StartupRoundup

If You're Not Mobile First, You're Last

2015-03-05T23:18:49.144000Z

Shopping from a mobile device has now hit a tipping point of acceptance, growing an astonishing 174% Y/Y in 2014, much faster than the already blistering pace of 76% growth Y/Y in overall mobile sessions.

This is great news for retailers of all sizes and industries, but also scary for those that have yet to reduce the friction of the shopping and purchasing process of their goods on a mobile experience. Users will no longer tolerate pinch-and-zoom shopping or filling out a long New Customer form before checkout.

Just like we experienced specialization in the niche aspects of communication tools (Linkedin, Pinterest, Reddit…) we will continue to see the same thing across the shopping experience combine with new On-Demand / Delivery Service expectations driving growth in 2015.

As an example, think about shopping for a new wedding dress. Instead of going to a boutique store, brides to be will start flipping through wedding dresses Tinder-style on their phone in the morning and have the dress candidates delivered in the afternoon for a custom fitting without leaving house.

What about the Uberfication of something as simple as socks. I need new socks and I don’t want to spend time searching for them. As long as the product is of a decent quality, my need will be met. Just send me socks with the push of a single button.

What’s also interesting is when people are shopping.

The spikes are at around the time people get to work at 9am, over the Noon lunch hour, and at 8pm when they are back at home on the couch after dinner. This information can be used to think of ways to drive people to your app during these key times. Maybe through push notifications, maybe you send your targeted promo email 30 minutes to an hour before one of these spikes so it is at the top of their inbox at a peak browsing time. If you are targeting promotional media to drive engagement in your experience, you could reduce or eliminate the budget you spend in the super early / late hours of the day or change up your message to highlight how easy it is to make a quick purchase over lunch.

The takeaway is that the mobile shopping tailwinds are behind you. Build out a thoughtful, engaging experience for users with minimal friction and see unprecedented traffic and conversion results in 2015.

3 Sure Fire Ways to Get Important Things Done

2015-03-05T23:18:49.134000Z

Photo courtesy of StartupVitamins

Go, Go, Go!

What’s on the list for today? We all have items that need to be done, many of which need completing before the end of today to met our internal or external deadlines. Some items on the list don’t have to be completed today, but it would be nice if they were. Then there are the Important, Strategic items on the list. These are in a class all their own. We recognize them as more important than other items because they do things like add value in the long run, but at the same time they are lower priority because they don’t have to be due today. Our clients don’t care if we finally get that internal reporting dashboard setup. Our co-workers from Sales don’t care if we complete the revised implementation docs if it doesn’t close business today.

We know these Strategic tasks hold great long-term importances, yet we perpetually put them at the bottom of the list (last one in, first one cut) to be ignored at the end of each day. Here are 3 ways to break this routine and get work done that pays dividends beyond today. Your future self (and company) will thank you.

1. Block Off Time On Your Calendar

You schedule a meeting with your co-workers to put something on their radar. You setup time to talk with a client to review a proposal. Why wouldn’t you block off specific, unwavering time in the day to complete an important Strategic task? Set aside a 30 minute or hour chunk of time in your calendar that’s marked as busy just like you would for a meeting. When the calendar reminder pops-up, stop emailing and shift to this Strategic task just like you would get up and go to a meeting. Honor this sacred time, don’t enter into the perpetual cycle of snoozing the calendar reminder.

2. Barter With Yourself

Ok, you have 4 tasks that you have to get done today to hit deadlines. You also have this Strategic task that’s been sitting on the list for a week. Barter with yourself that you will do two of the four task due today, then the Strategic one, then the remaining two tasks due. Most days, you aren’t actually working at your personal capacity level if you are honest with yourself. The tasks you are doing are just filling the time you have available. You’d be amazed how quickly you can get the other tasks done when you declare the Strategic task as immovable in the middle of the list instead of banishing it to the last item on the list, the first to be “rolled over" at 5pm that day. Now, what theoretically should have taken more time because you added a 5th item, magically is completed by 5:10pm.

3. Make It Number 1 On The List

You wake up each morning and something has to be done first. Instead of that something being checking if you received an urgent email between 11pm last night and the time you woke up (you didn’t), immediately start on that strategic task. Knock it out first thing in the morning and see how good it feels the rest of the day with that weight off your shoulders.

Use these tactics to reap the rewards of the future, today!

What The Top 3 Most Active VC's of 2014 Invested In

2015-03-05T23:18:49.435000Z

According to CrunchBase the Top 3 Most Active VC’s in 2014 were 500 Startups, Sequoia Capital, and Cyberport Hong Kong. These three investors made a combined 420 investments last year. Let’s take a deeper dive into these three investors and what caught their fancy last year.

500 Startups

Total Investments last year: 177
Last Investment of 2014: Invested in $2M round on December 19th in All Day, A way to share stories with people who want to be amazed by the world.
Biggest Investment of 2014: Participated in a $15.5M fundraising round for Bustle.com, a news, entertainment, lifestyle, and fashion website that caters to women
Most Interesting Investment of 2014: 500 Startups made a $100k seed round investment in UXCam a company that helps startups capture and visualize user behavior of their mobile apps. Beyond engagement metrics, UXCam captures all gestures made while using your app, creating a touch heat map that helps see where a why people drop off from the app experience. The screen and front facing camera are also recorded, helping you experience the app through your user’s eyes. Combined with good mockup tools, UXCam can really jumpstart the app design for new startups.

Sequoia Capital

Total Investments last year: 126
Last Investment of 2014: Part of a $220M round on December 30th in Instacart a same-day grocery service, delivering groceries and home essentials from a variety of local stores. Instacart looks to capitalize on the Everything As A Service era with the right business model at the right time and do what WebVan couldn’t in 2000.
Biggest Investment of 2014: Setting aside the $220M Instacart round, Sequoia participated in a $165M round in Houzz an online platform for home remodeling, architecture, interior design, decorating, landscape design, and home improvement. It will be interesting to see if the projected softening of economic development in 2015 (dramatically lower gas prices being a leading indicator) has an impact on the growth of Houzz this year.
Most Interesting Investment of 2014: Besides participating in two large rounds in Instacart, Sequoia made a lot of investments in companies located in Asia, including Line0, a food delivery startup that guarantees delivery from local restaurants in less than an hour. More interesting than Sequoia’s continued support for food as a service startups is their investment in payment startup Stripe Seeing great success with it’s payments API, Stripe continues to make online transactions easier for business, earning it’s current $3.5B valuation. Stripe is eating online payments behemoth PayPals’ lunch, and is valued at just over half of mobile payments darling Square’s $6B valuation. Starting the year off strong, Kickstarter announced it’s replacing Amazon Payments with Stripe. Kickstarter processed $529M in pledges last year alone.

Cyberport Hong Kong

Total Investments last year: 117
Last Investment of 2014: On December 1st, Cyberport announced it’s latest class of startups, providing 14 companies with $12.5k Seed money each, and 21 startups with $41.3k each.
Biggest Investment of 2014: All investments in 2014 were either for $41.3k or $12.5k in Seed funding.
Most Interesting Investment of 2014: Cyberport is a unique venture that’s fully owned by the Hong Kong SAR Government and while the commitment to build a physical space for the desired Asia-Pacific Startup Hub, this Seed Investor really only came on to the scene in 2014. The only investment Cyberport made last year where it wasn’t the sole funder was in Ezeecube, a stackable media center to store and manage all your content. After a successful IndieGoGo campaign where Ezeecube received nearly $147k in crowdfunding, they were able to raise an additional $100k round from Cyberport HK and NEST HK incubator. Ezeecube is an alternative to Dropbox and iCloud for those that don’t trust, want to pay the premium for, or enjoy the cloud experience. If you need to increase your storage, you just purchase another 1TB or 2TB cube and stack it on top of your existing cube at home. Ezeecube is available for preorder and is expected to ship at the end of March 2015. It’s clear that Cyberport is executing on a strategy to invest early in what they believe is the next generation of successful tech startups in Asia, and are ok with waiting several years to see big payoffs since the long term goal of this government owned VC is to move China beyond an industrial powerhouse and into the knowledge economy.

