Summation

In Silicon Valley, Settlers is the new Golf

2009-11-16T08:59:03-08:00

Settlers of Catan, a hyper-social strategy board game, has become the new “in” thing in Silicon Valley. My guess is that more Silicon Valley elites play Settlers than play golf.

Playable by people of any age, golf was once the king of all social games. Although viewed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a “bourgeois” form of entertainment that should be eliminated, the sport has traditionally been the go-to game for people – especially those in the business world – who enjoy socializing through recreational activities.

But in Silicon Valley, golf is mostly dead. It is a game that a few people enjoy and the rest of us have heard of but probably haven’t played. Sure, some venture capitalists play golf, but mostly with each other. While there are some entrepreneurs enjoy playing golf, just as many enjoy kite-surfing, snowboarding, road biking, running, and yoga.

I recently attended a high-level technology conference that was held right next to a beautiful golf course. In my unscientific poll of about 30 attendees, only one actually went golfing, and over half had never golfed in their life.

In contrast, Settlers of Catan (or “Settlers,” as it’s often called) is booming and is quickly becoming the activity of choice for entrepreneurs here in the Valley. I got into Settlers because Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, had been telling me about what a great game it is for over a year. Then one day, some of the engineers at Rapleaf (most of whom had been playing Settlers since college) challenged me to play with them, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

It wasn’t long after my Settlers initiation before I began to discover Silicon Valley technologists meeting and huddling over the board game. In fact, there might even be a high correlation between technology innovation and Settlers play – some of Silicon Valley’s most talented players include Mark Pincus, Zynga CEO; Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search; Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook executive; Barney Pell, Powerset founder; Tod Sacerdoti, BrightRoll CEO; Saar Gur, Charles River Ventures partner; Scott Faber, Ingenio founder; Erin Turner, Level Up founder; Ellen Levy, LinkedIn VP; super-angel Aydin Senkut; Ken Sawyer, Saints Ventures CEO; John Lilly, Mozilla CEO; Matt Sanchez, Videoegg CEO; Dave Wehner, Allen & Company managing director; Kavin Stewart, LOLapps CEO; and many others.

But it is not just Silicon Valley stars who are contributing to Settler’s growing adoption – many engineers and young founders play too. In the Valley, where geeky is “in,” Settlers is going mainstream.

Reasons for Settlers’ success include its variety for winning tactics, easy-to-understand rules, and its relatively quick and balanced game play. For a more comprehensive overview of the game and its inventor Klaus Teuber, please read the wonderful piece that Andrew Curry wrote in Wired earlier this year (a must read).

At Rapleaf, Settlers has – along with karaoke and our yearly camping trip – become something of a company activity, with people here creating late-night Settlers pick-up games. And last month, Rapleaf and StumbleUpon (another “Settlers company”) got together for a night of Settlers.

While Settlers’ game play is already pretty sophisticated, Rapleaf players have embraced Silicon Valley’s innovative culture and started adding in their own rules to make the board game even more complex, yet more balanced, often forcing people to be even more creative in their tactics. You can try for yourself by adding futures and other instruments into your next Settlers game.

In the high-stech world of Silicon Valley, there is something wonderful about an enjoyable low-tech game made from cardboard, dice, and wooden pieces. It reminds me of my youth, a period in which many of us started with Monopoly/Clue, moved to Dungeons and Dragons, and ended with Risk and poker.

“Geeky” games have traditionally been male dominated and have only appealed to the most dedicated players. Thanks to its game play, however, not only does Settlers have tons of female supporters, but it also appeals to people of all ages. Many people claim other games like Ticket to Ride and Puerto Rico are much better, and they may be. But part of a good recreational activity is having a lot of people to play with and, in that regard, Settlers has certainly crossed the chasm in Silicon Valley.

Birds of a feather use the same phone service provider

2009-11-04T11:03:30-08:00

We tend to behave similar to our friends. Generally speaking, we like the same music, wear the same clothes, share the same hobbies, eat similar types of food, and even vote in a similar fashion. Now, there is evidence that we even like to use the same mobile phone service.

Michael Driscoll, founder of data analytics firm Dataspora, studied over 2.4 million customers of a major mobile carrier and found that people have a surprisingly strong influence on the service provider of their immediate caller network (defined as the friends and family who the person calls at least once a month for over one minute). In fact, Driscoll found that users who cancel service from the telecom company are 600% more likely to be within each others’ caller network, or directly connected, than one would expect by chance. In other words, if you leave your cell phone service provider, the chance of your friends and family also leaving the service provider is significantly higher.

