You don’t want it as much as you want to party

You don’t want it as much as you want to be cool

You don’t want it as much as you want to sleep

Somedays, you’re going to have to stay up 3 days in a row

You’ve got to forget to eat.

I want it so fucking bad

iOS Interface Strategic Direction & Design

 I miss you grandpa, thanks for teaching me the value of saving and investing for the long term.

http://seanmeverett.com

http://seanmeverett.com

If you’re reading this, then it’s very likely that I reached your attention (maybe twice now , potentially created a visceral emotional reaction, and maybe even offended you.  But at what cost, did it communicate the right message, and how many people still didn’t care or even noticed that it happened?  I mean, the picture was only up for 24 hours, from Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon.

Noise

Did you know that in 1950 people were bombarded by approximatley 500 ads per day, but today that number’s skyrocketed to over 5,000?  How in the hell do you or your company plan to stand out in a sea of noise so loud, it drowns out everything but iPads, Google +, reality TV and US Weekly?

You can’t.  Unless you spend millions of dollars in advertising or build the next iPhone.  Or, you do something shocking.

Billboards In Times Square

Imagine if this picture was on a billboard in Times Square in New York City.  Would you notice it?  Would you wonder what Evolyte does?  Would you go through the tremendous effort of pulling out your phone and Googling it? 

See the full gallery on Posterous

In the mid 80s when Tommy Hilfiger wanted to launch his brand, he needed great ads to get him there. He turned to George Lois, who had just previously created spectacular ads for MTV, including the shocking “I Want My MTV” grassroots campaign that played for one day and made the networks pick up the fledging channel. Lois created the ad you see above.  He was also the advertising mastermind behind Jiffy Lube, ESPN, Esquire, Reebok, etc.  Basically the biggest brands that are still in existence today was solely because of this man’s ads. If you do nothing else, click through to his website and read everything in his portfolio 20 times.

This ad, plus another one which instead of the “fill-in-the-blanks” had pictures were horrific. They instigated. Lois created ads like these because if Tommy wanted to raise his profile with less aggressive ads, he would need millions of dollars. These ads ran it home, quickly. Lois loved making things that first horrified you and then you saw that they were above the noise. Tommy said that because these ads represented Tommy as a great in fashion, he forced himself to work harder to make sure he lived up to the title that his ads said he had.

The success happened right away. It created the billion dollar company that exists today.

I heard George say something in an interview that stuck with me:  “Don’t study losing, unless you want to lose.  If you want to win, study winners”.  Did you know Tommy Hilfiger was absolutely embarrassed by the cockiness expressed in these ads, but also got him on the tonight show and on the lips of the fashion elite in New York City overnight.  I think we can all agree that the brand is now internationally known, and is even making a comeback.

So What Was The Result?

Let’s look at a couple quotes I received from people bold enough to even make a comment:

Do you know how many people texted me saying, “What the hell is Sean thinking posting that?”.  Do you really want to be known as being cocky?

Wow you are such a fucking hyprocite Sean. I refuse to be around arrogant people who are highly insecure.

Yep, I basically destroyed a few personal relationships to make a point about my company, Evolyte, and create marketing messages.  If there’s one thing you need to know about me, it’s that I’m willing to jeapordize my personal reputation in order to FINALLY get you to recognize something I’ve been saying for years:

• Marketing Tip of the Day:  create double takes
• Marketing Tip of the Day:  shock and awe
  
• Marketing Tip of the Day:  create visceral emotional reactions

So yes, my friends and loved ones think I’m arrogant, cocky, and hypocritical (because I hate people that post MySpace-esque profile pics of them in sexual pictures).  But did it send a message about Evolyte and my own intensity?  Do you think that if I tell you I can do a thing, that I can actually do THAT specific thing, and do it better than a competitor?

Did you know that the second most competitive business model on the internet, outside of Groupon, is web design?  Have you ever seen another web design company post a picture like that?  We also make iPhone apps and web apps.  Do you know the #1 most asked question on the forum where all the developers of these apps hang out (i.e., Hacker News) is?  “How do I launch or market my new website, business, iPhone app, etc?”  It’s always a marketing question.  Doing the same ole shit is going to get you just that:  shit.

The consumer market is the most crowded, competitive, intense industry in the business world.  There are billions of websites and companies.  And you know what?

There will only be about 10 people who actually read this post, and there are probably only another 20 that actually ever saw this picture.  There’s so much noise out there, even this didn’t break through it.  There’s not enough fuel behind it and it’s not broad enough.  If people are too lazy to even click links in email, why would they click a link in one of your tweets out of billions?

What Does Noise Feel Like?

NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE 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NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE

That’s about what 1,000 ads per day looks like.  Now multiply that times 5 and see if you can find Evolyte in there just by briefly glancing in this direction.  Now imagine that’s a bunch of radio, TV, billboard, tweets, emails, texts, and Facebook status updates, but none of them are exactly the same and organized like the above.

Mission (NOT) accomplished.  We have two iPhone apps launching in a few weeks. Do you think I’ll get your attention then?  Doubtful.

Of course, nobody said shit about the profile pictures I used before and after this one because, well, it’s just more of the same old noise:

Think Different, Braveheart

If Apple taught us to Think Differently, then Braveheart taught us that sometimes you have to sacrifice yourself for what you love and believe in.  What happened to being bold, making some noise, and bucking the establishment?  What happened to standing out from the crowd in a unique way?

So I’ll make you a promise:  I’m not going to stop taking calculated risks just because they’re potentially dangerous.

I spent a few weeks thinking about whether I should post this picture, going back and forth, then after deciding, another few hours actually editing the image in Photoshop and adding the copy (which sucks by the way, and definitely needs some work).

But, if you don’t live 10% outside your or your company’s comfort zone, how can you expect to make an impact on this world, in your industry, or even in your company?

Evolyte is a professional services company with clients ranging from some of the most recognized brands in the world to small startups that haven’t even launched yet.  But, we don’t talk about who we work with or post our portfolio online (check out the Evolyte Blog if you want to read why).  That said, how are we supposed to communicate what we do and how we do it in a way that grabs your attention when we have no physical, tangible product?  We don’t have an iPod that we can throw an album cover on and say “We’ve got the Beatles: iPod”.

So, we’ve got to be as creative in concept and messaging for ourselves as we do with our clients.  Some, or maybe many, of you will not agree.  Only time will tell…

Shock & Motherf^cking Awe, Like Kenny Effing Powers

See the full gallery on Posterous

I didn’t want to forget, so I put it on my iPhone

Class Clown

New eyeglasses to represent a new evolyte.

iPhone Photography

1. Soft Language — Never use hard words like:  always, very, never, extremely, or recommend. When necessary, it may potentially be beneficial to use words like:  suggest, perhaps, potentially, sometimes, often and may.
2. We, Not I — We are a team, and so anything we say in written or oral form must express that. The only time “I” is appropriate is when apologizing, because it was I who made the mistake, not the team.
3. Paradox of Pay & Value — The minute you leave consulting for corporate, the value of your advice is cut in half but your pay will double.
4. You’re The Expert — Clients will look to you for advice and save emails that you send for years, going back to them when they forget.
5. Clients Come First — They come before you, your family, and your sleep. They come before any internal projects.  When in doubt, just make clients happy.
6. Beauracracy — Unless you’re at a boutique firm with less than 30 employees, there will always be beauracracy, layers of management, and inefficient administrative issues to content with regardless of what side of the relationship you live on.
7. Internalized Expertise — Try writing down the process of tying your show and giving it to a child who doesn’t yet know how.  You’ve internalized tying that shoe and it’s much easier for you to just do it, then explain the thought process and algorithm for doing so.  Experts in professional services are analagous. Just give them the keys and let them drive, don’t make them explain how they drive, it’s an inefficient use of time and money.
8. Storytelling — It’s a scientific fact that adults learn best through analogies, examples and storytelling.  How much easier was it understanding point #7 above with the examples?  Still think it’s just a fad?  You need look no further than Homer’s Odyssey or Iliad.
9. People Run Businesses — The classic thinking is that because it’s a business and corporate, everyone must be buttoned up and serious all the time.  Even in Board rooms of the largest companies on the planet, there is still friendly banter and relationships being established.  People work for and with people, not faceless companies.
10. Change is Hard — Regardless of the number of times you’ve experienced this fact and even internalized it, change will always be difficult for everyone (and yes, I’m using hard language).  Whether it’s a merger of equals or simply going with a new paper supplier, the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.

After witnessing one of the closest people in my life pass from cancer, a few childhood friends losing their parents to cancer, and seeing the home where I was born and raised ravished by floods, I’m thinking and soul searching more than ever.

What is the meaning of life?

We’ve all asked that question. I don’t have the answer, but I do know that making yourself and others joyful is about as close as I’m ever going to be to understanding it. 

I’ve chosen a career in technology because it’s a creative canvas that allows other people to interact with it.  Have computers, cell phones and Facebook made your life more joyful?  Maybe not in small doses, but I’d argue that taken in total it’s allowed you to connect with friends and family more often and in a more meaningful way.

I think that’s my life’s work, to make your life not just marginally better, but more joyful as well.

Standing on the El platform last night on the way to a Cubs game I was fortunate enough to be invited to, I was surrounded by people of varying religions, cultures, races, and sex.  But the happiest person in the entire place was a homeless man in his late 40s singing acapella with his eyes closed.

Sadly, no one noticed him, but we started singing with him. 

He then began to sing the classic Wizard of Oz song by Judy Garland, “Over The Rainbow”, and I felt a sense of contentment wash over me.  I gave him all the money I had in my wallet, save for the $20 bill I needed to take a cab home.  I told him to “keep doing what you’re doing” because his attitude affected me positively and I’m sure it affected others as well.

So I ask you:  are you one of the people I witnessed Monday evening that jumped out of work the minute the clock ticked past 5pm and rushed away as fast as you could? 

You only get one life, and you should be proud and happy of every part of it, including your career (you spend the bulk of your life either in school or at work).

If I can help you take the thing you dread and turn it into something you love, maybe that would give my life meaning.  Let me know how I can help.

Contact Me

I’m sure there are very few of you who will care about the journey that led me to found evolyte, but I wanted to get it out on the internet so my son and my daughter could someday read this, and remind them that believing in themselves and following their dreams are the most important things.

I grew up in Sioux City, Iowa, which is about to get flooded as we speak, but that’s a story for a different time.  I loved playing baseball from the first whiffle ball I hit off a tee at two years old.  I played for almost two decades until I got to college and decided to focus on academics.

This is a crucial piece of the story, because it was always my dream to play professional baseball, 3rd base, the hot corner.  I mean, realistically, I probably wasn’t good enough to make the majors, but you never know, I do have a pretty rediculous work ethic (thanks Kevin and Sally!).  The point being, I never tried out for the Iowa baseball team, so there will always be a hint of wonder and regret for not at least trying out.

Cut to four years later, and I had passed a handful of some of the most rediculously difficult professional examinations on the planet (actuarial science exams, and yes, there are eight in total!), had two internships with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and graduated without a job.  Thanks economy.

That led to what I like to call my blue period, where I worked at Cost Plus World Market for $9.50 an hour after graduating with a double major in Mathematics and Actuarial Science, and minors in Business and Statistics, 2 internships in downtown Chicago, running multiple student organizations, and basically never having fun.

Awesomesauce.  Talk about a kick in the….you get the picture.

So there I am, at 1am in the morning, no money in my bank account, living in BFE up north in Chicago, throwing away garbage at Cost Plus and I freakin lost it.  I was tearing apart cardboard boxes, throwing stuff, and at my lowest point, even cussed out God.

I called up my parents, my dad flew up, we rented a Lincoln Navigator (they were dope in the early 2000s, right?), packed up what I could, and drove the 14-hour trip from Chicago to Dallas to live with my parents all over again. 

Now that’s big pimpin.  What’s happenin’ ladies?  No?  Okay…

Skip forward 3 years and I’m working for a management consulting firm sitting in Fortune 500 Board rooms advising the leaders of the free world how to incentive people to perform better and in a way that’s aligned with the corporate and financial strategy of the firm.  Some of my work was put in front of the head of the largest company in the world.  You better believe you double check your work.

In 2007, I started BlueStone Investments because every Mathematician saw the movie Pi and thinks he can beat the market.  +43%.  Check.

So what to do from there?  Get engaged and go back to business school, duh!  So we packed the Uhaul up and moved back to Chicago in 2008 for like the billionth time, and started at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  While I’m there, it received a $100 million grant and renamed the school after Mr. Booth himself.

Cut to 2009 and while BlueStone was winding down, we started Evolyte.  The backstory of which, I neglected to tell you, but let’s just say I’ve been hacking the 1s and 0s since the days of MS DOS.  I got my first computer, a 386 Gateway 2000 PC at age 13, and never looked back.  It’s sort of funny, I never had any formal education in software development or visual design, but couldn’t get enough of it.  I’ve always been ravenous for digital knowledge and so picked it up strictly by osmosis and a love for the game (pun intended).

So I suppose my mathematical training comes in handy.  It’s all about a universal language of simplification.  Great design is all about telling a story through visual minimalism.  Same stuff there.