My 3 Words for 2015

2015-03-05T23:18:49.448000Z

Here we are, 3 weeks into the New Year and most people have broken their New Year’s Resolutions at this point. What I’ve found more helpful since 2011 is to instead choose 3 words as my guiding lighthouse for the year. This habit was introduced to me by Chris Brogan and has been much more successful than defining hard-nosed New Year’s Resolutions that can be voided in a matter of hours after the ball drops. My 3 Words for 2015 are:

Peel

Peel away at problems to find the root cause. Peel away at the stories I tell myself so I can remove the fabrication and analyze the facts without emotion. Peel away at the superficial interactions and provide meaningful feedback to help myself, coworkers, friends, and loved ones achieve their true potential.

Impossible

If you’re focused on solving Impossible problems, then your focus is probably in the right place. Remembering to look at things with a sense of wonderment, but reminding myself that Innovation isn’t limited to the few. Live by the mentality that everything around us was created by someone that wasn’t any smarter than we are. Want to create a barrier to entry? Look for the impossible problems. It’s worked for Tesla, Apple, and Amazon.

Incremental

How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time. My goal this year is to incrementally complete projects I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Methodical Persistence. Continuing to accumulate completed tasks until large projects are done and hypothetical elephants have been eaten. Equally important is not just focusing on the end result, but continuing to improve my skills along the way.

What are your 3 words for 2015?

Love Your Job Like a Dog Loves Walks

2015-03-05T23:18:49.717000Z

Samurai and Hiro have been part of our family now for a couple years and we have been on countless walks, around the block, through the park, different states. Doesn't matter. Every time we get the leashes out, Hiro runs over to the door and wags, not just his tail, but his entire body. It's like Christmas morning for him every time, twice a day.

He takes the opportunity on every walk to explore his surroundings, learn about any new smells, and make his mark on the world.

How easy is it to get into a routine at work or in your startup where you just grind out each day, trying to survive until the weekend. Next thing you know, you look up several weeks later and you haven't explored your industry, haven't pushed out of your comfort zone to learn something new, and haven't left your mark on the world.

If you're not excited everyday about what you do, it's time to make some changes. Be honest with yourself. Does it mean changing jobs, enviornments, or attitude? Live in the moment and take advantage of each day, each project, every situation to get the most out of it and leave the biggest positive impact you possibly can.

Enjoy your walk.

The Battle for 2.6B Online Consumers - Weekly Startup Roundup

2015-03-05T23:18:49.763000Z

The Best Roundup of Weekly Startup News.

AdTech Is Stive Alive

Marin Software acquired PerfectAudience for $22.8M to enhance its OmniChannel Marketing platform. Marin Software already has a very strong search marketing platform, and now has a solid Facebook Retargeting offering via Perfect Audience. Marin Software went public last year and currently has a market cap of $325M. This acquisition is another tool in the Marin toolbox as they build a diverse enterprise marketing offering to rival the likes of Adobe and Google.

The acquisition was also a huge win for PerfectAudience and Y-Combinator. PerfectAudience came out of the Spring 2012 Y-Combinator class and in just 2 short years, built a solid business on the $1.1M they raised as part of YC that returned more than 20X on the investment. Also looks like Marin highly values the employees of PerfectAudience and their knowledge of how to run successful Facebook Retargeting campaigns, this is not just a technology acquisition. CEO and co-founder Brad Flora will join the Marin team and $2.7M in Marin stock has been set aside for retention of employees that stay through the acquisition. That conversation with employees went something like “For those of you that weren’t vested and didn’t earn millions, we saved some extra for you if you stick around and keep the current business from imploding."

China Is Only Getting Started

Things are really heating up in the world’s most populated country. This week, Toutiao a Chinese personalized news app raised $100M on a half billion dollar valuation. The concept is straight forward, build a news aggregation app that learns your interests over time and presents you with relevant articles. While it seems like several startups have tackled a similar problem before, investors like Sequoia Capital are doubling down on Toutiao because they believe its recommendation technology is very strong, and the app has great traction with over 120M registered users and 40M active daily users. Something to keep on the radar as an unknown is how much will China’s notorious internet censorship will impact Toutiao’s business?

ECommerce Explosion

Ecommerce is also on fire in the under-served regions of the world. Chinese social shopping platform Mogujie raised $200M this week. Starting as a Pinterest me-to, the site has quickly shifted to a retailer of goods, using the visual discovery style of a Pinterest layout to drive sales to its 35M monthly active users. The new funds will go towards expansion of the supporting team, customer service, and community building as they ramp-up to compete with the likes of Alibaba. Mogujie was previously in talks with Alibaba (awaiting IPO on American stock exchange) about an acquisition, but obviously believe they can build a much bigger business as the rumored acquisition price of $200M matches the additional investment dollars Mogujie is willing to take.

Also on the heals of the Alibaba IPO is the announcement that Flipkart, the Amazon of India, has raised $210M. Just last week, Flipkart purchased Myntra, an Indian fashion portal for $300M. After raising a total of $560M in funding, Flipkart is valued at approximately $1.6B. Founded by 2 ex-Amazon employees, Flipkart is about as prepared as it can be for Amazon’s expansion into their backyard, which includes fire-sale prices and the launch of next day delivery. With Alibaba in China achieving $240B in sales last year, it’s already twice the size of Amazon and the battle for the Commerce dollars in the two largest countries on the planet is in full effect.

Summon An Escalade From Your Phone

Uber announced a massive funding round of $1.2B at an incredible $17B valuation as it says it’s no where near finished revolutionizing the transportation of major cities around the world. Despite the legal and political battles in nearly every city it enters, that resistance hasn’t stopped Uber from setting up shop in 128 cities across 37 countries. I personally live in Austin, Texas, a city that needs transportation reform and hope to see Uber push competition to become better very soon. Competition is always good for the consumer. The ability to have options means better service and the potential for even more unforeseen options. Lyft is the other major ride sharing service nipping at the heels of Uber, but doesn’t have anywhere near the war chest to expand as fast or fight legal battles with only $333M total in the bank. A possible strategy for Lyft could be to let Uber blaze the trail in each city and fight the expensive political lobbying and legal battles for them (current taxi drivers aren’t too keen on Uber coming into their town and eating their lunch). Doesn’t look like Lyft is interested in being a viable second option, as they have already announced entering cities like Austin, TX without acquiring the necessary permissions to operate from the city. Let’s see how that goes for them.

Must Read Article Of The Week

The annual KPCB Internet Trends 2014 reportby Mary Meeker was released. This is a must read for anyone doing business on the internet. It’s 164 slides packed with amazing industry research that businesses pay $100,000’s of dollars to acquire.