But is the contributing factor really social influence? Or are these findings just a byproduct of the prevalence of family plans in which entire groups of subscribers quit together?

To find out, Driscoll looked at cancellations within caller networks one month apart since family plans customers switch carriers at the same time. His findings suggest that family plans only explain part of the collective behavior, and that users within the same caller network have significant influence over one another’s phone service provider.

Driscoll discovered that a customer is twice as likely to cancel their phone service and three times as likely to port-out their phone service to another provider if someone within their network had cancelled or switched carriers one month earlier. For the phone service provider, this means that a departure by a few can quickly and easily turn into a mass migration towards a competitor’s services.

Some of this might be explained by similar people leaving to get a new phone (like an iPhone) that is exclusive to another carrier. But only some of the exodus can be attributed to something positive about another carrier – dissatisfaction with one’s current carrier is another significant contributing factor.

Telecom companies today seem to approach customer retention efforts reactively, often offering last-minute promotions or free upgrades to sway customers on the cusp of cancellation. Based on Driscoll’s findings, a supplementary and cost-effective action phone service providers could take is to proactively offer discounts or service enhancements to customers in a recent canceller’s caller network, especially to customers with large networks themselves.

While these exact findings are specific to the mobile carrier and its customers, there are several lessons that all businesses can learn about taking care of customers and customer retention.

First, take good care of your customers (especially your best and most-connected ones). Your customers can be your biggest billboards and will help you draw in even more customers, but they can also be your biggest enemy and drive away both current and potential customers. To prevent the latter, make sure you offer your customers – especially your VIPs – exceptional customer service.

Second, try reaching out to the friends of customers you lose. This may be done more easily for certain businesses than others since networks within a customer base are usually not known. Companies unsure of relationships between customers should (1) ask for or incentive customer referrals or (2) use an outside service to determine customer social graphs and friend connections.

Birds of a feather do many things together – including leaving you for competitors.

(special thanks to Michael Hsu for his help in writing and editing this piece)

Common Traits of A-Players

2009-10-25T11:30:41-07:00

An unscientific observation of what A-Players have in common

We often talk about this elusive "A-Player" – a person that everyone wants to hire but someone people can rarely find. In this article we'll attempt to discuss how to spot these people and see what they have in common.

A few points up-front:

1. It is almost impossible to determine if someone is an A-Player until you've worked with them for 1-2 months. Afterwards, it is really easy to determine. Unfortunately you often don’t get a chance to work with someone in an interview or via observation.

2. Not ALL the below traits are in ALL A-Players. But every A-Player has some of the traits. And if you meet someone that has all of them, that person is likely to be an A-Player.

the A-Player janitor

When people think of an A-Player, they often think the person had have gone to Harvard. Going to a great school – or even going to college at all – is not a good predictor of being an A-Player.

Each position in your company can have an A-Player. The person who cleans your toilets could be an A-Player cleaner. That person isn't likely to be an A-Player lawyer ... but the A-Player lawyer probably wouldn't do a great job cleaning either.

As a hiring manager, your goal is to fill each position with the very best person in that position. If you think of a baseball team, it is pretty rare that the catcher is best hitter on the team. But having a good catcher is really important. And a baseball team also needs a great doctor, a great ground crew, great secretary to handle the fan mail, and even a great person to do the laundry.

Relentlessly Resourceful

Paul Graham has written that great entrepreneurs are "relentlessly resourceful". They are. But that label doesn't just apply to entrepreneurs ... it applies to A-Players as well.

Great people are consistently finding ways to be great.   They make things happen.   The best teacher I ever encountered was Don Tedesco who taught my fifth grade class. He wasn't satisfied with the normal curriculum ... he needed to reinvent it. (More on Mr. Tedesco below)

Rules Encourage Mediocrity

A-Players like to be creative. Actually, they NEED to be creative. They need to find the best way to accomplish their goals and they cannot be told exactly what to do. (B and C players often NEED to be told what to do). And so an A-Player would generally quit rather than follow stupid rules.

My guess is that you won't find an A-Player teacher that will agree to teach to a test.   They'll just quit and move to a new environment that allows them to educate kids in the best way possible.   The best teacher I ever had, Don Tedesco who taught my fifth and sixth grades, created a whole school-within-a-school (and called it "Actionville") and broke every rule in the system.