So with my MBA graduation approaching, a hot internet market, and the goal of finally living my dream sitting right in front of me, I quit my job in 2010 to focus on Evolyte full-time.

The act of quitting your job that allowed you to live a carefree life isn’t simply a binary decision.  You don’t just flip a switch.  It’s gut-wrenching, it’s self-doubt, and it’s also the:  how-the-heck-am-I-going-to-pay-for-food-when-the-money-runs-out-before-the-income-comes-in (damn, do you know how long it took to add in all those dashses?  I mean, seriously.)?  If you don’t have these thoughts, well you’re just not human, or you’re mental.  For the latter, Evolyte’s offices are next door to an anger clinic, so you may want to go ahead and check that out.

Everything is circular, right?  Remember how I had that one regret always in the back of my mind about not trying out for the college baseball team?  “Self”, I said to myself. “You’re not going to make the same mistake twice and be walking around with two regrets, so get out there and hustle like Rick Ross.”  So I took a spoonful of my own medicine, grabbed my Mary Poppins bag full of ever-growing Apple products, and hit it hard.

Flip to today.  Good things.  Lots of good things.  From crazy dangerous, awesome angles. Awesome like Kevin Bacon’s dance moves in Footloose (you’re welcome).

So what’s the moral?

As a friend, who’s writing a novel the likes of which would confuse the movie, Momento, said at dinner last night,

“Find a way to get paid to be you.”

No that’s elegant simplicity.  You shouldn’t change who you are for a romantic partner, so why would you do it for your career, which these days, last 10x as long?

http://seanmeverett.com

http://seanmeverett.com ]]> http://www.seanmeverett.com/2011/05/infinity/feed/ 0 http://www.seanmeverett.com/2011/05/infinity/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seanMeverett/~3/E_HXAj6jXjI/ http://www.seanmeverett.com/2011/05/take-my-comedy-seriously-this-diploma-says-so/#comments Sat, 21 May 2011 17:34:37 +0000 seanMeverett http://www.seanmeverett.com/2011/05/take-my-comedy-seriously-this-diploma-says-so/

I couldn’t have made the many YouTube videos without it. Figured it was time to frame this bad boy, been a few months since graduation.

http://seanmeverett.com

See the full gallery on Posterous

When’s the last time you saw an Android device available for public use?

I’ve now seen iPads used in retail and travel settings, both in New York City. I’m sure you can extrapolate where the trend is heading next.

My only other question is, why haven’t you bought Apple stock yet?

http://seanmeverett.com

SECOND PLACE DREAMS

VERSE
Growing up, felt like second place at everything,
Kindergarten, sports, and my pro baseball dream
My twenties felt like an emotional boxing ring
Landed in the hospital, but still hangin on by a string

It’s hard starting something from nothing
Abandoning friends and family for selfish things
Surrounded by books and internet, mental traveling
And the only thing to show for it,
Lost love and stress, now ain’t that something?

And the worst part is you need to stay positive and on your shit,
But people call you lame, selfish, and ego-centric
Which nearly shreds your last bit of confidence
Until you put the blinders on and remember those childish hints
About the love of the game and bubble gum, pop a fun mint

CHORUS
And then things change, second place dreams,
Change that steam to C.R.E.A.M.,
Cuz Cash Rules Everything Around Me
But the only thing that means anything is family.

VERSE
Just found out my grandma’s contemplating suicide
Made it through the great depression and even when my grandpa died
But like your spirit, your hip broke again, time’s never on your side,
And it keeps feeling like God’s full of lies
Only you can fight nature’s current and float through another tide
Believe in yourself, cuz I’ve always felt God’s on the inside

I had to fight for my achievements, I never had a last name,
An Iowa work ethic and my parent’s 40th anniversary game
The last four years have been a whirlwind, focused on business tools
A consulting job, two Startups, and a top 5 business school

But now I’m trying to change my selfish ways,
And impact people’s lives for years, not just days
So I make you grab your dreams
Use that internal rumbling
To achieve things, not just buy things
And instead, become human beings
Because it’s people’s happiness,
Not things, that’s life’s true meaning.

CHORUS
And then things change, second place dreams,
Change that steam to C.R.E.A.M.,
Cuz Cash Rules Everything Around Me
But the only thing that means anything is family.

VERSE
I’ve never gotten respect or recognition from anyone
And that’s the way it will be until the end
Let go of my ego, not a big, but a small head
And my family, you were there next to my hospital bed
My friends texted, the rest of you could give a fuck if I’m dead
You find out who loves you, four people, that’s who, the rest of you, more like “Who cares if I ever met you?”

But here’s the best part,
I’ll always be there for you
And lend a thoughtful hand
A strong shoulder, and even my time, man
And to my family and my best friends, I got you when my ship lands
Cuz we grew up together, and that shit’s forever, man

Man, it feels like I’m alone sometimes,
Like no one understands my entire life
Except for Dimmy, that woman’s my wife,
Put up with my stupid antics, all the childish strife
But you’ve always been there,
Your faint touch and the wind through your hair
And no matter what, I’ll always love you, I still care
So I’m doing my best to repair this disrepair.

CHORUS
And then things change, second place dreams,
Change that steam to C.R.E.A.M.,
Cuz Cash Rules Everything Around Me
But the only thing that means anything is family.

http://seanmeverett.com ]]> http://www.seanmeverett.com/2011/05/beautiful/feed/ 0 http://www.seanmeverett.com/2011/05/beautiful/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seanMeverett/~3/O9RXzUs07AA/ http://www.seanmeverett.com/2011/05/hmm-wonder-what-this-could-be-for/#comments Tue, 03 May 2011 17:00:01 +0000 seanMeverett http://www.seanmeverett.com/2011/05/hmm-wonder-what-this-could-be-for/

http://seanmeverett.com ]]> http://www.seanmeverett.com/2011/05/hmm-wonder-what-this-could-be-for/feed/ 0 http://www.seanmeverett.com/2011/05/hmm-wonder-what-this-could-be-for/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seanMeverett/~3/EjNPauwyMGE/ http://www.seanmeverett.com/2011/04/want-a-quick-dirty-primer-on-investing-heres-an-email-i-just-wrote/#comments Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:27:16 +0000 seanMeverett http://www.seanmeverett.com/2011/04/want-a-quick-dirty-primer-on-investing-heres-an-email-i-just-wrote/

An unedited email I just sent a friend regarding his trust and whether his trustee should invest in Apple or not.  You can’t see the email exchange, but you may be able to decipher it:

Hey man, a few comments as it relates to portfolio theory, my own experience running an equity-based investment shop, and my personal retirement investments:

1.  As you know, I’m long apple and it represents a significant portion of my long-term retirement portfolio, actually $30K worth.  I also own about 20 mutual funds a few bonds, Goldman Sachs, an energy company (EGY), and the DJIA tracking stock (DIA). 

2.  Equities get a bad rap due to the glorification of day trading during the dot com boom and their comparative “riskiness” as they relate to mutual funds or fixed income.  The fact is, however, that literally ALL of my portfolio returns over the last 6 years have come from 4 things:  AAPL, GS, EGY, DIA — the four equity-related stocks.  The bonds and mutual funds have been a wash.  It’s true that they’re less risky as it relates to the “world” of equity investing, but it puts a damper on both the downside AND the upside. 

3.  The key to all of this is something called the Sharpe Ratio, which is just fancy finance speak for “risk-adjusted return”.  In layman terms, it’s a measure of how big a return you can expect per unit of riskiness.  I’ve chosen the gold standard Apple and Goldman Sachs because they’re literally not going anywhere.  Apple has a cash runway until 2018, that’s nuts!  Warren Buffet invested in Goldman (yes, he got preferred, but it’s still a sign of trust).

4.  As it relates to Dividends, there is always confusion about this.  Most people think that stocks that pay dividends are actually paying you, but in fact the dividend yield is already baked into the fair market value of the stock price.  Thus, you’re actually worse off due to the time value of money because you’re not receiving the full value of the stock in the present time (present value of discounted cash flows, in this case, dividends).  You have to wait for each future value dividend payment in perpetuity (i.e., forever) in order to get the full value of the stock.

5.  Thus, never buy stocks for the dividend, instead take the buffet approach.  Understand everything there is to know about the industry, the company, their competitors, their customers, supply chain, and add into it anything that you don’t think is baked into the stock price (in Apple’s case, nobody baked the iPad into the stock price 2 years ago, but the current stock price does.  That’s where fundamental and technical analysis of any stock breaks down).

6.  In Apple’s case, I know absolutely everything (public) there is to know about the governing dynamics affecting this stock, including things that I don’t think have been baked into the stock, such as the billion dollar data center in North Carolina they’ve been building for years that nobody knows what it’s for (the rumor is streaming/cloud itunes and music, but I’m guessing it’s going to go much deeper than that).

7.  In summary, I’m actually still investing in Apple and have yet to sell a share of stock.  My return is pretty significant over the past few years (you only need to look at a stock price chart on Google finance to see that).  My only regret was listening to a naysayer when it was at $80/share instead of trusting my gut.  Because of that, I missed out on an $80/share gain.

8.  My price target for apple, barring Steve Jobs untimely death and Jony Ivy leaving for the UK is $500/share within the next year.  Last quarter their revenue AND profit doubled.  Let me repeat that.  It FUCKING DOUBLED!  Do you know the degree of difficulty for pulling something like that off even for small companies?  Now take a huge, global company like apple and try to do that.  It’s unprecedented and people still can’t get their hands on an iPad 2 because supply is still constrained.  What’s going to happen when the iPhone 5 comes out.  I’ll tell you what.  Pan-de-freaking-monium.

9.  I’ll leave you with one final thought.  Name one other brand (company, musician, person, anything) that people are willing to stand in line for a week for.  Other than Michael Jackson (RIP), I can’t name one.

Investing

It’s like a battery. You really don’t care about it until it stops working.

Rules:

1. Branding — Seemingly every company, large or small, tries to position themselves on “great customer service”. So you’re saying you want your company’s brand to be a commodity?
2. Heart — If it doesn’t come from the heart, why even start? If you’re doing it for another piece of flair, you’ve failed.
3. Unexpected — If I’ve experienced it before, it’s just not as impactful.
4. Empathy — A mile in your shoes for me and a mile in mine for you. A little compassion can go a long way in this world. Have you ever asked the customer service rep you’re about to yell at how his or her day is going? The result might surprise you.

As part of this Body by Evolyte initiative, we go to the gym around 3 days a week at about 5pm and get smoothies from Jamba Juice afterwards.  Yesterday, upon seeing us walk in the door, two employees who we don’t see that often went to the back of the store and returned with our pre-made, refridgerated smoothies they had waiting for us. 

The owner wasn’t around and the boss certainly wasn’t around. They didn’t get excited when we tipped them with a $20.  They did it to make us smile. And it worked.

That’s excellence any way you slice it. I challenge you to do better.

There’s a man I know who’s continually WOWed me with great customer service. Check him out on Twitter:  Joel David Barnes.

Richard Feynman famously asked: “If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words?”

“The same mathematics of networks that governs the interactions of molecules in a cell, neurons in a brain, and species in an ecosystem can be used to understand the complex interconnections between people, the emergence of group identity, and the paths along which information, norms, and behavior spread from person to person to person.” —James Fowler is a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego.

Basically, the universe, ourselves, our thoughts, and our interactions all follow the same, simple blueprint.  Like chaos theory and fractals, the seemingly complex only appears as such until you understand the few simple rules governing the system.

Massively Distilled Wisdom

You should read the comments:

http://dribbble.com/shots/151077-MP

Design

Concept

The concept of the income statement is actually pretty easy to understand and you’re likely already familiar with it:

Sales – costs = income

It’s just like your bank account. When you get paid from your job, that’s like sales (or more formally, revenue). When you blow part of your income buying out your local Wal-Mart of all the purple hoodies and Bieber CDs, that’s like costs (or more formally, expenses). Whatever is left over is your savings (or more formally, net income). 

If you save this income from one pay period to the next, or one quarter to the next, then your bank account balance starts growing. The formal name for this concept is Retained Earnings, but that’s located on the Balance Sheet, and is a post for a different day. 

Structure

So let’s start with the top of the income statement and work our way downwards.  Every income statement is set up the same, top-to-bottom, and attempts to loosely organize the timing of creating and selling a product or service.  As you move downwards you start taking away each of the costs associated with running the business until youre left with net income (or in some cases, a net loss).

Gross Profit

Gross Profit = Revenue – Cost of Goods Sold

Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) is a pretty apt description. It’s how much it costs you to manufacture your product or deliver your service. 

Imagine starting a RedBull stand on your street corner (What? Lemonade is boring and I need more caffeine.). Every time you sell a can of RedBull, you have to first buy that can or manufacture it yourself. If you buy it, you’re going to want to purchase it at as low of a price as possible (e.g., wholesale), so you can then apply a “mark up” and make a profit by selling it for a higher price. 

Advanced Note:  from economic theory, the optimal mark up is equal to:  1/(elasticity of demand).  The elasticity of demand is the sensitivity your customers have to your product’s or service’s price (i.e., how many cans of RedBull they buy if you increase or decrease the price).  Again, pricing theory is the topic for another post.