For example, did you know Google makes $45 on advertising per user each year but only grew 8% Y/Y. This is in contrast to Facebook, which makes $7.24 per user each year and grew 57% Y/Y with 79% of that revenue coming from mobile (slide 14).
Mobile App Revenue (app purchase and micro-transations) still accounts for 68% of monetization. Mobile Advertising is the remaining 32% (slide 16).
Apps are evolving from multi-purpose (think Facebook desktop site 3 years ago) to single-purpose mobile apps loosely linked together (Facebook, FB Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Moves, Paper) (slide 40)

That’s just scratching the surface of what’s included in this years report.

3 Words for 2014

2015-03-05T23:18:50.108000Z

With 2014 well underway and your New Years resolutions long forgotten, I wanted to share a great goal setting exercise I used for 2014 and it's not too late for you to get started.

Since 2011 I have done a great alternative to New Years Resolutions that I took from Chris Brogan. He selects three words or phrases to help guide his personal and professional actions and choices for the year. No matter if it's January or July, they are always relevant and apply to situations as I work to become the person I want to be when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st, 2014. It's very easy to break bad goals set in January or not think about your personal and professional growth until November and think, I'll make next year better after the holidays.

I highly recommend you take a few minutes and think about your 3 Words for 2014. Then put them somewhere you will see them everyday.

These are my 3 Words for 2014:

1. Move Uncomfortably Fast

Jordan Cooper did a great job capturing the essence of this in his article by the same name. It’s about pushing yourself to the point where you are out of your comfort zone. Well put by Jim Stone on Quara, it’s about getting into the right Flow of Challenges just at the edge of your Skill sets, constantly getting in over your head, having enough resources to get your head above water, and repeat.

2. Plan

How am I going to Move Uncomfortably Fast? It doesn’t happen by accident, you have to plan. I wake-up every morning and take a look at the ToDo list, re-prioritize it as need, and start chunking out time on my calendar to get it done. You will find out very fast that the list of ToDos aren’t realistically all going to fit into today, so what is mission critical and how are you going to accomplish it. Cal Newport shows how he plans every minute of his work day…on paper.

3. Reflect

With all this rapid learning, it’s important to not just go through the motions as weeks fly by. I blocked time out every week to make sure I internalize everything I learned that week as well as assess if I need to make any changes to my current process to maximize my year (vs getting to December and saying, I wish I did XYZ every week this year, I would be so much further ahead). This is the easiest time to be tempted to reallocate on my calendar, but are some of my most important self-development minutes each week.

6 Best Tech IPOs of 2013

2015-03-05T23:18:50.112000Z

As we wind down 2013, I wanted to take a moment to recap the top tech IPOs this year. The top of this elite list is dominated by industries as different as Marketing, Health Insurance, Enterprise Security, and even Event Management. So who made the cut this year?

Marketo - The marketing automations company started in late 2006 raised a total of $108 million across 6 rounds of financing before going public in April 2013. Since then, the people that continue to bet on Marketo's success have been rewarded as the company's valuation is now $1.1 Billion dollars. Marketo looks to bridge the gaps in lead generation to actual sales by optimizing the entire process for marketers, from CRM integration to Social Marketing.

Benefitfocus - Providing employees the ability to manage their insurance benefits in a cloud-based platform, Benefitfocus looks to push forward an industry that is not evolving as fast as most. Unifying a fragmented insurance industry is no easy task, but with an annual $55 Billion potential market size, it's an opportunity this SAAS company looks to capitalize on. While still operating at a $15 million loss, Benefitfocus is positioned to crush it as the Affordable Care Act goes into effect. This is reflected in their $1.18 Billion valuation.

Rocket Fuel - The programmatic media-buying platform gets its differentiator from the massive amounts of data processed using artificial intelligence to provide marketers the highest ROI possible. Despite revenues of $106.6 million in 2012, the startup that raised $76 million before going public still isn't profitable. Several investors obviously believe the company will turn the corner into profitability shortly as the company is currently valued at $1.59 Billion.

FireEye - The Enterprise security software created to protect business data from advanced malware and cyber attacks. This isn't you're usual consumer security software like McAfee or Norton anti-virus, but a signature-less analysis system that uses proprietary virtual machines to protect mission-critical information for enterprise companies. Yes, am picturing the green ones and zeros of The Matrix as well. Firefly was able to create a market cap of $4.62 Billion on just $85.5 million raised in capital.

Tableau Software - Looking to help companies make sense of the massive amounts of data being collected, Tableau easily generates visuals based on data points to allow for easier analysis. Business Intelligence companies like Tableau are much needed to sift through and make sense of all the terabytes of information being collected thanks to options like Amazon Web Services and other alternatives that drastically reduced the cost and barriers over the past few years. Founded in 2003 and only raising a total of $15 million, Tableau has capitalized on the Big Data movement and created a company worth $3.9 Billion dollars with their IPO earlier this year.

Cvent - A cloud-based event management platform provides enterprise services to every part of the event value chain, from online registration to post-event surveys. Cvent had an interesting path to IPO. Despite being founded in 1999, major funding of $137 million didn't come until July 2011. Cvent made two major acquisitions in 2012 of CrowdCompass ($10M) and Seed Labs ($4.2M) to lock-in its capabilities in creating mobile apps for events. Cvent joins the exclusive billion dollar club with a current valuation of $1.33 billion.

Also worth mentioning, the remainder of the major 2013 IPOs were dominated by medical/pharma companies and restaurant/food businesses:

Noodles & Company (restaurant)

Potbelly (sandwich shop)

Sprouts Farmers Market (organic/natural grocery store)

Epizyme (biotech - cancer)

Intrexon (synthetic biology)

Bluebird Bio (gene therapy)

Foundation Medicine (cancer analyzation)

Top Ten Trends in Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital in 2013

2015-03-05T23:18:50.456000Z

At the end of October, I had the opportunity to attend the 2012 Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference at Gangplank, a local startup incubator/co-working facility. There were a lot of great guest speakers and lessons learned. I wanted to share what I took away from Bill Reichert's talk. Bill is a Managing Director at Garage Technology Ventures (founded by Guy Kawasaki). As Garage Ventures is known for, he shared a Top 10 listed titled Top Ten Trends in Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital in 2013.

As if being part of Garage Ventures isn't enough, Bill Reichert is an expert in the field of entpreneurship. He started 4 venture backed companies and took two of them public. Bill starts his list off with one of the major difference now compared to when he started his companies.

1. Starting a company has never been cheaper.

It's both the best and worst time ever to start a company. Anyone can start, but it's more competitive. Unfortunately, Venture Capital money is decreasing. Luckily, you don't have to waste time or money buying things like hardware, just fire-up what you need to run your app on Amazon Web Services.

2. Building a successful company has never been more expensive.

If you have a good idea, the competition will be on to you within a couple months. You will need money to compete in the space and move fast. Also, online acquisition costs continue to increase as you fight for the same user's attention and share of wallet.

3. Innovation is Global.

Everyone is now competing with companies globally. Think global from day one.

4. Venture Capital is not evenly distributed globally, and it's getting scarcer.

If you get traction and want to breakout globally, you have to get funding from Silicon Valley. Global governments are sending plane loads of entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley to bring back funding to startups in their respective countries.

5. Seed is a four letter word.

The big VCs and institutoin investors hate seed funding because it takes too long to get a return. It's also hard to pick winners early on. To bridge this gap, VCs are pooling money into Incubators and taking options in early stage companies to diversify the risk while still placing bets with large amounts of money.

6. Seed investing has never been stronger

Angels continue to back scrappy startups. Governments are also investing money into local startups. And as previously mentioned, Venture Capital is flowing into startup Incubators that keep popping up all over the world.