If your company is trying to attract A-Players, you might first want to eliminate some of your rules. And if you are an entrepreneur of a fast-growing company, you should monitor people that like to create rules for others (generally the general counsel and the HR people). While those rules are often well-intentioned, they can drive A-Players away from the company.

Getting Back to People

Most A-Players get back to people quickly. Usually within 24 hours. In the few occasions that I have emailed Steve Jobs, he's gotten back to me in about 2 hours. Ditto for Steve Ballmer, Maria Bartiromo, Marc Benioff, Pete Briger, Eric Cantor, Andy Grove, Vernon Jordan, Bill Kristol, Lenny Mendonca, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Dave Steiner.

The one group of A-Players that are really bad at getting back to people are those that work at Google (though there are plenty of exceptions). I think that is because the culture didn't have many real customers in the early days so people there got in the practice of basically ignoring emails from the outside world. People like Steve Jobs, Steve Ballmer, and Mac Benioff, by contrast, grew up needing to quickly respond and engage with customers.

Good rule of thumb: If you find someone that generally gets back to everyone in a timely way, it is usually a good sign.

Early vs Late

Do A-Players come to events early or late?
I've personally found that they come to events on the early side. Certainly it would be a flag if someone was late to an interview or a meeting.

Founders

A-Players have often founded something.   Maybe they started a student club, an association, a company, a cool web page, a user group, a neighborhood watch association, or a new committee on the PTA.

Follow-up

A-Players seem to better understand how to manage people – especially their bosses and their colleagues. They seem to implicitly understand what it means to manage deadlines.

Work harder and smarter

Great employees work harder than good employees.   Partially it is because they are motivated by their company and those around them. But it is also because they take pride in what they do. Jerry Rice outworked every football player. Tiger Woods outworks every golfer. They both have some incredible natural talents – but it is their work ethic that sets them apart.   My guess is that both Rice and Woods would be amazing in a business environment if that is what they were passionate about.

But A-Players also work smarter.   Like Rice and Woods, they don’t just spend a long time practicing, they actually practice in the right way.

stop this thief

2009-10-25T11:12:26-07:00

this guy stole a laptop and backpacks of friends of mine. Here is is below with the stolen goods:

there has been a ton of office thefts in downtown San Francisco. not sure if this guy is responsible for those other thefts ... but he did break into an office and steal a laptop and two backpacks ... so please be on the lookout for this thief.

more pics of the person entering the building:

How Free is Your Country?

2009-10-20T13:00:53-07:00

Small clues can determine how free a country is

We talk a lot about people being free these days. Many people have tried to define freedom in different ways ... but I’ll try to propose a few simple questions to determine is a country is free.

Freedom is not just about elections and democracy. China is more free than some countries that have a democracy. Singapore, which really is more of a benevolent dictatorship rather than a democracy, is quite free in many ways.

Here are a few questions to consider when determining the freedom of a country:

1. Can you leave your country at any time and for any reason? (and can you free emigrate?)

2. When you leave the country, can you take your money with you?

3. Can you access any site on the Internet?

4. How many industries in your country are run by an effective monopoly? The more industries controlled by a monopoly, the less free the country is.

(When you look at this metric, a country like Cuba is far less free than Iran. Cuba basically scores a zero on all these questions where Iran does better).

coupon sites are a great way for web shopping

2009-10-18T16:47:12-07:00

if you are a bargain hunter, my two favorite easy-to-use coupon sites are RetailMeNot and ShopAdvisor -- they are a must use for holiday shopping in these recessionary times.

travel visas are tired

2009-10-18T15:33:39-07:00

having a "paper" visa (essentially a sticker) in your passport seems not a very efficient way to travel. if you need to get a travel visa, they should at least mail you the sticker (rather than you needing to to mail your passport or stand in line at a consulate).

international patents

2009-10-18T15:30:11-07:00

when will there be one uber international body that issues patents that most major nations respect?

applying for patents across multiple countries is a nightmare today.

why hiring a product manager is so hard

2009-10-15T17:43:22-07:00

Rapleaf is looking for a super talented (read: rock-star) PM (product manager).   we've looked at over 1,000 resumes and have yet to give an offer. so I find myself asking: why is it so hard to find a rock-star PM?

First, to define a rock-star PM, the person needs to be:
super smart, great communicator, fantastic listener

But the problem is that most really smart people that can communicate are not great listeners. These people, from a young age, could talk and argue their opinions very effectively. So many of these people become great engineers or salespeople (or even CEOs) where listening is important, but not the most important thing.

Great PMs need to incorporate feedback.   They need to understand the customer.   And they need to listen.