Thus, if you buy a can of RedBull for $1.50 and sell it for $2.00, then your gross profit looks like this:

$2.00 revenue – $1.50 COGS = $0.50 gross profit

Gross Profit Margin

Margins are a way to compare two different-sized businesses in the same industry (higher margins are better).

In the example from above, our gross profit margin (GPM) is as follows:

$0.50 gross profit / $2.00 revenue = 25% GPM

A 25% gross margin business isn’t one you want to start. Why? Because before you even wake up in the morning you’ve only got 25% of your sales price to work with.

To put this into perspective, professional services businesses typically have super high GPMs because the only cost of producing an incremental sale is the people’s time. On the other hand, commodity businesses typically have very low GPMs due to the very cost intensive nature of gathering raw materials from their natural locations.

Operating Income

Next up are all the expenses associated with running the business. These are called operating expenses and include things like:

•   Compensation and benefits

•   Advertising and marketing

•   Office space and supplies

You may have seen this crazy looking mnemonic before:  EBITDA (pronounced ee-bit-dah).  It stands for Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation & Amortization, and is just a fancy way of saying operating income. After you remove all the expenses shown above, you’re left with EBITDA.

Depreciation & Amortization

These words can seem intimidating but they actually represent the same concept. Let’s compare this to when you purchase a car.  You’ve may have heard the phrase, “cars depreciate but houses appreciate”. 

Depreciation refers to the fact that some assets reduce in value over time (e.g., cars and computers).  Because they lose value, you need to account for this on the financial statements, by applying one of a few different methods. The most simple of these is called Straight-Line Depreciation. Basically, if the computer was purchased for $2,000 and won’t be replaced for four years (referred to as the “useful life”), then you the the following:

$2,000 computer / 4 year useful life = $500 depreciation per year.

Attend of the four years, you’re assuming the value of the computer will be $0. If it’s not, then you need to account for its “salvage value”. Assuming the salvage value is $400, you have: 

($2,000 computer – $400 salvage value) / 4 year useful life = $400 depreciation per year

Amortization is the exact same concept, only it refers to debt like interest or finance charges, while depreciation is used to refer to assets like equipment.

Interest & Taxes

Ah yes, the wonderful world of debt and taxes.  We probably don’t need to get into taxation because it gets complex quickly.  All you need to know is that accounting rules aren’t an exact science so there are plenty of ways to legally manipulate accounting income to pay fewer taxes, if that’s the financial strategy the CFO is perusing.  

The other issue with taxes is that they’re iterative (warning: you’re about to go cross-eyed).  That means that you calculate the tax payment based on income, which is after you’ve excluded all expenses.  But, taxes are an expense too, so you have to keep calculating the tax expense, subtracting it from income, then calculating tax again.  It’s a paradox that’s handled simply by hard-coding this expense after the first calculation.

Interest is can be interesting too (pun intended)!  It’s only an issue if the company has debt. If there are no loans, then there’s no interest to pay (sort of like a house that’s completely paid off).  If there is debt, then it’s broken out into short-term (i.e., less than one  year) and long-term (i.e., greater than one year) debt. There’s also what’s called the “current portion of long-term debt”, which just means the amount that’s due in this fiscal year.  Clearly, there are different interest rates for each loan that needs to be serviced, but the Interest line item collects all of it into one dollar amount.

Net Income

Easy.  Add up all the revenue, subtract all the expenses, depreciation, amortization, interest, and taxes, and whatever is left is called net income.  In the public company world, there’s also a term called EPS (Earnings Per Share), which represents net income divided by the Common Shares Outstanding.

Net Income Margin

Similar to gross profit margin or operating profit margin, net income margin is equal to net income divided by revenue.

Retail clothing manufacturers (e.g., Guess) will have high gross profit margins (e.g., 70%), but low net income margins because it costs a lot to market and sell an item of clothing.

On the flip side, scalable Internet technology companies (e.g., Living Social) will have high gross margins and high net income margins.  This is due to the fact that COGS of selling one more unit of software is $0 (it’s already been developed, you just have to download it from the app store). Marketing costs, therefore, are typically the largest expense, outside of compensation and benefits, that a software company will have. This is why venture capitalists invest in technology companies, not in bars, restaurants, or retail stores.  They’re just not easily scalable. 

I’ve been using this example a lot in client meetings lately because it tells a pretty compelling story about why we can’t turn off TMZ and have 18 subscriptions to US Weekly.

From a 2005 ABC News article:

Dr. Michael Platt, a neurobiologist at Duke University Medical Center, led an experiment with 12 adult male rhesus macaque monkeys that he says may help explain the fascination with celebrities like socialite Paris Hilton.

Platt conducted the experiment by offering thirsty monkeys a choice: their favorite drink, in this case Juicy Juice cherry juice, or the opportunity to look at computer images of the dominant, “celebrity” monkey of their pack.

Despite their thirst, they chose to look at the pictures.

“What is celebrity for a monkey but their status?” said Platt.

Monkeys with status have food, power and sexual magnetism — everything the others crave. The impulse to look at these “celebrity” monkeys was so strong, it superceded thirst.

But they were not willing to give up the juice to look at pictures of subordinate monkeys, Platt found. In fact, they had to be bribed with extra juice to watch the rhesus riffraff.

Interestingly, the “celebrity” monkeys, says Platt, were just as interested in their fellow celebrities.

The male monkeys were also willing to pay (with more juice) to see female monkeys’ hind quarters. Monkey porn?

So what do you think, does obsessing over celebrities make us a monkey’s ass?  No comment.

Behavioral Marketing

1. Humor — There’s a reason eTrade continues to use the baby in their commercials.
2. Love — For teenage girls, Justin Bieber will never cheat on them, he will always make them feel special, these girls don’t have to compete with their friends for his attention, and he’s only a tweet or MP3 away.
3. Sex — Ciara’s Ride video (seriously, put the kids to bed).

Behavioral Marketing

I have a few rules:

1. No Debt — If you’re exploring a capital intensive business and need to raise debt to fund it, my question is why?  Why would you take the financial risk of the business not working out?  Examples include large inventory expenses for retail or manufacturing operations (unless you can pre-fund it using Kickstarter), and even franchise businesses.  If you need to raise capital, do it through equity, not debt.
2. Cash Flow Positive — If there’s a mis-match between accounts receivable, accounts payable and cash on hand, you’re dead in the water.  One operational tactic to make sure you never get in a cash flow negative situation is to collect cash before delivering any products or services (ideally 100%, but even 50% is better than 0%).
3. Enormous Market – If everything goes perfectly, and it won’t, how large is the total market size?  $100,000?  Run screaming. $1 million?  That’s better.  Every company or consumer on the planet?  Now we’re talking.  See:  Facebook, not Foursquare.
4. Built-in Marketing — This is a tricky one to explain so I’ll try to use an example.  One previous marketing strategy we used for Evolyte was to sell the hottest Christmas gift during the largest shopping week of the year and build in social incentive so purchasers would have to recruit other purchasers. The result was nearly $30,000 in reserved sales from 1 day of marketing. Can you build something like that into your business?
5. Scalability — Last, and maybe most importantly, if your business grows does it cost more or less to get the same amount of sales?  If less, then you’ve got efficient scaling.  That’s why all the VC and Angel funding is poured into technology and internet companies, not restaurants or bars, because opening a new physical location costs exponentially more buying another server to handle more traffic.

My advice? Stick with the internet.

Strategery

From Jason Fried, founder of 37Signals, the guys behind Ruby on Rails and Basecamp project management software, on their organizational structure:

What we learned is that adding a dedicated manager and creating a hierarchy is not the only way to create structure. Instead, we decided to let the team be entirely self-managed. There’s still a team leader, but that role rotates among the team every week. Each week, a new leader sketches out the agenda, writes up the notes about problems and performance, and steps up to handle any troubled customer interactions.

There’s something to be said for perspective and it opens your eyes to things you never thought mattered.

Behavioral Science

Thanks so much buddy, means a lot and these cupcakes are bananas!!

Check out his site:
http://ihatechurch.com

Just playing around in Photoshop.  Nobody bother me when I’m listening to my Jason Derulo!

See the full gallery on Posterous

Startups

Proud.

• Autotuned the internet?  Check.
• Helps you stalk Angelina Jolie?  Definitely.
• Scratches?  Negative.
• Holler?  sean.everett@evolyte.com

Who Am I?

It’s skinny and my favorite color purple. Be jealous Bieber. Be very jealous!

Because Horology + Nerdology = Me.

http://seanmeverett .com

007 on the internet. Zing.

http://evolyte.com

I thought I’d write down a few operating principles I’ve come up with over the years, before my alzheimers kicks in.  Hopefully, I can continue to add to and refine this list over the years.  You’ll likely not agree with all of these, but it represents a summary of my experiences, my formal education, anecdotal evidence, and a bit of hocus pocus I’ve seen work.  Let’s dig right in, shall we?

1.  Lazy, Stupid & Egocentric

It’s sad, but true.  Facebook hit the ball out of the park with all three, and they now have 500 million users.  The population of the USA is only 300 million.  That’s almost twice the size of every man, woman, and child on the planet.  Seems like they’re doing something right.

• Profile pages, comments, and likes make you feel like a celebrity (i.e., egocentric)
• The interface and concept is extremely easy to use and explain, upload pics and connect with friends (i.e., Keep It Simple, Stupid)
• We love reality television, hate reading books, and would rather scroll through the Facebook feed 50 times per day than work, sleep, or learn (i.e., lazy)

The difference with Twitter is they didn’t get the “stupid” part right.  The uninitiated user just doesn’t “get it”.

2.  Unexpected Gift at an Unexpected Time

Foursquare started this trend with unlocking badges.  You don’t know when, how, or if you’re going to unlock another badge, but you just keep checking in with them so you don’t miss another one.  It’s less than two years old and already has 5 million users, even with the huge privacy concerns your parents are likely warning you about (i.e., sharing your location).

3.  I Want to be Creative

Instagram executed this principle wonderfully.  You upload some crappy picture you took to the iPhone app, click a visual filter, and blammo, you look like a rediculously awesome Photoshop expert or premiere photographer.  They other thing they did right was put a “download” button on any picture shared through the internet (twitter, facebook, etc).  These are the ONLY two reasons the company is blowing up so quickly.  They got the lazy, stupid, and egocentric part right too (i.e., I’m perceived as creative).

4.  I Need A Real Answer To a Real Question

Quora is your friendly, neighborhood superhero in this case.  Google helps you find content on the internet, but it doesn’t nor will it ever be able to answer granular questions better than a human.  I’ve been on Quora since they were in beta, and they’ll never explode like they could unless they figure out the “Lazy” principle.  I never use it because finding content is hard, there’s no iPhone app, and I have to read pages and pages of answers to get one I really need.  Short and sweet wins the race, folks.

5.  I Love a Big Discount

You didn’t think I’d leave out Groupon did you?  They’re hiring 400 people a month and are approaching $1 billion in annual revenue after only 2 years.  They’re the fastest growing company of all time.  Let me say that again so it sinks in.  In the entire history of trade and commerce, there has never been another business that’s grown more rapidly than Groupon.  Why?  Two reasons.  As a consumer, I love a sale.  As a business, I need ROI for my marketing dollars.  Groupon was the middle man, and used technology to do it.  Incidentally, this is the exact same business model Eric Lefkofski and Brad Keywell (co-founders and initial investors in Groupon) have used successfully in multiple other billion-dollar businesses.

6.  I Want Privacy Unless I Get A Benefit

I’m actually taking a class at the University of Chicago Booth business school with Eric and Brad.  They asked a question during class to about 80 intelligent, technologically advanced, internet entrepreneurs.  The question was about Blippy, the startup that lets you connect your credit card account and share all your transactions with friends.  Why would anyone do this, you ask?  Well, that’s exactly what Eric and Brad asked us.  Only a few people would actually use it, but when asked if using Blippy would provide you with discounts on the things you buy all the time (e.g., target, wal-mart, restaurants), then every hand in the class went up saying we’d use the service.

So, while most people would never say they’d give out their financial information, well they’ve never seen the millions of people using Mint.com or never received a BIG discount on something they buy all the time by using the service.  So, I want privacy unless I get a benefit from it.

7.  I Want to Take Online, Offline

This is a trend I’ve been seeing more and more of, and maybe it’s just my own social network, filled with Gen Yers who’ve been using technology most of their lives and been on most of the social networks for years.  The issue is most people are fed up with facebook, bored with foursquare, unfollowing over tweeters, and wanting to build stronger relationships with the closest people in their lives, offline but with some online assistance.  Startups like Path are starting to tap into this counter-social trend.

The Evolyte team is also working on a few ideas in this space.

8.  I Want a Second Opinion

Regardless of whether I’m buying clothes or electronics, deciding what new restaurant to go to, or where I should stay on my vacation, I almost always want a second opinion from someone I trust.  These people are typically friends, but can also be experts in the area, which is why Consumer Reports, and entertainment and food critics have been so popular over the years.