7. HOT: The intersection of cloud, apps, social, and data.

Hot Growth Characteristics:

Mobile

Commerce

Publishing

Entertainment

Gaming

Enterprise

Security

Smartgrid

Healthcare

8. Green is Dead.

Clean tech is not hot. It is still the next big thing but classified incorrectly. It doesn't move as fast as VCs thought, but all the pieces of clean tech are still important. What's happing now is that corporate energy companies are stepping in to invest and buy green startups to support the 20-40 year survival plan of their companies. The emotional connection to green products was not a strong enough selling point to spark the movement at a sustainable level. Green only works if tied tightly to the economics needed to make money.

9. Differentiate or Die.

As an entrepreneur, don't just fill-out the boxes to create a business plan. You have to figure out how you are different from the 20 other people pitching the same idea. Must tell your story to WOW people.

10. People Trump Technology.

A technology product is not as important as the people that use it. People don't accept a technology learning curve anymore. It has to work the way people do now. VCs are people too. They don't invest in a business plan, They fall in love with the deal, explain it to their partners, then do due diligence to make sure they are not making a big mistake.

3 reasons VCs fall in love:

Team

Tech

Vision

Finally, Bill Reichert summarized his talk with these simple phrases:

Think Global

Be Lean and Bootstrap

Get to Wow

Be Lovable

The Sill - The House Plant Has Arrived

2015-03-05T23:18:50.492000Z

In a city dominated by high-rise buildings and concrete sidewalks, The Sill puts a new spin on the house plant, re-rooting it in the NYC area. I first came across The Sill as they were completing their successfully funded Kickstarter project. If you are thinking about launching a Kickstarter project, I recommend you take a look at their page. It is a great example of strong copy, good rewards, and a high-quality video.

In between the craziness of launching a new business, I was able to get the following interview with co-founders Gwen Blevens and Eliza Blank, where they share behind the scenes stories about The Sill, Kickstarter tips, and advice for all Entrepreneurs.

What is your startup?

The Sill is a destination for discovering potted plants, founded by first time entrepreneurs Eliza Blank and Gwen Blevens. The Sill hunts down houseplants suitable for city dwellings – long life, easy care, adaptable – and pots them in an eclectic mix of containers. Most of these are artist made, in order to strike the perfect balance of function and form – what the plant needs, but all its own a work of art. The brand aims to make owning and giving houseplants desirable and accessible by offering fashionable products, resources, and musings for the modern lifestyle. The Sill launched on May 22, offering complimentary delivery to Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, and has plans to expand their reach soon.

What inspired The Sill?

We started The Sill because we wanted to incorporate greenery into our living spaces, but realized that potted plants with the same variety by which we are able to express ourselves with other home furnishings – color, texture, shape, story – simply didn’t exist.

Why did you choose to raise funds on Kickstarter?

We needed a platform that would allow us to share The Sill with friends and family as well as perfect strangers, while also raising some extra funds to support the artist-made portion of the business. We chose Kickstarter after closely watching other successful campaigns reach their goals. We were able to identify the types of projects that resonated most with the Kickstarter audience and figured The Sill too would make for a perfect fit.

What advice would you give to help others successfully raise funds with a Kickstarter projects?

Mobilize the troops! You can’t launch a Kickstarter campaign and expect to sit back and watch the money roll in. We raised $12,600 and it came from 193 people – most of whom we knew personally in one way or another. The engagement doesn’t begin and end with the video. You need to put in a lot of work before, during and after the campaign to get your whole network behind you – poised and ready to support your project.

How did you connect with artisans to craft the pots?

Oh the fun part! We’ve connected to each artist in a different way – from visiting open studios, to scouring Etsy, attending the New York International Gift Fair, and more.

Are the pot designs commissioned and then manufactured by The Sill or does The Sill sell the pots on behalf of the artisans?

The Sill is not a manufacturer at all. We work with artists who make the ceramics themselves – some make each item by hand, while others depend on slipcasting. Some designs come from the artists’ existing portfolio, while others are made exclusively for The Sill.

Where and how are the pots made?

We work with artists from around the country. Some are right here in our backyard – in Manhattan and Brooklyn, while others are from far away places, including Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles. We round out our offering with traditional Italian terra cotta too.

How do you plan on marketing your product?

We’re not overly concerned with big, costly marketing campaigns. We’re a small team and we believe in word-of-mouth and organic growth.

What one lesson learned would you share with aspiring entrepreneurs?

Ask for help. The Sill would not have been possible without the support of friends, family and old colleagues. Kickstarter aside, we turned to our networks to help us launch the business. Eliza’s brother, Dan Blank, was quick to offer us a team at his consultancy, Bureau Blank, to build The Sill’s brand design and website. Gwen’s friends contributed by offering up their New York City apartments for photo shoots. The list continues. We believe all entrepreneurs should learn to ask for and accept help.

Any other fun facts or things you want to share about your startup?

The Sill is inspired by a wide mix of influences, from the art of Henri Matisse and Hugo Guinness, to the legends of plant hunters from the Victorian Era. You’ll find quirky nods to artistic and cultural icons throughout – from the J. Peterman catalogue to Marimekko, and more!

Follow The Sill

You can follow The Sill on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. You can find co-founders Gwen Blevens and Eliza Blank on Linkedin.

Angel Investment Shows Us The Money - HALO Report for 2011

2015-03-05T23:18:56.100000Z

Not every company is destine for a Venture Capital investment, or maybe your company isn't quite at the point where it needs a large amount of funds to prove the idea. Luckily, there are Angel Investment Groups out there that focus on early stage investing to help companies get off the ground.

You might be saying, "Isn't the economy still bad? Didn't the Angel dollars dry-up just like the VC deals?" The 2011 HALO Report published by the Angel Resource Institute (ARI) earlier this year shows that in fact almost $875 million dollars were invested by Angel groups in 2011. One of the most promising factors is that the median Angel round size was $700K, a 40% increase over 2010.

What could be better than a $700K round? How about $1.5 million, which is the median size of a funding round when Angels co-invest with other types of investors. Just like your grandmother said, "The More The Merrier", or "Sharing Is Caring", or "Teamwork Makes The Dream Work." Whatever metaphor you want to use, when more people get a piece of the action, there is a bigger pie.

Not surprising, the Angel groups out of California make up almost 30% of the dollars invested. Nationwide, Healthcare and Internet based startups continue to be hot investment sectors with over half of the overall dollars going to these two industries.

You can see the full Halo Report here, which includes a powerpoint and full infographic. To learn more about the Angel Investing process, check out the ARI Resources for Entrepreneurs. You can also see an extensive list by region of the hundreds of Angel groups that are doing deals. Who knows, their next deal could be yours.

Success By A Thousand Incremental Improvements

2015-03-05T23:18:56.084000Z

This is the opposite of death by a thousand papercuts. Often times, as we work towards goals, the end result we desire seems too far away to reach. This is especially true for startups. You have a great idea and vision. No matter how much time and effort you put into the initial version of your idea, it will never live up to your grand vision, and that's ok.

Once you launch your idea, focus on improving your startup business with lots of smaller incremental changes each day to ultimately achieve your vision. These changes don't have to be giant, daunting, sweeping changes that ultimately get procrastinated because they are too large of an undertaking. Making a small change and then building on that change with another the next day, and the next, and the day after that quickly snowball into momentum towards your vision.

