxsw.com/podcast/interactive/panels/2008/SXSW08.INT.20080308.TheArtOfSpeed.mp3

The presentation by Mike:

Best Strategy Is Speed (Startup2Startup May 2008)

View more presentations from Dave Mcclure.

JUST DO IT, and DO IT, and DO IT till the job gets done.

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:27:00 +0000

At the end of the day... there are too many almost and too many excuse...

If you want something to get done JUST DO IT.

I see it as must feature for each entrepreneur...

I was inspired by this lecture by @ART WILLIAMS the leading entrepreneur at the U.S.A a multimillionaire !...'JUST DO IT'.... stop to be ALMOST... just do it! http://bit.ly/18Uog4

He also say that high tech/computer people are too smart for their own good and always think about what could go wrong :(.. so they just don't do it... the opposite of JUST DO IT: )

its a bit long but worth every minute :)

it's all about the vibe :) join the vibe boat!

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:57:00 +0000

I see myself as a visionary who always see the big picture and try to lower it down into reality:)

I see it a lot in product management and in business development... the biggest challenge is it to take a vision and make it a reality...

I understood that at the end of the day the best way to make a vision into a reality is:
The right people, at the right time, doing the right thing...:)

So simple, yet so hard...

my understand is that to make it happen the most important special sauce to make it happened is:
VIBE

I would like to share an examples of VIBE....

The founders of www.youtube.com when they were bought by google at October 09, 2006 for $ 1.65 billion ....... watch the vibe :) http://bit.ly/IZ9aq

Dan Bricklin and Sharel Omer

noreply@blogger.com (@SharelOmer) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:43:00 +0000

Dan Bricklin and Sharel Omer
Originally uploaded by Chris Brogan

Me and Mr Dan Bricklin at the Enterprise 2.0 conference at Boston.

The picture was taken by Chris Brogan and published at:
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/19-presence-management-chores-you-could-do-every-day/