There isn’t one startup that leads the pack in all these areas.  There are siloed websites and review sites all over mobile and the internet, but not one has figured it out yet.  A bunch of people smarter and more experience than me are working on this concept.

Namely, how do I tap into my social network, reach only those people who are the “experts” in that specific area, and get their opinion on the best way to proceed (buy or not, stay here or there, eat this or that, etc).

I’ve got a few ideas on how to execute this, including the mathematical algorithms necessary to make it happen, so feel free to give me a shout if you’re working on this problem.

9.   What Else???

This list is incomplete and all that I could think of off the top of my head while writing this.  More to come as I ponder…

Note:  I’ve left off “I want to connect with others” because Facebook and Twitter pretty much have that market locked down, for the time being anyways…

UPDATE #1

10.  Steven Reiss’s 16 Basic Desires

From Wikipedia:

Starting from studies involving more than 6,000 people, Professor Steven Reiss has proposed a theory that find 16 basic desires that guide nearly all human behavior.  The desires are:

Acceptance, the need for approval Curiosity, the need to learn Eating, the need for food Family, the need to raise children Honor, the need to be loyal to the traditional values of one’s clan/ethnic group Idealism, the need for social justice Independence, the need for individuality Order, the need for organized, stable, predictable environments

Physical activity, the need for exercise Power, the need for influence of will Romance, the need for sex Saving, the need to collect Social contact, the need for friends (peer relationships) Status, the need for social standing/importance Tranquility, the need to be safe Vengeance, the need to strike back/to win

In this model, people differ in these basic desires. These basic desires represent intrinsic desires that directly motivate a person’s behavior, and not aimed at indirectly satisfying other desires. People may also be motivated by non-basic desires, but in this case this does not relate to deep motivation, or only as a means to achieve other basic desires.

UPDATE #2

11.  Base Layer Below Emotion

I heard an interesting framework from Eric Lefkofski in class last night that I think directly applies as it seems to be the base layer below the emotional drivers of behavior layer.  Here it is:

Social + Local + Mobile + Global

I’ll leave it to you to apply it to the various startups listed above.

This is starting to get ridiculous…

Now that the 80s are in full effect, I thought it’d be appropriate to tip my hat to the decade I was born in.  I decided to leave the sequined glove and Hypercolor references to a minimum and instead change my twitter and facebook avatar to what you see above.

As with most things, it was the subtle details that took the longest, the beard scruff is actually individually colored pixels and the evolyte name also represents a bit of pixel art.  Below is the original file before adding the fish eye lens and saturation effects.

Hacking the Internet

I read two quotes today that hit the nail directly on the head.  The secret to building a successful consumer startup isn’t just solving a problem, it’s also unlocking the behaviorial aspects of adoption and use.

On Foursquare‘s addictiveness, by Dennis Crowley (the Founder & CEO):  “It’s like pulling the lever on a slot machine”, referring to the unlocking badges and mayorships without knowing beforehand if it would happen.

On Instagram‘s addictiveness, by Tuhin Kumar: “Instagram solves the problem of sharing our moments effortlessly with the world and in a way that makes us look creative.  In short, what Twitter is to text, Instagram is to photography. I love it. And it’s rather amazing that it’s grown so fast with nothing other than an iOS client. Not only are there no clients for any other devices (yet), but you can’t even use it via the web.”

Startup Lifestyle

From the opening jacket cover:

The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth advances the knowledge and practice of entrepreneurship and innovation. The center supports entrepreneurial learning and collaboration through its cutting-edge curriculum, innovative hands-on learning experiences, leading faculty research, conferences, mentorship, and community
and global outreach programs.

Download now or preview on posterous

PolskyAR2010.pdf (1287 KB)

Startup Lifestyle

1. Focusing on a single product/service in a single market
2. Emphasizing marketing early
3. Stressing financial controls
4. NOT competing on price (rather service, quality, uniqueness, availability)
5. Professional experience such as management, industry, P&L, entrepreneurial
6. Organizing systematically through opportunity identification, business planning, resource acquisition, prototyping, and launching
7. Getting a professional degree

This is scientific research, NOT anecdotal. So to all you people still debating MBA versus Startup, why not just do both?

Startup Lifestyle: http://www.seanmeverett.com

If you’ve ever wondered how the US entrepreneurial activity compares to every major country in the world, well, you’re in luck.  This 73-page PDF has enough data, charts, graphs and detail to keep you busy until 2012.  There are some pretty surprising findings in here.

Download now or preview on posterous

GEM_Global_2009_Report.pdf (4603 KB)

Entrepreneurs unite!

Nothing better than making something your own.

Startups: http://www.seanmeverett.com
Marketing: http://evolyte.com

Marketing:  http://evolyte.com
Discounted Apple Products:  http://evolyte.com/comingsoon
  ]]> http://www.seanmeverett.com/2010/11/influencers/feed/ 0 http://www.seanmeverett.com/2010/11/influencers/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seanMeverett/~3/2N38X4___UI/ http://www.seanmeverett.com/2010/11/evolyte-store-50-to-500-off-apple-products/#comments Tue, 02 Nov 2010 04:42:17 +0000 seanMeverett http://www.seanmeverett.com/2010/11/evolyte-store-50-to-500-off-apple-products/

Have a look at the beautiful "Coming Soon" page we developed for our new Evolyte Store, which is launching on Black Friday (that's less than a month away folks!)

Since you're already a friend of Evolyte, you can sign up for early access at:  http://evolyte.com/comingsoon

And if you need a bit of marketing help for your next launch, give us a shout:  http://evolyte.com/pages/contact-us.php

The two factors that increase creativity are as follows:
• “On a Mission”: high time pressure – people can focus on one activity for an extended period of time, believe they are doing important work and are challenged resulting in creative thinking that both solves problems and generates new ideas.
• “On an Expedition”: low time pressure – people tend to collaborate with one person rather than with a group resulting in creative thinking that generates ideas rather than solves problems.

Now go make some unicorns cry.

http://www.seanmeverett.com
http://evolyte.com

http://vimeo.com/m/#/15595024

http://evolyte.com
http://www.seanmeverett.com

Need marketing?  We do that.

You can follow @SeanMEverett or @Evolyte on Twitter.

You should follow SeanMEverett on Twitter.

“…because they can’t hang on to them long enough to realize the possibility of reaching them”

Check Jeff out on Twitter @jeffreyryanwho

The holy grail of web 2.0 analytics that companies like Klout and Twitalyzer claim to provide.

My problem with these companies?  They measure influence only through Twitter.  Yes, Twitter, just like everyone else.  The problem with that?  It only represents 10% of all the sharing across the web.  Let me say that again.  Effing TEN PERCENT!  Oh, so you’re thinking about Facebook’s new like button.  Guess how much sharing happens on Facebook?  Yup, still a fraction.  Try 15%.

So where is the rest of it you ask?  Email.  A Whopping 75% of sharing happens through good ole faithful email.

What if we told you we could show you specifically who (by name!) is providing the most influence not only for your website homepage, but every other page on your site (it’s not always the same person).  What if we went a step further and showed you the same information, but for online ads (e.g., banner ads).  Ok, what if we went even FURTHER and gave all this information to you auto-magically without you have to do absolutely anything or learn any software.  Yah, made it all simple-like.

Well, that would be pretty great.  Sure, we can do that for you.  It’s called Evolyte Analytics and we’ve spent all of 2010 developing it, and we’re still not done because we create perfection, nothing less.  Sign up for our beta using the link above.  We’re still working on our coming soon page.  here’s a potential design we’re considering.

See y’all in the twitter-sphere, or maybe email in this case…

You should follow @seanMeverett or @evolyte on Twitter here but only if you want to.

I can’t yet tell you what we tried to build over the past 10 bajillion (I’ve lost count) sleepless nights, but I may drop a few hints along the way…so, off to the name game!

In the very beginning, this can be the most agonizing process a startup team will go through, so prepare yourself for the following furious five factors:

1. Cooks in the Kitchen — how many people have to agree on the name? In our case, we have a handful of stakeholders.
2. B2C – we’re  a business-to-consumer, disruptive technology company, not B2B, so it helps that the name be descriptive, easy to spell, and make sense. If we were a B2B company, we could basically name it whatever we want and build the service brand around it.
3. Double Entendre — Jay Z likes to brag that he writes lyrics that can be understood from multiple levels (sometimes 3 like on Drake’s new album). I don’t think he’s the best at it but he tries.  In the startup world, it’s akin to DropBox.  I mean, what a perfect name for their auto-syncing, file sharing, “networked server” consumer & small business service. You physically drop files into their digital box and it syncs auto-magically across multiple computers, mobile devices, friends computers, etc.
4. Coke Vs Pepsi — no, we’re not competing in the CPG (consumer products group) industry, but we are competing in an area that’s been around since the mid 80s and one that marketers have used nearly since that time.  Good luck finding literally any available keywords in these circumstances, let alone the available domain to go with it.  In 2010, “.com” availability is going to be BY FAR your biggest hurdle; it was certainly ours.
5. Verbs — notice how people use the term Google both as a company name AND as a verb, as in “I’m going to google that”?  Yah, incorporating the same concept was something we hoped to do as well, but is one of those difficulty 9.5 sorta things where the stars have to align just right to work.

So given these limitations, how did we possibly come up with a name you ask?  Well, it sure wasn’t easy.  We scoured the internet, thesaurus, dictionary, wikipedia, and google for keyword ideas.  We thought in terms of physical and intangible objects, we thought of scientific names, the periodic table of elements, space, quarks and quasars, verbs, and on and on, ad infinitum.

After logging hundreds of flight hours on domain.com searching for available .com keyword phrases, we finally settled on one with the mission critical keyword in it.   We came up with some other really catchy names, but they simply weren’t available as a .com and we simply weren’t willing to settle on that 4th factor.

In the end, we’re satisfied with our choice, as we now have to build the identity, brand, and service to support it, which are much more important than the name in the end anyways.

The problem however, quickly became a numbers game.  We simply couldn’t overcome with variable costs associated with building out this revolutionary new consumer-to-consumer communication technology.  Note:  I realize that revolutionary is probably the most over-used word in the dictionary, and something that comes with every single startup on the planet.  However, this truly required no change in user behavior, has a 97% usage rate, and has a glaring flaw that everyone seems to miss, which we corrected.

Thus, and sadly, you’ll probably never get to hear the creative name we came up with (unless some technology changes in the short term).  However, I will say that naming and branding is another specialty of ours so if you need help, just give the Branding Experts at Evolyte a shout.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here but only if you want to

Download the attached Search Engine Optimization two-page guide that explains just one area that Evolyte has been tirelessly working on over the last year.

We have an 80% client re-order rate due to the amazingly high customer service and ROI (up to +300% website traffic increases)!

Evolyte Search Engine Optimization Backlinking Guide
You should follow @seanMeverett or @evolyte on Twitter here but only if you want to

Instead of prescribing a vitamin, we’re going to start offering pain pills.  Through our network, we’ve managed to identify, organize, and catalog an entire spectrum of extreme expertise in a breadth of areas, whether intangible like business strategy or extremely tangible like development and design.

For lack of a better phrase, we’ve been calling this our “Vouched Referral Database”.  As such, if you’re looking for say, the best of the best logo designer, we can put you in touch with extremely high-quality individuals whose work we’ve either paid for in the past or have extremely close personal relationships with others who have.  The participants have been vetted multiple times, inclusion is by invite only, and only after an arduous application process.

Thus, you no longer have to spend months on an RFP or search process.  You can simply come to Evolyte and ask us for explicitly what and who you need, whether you’re a brand new startup or a small to medium-sized business.

We’re in the process of transferring this database to an online portal and are discussing whether to open a bit more broadly.  In the meantime, however, if you’re interesting in including yourself or your business in our database, or just need someone with niche expertise, feel free to contact me or shoot me a message on Twitter: @seanMeverett.

Past

I’ve spent the last 29 years of my life preparing for 2010.  I started at 8 with my first business (a paper route, duh) and have been hooked on entrepreneurship ever since.  I didn’t know it then but the unending supply of nervous energy I had was meant to be directed specifically into the area of my own startups and helping others run theirs.

I double majored in Mathematics and Actuarial Science in undergrad at the University of Iowa (also had two minors in Business and Statistics), spent all four years with my head buried in a book or behind a computer screen. I didn’t go on spring break, I barely went out. I saw what I wanted and thankfully had the maturity not to waste time on silly endeavors. I studied, worked, read, ran 4 student organizations (including the largest ever at the University of Iowa), was in the President’s campaign plane, and wrote business plans in my spare time, from 8am to 10pm or later, every night.

My parents got married at 18 right after high school and moved into a trailer with nothing to their names but close friends. They worked hard and loved me probably more than I can ever comprehend.  Now they live in Dallas in a brick house.  That’s where my work ethic stems from.  If something needs to get done, you don’t wait, you don’t try to convince someone else to do it, you just finish it.

After working in strategy/management and consulting to companies of all sizes (from startups and small businesses to middle-market companies, and even to enormous, global brand name corporations you visit or buy from on a daily basis…hint: one of them is in the Fortune 2), I started various businesses, one of which is in the process of being sold.