You don't have time to stop everything and completely revise your website design until it is perfect, but what about updating your logo today, and your hero banner tomorrow. You don't have time to create an 8 week classroom-style training course for employee #2, but you could make a checklist of the basic concepts the new hire needs to be familiar with by the end of month three. Then, after three months, the new hire can provide feedback on what else to add to the training for the next person, fleshing out the training a little more.

Keep moving. As soon as you stop making Incremental Improvements, you stop making progress on your vision.

Stop Wasting Your Commute

2015-03-05T23:18:56.195000Z

I spend at least a hour per day in my car commuting to work. If you're like me and most other people that commute each day, you see this period spent in traffic as wasted time. I always feel like I should be doing something else more important. That's why I started listening to Podcasts. iTunes has a growing number of professional quality podcasts on Business, Entrepreneurship, and even some Entertainment for when you need to decompress. I now just plug my iPhone into the aux jack in my car and turn the bumper to bumper time into a learning experience to continue furthering my knowledge.

Here are some of the podcasts on Business and Entrepreneurship that I recommend:

Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders

Class sessions recorded at Stanford where some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley deliver lectures on their experiences.

HBR IdeaCast

A shorter 15 minute podcast where the Harvard Business Review features a guest to discuss a recent article written for HBR.org

Foundation

A video podcast where Digg founder, Kevin Rose, interviews other startup founders in Silicon Valley. They share their path to success and the pitfalls to avoid for future entrepreneurs.

The Random Show

Another video podcast that features Kevin Rose as well as Tim Ferriss, fellow entrepreneur and the author of The 4-Hour Work Week. This video podcast is a little more sporadic on the release schedule, one video every month or two, as well an crossing over to the entertainment genre. They talk about random stuff including their experiences and recommendations.

Epic Meal Time

This phenomenon of a video podcast is one that you probably don't want to passively listen to if you are driving because it really requires the visuals to appreciate it. This video podcast is completely on the entertainment spectrum. A bunch of guys get together each week, drink Jack Daniels, and cook ridiculously huge meals (+100,000 calories) with crazy combinations (think giant burger made out of 75 fast food burgers). Enjoy.

This list should get you started. If you are looking for more, just start searching iTunes podcasts for keywords like entrepreneurship, business, or xbox and download a few podcasts to see if they fit your personality and listening style. Any suggestions for ones I should have included on the list? Throw them in the comments.

3 Words for 2012

2015-03-05T23:18:56.199000Z

As we move into February and most 2012 New Year’s Resolutions bite the dust (if they haven’t already) I thought I would share a different way to set goals for the year.

Everyone on my team at Fetchback did this exercise last year as well as this year and really liked it. Instead of selecting specific resolutions for the year, choose 3 guiding words or phrases. I was introduced to this concept by reading a post from business blogger, Chris Brogan. My 3 words even made it into his blog post this year! Read Chris Brogan’s 3 words for 2012.

Here are my 3 words for 2012 and reasons why I chose them:

+200%

I learned a lot in 2011 about retargeting, being a manager, business, and lots of other things. To hit my long-term goals and be fulfilled, I can't get complacent. I want to learn twice as much in 2012 as I did in 2011.

Iterate

I'm going to continue to embrace change and double-down on what's working while removing what's not at Fetchback and in my personal life, as fast as makes sense.

Reflect

If iteration is the action, reflection is what will help ensure I make the right changes in a timely manner, both personally and professionally. Annually and Quarterly are not often enough. In a startup environment like Fetchback, every day is a marathon and we cover a lot of ground. For many goals, weekly or daily reflection is needed. Taking the time to stop for a moment and think about what you recently learned also helps solidify it for you.

If you would like to participate, throw your 3 words in the comments. I also recommend writing your 3 words on a note-card and display it in a spot where you will see it every day!

Cloud Services Could Save You Time and Money

2015-03-05T23:18:56.245000Z

James Kim is a writer for Choosewhat.com, which provides product reviews and test data for business services and products. Choosewhat.com's goal is to help small companies make informed buying decisions on business solutions that help their business.

Going viral is no longer an option -- for many businesses it’s a requirement. More and more companies are shifting from physical to virtual entities. While people have debated whether this is a good or bad thing, this shift has brought a vast array of useful, cloud-based tools for entrepreneurs. From online fax to finances, there are now plenty of online services that can help you make your business more efficient. So what are you waiting for? Try out these online business tools.

1. Collaboration

As a CEO of a small-business, you may have to forego office space in the beginning phases of company development. However, these online communication services can help you stay in touch, regardless of geographic distance.

In-Company Communication

Campfire: Offers private chat rooms, through which you can invite clients or employees
GoogleDocs and ConceptShare: Share or comment on documents
Skype: Free video chats and low-cost calls to landline and cell phones, easy open communication

Call Services

RingCentral Fax: Provides online fax services, through which you can send faxes for free from home without interrupting your phone line
GoogleVoice: Allows you to get low rates for international calls, and gives you one number for all of your phones with a single voicemail box
NewVoiceMedia: Contact center solutions including call routing and CRM

2. Organization

Juggling all the elements of a business can be enough to make a person go insane. Lucky for you, there are plenty of online services that help you tackle this difficult task.

Calendars and Planners

GoogleCalendar: Calendar tool
Skedgeme: Scheduling, allows you to accept/make appointments, and customers can see services and book online

File Backup

Carbonite and IDrive: Offer unlimited backup plans at affordable prices, and allows you to access your information from mobile devices
Box.net: Backup and collaboration at affordable prices for monthly plans
DropBox: Allows the sharing/storage of large files

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Highrise: Helps keep track of customers, contact and communication history
Commence: Quote based cost, has one system for sales, marketing and customer service

3. Finances

It’s always good to utilize a program that will organize all your transactions, assets, and finances. These programs can help you do just that.

Dimewise or Wesabe: Record transactions
Prosper: Allows you to get loans from either a single person or many individuals

Thanks to online services, maintaining a business has never been easier. Access everything you need from your computer or, if your on-the-move, from your mobile device with cloud computing services.

Alternative Idea to New Year's Resolutions

2015-03-05T23:18:56.694000Z

Every year, people around the world make the terrible decision to set New Years resolutions for themselves. They often times revolve around giving something up. Stop smoking, lose weight, get out of debt. Here it is the end of February and my guess is that the majority of people out there already broke their resolutions because they set an unobtainable goal for themselves. Besides that, if you wanted to become the best person you could possibly be and you knew you needed to do a specific thing to achieve it, why would you wait until the beginning of the year to start? Why not June 30th?

Instead of setting yourself up for failure in 2011, steal a concept from blogger Chris Brogan and come up with 3 focus areas for the year. These don't have to be specific actions or smart goals, just words to guide you throughout the year.

I chose Lead, Brand, Execute.

Why did I select these words to guide me through this year? I recently moved into a new management position at work and want to be the best leader and mentor possible to my team. I also want to lead the startup revolution in this world with my contributions through StartupRoundup and other projects.

I also want to continue creating a reputation for myself, a brand if you will. This mostly consists of networking and trying to bring to light all this things I work so hard on in a non-egotistical way. If you can't toot your own horn, no one else will, and therefore, no one else will know of your great acomplishments. My current networking strategy is to participate in the conversation about business and startups though my blog posts as well as being more active on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin.

Finally, all ideas are worthless without execution. There is no shortage for project and startup ideas out there. Big or small, none of them will get off the ground and see the light of day without proper execution and follow-through.

What 3 words or phrases best describe what you want to accomplish this year? Write them down on your whiteboard or somewhere else you can see them everyday and use them to guide you to success in 2011!