Unfortunately, the Venn Diagram overlap of super smart, great communicator, fantastic listener is a very small set … so finding a great PM is hard.

Another reason finding a great PM is hard is that a great PM will quickly get promoted in companies (probably faster than a great engineer or a great salesperson). The role of a PM is to interact with more people in the company than any other role (except maybe HR). so a great PM will meet more people and impress more people … and their talents will likely get noticed faster. This seems particularly true in big companies. So a great PM is more likely to become a VP faster than a great engineer or a great salesperson.

And great PMs often end up starting companies or get promoted to C-level positions at companies. The greatest PM in the world is probably Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, is a great PM. Unfortunately, you can’t hire Jobs or Zuckerberg … they’re not on the market.   I often invest in people that are obviously strong PMs: like Brightroll CEO Tod Sacerdoti, Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg, and Thread cofounders Katherine Woo and Brian Phillips.

And we are looking for a great person.   And I know they are out there.   If you come across someone, even if they are still in college, please let me know.

The Little Things Make a Difference at a Company

2009-10-11T19:08:24-07:00

For all of Rapleaf's success this year, one of the most motivating things for our team has been the big sign on our building. It is real, tangible, and present (which is important for a company that generally deals with bits and bytes).

The little things make a huge difference.

A Call for Transportation Innovation

2009-10-08T09:22:39-07:00

More can be done to change the way we move around the world. The four decades that ended in 1969 were a Golden Age of Transportation. Innovation since that time has fallen short of our dream.

(this is a reprint of an article I wrote this week for BusinessWeek: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2009/tc20090930_048677.htm)

We're constantly on the move. But the planes, trains, automobiles, and other machines that get us from place to place haven't changed much in the past 40 years, especially in comparison with the four decades that preceded those.

Many of today's modes of transportation had their roots in what I consider the Golden Age of Transportation, a period stretching from 1929 through 1969 when innovation abounded. An era that began with rickety cars and planes came to a close with interstate highways, vast networks of roads and bridges, and commercial air travel that could whisk you from New York to California to Hong Kong to London in a matter of hours, not weeks. We built jets, broke the sound barrier, harnessed nuclear energy on land and sea, sent monkeys and men into space, and capped it all off with a lunar landing. It was a marvelous era of risk-taking, imagination, and optimism.

Those who lived in that era might have confidently predicted that innovation would continue. They may have optimistically hoped that in the succeeding four decades, humankind would be capable of such breakthroughs as jet packs, flying cars, civilian space travel, and landing a human on Mars.

But instead, in the past 40 years we've traded innovation for stagnation. We live in an era where few risks are being taken.

Make no mistake that the transportation industry has made advances in the areas of efficiency, comfort, safety, and reliability.

Strides in Energy Efficiency

Today's cars, planes, trains, and other vehicles certainly are more energy-efficient than their 1960s counterparts. They go farther on less fuel, burn much cleaner, and need less energy. Transportation is also considerably more comfortable than it was 40 years ago. Air-conditioning and CD players are standard; advances in suspension and interior design make the ride smoother.

Cars are safer, resulting in fewer accidents per capita. Fatalities as a percentage of driving hours have steadily fallen because of features such as seat belts, air bags, and antilock brakes. And from a design standpoint, air and sea travel are also safer—even if the threats of hijacking and piracy remain all too real.

Finally, travel is more reliable. Cars don't break down as often; my nine-year-old Toyota has never had a problem to speak of. The Tokyo metro is a model of efficiency. And thanks to GPS, FedEx tracking, and other great software, we're better at keeping track of where we and what we care about are headed.

And there have been some technological advances worth noting. Segways, with their ease of use and automatic load balancing, are truly an engineering marvel. But with no disrespect to Dean Kamen, I'm not sure Segways are all that useful except in limited recreational settings. Prosthetic arms and legs have come a long way, too, offering life-changing functionality to people who have lost limbs. Thankfully, however, most of us do not need them.

Longer Cross-Country Flights

Yet what about all the other areas where we might have made great strides but haven't? Think about how long it takes to get from point A to point B. I've been regularly traveling from New York's JFK airport to San Francisco for the past 17 years, and in that time the flights have actually gotten longer. Because airlines now generously pad their schedules, a flight from JFK to SFO is listed at 6.5 hours today; it used to be regularly scheduled to last fewer than six hours.

The Concorde was a great first step toward getting people around faster, but it has been shut down. Where are the other attempts at supersonic transportation? Even the U.S. military cannot transport more than two people supersonically.