I also applied to and matriculated into one of the top 5 business schools in the nation, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where I’ve met and become close friends with some of the brightest leaders that will be running our country in the next 30 years.

Present

The puzzle pieces have been arduously coming together for the last three decades.  You only see 5% of what’s actually been happening with me and our team.  The number of meetings have accelerated to the point where we can barely keep track of them in our calendars, web apps, phones, etc.

We’ve also spent the last few months visiting the retail, bar and restaurant scene to gather competitive intelligence not only for these brick and mortar Chicago-based businesses, but also to get a deeper understanding of the consumer’s behavioral interaction in these areas.  Like I said, you only ever see 5% of the entire story…

Our team includes a former professional athlete, real estate developer, comedian, attorney, mathematician, entrepreneurs, trader, financial analysts, two MBAs from top 5 schools, and a track record of involvement, relationships, and success that we’d put up against any other team on the planet.

And the best part?  We’ve been friends since we were kids growing up in Iowa.  Family doesn’t even begin to describe our connection.  I am absolutely proud to stand and shout it from the rooftops: no monetary transaction could ever break us up, and we will stand up for our family and our ethics even if it costs us on financial statements.

For the Evolyte team, relationships (both internal and external) define us.  It isn’t always about dollars and cents, it’s first and foremost about establishing lasting relationships.

If you disagree, the conversation stops there.

Future

Some people can talk a huge game and never back it up, or what I like to call “empty suits”.  In contrast, we put our money where our mouth is.  We source deals and invest our time, sweat, and money into only those projects with the highest returns.  We will scrap on our knees, down in the filth in order to win.  We will sell things we don’t use anymore on eBay to compile more cash than you.  We will take on the smallest clients with the smallest budgets if we see potential, and we will still treat them like they’re the only client in our portfolio.

Did you know that the number one reason small businesses fail is due to low or negative cash flow?  The phrase, “cash is king” is an understatement.  I prefer the phrase, “cash is freedom”.  Freedom to follow the return.  And that’s exactly where we’re headed:

Google’s 20% time, 100% of the time.

Every person on the Evolyte team is working on side projects that could potentially be the next Gmail.  Stay tuned, things are about to get interesting.

Here’s one teaser:  we’re currently working on developing a huge network of entrepreneurs in Chicago, partnering with the city’s 15-year-old program that’s collecting dust.  The goal is to provide connections, resources, and money so we can lift the entire startup scene on Chicago’s collective entrepreneurial shoulders.

You may not have heard of us, but you’re damn sure going to feel us.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here but only if you want to

1. There is no hierarchy, no titles, and no ego (though the phrase “raised in Iowa” is an ongoing source of pride).
2. No matter how much sweat we’ve put into something, if it’s not working, we trash it or shift it, no questions asked.
3. We look for business opportunities everywhere and try to establish lasting relationships wherever we can.
4. We despise meetings, but love action.  Action breeds more action.
5. We either all end up in a mansion or in a cardboard box, but either way we’re going to have a blast doing it.
6. We work our asses off.
7. Complexity is actually where the dollars are at, simplicity is only a marketing ploy.
8. There are only two functions of any business:  manufacturing and marketing.  Build the product, then sell the product.
9. We will fight for what we believe in, and for that “inch”, but if you propose a more logical argument, you will win.
10. Most importantly, friendship and relationships supersede any monetary endeavors.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here but only if you want to

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here but only if you want to

I’ll publish the results of the findings following the study.  I’m only looking for approximately 20 to 30 people, but anything above 30 would make for a nice Normal probability distribution! (see Central Limit Theorem…doy).

Background

I’m not going into the Tiger Woods scandalous back story because if you haven’t heard about it, you likely have more pressing concerns than participating in this research.  However, please watch this 30 second Nike commercial of Tiger’s late father asking some pretty emotional questions of the athlete.  Then fill out the ten questions below by clicking the radial button next to the best response (please do so as accurately and quickly as possible).

Don’t forget to click the SUBMIT button after you’re finished, and thanks for participating!  I will compile results and post within 2 days. Be sure to scroll down below the video, there are some artifacts I’m having trouble removing due to optimizing for mobile devices (iPhone & Android)…

UPDATE: IF YOU CAN’T SEE THE SURVEY BELOW, IT MEANS YOU’RE USING THE WORLD’S WORST BROWSER (INTERNET EXPLORER), EITHER UPGRADE TO FIREFOX/SAFARI OR CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK FOR THE UNSTYLED VERSION OF THE SURVEY:  TIGER WOODS & NIKE

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Online Surveys powered by SurveyGizmo

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here but only if you want to

Note that there is no sarcasm, comedy, or ill will present in any of these statements, just a few things I’ve discovered in my own journey through life.

1. Act with integrity. Always.
2. Even if you act with integrity, there will always be people who try to undermine it. Some people even hated Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi and Mother Theresa.
3. If you try pleasing all the people all of the time, you’ll end up pleasing no one.
4. Give love to everyone.  Always. Even those with unfavorable motivation towards you and others.
5. Your parents are the only two people that will always give you more love than you could ever give them.
6. Always be the bigger person, second chances are only the beginning.  Your greatest friend may make more than one mistake; be humble enough to realize we are all human.
7. The more you give, the more people will take:  in life, love, and money.  But it’s okay, they may need it more than you.
8. You deserve to make yourself happy. Always. Try to hurt as few as people as possible in the process (the sad truth is that it’s sometimes unavoidable but do the best you can).
9. Everyone has their own perspective. If you can see all others and forget about yours, you’ll always know the answer and right path to choose.
10. Go back and read Letters To My Future Son.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here but only if you want to

In layman terms, how do you get someone to spend more money on your product or service without him/her realizing it?

Note:  I’ve left much of the technical and scientific background out of this post for the sake of simplicity and conciseness. If you’re curious about digging deeper in this area, feel free to give me a shout on twitter or through the contact form and I can send you the relevant academic research.

First, The Background

If you’ve ever seen print ads from 50 or 100 years ago, you’ve seen the direct (e.g., “Eat at Joes”), and often less effective, methods that were used.  They started to get better by tying in spokespeople and/or expertise.  Painfully inaccurate comes to mind…

The real insight came when FMRI studies were conducted (basically MRI scans of your brain to see which areas were activated while decisions are made).  Researchers in behavioral marketing found that while people will give logical reasons for explaining purchases, it’s actually the subconscious, emotional reasoning that drove their behavior.

Second, The Emotional Drivers

Take, for instance, the marketing for Coca-Cola.  If they simply showed you the features and benefits of Coke, you would never buy it:

“Buy new coke featuring brown food coloring, sugar water, and carbonation!”

Instead they focus on the experience of drinking Coke.  A major example you’re likely familiar with is the “Coke Side of Life” campaigns that play before movies showing three teens drinking Coke while their environment changes from a movie theater to a forest, consistent with the movie they’re watching. In a nutshell, Coke is saying subconsciously that if you’re going to watch a movie, you need to drink Coke to get the best experience.  Smart, eh?

Ok, that’s an obvious example, but what about a more subtle example?  Enter the genius of Alka-Seltzer.  Yah, who’d of thought…

Introducing The Champ:  Alka-Seltzer

The marketing/sales Money Mayweather wizards that got everything right:  Alka-Seltzer.  Let’s break down their tagline for a minute, which, by the way, is only peeling back one layer of this perfectly marketed onion:

Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, what a relief it is!

• Sound: this is so genius I need about an hour to describe all the nuances…I’ll keep it brief.  Studies have shown that consistent sounds exponentially increase consumer awareness and therefore sales (think of the Intel Inside 5-tone dings at the end of all their commercials).  Alka-Seltzer’s genius was to translate the sound into print (and they did it before scientific evidence was ever produced)!
• Usage: the tagline also showed consumers how to use their product. Plop ‘em in, watch ‘em fizz, and boom goes the dynamite.
• 2 Versus 1: did you notice how each of the tag line, print ads, and tv ads always show two tablets being used, not just one?  Guess what, this simple move made consumers think that it required two tablets for relief and subsequently doubled their sales overnight!
• Emotional Tie-In: finally, note the last part of the tagline. They directly tie their product to the emotional and physical benefit of relieving heart burn so you can relax again. Who doesn’t like relaxing?  What other product can you think of with this strong of a tie to heart burn?

The lesson is pick one emotional attribute your product solves and create a tie so strong that when anyone thinks of that emotion, they immediately think of your product!

The Now:  Current Behavioral Ads

If you’ve been following the huge internet/tech battle between Adobe and Apple, you may have come across the Ad adobe published today (from Engadget post):

If you’re reading Engadget today (and let’s be honest, you’re reading it right now), then you might have noticed that Adobe has launched a pretty full-force campaign to call out Apple on its anti-Flash mission. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, it’s the advertisements that start with “We [heart] Apple.” Along with the web ads, the company has also snagged a full page in today’s Washington Post to address the battle in which the two companies have been engaged. All of this links back to a new statement from Adobe, as well as an open letter from founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock (“Our thoughts on open markets”), addressing Apple’s recent spate of clear and direct attacks against the company and its products.

Mel Gibson, He Likes Freedom

Now, what Adobe has done is pretty clever.  They’ve actually thrown Steve Jobs open letter back in his (and Apple’s) face using an emotional response. They’re relating to customers to who love Apple (not trying to compete against the brand) to get these customers on Adobe’s side.  THEN, they go on to tug at our “freedom” heart strings circa Mel Gibson’s Braveheart (though he looks a little constipated)…

Anyways, the lesson here is that you need to connect with your customers on an emotional level and express empathy for their concerns (or maybe educate them on what some of those concerns should be).  If you’re successful at this, then slowly, over time, you can even convert the most die hard competing fans to come to your side.

Don’t believe me?  Let’s put it this way.  Only a few short years ago, most of the US population was referring to Apple as Mac-in-trash. Now they’re the darling of Wall Street with a market cap bigger than Microsoft, and have produced the two most innovative products probably ever.

Million Dollar Question: How Can I Use This Info?

This is the place where damn near every blog post stop shorts or fails, and it f*ing continues to piss me off.  I’m going to do my best to describe in three simple and actionable, yet detailed steps how you should use this information to drive your own top-line revenue growth (i.e., make it rain and make babies cry <– duh).

First, a disclaimer.  As you can see from the various real-world examples I outlined above, much of the detail for why these things work are extremely situational dependent (see: Alka-Seltzer discussion).  Unfortunately, I can only give you the somewhat theoretical next steps since I don’t know your company, brand, or product/service as intimately as you, so I’m going to continue to use The Champ Alka-Seltzer (“AK”) as an example.  Here we go…

1. Features, Benefits, & Use Cases — sit down with your business partners and brainstorm the various features and benefits of your product and relate them to actual use cases.  For AK, this is reducing the negative symptoms associated with heartburn and indigestion from eating triggering foods, like an entire Lou Malnatis deep dish pizza (Chi town!).
2. Emotional Aspects – now, brainstorm all the emotional aspects of your product solving those specific use cases and rank according to prevalence in the marketplace from highest to lowest.  For AK, this is the relaxation and relief feeling after the burning sensation is reduced or removed.  There are also sub-emotional benefits like knowing you can eat an entire deep dish pizza without worrying about the awful side effects (aside from the high cholesterol, obvs).
3. Sensory Overload — finally, you want to bring each of the above together in the most simple explanation possible for your customers.  Be sure to use an unused or very low prevalence emotional tie-in so your customers relate that emotion only to your brand.  For AK, this was the “plop, plop, fizz, fizz oh what a relief it is” tagline.  This jingle included the sound effects too, which you get extra bonus points for doing, but is often extremely difficult to execute effectively.

I promise that if you do these things, you’re going to be lightyears beyond your competition, especially if you’re running a startup or small business.  Most of these folks simply don’t have the resources, mental capacity, or see the value in emotional decision making. But you do, don’t you, cuz all you do is win!  So go put your hands up, and make em stay there! (Please note the horrible DJ Khaled reference.  Kthanks.)

Oh, one last thing: you should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here

Chicago’s Youth

Your time is often more valuable than your money, and supporting those less fortunate with fundraisers isn’t drudgery, we have a blast doing it. We’d love you see you all there (introduce yourself, twitter or otherwise, and I’ll buy you a drink at the after party!)

Food, Drinks & Raffle for 3 Hours

The annual Chicago Youth Centers “College Bound” Fundraiser is Thursday, May 12th at LaSalle Power Company!  You can buy your tickets for $30 at www.cycmetropolitan.com.  Tickets will also be available at the door, but the price increases to $35 if you wait until then.  The price of tickets includes food and drinks for 3 hours and one raffle ticket.

Prizes, Prizes, Prizes

We will be giving away some amazing prizes this year.  Raffle tickets can be purchased in advance or at the event and you need not be present to enter, so if you cannot attend but would like to buy raffle tickets please let me know.  Raffle tickets are 1 for $5 or 5 for $20.  I may just buy a few stacks with prizes like these!