New Year, New Direction. StartupRoundup in 2011

2015-03-05T23:18:50.722000Z

As the new year is well underway, so is the activity at StartupRoundup. I started this blog with the intention of discovering and showcasing early stage tech startups. I didn't want to be redundant and cover the same sites that the TechCrunches of the world talk about. That left me looking for the pre-funded startup teams consisting of about one to three people.

Since my goal is to help these startups, the StartupRoundup blog is going to begin sharing the details of business plan and other startup compititions where seed money is available. On top of that, I would like to follow up with the winners and/or the most interesting startups as these events and share their story.

In my continuing quest to help other entrepreneurs, look for a startup competition calendar coming soon that will list as many events as possible. Also, check back on the home page often for details on the most interesting competitions. If you have any suggestions for events to cover, please send them my way on twitter @StartupRoundup or shoot me an email at startup@startuproundup.com

Make 2011 the year of your startup!

Is Your Mobile App Worth $10 Million?

2015-03-05T23:18:50.746000Z

Do you have an idea for a mobile app? Want to turn it into some sweet cash? Why not develop it for Nokia's new N8 phone and have a chance to win some serious money. They are giving away a total of $10 million! If you are one of the two grand prize winners, you will get $250k in cash and almost $2 million in marketing for your app. Even if you are not one of the grand prize winners, you can still walk away with one of the 17 category prizes ranging from $150k - $50k for first through third place.

Visit the Calling All Innovators site to get more details, such as the different run-time options you can develop it in as well as the official entry form. The deadline is Friday, January 28, 2011 at 5pm Eastern Time.

Looking for some more inspiration? Find out how one college student took his idea for an app called KartMe and made it happen without spending his days programming.

What Will You Do At Your Startup When No One Is Watching?

2015-03-05T23:18:50.980000Z

It's much easier to work hard and give 100% effort when someone else is holding you accountable for your actions. In a traditional job, most people don't want to let their boss or their team down, so they go the extra mile. Ambitious entrepreneurs often strive to impress and rise to the top. This means productivity is great in a 9-5 job, but what about when you are employee #1 at a one person startup? What about that side project you are working on that you aspire to turn into your next business?

To borrow from the book Rework by the founders of 37signals, "Inspiration is Perishable." After the initial excitement of a new project wears off, will you have what it takes to keep going and take an idea to the next stage while no one is paying attention to you? Can you complete that prototype so you have something to show to others, begin to get feedback, and recharge your excitement for the project?

Here are 5 ways to battle the single person startup fatigue and get you over that hill to your future adoring fans:

1. Set small goals. Achievable milestones help you gain momentum and re-energize your ambitions as you show forward traction. Be careful not to set to large of a goal, or you will get discouraged. Instead, break you project down into much smaller goals that you can knock out of the park.

2. Find a support community online. There are thousands of people out there just like you that are working on their own startup and also need support or have questions. Find a great place to connect with some of these people and build a comradery as you are down in the trenches together, creating your individual businesses. Entrepreneur Connect as well as OnStartups are two good places to interact with other founders.

3. Chronicle your adventures on a blog or Twitter. People are fascinated with how things work or how they are built. You can gain several followers and fans of your business before you even launch just by telling about what you are doing each step of the way. Did you finally get that server configured how you wanted? Post an article about the effort it took and your recommendations for others based on the experience you had.

4. Connect with a mentor on Linkedin. Start looking around the groups on Linkedin specific to your industry and strike-up a conversation with some of the members. You have the ability to connect with people on Linkedin that you may never have the opportunity to meet in real life. There are people with amazing industry knowledge that are willing to take an interest in your startup.

5. Enjoy the time when no one is watching. Take this time to push the envelope of your startup and create what you want. You can make mistakes and learn from them without effecting a large customer base. You can change features and designs without having a community revolt against your product. Want to explore a different pricing model? Go for it. Change is much harder as you grow.

Stay focused and on track to hit your goals while you are alone in the beginning. Don't lose your motivation. Don't just go through the motions. Continue to do the right things while no one is watching and it will payoff in dividends in the future.

Backupify Protects your Tweets and Google Apps from Storms in the Cloud

2015-03-05T23:18:51.044000Z

Cloud computing has provided the means for us to instantly share pictures with friends on Flickr or Facebook, have conversations on Twitter, and post blogs for the whole world to read on Wordpress. Thanks to Google's Gmail, being able to access your email anywhere you have a connection to the internet and having more inbox space than most people will use in a lifetime has become the norm. We can even draft and share documents online thanks to Google Apps.

But what happens when the unthinkable happens? When there is a glitch in the cloud or you accidentally delete something and are the victim of lost data that cannot be recovered and has floated away. We have seen examples of this such as T-Mobile Sidekick owners losing their contacts, calendars, and photos on the Windows Mobile platform. Just last week, social media giant Facebook, had its worst outage since only having 7 million users. The remedy was to actually temporarily turn off the database for many of the 500 million users.

It's easy to forget a time not too long ago where we were responsible for backing-up our own data on our computers. This may have meant periodically burning your files onto a DVD or backing them up to an external USB drive you kept in a safe place for your piece of mind. With cloud computing, we give up some control. That philosophy wasn't accepted by the founders at Backupify. They still wanted the same piece of mind for their social media and online documents that they got from backing up their computer to an external USB drive.

Backupify provides tools to help control and protect cloud data. The most popular product is a Google Apps backup service. Backupify also has the ability to backup 17 online services, including your entire social media life. This is a big differentiating factor compared to other backup services that only integrate to backup part of your online self. Backupify can provide the piece of mind to a veteran of cloud-computing or someone just switching over to cloud services.

The company was founded by Rob May and Vik Chadha in November 2008 thanks to a friend suggesting a backup service for the popular photo sharing site, Flickr. Backupify started in Louisville, KY, but moved to Cambridge, MA earlier this year. Both founders have great backgrounds. Rob has an MBA from the University of Kentucky and blogged on Business Pundit for 5 years until he sold the site in 2008. Vik was previously the co-founder of GlowTouch, one of the Inc 500 fastest growing companies. Backupify recently raised $4.5 Million, bringing its total funding to $5.6M. With only 12 employees and less than $1 Million in annual revenue, the company is positioned for explosive growth over the next 6-12 months.

The backup service can be easily setup with a couple different monthly subscription pricing options. When asked how Backupify is currently being marketed, the standard methods such as SEO, SEM, and social media were given. You can find them having conversations on Twitter: @backupify. They are also on Facebook and Linkedin, as well as a new focus of creating content for YouTube soon. Great time is spent to cultivate a community around the new concept of backing-up the cloud. An additional marketing effort Backupify is employing revolves around a tactic that often times gets ignored by entrepreneurs. The company is working to build channel partnerships with companies such as Omnetic to connect with Google Apps business leads and complete the cloud computing product offering.

When asked what lesson learned would you like to share with aspiring entrepreneurs, Backupify founder Rob May said: "Stay with it. The hardest thing about a startup is having the discipline to keep going."

The ability to backup data in the cloud will play a vital roll in persuading many managers and business owners to move their priceless data from current hardware to the virtual cloud. The opportunity for complementing cloud computing services, such as Backupify, has only begun.

Does Groupon Realy Increase Loyal Customers?