I recently rode a bullet train from Hiroshima to Tokyo in 4.5 hours, and it was a wonderful experience. It was comfortable and convenient. I had Wi-Fi. We should be able to fly from Tokyo to San Francisco in less than that amount of time.

What about personal flight? Flying cars and jet packs seem further away today than in 1969. In fact, I doubt many people would predict that personal flight will be commonplace 40 years from now.

Time to Take Chances

For all the hard work going on at places such as NASA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and General Motors, there appears to be a general unwillingness or inability to take risks.

We need more people willing to try something crazy. This is why privately held Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, is so cool. And yes, in the name of disclosure, I am a tiny investor in SpaceX. They are willing to try things that sound outlandish. And since you have to fail a lot before you can invent something truly groundbreaking, they are also not afraid to fail. But there are very few endeavors like SpaceX.

You could blame the transportation innovation drought on companies' unwillingness to invest the money and time it takes to achieve breakthroughs. Maybe it's the public's unwillingness to back large-scale public works.

Perhaps some have come to rely so much on innovations in other areas—such as high-speed multimedia communications—that they're simply less needful of truly innovative approaches to transportation. After all, it is far easier to move bytes than people.

But those reasons be damned. We can do better.

Military questions we should be asking

2009-10-04T15:57:34-07:00

One of the hardest things to do in management is not strategy, actions, or implementations ... it is asking the right questions.

Recently many people have been asking tough and thoughtful questions about our role in Afghanistan. These are important questions that need to be asked.

But we should also be asking other questions about our military like:

- Are the South Koreans capable of defending themselves? If not, why not? (South Korea is a massive economic power).

- Does it make sense to have tens of thousands of American troops stationed in South Korea (which is arguably the most dangerous place in the world)?

- Could the military be modernized faster?

- Could we have smarter financial controls over military spending?

- Is it possible to win in Afghanistan before the American people tire of it?

As we ask smarter questions, we will get a much better

Why the U.S. has dominated the last 30 years and how it could decline

2009-09-30T19:48:00-07:00

Great companies are great often because they attract great talent. Google has amazing people. Facebook attracts incredible people. Goldman Sachs is dominant because it gets the best people. At Rapleaf, we are striving, working, and fighting to get the best talent.

Nations, also, ascend or decline on talent. North Korea does not attract outside talent (and inside talent has no incentive to perform). Japan's decline could be attributed to the inability to attract outside talent once its curret talent market reached maturity.

Could one ascribe the dominance of the U.S. (and to some degree, other Western countries) over the last 30 years to attracting new talent? Over that time the U.S. attracted a greater percentage of the world's talent than any other nation. In fact, it probably has attracted over 30% of the world's mobile talent (highly talented people that move countries). Much of that talent came from the Soviet Union which declined (and eventually fell), a newly educated China, and a newly educated India.

But that incredible talent will likely not come to the U.S. in the future. Chinese and Indian innovators should be able to find more opportunities in their homeland than in the U.S. (though they still may study in the States). And much of the Russian talent has already left for the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Israel, and other places.

This means the U.S. will attract less talented people from around the world and will have to concentrate on growing its own talent internally. But the U.S. is not very good at growing internal talent. Our educational systems are sub-par and few naturally born U.S. citizens go into engineering and sciences. (When I was an engineering student at UC Berkeley, almost everyone in my classes were immigrants or the children of immigrants).

It is not all despair. The U.S. is still the shining hill that will beckon hard-working people from all over the world who want a better life for their kids. And I don’t think the U.S. has to worry about turning into a North Korea. But we can easily paint a path to prosperous but slowly declining country.

Smaller countries like Canada or Singapore might suffer less because they can still take in lots of immigrants in greater percentages than the U.S. can support. But the world 30 years from now will look very different from the world today depending on where the world talent flows.

12 months of tweets

2009-09-19T14:45:48-07:00

I've been on twitter for a little over a year. here are some slides of some of my favorite tweets. please enjoy. (and if you enjoy, follow me at http://twitter.com/auren)

Non-obvious guide to finding a great job

2009-09-07T13:55:49-07:00

Last week I published an article in BusinessWeek entitled an Insider's Guide to Tech-Job Hunting. Here I try to expand on this article to summarize all my advice for job seekers in one big post. I look forward to your thoughts and comments...

Think like an entrepreneur and be proactive in your job search

Like many employers that are hiring in this market, Rapleaf receives a ton of resumes. Here are some observations and advice for people looking for a job in the technology industry (but I warn you that I’ve never actually looked for a job so my perspective might be a little warped).