Gift Certificates

1)    ($25) gift certificates to Branch 27
2)    ($25) gift certificate to Branch 27
3)    ($25) gift certificate to Branch 27
4)    ($25) gift certificate to Branch 27
5)    ($50) gift certificate for Volare
6)    ($50) gift certificate for Franconellos
7)    ($50) gift certificate for Salpicon
8)    ($100) gift certificate from Rosebud

Events
9)    Wine tasting for 6 people @WineStyles South Loop (1240 South Michigan Ave in Chicago) ($90 Value)
10)    Spa certificates
11)    20 yoga classes at “Bikram Yoga in the City” ($200 value)
12)    4 tickets to the B96 Bash at Toyota Park
13)    4 tickets to the B96 Bash at Toyota Park
Sports

14)    2 tickets to the Cubs game (Aisle 114, Row 6) vs. PIT, Tuesday, June 29, 7:05pm
15)    Entry into Bank of America Chicago Marathon, Chicago Marathon gear, hat and shirt ($145 value)
16)    2 tickets to the Cubs game (Aisle 114, Row 6) vs. MIL, Tuesday, August 3,  7:05pm
17)    2 tickets to the Cubs game (Aisle 114, Row 6) vs. HOU, Wednesday, September 8,  7:05pm
18)    White Sox prize package
19)    Autographed Ryne Sandberg jersey
20)    Blackhawks Goalie Mask signed by the 2009-2010 Blackhawks Team

Other

21)    Morningstar gift package ($200 value)
22)    Dyson DC25 Animal Vacuum

We’re looking to get more prize donations, so if you know anyone that would be interested, please let me know!  Also, the first 100 people through the door will receive a $10 gift card to Rockit Wrigley.

My good friend serves on the Metropolitan Board of CYC, and is leading the effort this year.

Chicago Youth Centers — Background

CYC is the largest, independent youth services organization in Chicago and is dedicated to investing in Chicago’s youth in underprivileged communities to help them realize their full potential from early childhood education to and through college.  CYC welcomes at-risk, low-income youth ages 3-18 into neighborhood-based centers and a residential camp where they receive one-on-one and small group guidance from well-trained CYC volunteers. All proceeds go to CYC to help fund college tours, cultural events, and field trips.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

welp a ton of algo trading shops just made bank in the last 30 mins

if you want a lesson on trading algo’s positioned above “halting trading” floor, give me a shout

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

I came across during my daily startup treks around the internet.  I can attest after looking at McClure’s startup viagra deck and other “how to” pitch decks.  While most say 10 slides max (and I agree this version can be condensed a bit), there is something to be said for moving through slides quickly (this is how CEOs/CFOs do investor presentations).

Big thanks to youphonics, see link below:

FREE Startup Toolkit, Vol. 1 (Startup Week 2010 edition) — Financial Model + VC Pitch Deck

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

Before I throw it up on eBay I’m willing to sell to my friends for $100 off retail plus no tax.

That’s a total savings of $170 (over 20%)!

Bonus: if you respond and retweet this (Twitter > Facebook) before Cinco de Mayo (that’s May 5th for you non-Spanish speaking readers), I’ll even throw in the hard-to-find Apple iPad case that protects and props it up while watching movies on the Netflix app.

Finally, if you’ve been living in some sort of Amish commune over the last few months, here’s a picture:

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

1. Above all, act with integrity.
2. Wear your heart on your sleeve.
3. Everything you do, do it with passion. Celebrate the small successes and get angry at the failures.
4. Value relationships over financial gain.
5. Speak from your heart, always tell the truth, and even leaders will follow you into the breach.
6. Take note of those who visit or message you while in the hospital. This is your true family.
7. The human spirit is built on hope and even the most ghastly atrocities cannot sway it for some.  Give people a reason to hope.
8. If you had 24 hours to live, what would you regret?  This is your life’s priority.
9. Treat women with respect, especially the one you love. Her soft touch can quiet the largest storm.
10. Find your dream, and follow it regardless of the cost.  It’s easy to find, it’s the thing you can’t get enough of, go to sleep thinking about, and wake up thinking about, and are proud to be involved in.

Follow these principles in business and in life.  Surround yourself with friends and family who feel the same.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

You have 90 seconds to pitch an investor about your new, incredible business idea that’s going to change the world and make millions of dollars. How do you do it? Simply break your story into five parts using this guideline of how I’d want to be pitched:

• What is it, who’s your target and what’s the value? (20 seconds)

Get me excited. Focus on the value of your service rather than the features. Tell me quickly what it is, who your target market is, and tell me how it’s going to help them do something better, faster, or more easily. Focus on value and the void you’ll be filling.

• Pricing model? (10 seconds)

How much does it cost and how do you plan on making money? Recurring revenue or one-time fee?

• Why is it unique or buzzworthy? (20 seconds)

What makes your product or service unique? Why will anyone care? What are you going to do to get people talking about it?

• Funding requirements? (15 seconds)

How much money do you need to get started and why? Very high level overview.

• The team? (25 seconds)

Who makes up your team and how are you going to make it happen? Why should I invest in you? Why are you the best person for the job? This is the most important section so take your time and remember, investors will be investing in you and your team, not your idea.

Now, if you are reading this wondering…where should I be pitching next?  Where can I gain buzz and raise awareness?  Easy…check out http://web20show.com/pitch.This is an opportunity Grasshopper is involved in that allows anyone to give us their best 90 second pitch.  Each month Grasshopper and Adam (the Host of the Web 2.0 Show) will pick the best 2 pitches and create a separate podcast episode devoted to you, your pitch, and your business.  We love helping entrepreneurs, and this is a fun way to give all of you an opportunity to hype your business.

Good luck.

I’d take Siamak’s advice to heart, he obviously knows what he’s doing, and Grasshopper is a runaway success because they 1) meet startup needs and 2) market to the startup by providing relevant advice, content, and assistance to help entrepreneur’s succeed (take for example their web 2.0 show, which lets you make a 90 second pitch on their radio show, just call 1-888-WEB20SHOW, or click the link above for more info).

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

Kanye West

As Kanye said in his debut album, off the “Spaceship” track:

Y’all don’t know my struggle,

Y’all can’t match my hustle,

You can’t catch my hustle,

You can’t fathom my love, dude

Lock yourself in a room doin five beats a day for three summers,

That’s A Different World like Cree Summers,

I deserve to do these numbers!

Passion & Snuggies

There’s days, weeks, months, years, and sometimes decades of struggle before someone “makes it”.  Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours.  Whether your chosen field is acting, music, business, or athletics, you can’t just show up one day and expect to blow the world away.

You shouldn’t have a problem if there’s a burning desire to surround yourself in this field like a maroon-colored Snuggie.  Shove your arms through the sleeves of perseverance and cover your legs with the warmth of passion.

In the end, even if you are the only person that believes in your vision, you’ll still have the respect of your friends and family for taking a risk, pushing it to the limit every single day, and embracing the breaths of disdain from your detractors.

A Marathon…of Art & Emotions

It’s a marathon, but people only see the successful sprint at the end.  Don’t give up at mile 10, 15, or 20.  Persevere, push, and finish.  Winning isn’t always a fame or monetary thing.  If you create something from nothing, that’s not negligible, that’s a work of art.  Believe.  It will happen.

I believe you don’t truly become a man until you’ve lost someone so close to you that you die a bit inside and are forever changed.  Similarly, you don’t become an entrepreneur until you fail.  The more you die, the closer you get.  It’s not about the end game, it’s about the journey.

Live.  Push.  Persevere.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

We’re talking vertically, horizontally, and diagonally from a customer, operations, investment, communications, and management perspective.  Your competitors are smarter, faster, and richer than you, and you better believe they’re going to exploit any weakness you have.  Or maybe you’ve just gotten the customer fit wrong and they won’t even show up at your door.

Pringles, Pivots, & Brad Pitt

So what do Pringles have to do with angles besides their shape?  Well, lets journey back to P&G’s creation in 1968.  It took until the mid 1970s before they decided to release broadly throughout America.  So what did they do all those years?  The issue was P&G tried to market these new “chips” in much the same way as classic potato chips — to the moms and pops of the home.  But there was a problem, which wasn’t uncovered until performing in-depth market research techniques such as laddering that uncovered the mismatch between consumer perceptions and the appropriate target market.

Because the Pringles chip was standardized (not chaotic like most chips) and came in a surgically precise tin can, the “old” consumer felt that the chips tasted “bland and generic”, echoing the design of the product and packaging, even though blind taste tests found Pringles preferable to classic chips due to less breakage and less grease.  What Pringles finally realized was they were marketing to the wrong customer segment.  They needed to pivot to find one that embraced being different and preferred bucking authority.  So who fit the bill?  Teens, of course.  Have a look at the following commercial to see where they landed:

Little known fact: Brad Pitt starred in one of the early Pringles television commercials in the 1980s.

Epiphany

The rest, as they say, is history, and Pringles now enjoys over $1 billion in annual sales.  To think, it all started because they didn’t just run to market with something they “hoped” would work, but tested it, got feedback, and refined the message so the product fit the customer, not the other way around.

You can call this customer development, a lean startup, pivoting, or whatever you want.  But at the end of the day, it’s about spending the brute force time to think through your business from every possible angle, talking it over with your associates, advisors, and customers, then making a decision.

Be prepared to change or pivot in a moment’s notice.  Your customers will.

Build.  Test.  Iterate.  Rules to live by, methinks.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

Old Mantra:  Profit Maximization

It’s true that the only goal of business is to maximize profit.  However, businesses are led, operated, and funded by people.  Yet it’s these same people that have emotions.  If you squeeze every last nickel out of your suppliers, bring emotional artifacts into negotiations for financial gain, and correlate the level of service for your customers only by wallet size, you may have a financially successful business in the short-term, but you also may be mortgaging your reputation and long-term prospects in the process.  And your reputation, my friends, is the only thing you truly have in this life.

Eventually, every company becomes a buggy-whip business (i.e., obsolete); the large turnover in the Dow Jones over the last century is testament to that fact.  Your business won’t last forever either, so it begs the question:  in your next endeavor, will the people you marginalized for short-term profit be willing to go to bat for you again?

Here’s an example. I was talking to a friend this weekend about a real estate “startup” (they’ve been around for a number of years, growing rapidly, and may not be classified as this any longer) he is part of.  He told me a story of a potential client they did some work for, closed a deal, and were arguably owed a significant fee.  Now, instead of operating with integrity and keeping the relationship at the forefront of their operating protocols, this company decided to play the business is war card, never paid a fee, and leveraged the information received to broker a deal with a competitor.  My friend then told me how they’ve blacklisted this company internally and tell other acquaintances in the industry not to touch this company with a 10-foot pole.

To me, the long-term loss far outweighs the short-term gain.

New Mantra:  Relationships

I say nay to operating any of my businesses solely for the almighty dollar. I’d rather create meaningful relationships with my internal team, outside advisors, Board members, clients (I don’t like the word “customer”), partners, and suppliers.  In the end, it’s these folks that will go to battle with you, fight with you, and help you when you need it most (i.e., not when you’re on top).

Now, time is a valuable commodity, so how do you prioritize?  I take the following approach to the entire team:

1. Co-workers come first. Many people will say customers, but if the folks on the front line aren’t happy, engaged, and aligned, why will they treat our clients well?  In terms of a startup, you may have some external partnerships, but may be core to what you’re building.  For example, if you’re building an iPhone app, an agreement with an outside development team is critical to the success of your business, so clearly these folks come first.
2. Clients are next. Some reasons are obvious (e.g., they pay the bills), but I tend to think of it in different terms.  These are truly your brand ambassadors. You know the old story, a customer with a negative experience is 10x more likely to talk about your company than a customer with a positive experience. Start treating every customer like a client. They won’t care how big, profitable, or famous you or your company is.  They will, however, care a great deal about how genuine you are.  Be genuine!
3. Everyone else. This includes other external consulting, partnerships, and outsourcing arrangements you may have that are not central to the business (e.g., outsourcing accounting isn’t as critical as a partnership with an iPhone app developer).

Karma, Perhaps?

Lets put it this way.  Don’t talk down to the janitor because someday he may be your boss.  You can’t always value a business (or a person for that matter) strictly by what’s on the financial statements.  Many times, the selfless assistance of others can reap far greater returns than any capital investment, whether internal or external to the business.  Call it what you will, but karma plays a much larger role in our success or failure than many of us would like to acknowledge.

As for me?  I choose giving One Hour and building relationships any day of the week, and twice on Sundays, over sticking it to someone for a few extra shekels.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

Kent Washington, a close friend, all-around good guy, and a major force in the Dallas community is throwing a huge fundraising event to benefit juvenile diabetes and also celebrate his birthday.  Everyone in the city is going to be there, with nearly 1,000 confirmed attendees via Facebook with a promotional online mailer going out in a few days.

If you want to reach the movers and shakers in the Dallas community, this is your time.  Have a look at the press kit and promotion information below.  Feel free to contact Kent via Twitter or contact me and I can put you in touch.

Highly recommended marketing (and note that this post is in no way sponsored by Kent and his team)!

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

So, what is it?  Well, for $20 to $90, Rx Savings will tell you exactly where to find and purchase your prescriptions at a huge discount.  Their clients have saved anywhere from $200 to $4,000 in one year. And for the price, that return on investment is sick!!!