2015-03-05T23:18:51.252000Z

Groupon has been under fire the last week for both fraudulent offers as well as the Groupon Nation nearly bankrupting mom and pop shops that take on the massive number of sales coming from the discounted deals. The Fraudulent Groupon Photography Deal was covered by Tech Crunch when it was brought to light that no professional photographer could ever schedule 1000's of on-site sessions in a timely fashion. This is especially true with an 87% discount, bringing the photographer's cut of the Groupon to roughly $30. I'm confident that, moving forward, Groupon will put a more rigorous review process in place to keep from making Tech Crunch news in this fashion.

The second issue this week is the real problem. Posies Cafe let the whole world know how taking on the responsibility of a Groupon deal nearly bankrupted this mom and pop store. The deal was pay $6 for a coupon valued at $13. After Groupon took 50%, the cafe owner was left with just $3 to cover the fixed cost of the $13 value. There were nearly 1,000 coupons sold. After 3 months, the business had lost $8,000 from their marketing efforts and could not make payroll. The owner had to take $8,000 from her and her husband's savings to cover the costs.

If the business offering the deal does not cap the number of Groupons that could be purchased, there is no ceiling to the risk that business is taking on by signing-up to offer a Groupon deal. Also, there is no easy way for the business to measure the ROI of a Groupon deal. There is a simple solution and a large piece missing from Groupon's business model.

First, a potential business looking to feature a deal on Groupon needs to know what the rate is of turning someone from the Groupon Nation into a loyal customer of the business. Next, the business needs to have a rough idea of what the lifetime value is of a loyal customer. In order for the Groupon offer to be beneficial for the business, the amount that is made from new loyal customers has to make-up the difference in lost revenue from the deal. Here is an example:

A steakhouse wants to offer a deal valued at $40 that can be purchased on Groupon for $20. Let's assume Groupon's cut is 50%. The steakhouse knows from its other advertising efforts that the average lifetime value of a new customer is $300. Let's assume the steakhouse gets 1000 people to purchase the Groupon.

1000 Groupon Customers times $40 = $40,000

$40k minus $10k (1000 Grouponers times $10 cut) = $30,000 in liability to fulfill for the steakhouse

$30,000 divide by $300 Lifetime Value of a Customer = 100 new lifetime customers needed

100 new lifetime customers needed divided by 1000 Groupon purchasers = 10%

The steakhouse would need to convert 10% of those 1000 bargain shoppers into lifetime customers just to break even. The business would have to take on the immediate liability of $30,000 which could cause a huge cash-flow crunch, and wait the lifetime of the 100 new, loyal customers to re-coup the cost of a Groupon deal.

As a regular Groupon purchaser, specifically of food deals, I can honestly say I have never made a second visit to any of the restaurants I redeemed deals at. My wife and I often use them as cheap date nights. I have never came across a restaurant that I would revisit and pay full price for. Yes, there are great success stories about how sales exploded after featuring a deal on Groupon, but these are the exceptions to the rule. I don't think our example steakhouse could ever convert the much needed 30%-40% of Grouponers to loyal customers to make the campaign successful. If businesses accurately track the results of the Groupon campaign, I think most will find it not nearly as successful as they hoped and potentially detrimental to small businesses like Posies Cafe.

The Solution

Groupon can fix all this and add a new revenue stream to their business model. Groupon has the email address of each purchaser for any given deal. Why not, with the purchaser's permission, opt that person into the loyalty marketing efforts of the business they just purchased a Groupon deal for. In our example from earlier, the steakhouse would now have 1000 new people receiving its email marketing campaign, which goes out to loyal customers. If the steakhouse doesn't have a loyalty program, Groupon could charge a recurring fee to start and manage a loyalty program for the steakhouse. This would truely allow both Groupon and the business offering the deal the ability to track the success of the Groupon segment and see what percentage of Groupon purchasers take advantage of the loyalty program, or just redeemed for one great, cheap steak.

4 Steps to Starting Your Dream Job Today

2015-03-05T23:18:51.297000Z

Many of us aspire to start a business and pursue our dream job. A large part of what stops us is paralysis and procrastination. As an entrepreneur, you will definitely need the ability to think outside the box and come up with creative ideas. You may have hundreds of ideas in your head for great inventions, services, or products. What separates entrepreneur from others with ideas is execution. The first step to executing your idea is getting started.

Here are 4 steps to get you on your way to living your dream job:

1. Tell someone about it. This creates accountability. If someone else close to you, such as a friend, spouse, or other family member knows about your dream, they can help hold you accountable. Just the idea of letting someone down by not pursuing your dream is often enough motivation to get started.

2. Write it down. Hang a whiteboard up where you and others can see it. Then, write down your ultimate goal, starting a business that is your dream job. Follow that up with some of the goal you need to achieve it. Don't write down just any goals...

3. Set realistic goals. Many people start off with extremely lofty goals for themselves. It is better to under-promise and over deliver, even if it is just to yourself. Take the goals you think you need to start your ultimate dream job and then divide them by 10. If you think you need 100 sales in the first month, shoot for 10. That way, you blow your goals out of the water and continue to be motivated instead of getting discouraged and quitting.

4. Start Now! There is no time like the present. Don't wait until "The time is right" because that rarely ever comes. Start small by getting your hands dirty scribbling down that first strategy plan, financial model, and prototype. What are you waiting for? Get out there and start your dream job!

Balancing Customer Requests, Demands, and the Occasional “Feature Blackmail”

2015-03-05T23:18:51.500000Z

This post was written by Neil Ahrendt, UX Architect and Software Engineer at Jesubi. Neil graduated from Purdue University with a degree in Computer Graphics Technology, Computer & Information Technology, and a Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

“If you chase two rabbits, both will escape." - ancient proverb

There is a thin line that every company must delicately walk in its early phases (and often longer than that) - deciding when to plan product or service development based on the requests and thoughts of key customers. Leaning to far to either side will have adverse effects: products can’t exist in a vacuum, and if customers aren’t happy with what is being offered, they’ll quickly head elsewhere. On the other hand, if a business bases all of its offerings on the specifics of individual clients, it will soon grow unwieldy; features or services will conflict, and what was intended to work perfectly for everyone (in one customized fashion or another) might not work well for anyone.

There are three keys to staying above water and not being dragged down to the depths of unsustainable feature creep:

1. Planning for central development.

2. Reflecting on and discussing potential features.

3. Being honest and realistic when talking with clients.

The first step is perhaps the most vital - designing a master plan which includes all goals, milestones, developments, and products - at least a year out for specifics, and probably another year for vague goals that may be subject to change. Not only will this help the development effort greatly - in fact, the product or service probably won’t succeed without this vision in the first place - but it makes it much easier to align customer expectations with planned developments when there’s a timeline of future efforts.

The second key is to understand where your customers are coming from when they request a feature: is this something your competitors offer? Is the request something your other clients would benefit from, or is this based on some internal methodology that doesn’t apply to the rest of the industry? Don’t immediately disregard when a customer makes a request: if you are building a product or service to help clients like them, you have no better source for input on their needs than when they approach you. Take their requests and compare them with your product plan - do any aspects align, or is there a plan in place which might equally suit their needs? Remember, the customer doesn’t care about the specific solution to their problem as much as they want the problem solved. Finally, share these requests (at a basic level) with your other clients to see if they could also benefit from the solution.

Finally, you need to be honest with your customers about your capabilities, plans, and goals. Clients will often see smaller startups as Playdoh; desperate for customers and money, willing to change on a dime because a client threatens to back out if a certain feature isn’t implemented. As tempting and effective as it might be, don’t promise anything new just to make a sale - it will come back to bite you later on. If you have to deny a request, explain how it doesn’t fit into the overall plan, how else they might solve the problem, and what else you’re doing to make their lives easier. They might get upset, but you probably won’t lose a customer: rarely are new features so necessary that customers would fail without them, as clearly they have made it thus far.