Check it out for yourself or pass it along if you know someone spending way too much on their prescription drugs (who needs the Health Care bill, we’ll do it ourselves!):

Rx Savings Solutions: Your Prescription for Drug Savings!

Rx Savings Solutions: Your Prescription for Drug Savings!

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

Aside from information, time is the most valuable commodity I know of, so I’m devoting one hour per day to anyone who needs help, whether mental, physical, or introductory.

I heard a quote once that went something like, “The human race is capable of such breathtaking compassion yet also such horrific terror.”  If we each gave up one hour (or even 15 minutes) of our own time to help another human being, wouldn’t we all be happier, feel more connected, and grow faster as a society?  Could we end war, famine, and genocide?

Sometimes the hardest step is the first step, but it starts with caring, and I want to contribute.

• Need help lifting a box?  I have a strong back.
• Need expertise in a specific area?  I have friends who have friends.
• Just need to chat?  I love Starbucks.

You have my time, and my attention.  You decide how you want to use it.

1. Email me:  contact form
2. Tweet me:  @seanMeverett

• The Ultimate WordPress Theme Tutorial http://cli.gs/1ZMHzy – how to build your own #WordPress theme
• Anybody else feel like 2010 is the year of wholesale change? Feelin like huge things are coming from friends and family this year. #LoveIt
• Harvard Biz Review: The Startup’s Rules of Speed http://bit.ly/aINHTS #Startup
• I think this guy’s been mining my brain…or my blog posts, either way, I like: Profits = Freedom http://bit.ly/9tAewh #Startup
• I want to have a top gun party this summer and play beach volleyball in champion sweatpants. Who’s in?
• super secret project conference call time. Collective heads begin exploding this summer.
• Top Gmail Tricks (You’ve Never Heard Of) http://j.mp/d0IJSJ #Gmail
• Anytime buddy RT @JeffreyRyanWho: @seanmeverett Thanks for the huge help on the website front! Looking forward to connecting in person soon.
• 5 ways startups can slay giants http://bit.ly/cOTMgh #Startup
• love this: sphere simplest 3D shape RT @looselytyped: man turns down $1M prize after solving math’s greatest puzzles – http://bit.ly/cr9MIl
• bought 2 mediums cuz great cause & cool tee (who wants xtra), please check out & help Haiti if u can http://bit.ly/agerkB thx to @holaratcha
• two kinds of VC investors (I say dream big or don’t even bother): The Perils of Being Outside the Valley http://bit.ly/cTLzh5 #Startup
• lol, Jersey Shore guy is first?? Foursquare Lets You “Follow” Celebrities http://bit.ly/95kdYS #Foursquare
• if u ever had the desire to email Steve Jobs, here’s his email address: steve-at-apple.com
• dont want to say told u so but could have made $20-$40/shr in 2 mths if u listened: Apple stock at all-time high http://j.mp/9jz88d $AAPL
• thanks for the RTs! @HeleenThomas @Webcopyplus “Writing” http://bit.ly/cse4G3 #Entrepreneur #Startup #Web #Site #Writing
• just benchmarked my tweets & there’s only 3 hours a day I don’t: 3am-7am. Methinks sleep is in order
• #thankful that I’ve known my biz partners since I could barely walk. Team is an understatement.
• Speak the truth, say it with passion, and you will always have my ear
• My love for pure mathematics is matched only by that for the stars: The Mandlebrot Monk http://j.mp/ajUwYM
• 6 critical tips for launching a startup while holding a day job http://j.mp/dtLGwD #Startup
• Shawtaaaiey! RT @seanMeverett: I just unlocked the “Barista” badge on @foursquare! http://4sq.com/981oxP #
• ok, somebody follow @allysonjoy5 the fact that she has 99 followers and is following 199 people is bothering me!
• can’t wait to wear my heart on my sleeve! RT @iHateChurch: Shipping @seanmeverett Haiti relief tees (@ Tinley Park Post Office)
• Chris Rock: Shaq is rich, the man who signs his check is wealthy. Be the man who signs the check, not the baller who takes it. (@37signals)
• Im the topic of conversation its a celebration lez toast 2 the fact I moved out my moms basement 2 a condo downtown cuz its all abt location
• I think I need a vacation #DoWork http://yfrog.com/1qpcawj
• I just unlocked the “Overshare” badge on @foursquare! http://4sq.com/blg2IX
• And that’s how u simultaneously unlock 3 badges in 1 day @foursquare & annoy ur @twitter followers #SociallyAwkward
• Thx for letting me get all the way to the airport before cancelling my flight AA. May ur stock price plummet & my freq flier miles increase
• I’m on a plane! (not quite as fun as a boat) RT @loveboo: @toni23 the thought of just being on a plane is making me feel a little better
• GoGo inflight internet is how I roll. Is SXSW in Austin still happening? If so, I need to go grab about 15 @foursquare badges. #DoWork
• writing a 10-page ppt pitch deck for a few VC opportunities. This will represent the culmination of the last 12 yrs of planning. #DreamBig
• A-freaking-men to that! RT @kmkent: U guys talk more than any 2 people on Twitter RT @loveboo: @kmkent @toni23 & i have whole convos
• please tell me somebody knows Rigoletto La Donna
• Twitter: helping people meet up, hook up, and break up since 2006. #TwimpinAintEasy
• Build an Awesome Status Board: New Premium Tutorial http://bit.ly/cE9qKk
• I’m at On A Plane!!. http://4sq.com/dlhZ6k
• Love the surprise, this is how u market apps!! Highrise for iPhone: http://✪df.ws/evg /via @daringfireball
• yes let us proceed currently RT @gioiagioia lets gooooo
• Don’t make goals, set tasks. You’ll accomplish more, faster. #GTD
• saw last wk, Rob Cordry is hilar, highly recomm: Hot Tub Time Machine Review: Don’t Change a Thing http://j.mp/dhdxtt
• need some walkin around cash?: 12 Seed Funds You Should Know in NYC http://j.mp/ao3zPc #VC #Starup #Angel
• K.I.M. buddy, K.I.M. RT @GOchris: Keep – It – Moving – #positivevibes @chicagoscene @dimepromotions @focusSM
• my mom bought me 2-in-1 axe body wash & spray. Didn’t have heart to tell her those commercials don’t translate to real life #JerseyShore
• The PR bashing fr @TechCrunch is pissing me off. Startups just spreading awareness. They bashed Twitter at 1st; u were new once too TC #Weak
• holy crap I need like 8 of these, like NOW people! WhiteyBoard: An Instant Whiteboard For Your Instant Office http://tcrn.ch/9C5s6M #Startup
• INCORRECT! scrolling easier than clicking! RT @smashingmag: users do scroll but only 20% of their attention below fold http://bit.ly/by1E4K
• How to fix politics & BS lobbyists: make the voting completely anonymous and erase voting record #IHatePolitics
• Imagine if the US was as crazy about high school academics as it is about football. China may not own all our debt & be overtaking us…
• Drinking Moet champage out of a plastic, cactus themed margarita glass & eating ritz crackers w/ spray cheese #DichotomousDissillusionment
• Untethered jailbreak!! RT @geohot: A video some of you might enjoy http://bit.ly/cBmwKK and new blog post http://bit.ly/cXCToD #iPhone #
• Courage: only in the face of adversity. Accomplishment: only after perseverance. Kindness: only when it doesn’t count.
• ok, all you people using the “web” to tweet need to go download @tweetdeck right now. It’ll change your life, like Big Pun #StillNotAPlayer
• Listen. Don’t just wait for your turn to talk.
• I’ve had the pleasure of mtg w some SWA execs. Herb K “got it”: The Southwest Airlines Baggage Strategy. Smart: http://bit.ly/bFsD0d
• This week’s #FF goes to @akMontufar for outstanding tweets in the line of duty: non-mainstream music, wit, & a marathoner’s mentality
• Good overview of why and what jailbreaking is tho I have other reasons: RT @rww: Why Jailbreak an iPad? http://bit.ly/bMUke0 #iPad #iPhone
• Facebook tries to be all things to all people, Twitter let’s users decide. #TeamTwitter
• AWESOME!! Big thx to @iHateChurch @holaratcha for Haiti tees, look & feel amazing (thx for xtra!) http://yfrog.com/1xlgdj
• I have 1 xtra Mens medium tee for anyone who wants to support Haiti w/ us, a great cause. Urs free, lemme know! http://yfrog.com/1x9ovhj #
• My simile is like your metaphor #
• Mornings represent possibilities while nights reflect accomplishment. What about weekends?
• Nice view http://yfrog.com/5m807j #
• Wish you were a genius? Just practice, says geneticist David Shenk http://bit.ly/aGph2o #Genius
• Wear ur heart on ur sleeve, even when it’s not popular or media coverage halts #Haiti http://yfrog.com/0dqkqj
• “You multiply Moore’s Law by Murphy’s Law, which means the number of things that go wrong will double every year.” – CEO @evernote
• Twitter’s power: serendipitous connections #TeamTwitter
• Simplifying an entire business into one sentence is hard. I think we nailed it…
• Somebody bump my fist
• How To Make It In America is like Entourage for entrepreneurs. Everyday I’m hustlin, hustlin, hustlin! #Startup #HBO
• I love entrepreneurship because it’s the highest highs & the lowest lows. It’s the rollercoaster ride that makes you feel truly alive.
• A man with a goal & over a decade of preparation is a powerful force. I suggest you get out of the way.
• I’m all over this for capturing ideas: Sketchnotes app for iPad first look: http://j.mp/948yfv #iPad
• Anybody have an @quora invite they can send me? Quora Has The Magic: BenchMark Invests at $86 Million Valuation http://tcrn.ch/cBxq00

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

Excel Database: Seed Accelerators & Their Companies

Full Thesis:  Copying Y Combinator — Why & How

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

The answer is easy, though admittedly, the implementation is a bit more difficult:

• Design: both graphic designers (Photoshop experts) and developers (experts in HTML, the code that runs the website, and CSS, which identifies the look and feel such as colors, placement, font, etc).  These folks should also be experienced in UX and UI (user experience and user interface).  This team member’s value is extremely important, yet also the most easily critiqued (cut your designers some slack!).  Compare the Google homepage to Yahoo’s and you’ll recognize the value.
• Engineering: these folks engineer the algorithm/code and develop it into a workable application.  If your idea is technology-based (e.g., mobile apps, web apps, software), then this will be the most critical team member in the beginning.
• Business: obvious.  Someone with the expertise to manage cash flow (i.e., the number 1 reason new businesses fail), establish pricing strategy, sales/marketing/advertising, legal issues, and most importantly, customer development (i.e., establishing market fit).

I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by a great team covering each of these specialties.

Oh, and one last thing.  While most people believe that going into business with friends can be troublesome, I disagree if it’s with the right group.  The team needs to have a thick skin so when the heated arguments arise (and trust me, they will), egos are not bruised and the team becomes closer, not further away.  Again, I’m lucky in this area as I’ve known a few of my team members for a few decades (and one since I could barely walk!).

If you need help finding the right person, feel free to contact me and I may be able to set you up with someone in my network that can fill in your professional gaps.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

Identifying Influencers

So what is an influencer?  I define it as someone that can drive action in others.  The simplest example is a celebrity testimonial.  If Brad Pitt endorses a new product, it’s likely more people are going to buy it than if I endorsed it (guys want to be like him and girls want to be with him.  Shaft.  John Shaft.).

This is a good read on How To Get An Influencer’s Attention, and also shows you who a few of the current influencers on the internet are.

We’ve determined identifying celebrities as influencers is easy, but what about the typical folks in your peer group, at your office, or on social media?  How do you identify the influencers there?

For example, if you own a website (e.g., blog, e-Commerce, services, etc) and send out a promotional link to your site via email, Facebook, or Twitter, how do you identify specific individuals who visit?  Or, imagine one of your customers, brand ambassadors, super fans, or advocates talks about your brand and recommends it to others by sharing it via the same mediums, how do you identify these important people?

Google Analytics is worthless, as are social sentiment trackers.  While URL shorteners like bit.ly show you who is talking about your brand, it doesn’t order or rank these people, nor do they show the inter-connectedness of these influencers to other influencers or to other folks.

Measuring Influence

This is exactly the question that we are in the process of answering, and the functionality we’re building.  The technical terminology (and a remnant of Google’s Search Algorithm) is the Hub & Authority or HITs Algorithm of social networks.

We are combining our own version of this connecting and ranking algorithm, URL shorteners, social scraping, and social sharing to provide the most comprehensive measurement of your brand’s influencers.

You can then use this information for targeted marketing and selling, online advertising (PPC campaigns), and even to measure Social Media ROI.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date and get on the free trial, beta testing list, feel free to sign up at Evolyte Analytics.

Finally, we’re building this to provide the most value to you as users, so ANY and ALL feedback is welcome.  What questions are you struggling to answer about how to leverage your current customers and promote further awareness of your brand?

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

Take a page from Lil Wayne’s playbook.  Say what you will about him as a person, but in terms of immersion I doubt there’s anyone on the planet (other than maybe pre-scandal Tiger Woods) that’s more intensely focused on his or her craft.

“Weezy” records music.  All day.  Everyday.  He carries a large black bag around with his recording gear (a mic, mic stand, simple CD player, etc) and records, whether on the bus traveling or in a hotel (he’s never at home).  He’s rumored to have recorded over 100,000 tracks.

You can now imagine how, after this intense immersion for over a decade, he can recognize an issue with one of his songs as second nature.  His ear is so finely tuned and requires such perfection that he burns through Producers faster than…(well, that’s NSFW).

Translate this level of immersion into sports, your business, or your startup, and you begin to get a picture of how Steve Jobs has made Apple so successful, or how Shawn White or Michael Phelps can make the best in the world look like novices.

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers calls it the 10,000 Hour Rule, but I just call it Immersion.  If you’re truly passionate about and love the subject, hobby, or business you’re involved in, this should happen naturally.  It shouldn’t be work, it should be exciting.  So go ahead, immerse yourself in something you love and see what happens…

As a bonus, here’s a free download from one of Lil Wayne’s unreleased mixtapes.  As Weezy so eloquently put it, “this is just a mixtape, it don’t have titles, man” so the internet took it upon itself to title it either “Pepto Bismol” or “Let Me Do Me”.  I prefer the latter, enjoy:

Lil Wayne ft Gudda Gudda “Let Me Do Me”

Keep it dirty like I’m lyin in a ditch

Like Eli I’m from New Orlean’s I’m a giant in this b*tch

Move the ‘G’ and add an ‘S’ and put the ‘I’ before the ‘N’

And put the ‘A’ in front of that, and that’s what I am til the end.

That’s a SAINT motherf*cker, simplify it for them

With a funeral comes with a second line at the end.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

Web Writing: The Good, Bad and Ugly

If you don’t have time to read the full post (it’s not that long), this excerpt about sums it up:

Take a page from psychologist Abraham Maslow, who spent his life researching and compiling the human hierarchy of needs. Here’s a breakdown of the needs and desires people try to fulfill, as compiled neatly in the New York Times bestseller Made to Stick:

• Transcendence: help others realize their potential
• Self-actualization: realize your own potential, self-fulfillment, peak experiences
• Aesthetic: symmetry, order, beauty, balance
• Learning: know, understand, mentally connect
• Esteem: achieve, be competent, gain approval, independence, status
• Belonging: love, family, friends, affection
• Security: protection, safety, stability
• Physical: hunger, thirst, bodily comfort

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

wow, this guy produces some AMAZING work for huge brands. Our super secret project just got upgraded http://bit.ly/cux1x6

This is just a sample of my tweets.  I would love to connect with you, if you’re interested:

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

Those Google ads you see specific to your search query is an example.  I came across this definite guide, which explains nearly everything you need to know:

Complete Search Engine Marketing

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

1. Wrath — from Sun Tsu’s The Art of War: if angry, then provoke.  An example is Southwest Airlines’s Triple Crown advertisement in which they called out Northwest Airlines for “lying”:
2. Greed — save money or make money (if you’re having trouble with this one, make checks payable to Sean Everett, contact me for the address)
3. Sloth — the strategy to use for laziness is simple — show how easy the product/service is to use.  This sin also helps determine a monetization tactic:  subscription-based payments come to mind.
4. Pride — ah, the ego, which is likely the easiest to exploit.  Just give someone a reason to feel important, and they will throw their time and money at you.  Thanks Foursquare for allowing me to check into the hottest place in the city.
5. Lust – sex sells.  The panel on creating viral videos at SXSW 2010 made this video called Boobies & Kittens to prove a point: sex + cute = marketing juju
6. Envy — greed is a subset of envy, which is a more emotional than material state.  Exploit this sin by using the others-have-it-why-don’t-you tactic.
7. Gluttony — mmm, delicious.  Try watching the Food Network on an empty stomach and you’ll understand this one.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

• bit.ly solved the problem of sharing long links on Twitter (i.e., 140 character limit) by shortening them
• Gmail solved the problem of finding specific emails years later by using their advanced search algorithm
• Facebook solved the problem of the need for human connection by exploiting the laws of 6 degrees of separation and by incorporating picture uploading and tagging

Your “start”-up should start with the customer problem and build out from there.  The closer your problem is to the top of the pyramid below (the classic Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs), the better off your business prospects.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

Whether you’re about to give a presentation in front of a large audience or just accepted a new project that you have no clue how to do, that knot in the pit of your stomach means one thing:  this isn’t a typical day.  Instead of fearing this feeling, try turning it on its head and realizing that it’s making you feel more alive than normal.

I’ve tried living my life over the past 5 years using this one fundamental methodology and it hasn’t failed me yet.  It’s allowed me to meet incredible new people, learn extremely complex and diverse topics, and accomplish things that my 21-year-old self would have balked at.

In the end, it’s not about taking a huge leap into the unknown.  Instead, it’s about small moves.  Push yourself.  Stop living your life looking in the rearview and start living it like a rock star.

As Jay-Z says, on to the next one…

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.

If you don’t know your business model’s strategy, then you don’t know what it takes to win.

Geographic

• Definition:  a brick-and-mortar business with physical location(s)
• Example:  a retail store
• Success Factors:  site selection (i.e., who can move next door and how can you block competitors?)
• Monetization Tactic:  sales

Channel

• Definition:  eliminate or add a middleman
• Example:  Apple eliminated the chip manufacturer middle-man when they built the iPad (they manufactured their own A4 chip)
• Success Factors:  need extra capital or extra expertise
• Monetization Tactic:  margin

New Technology

• Definition:  any scalable technology (i.e., most of the technology companies that Silicon Valley VC’s fund)
• Example:  Evolyte Analytics, any web app or mobile app
• Success Factors:  does it work and can you protect it?  does the market care?
• Monetization Tactic:  sales (the hockey stick curve)

Image Marketing

• Definition:  luxury goods or services
• Example:  Louis Vuitton, Rolex, Armani
• Success Factors:  better, cheaper different (always choose better & cheaper); how do you create & maintain it in the face of a fickle public?
• Monetization Tactic:  margin

Brand = Awareness + Positive Meaning

Your brand must represent uniqueness and offer value to customers.  In addition, it should meet all four of the following criteria:

1. True
2. Good
3. Beautiful
4. Simple

Low-Cost Producer

• Definition:  produce a high volume of a product at a cost lower than competitors
• Example:  the off brands of products you find at the grocery store
• Success Factors:  how are you cheaper? remove waste (anything not adding value to customer, like Toyota’s jidoka system of continuous improvement); commit to high volume; how easy is it to leapfrog competitor?
• Monetization Tactic:  margin

Social Network

• Definition:  social structure made of individuals or organizations connected by one or more specific types of interdependency (i.e., friendship,  financial exchange, beliefs, knowledge, hobbies, etc.)
• Example:  Twitter, Facebook
• Success Factors:   get big fast; must establish a trusted peer-to-peer relationship network; can you monetize it?
• Monetization Tactic:  margin

High-Performance Image

• Definition:  a premium product or service that needs a “standard” competitor to establish “high-performance” value in customer’s mind
• Example:  Rolex Submariner vs Seiko 100 meter diving watch in 1950s (Seiko’s release a few years after Rolex allowed Rolex to be viewed as a premium and high-performance product)
• Success Factors:  objective measures; committed to low volume (high margin); patient capital (need time to build)
• Monetization Tactic:  margin

Commodity Producer

• Definition:  a product that is exactly the same no matter who produces it (i.e., lacks qualitative differentiation)
• Example:  paper, coal, copper
• Success Factors:  control input or output prices
• Monetization Tactic:  sales

Be A Crook

• Definition:  performing any act that’s against the law
• Example:  white collar crime
• Success Factors:  none, just ask yourself “when do I go to jail?”
• Monetization Tactict:  sales

Important Note:  for any type of fad or inherently unpredictable business (e.g., fashion, financial services, etc.), these strategies reach their limits

Special thanks to Greg Bunch for compiling some of this information.

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The Idea

1. First you need to pick an industry or a field.  This shouldn’t be too difficult because it should be an area you’re already passionate about (e.g., Apple products, fashion, music, etc).
2. Then, immerse yourself in this area.  Find the most relevant blog posts, comment on them, and start tweeting about it.  Join a few of the most popular Facebook fan pages and take notice of the strategies and conversations taking place.
3. Next, you need to start expanding your knowledge from the most popular sites, blogs, and fan pages to the more obscure yet still highly touted experts in the area.  If you’re not following at least 50 blogs and 100 twitters in your specific niche area, and reading most of the information, then you’re not fully immersed yet.
4. By now you should be auto-magically identifying shortfalls, holes, and gaps in the industry.  These areas will soon become your playground because you’ve just found the un-tapped niches containing no competition.
5. Now all you have to do is find the one that most appeals to you and you believe you can create an impact in.
6. The rest is just details and execution.

The Rest

One piece of advice, though.  As you start to explore your new found idea, figure out a plan that gets you to the end goal as efficiently and cost effectively as possible.  You will not have the time or energy to go down side paths.  That’s not to say your idea will not change, however.  I have iterated multiple times before finally finding the appropriate idea that resonates with the market.  For more detail in this area, read my other post, Entrepreneurship, which will show you how to develop the customer fit.

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Selling has become a dirty word because the mind’s eye instantly sees some old, fat and grungy guy trying to hard-sell you on a VW Beetle from 1978.  Um, no thanks, and no I don’t want to shake your hand.

The key isn’t practicing your pitch a million times and have a file-o-facts of how to answer objections.  No, it’s much, much simpler than that.  Ask questions.  That’s it.

If you know the product or service you’re promoting, then it’s much easier to let the conversation happen naturally.  Besides, people like to talk about themselves and their problems even more, so let them.  Then, when  you hear an opening where your product/service can solve one of these problems, they’re much more willing to listen for two reasons:

1. They’re already engaged in the conversation
2. The context has already been established (their problem, your solution)

And boom goes the dynamite.

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Some people say the irony of funding is that you can’t get it until you don’t need it anymore.

I believe that the vast majority of startups, especially those that are not capital intensive, should not spent the ridiculous amount of time trying to woo potential investors for two reasons:

1. Spend the time and money investing in your business and talking to customers about what they want in your product/service
2. Money isn’t the answer and it makes you lazy.  Instead of finding creative solutions to your problems, you’ll just throw money at them and burn through the cash (and therefore equity) much faster than you would otherwise.

I believe that the best businesses are those that create recurring revenue streams.  Things that you spend the time setting up once, then the marginal cost for selling an additional unit is zero.  An example is a subscription-based web app.  You sign up and until you cancel, they continue to charge your credit card every month.

You keep leveraging past successes in this area (in terms of profits, experience, and reputation) to build your next venture and so on, and so forth.  Here’s the theory I use:

• I like to start one type of business:  low barriers to entry
• I compete and win based on two basic principles:  simplicity and exponentially better execution

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Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!  I feel like I’m beating a dead horse to death, but there’s so much complexity still out there I feel it’s my mission to keep breakin’ it down like a fraction.

Executive Summary

If you do decide to go the VC roadshow route (and that’s a post for another time), they do NOT want yet another 80-page plan to slog through.  Try boiling everything down to 10 slides, and better yet, into one page.  Below is a great example of an easy to use one-pager, in web app form.  It’s called plancruncher and was created by a division of Lunatech Ventures.

Ten Slides Maximum

Courtesy of the man Dave McClure (@DaveMcClure), an early investor in Twitter among other famous startups you’ve heard of, here’s what should be in your ten slides:

1. Elevator Pitch
2. The Problem
3. Your Solution
4. Market Size
5. Business Model
6. Proprietary Technology
7. Competition
8. Marketing Plan
9. Team/Hires
10. Money Milestones

Here’s his famous “How To Pitch A VC” slide deck if you want more details.

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My problem with the various to-do and project management apps out there (read: Basecamp), is that they don’t move as fast as your brain or the real world. They quickly become an administrative burden requiring you to constantly log into the app (whether web or mobile) in order to update status, comment, or crossing things off. So how do you fix this? I think I may have a solution…and it has to do with integration.

The Idea

First, consider the things most people are plugged into all day. In descending order of prevalence, it’s likely the following web apps:

• Gmail
• Facebook
• Twitter

Next, instead of having people logging into your own native app constantly, why not leverage those technologies that people are already using.  If they don’t have to leave these places to interact with your solution, then it’s more likely your rate of usage (and therefore value in the customer’s mind) will be higher.  It all comes down to integration.

The Solution

If I was to build a simple web app to track my to-do list, I would do the following:

1. Build the simple web app (something like Teux Deux)
2. Next, integrate Twitter’s O-Auth and API
3. Develop a Twitter syntax to allowing the user to send tweets to add and cross things off the list
4. Finally, and this is key, provide daily DM (direct message), showing the status of the current and most pressing to-do list items

One company that does integrate with Twitter using 3 of the 4 techniques is  Evernote.

Note:  I realize that Basecamp and some others have integrated email replies to post comments, but you can’t send or reply to an email to add an item or cross something off.

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If you have further questions, feel free to contact me directly or through Evolyte.

You should follow @seanMeverett on Twitter here.