Every startup will have to deal with this issue at some point, but if you make a plan (and stick to it), understand the deeper goal behind your clients’ requests, and are honest with them about when you can (and more importantly, can’t or won’t) change your service to meet their needs, your company won’t be stretched to every extreme in the pursuit of meeting demands.

5 Tips on Entrepreneurship from the StartupPro

2015-03-05T23:18:51.560000Z

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Martin Zwilling, the StartupPro on twitter, and talk with him about his thoughts on entrepreneurship. Martin has amazing experience as a CEO and Founder, member of multiple Advisory Boards for startups, and writer published in Forbes and Harvard Business Review. He even has a new book called Do YOU Have What It TAKES To Be An Entrepreneur? (get a signed copy on his website, or the kindle version on Amazon).

Since starting his blog about entrepreneurship in January of 2009, he has become an authority on startups as his nearly 250,000 twitter followers can attest. Every day, Martin shares insights such as Ten Myths About Innovation and Nine Ways To Work Less And Do More.

Here are 5 of the tips I learned from my conversation with Martin that every young entrepreneur can take to heart:

1. Get experience working at big companies. Instead of pursuing entrepreneurship right out of college, go work for a major company for your first job. You get to learn and make small mistakes on someone else's dime. Also, many companies offer training you can take advantage of to learn the managerial skills you will need as a founder and entrepreneur.

2. Network to find like minded people to work with on your startup. If there is an aspect of your startup that you need help on, you may be able to trade a portion of your founder's stock for an expert's assistance. A great example is if you need a website created, find a great website designer/programmer and offer them a portion of your company in exchange for their time.

3. Founding team of 2 people, one young and one experienced. There is just too much for one person to do in a new startup. Find a partner with complementing skills. If you're a marketing guru, find a technical expert. Also, use the step approach to make-up for lack of experience if you are a young entrepreneur. Find an experienced entrepreneur that has launched a couple of startups. Investors have more confidence in a company that includes someone that has already gone through the process of growing a startup. Next time, you will be the experienced entrepreneur in the step relationship.

4. Build the product and get your first customer before pursuing funding. There are lots of ideas out there but turning your idea into reality at any scale greatly increases the value of your company. The cost of starting a software company is so low compared to 20 years ago that creating a prototype on a shoe-string budget is viable. Make sure you put sweat equity into your business before asking for funding to grow.

5. Use a 10 minute funding pitch to secure a follow-up meeting. When it is finally time to go after Angel or VC funding to grow your business, make sure you have the correct expectations when meeting with potential investors. Plan on your first meeting being about 10 minutes. You need to pitch all the high-level points of your company in that time while giving the investor sufficient reason to continue the conversation with you. The goal is to score a follow-up meeting of about 2 hours with the investor where you will then go into the details of your business plan and the vetting process begins. Modify Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 rule to keep your presentation as close to 10 minutes as possible.

Do Average Work to Get Ahead

2015-03-05T23:18:51.780000Z

It's often times the preconceived notion that in order to get ahead, we have to do extraordinary work. After all, it is what we have been told ever since we were students. In elementary school it's make the best volcano for the science fair, get the blue ribbon. In college it's pull an all nighter to write the best essay of your life for an A. This continues to be reinforced in the work place. Deliver that big project just in time before the deadline and your boss is ecstatic.

Let's think about what normally happens when we try to do extraordinary work? We start off with lots of enthusiasm when pitching a new idea and may think of all the great things we can do to make it a success. Then we get busy with our other responsibilities until we guilt-trip ourselves into setting aside a chunk of time to just get it done, normally right before a deadline. You might work all Saturday to furiously write that 20 page report for your boss that outlines how to change all the things to make the company better. When you are finished, you are stressed and know it isn't your best work but it is extraordinary because you cranked out all 20 pages in one sitting.

Why would you want to work that hard? Luckily, there's an easier way.

Doing average work to get ahead doesn't reflect on the quality of the work produced, it refers to the way in which the content was produced. What if you worked on the report for an hour a day over the last 2 weeks. Not only would you have been done by the deadline, you would have been able to consistently produce your best work without being stressed. Chances are that you forgot to include some of your great ideas in the report to your boss either because you were under pressure and forgot about them, or you just ran out of time.

Stever Robbins, host of the Get-It-Done Guy podcast at Quick and Dirty Tips talks about this very concept while he was working on his new book. He admits that on an extraordinary day, he could sit down and write 10 pages. He goes on to say that if he would have written just 2 pages each day, it would have taken him less than a year to write his book.

You can apply this to your current job, business, or entrepreneurial project. Schedule 1 - 2 hours a day where you consistently work on the task at hand. Block out time in the morning, at night after work, in between classes, or even over your lunch break. Before you know it, you will turn that dream project into a reality!

Top 5 Marketing Blogs To Improve Your Marketing Effectiveness

2015-03-05T23:18:51.812000Z

With so much information overload on the web, how are you supposed dig through it all to find the best support resources for the marketing tools you are currently using or should be using? A great marketing blog can provide you with common practices and guidelines, free market research, and inspire a new initiative within your business. There are also oftentimes creative, out of the box approaches to the same common problems everyone faces when marketing in today's world filled with lots of noise trying to grab the consumer's attention.

Here are 5 great blogs that will help you excel in different marketing aspects to ensure your company is a top performer in each of these key areas.

1. Hubspot

Inbound Marketing - Landing Pages

Hubspot continues to expand its product offering to include all aspects of inbound marketing such as driving traffic to landing pages, blogs, social media, and email, then closing the loop to nurture and analyze the leads. Known for their amazing marketing webinars, often times given by co-founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, they cover topics such as Small Business Guide to Social Media Marketing and A CEO's Guide to Internet Marketing. Check out their free Website Grader to see how your site stacks up in marketing effectiveness and tips to improve.

2. ExactTarget

Email Marketing

Whether you are looking for email marketing design tips, thought leadership, or research about the email marketing industry, the ExactTarget blog covers it all. The Direct Marketing Association predicts the average ROI for email marketing is $43.52. To ensure your marketing money is spent wisely and achieve at least the average ROI, be sure to check out all the great information on the ExactTarget blog.

3. SEOmoz

Search Engine Optimization

SEOmoz is the authority on link authority. Get the advice you need to get your site on the first page of more search results and drive more traffic to your site as a result. They talk about How to Benchmark Analytics, 7 Cutting Edge Web Design Trends to Improve SEO, and beloved Whiteboard Friday videos like Outsourcing Content Creation.

4. Social Media Examiner

Social Media

The website tag-line says it all - "Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle." Social Media is the tool that is evolving the fastest, which is why many marketers see it as the scariest. "What if we get on Twitter and consumers don't like our products and say bad things about us?", the concerned marketer may say. Well at least you know what they are saying and can potentially react to it. Maybe that means a product redesign, or improved customer service, or a new guitar and a free flight. No matter what the case, Social Media Examiner has posts about how to better utilize Facebook, connecting with consumers, or even plan your entire social media strategy.

5. Seth Goden

Marketing Thought Leader

Pick the brilliant brain of Seth Goden every day as he shares profound thoughts and views about marketing on his blog. You will find topics like Solving the Perfect Problem or what the Kindle could do to grab some serious market share. Be like Seth and become a thought leader in your industry. Use all the tools mentioned above to take your sphere of influence and become known as an expert in your industry.