A jobseeker is going to more successful finding a position that will be truly satisfying if she is proactive rather than reactive. Reactive job seekers diligently scan job openings and send their resumes to HR. Proactive job seekers research the companies (or teams) they want to work for and send a message directly to the hiring manager looking to create a position for themselves. More on this as we go further ...

Below are the ten non-obvious steps to finding a great job.

1. Look for companies you want to work for ... not jobs you want

When you start your job search, don’t go first to job listings. Instead, first figure out what you want to do and where you want to work. I’m often surprised how few job seekers have any idea what they want to do next.

Maybe you want to work in a certain industry, a certain location, or only places that have a vegan cafeteria. Whatever your reason, you should narrow a list of actual companies you want to work for (ideally to 10-100 companies).

2. Don’t apply to the job ... apply to the company

When you find a company you want to work for, do your research on that company. Understand the company and where it is going. If you are a great candidate, they might create a job for you. Don’t worry that they have or don’t have a job opening that fits your resume perfectly. Companies often are looking for people that kick-butt.

3. Send your resume directly to the hiring manager (not HR)

When introducing yourself to a company, you want to contact the hiring manager directly (and not go through the careers web site for the company). In a really small company, the hiring manager might be a VP or the CEO. At a bigger company it could be a whole host of people. It might take some research to figure out who the best person to contact is and what their email is.

One friend of mine heard a CEO speak at an event and was really impressed with what he heard. So my friend sent the CEO an email to every permutation (firstname.lastname@, firstname@, firstinitial_lastame@, etc.) he could come up with. The next day he got an email from the CEO: “I got your five emails last night. Seems like you are very interested in working here …” And three weeks later my friend had a job at the new company.

4. Dumb down your resume

In today’s market, companies are looking for perspiration, not inspiration. In other words, most companies are looking for doers that kick butt and get stuff done. They are going to pass on “strategic thinkers” (as they may have fired a bunch of “strategic” people already). Big companies need to do more things with less people – so they are looking for people that are super productive. Small companies looking to grow need doers.

So retool your resume to show off that you are a work horse who gets stuff done. And reference this in your cover letter. Get rid of the “strategy” sounding verbs like “empower” and “process.” Let employers know that you don’t just make PowerPoint slides all day but that you actually can either create products or drive revenue.

5. Send a very targeted email to each employer

Send a short and targeted email introducing yourself to each hiring manager. A good email would be just a 4-6 sentences. Include a very brief blurb about yourself (1-2 sentences) that quickly tells them why you are special. Also include one really interesting idea for the company – if you are an engineer you can maybe give some scaling ideas or if you are a salesperson give a better idea on how to acquire customers. Really understand the company so you can give them a relevant idea. And, of course, attach your resume (in PDF form).

One company I know got an unsolicited email from an engineer detailing the scaling problems the company was likely experiencing and giving two ideas for a solution. The engineer’s resume was one where the company would normally not interview the person. But the targeted email eventually lead to the company giving an offer to this candidate.

6. Follow-up at least twice with everyone you do not hear from

Send follow-up emails to the person after one week and after two weeks. Don’t call (calls are just annoying ... most tech companies have an email culture). And if you don’t hear back from one hiring manager, contact additional people in the company until they clear say they are interested or not interested.

7. Don’t be discouraged if they don’t respond

Many companies are not right for you. Often they are doing you a big favor by not getting back to you.

8. Do something nutty and unorthodox

Scott Bonds really wanted to get into the gaming industry in 2003 (when jobs were really sparse). After doing a bunch of research on the industry, he decided that Electronic Arts would be a great place for him. But there were no jobs at EA at the time. Scott started a lobbying campaign to work at EA. He started a blog called I-Want-To-Work-at-EA.com (now defunct) and blogged about his quest to find a job at the company. The blog became so popular that tons of hiring managers at EA invited Scott to interview with them just so that they could meet him. And he eventually got a great job at EA and worked there for five years.

Vivek Sodera became one of my colleagues at Rapleaf by showing up to his job interview in a gorilla suit. That’s right, a gorilla suit. And he had made a “Rapleaf” t-shirt that he wore over the suit as he commuted via BART to the interview. It was classic. He was applying for a marketing job and he was relaying to us that he would do anything to promote the company. It worked and he got the job.

(Rapleaf cofounder Manish Shah with Vivek Sodera (in gorilla suit) on Vivek’s interview.)

Today you can start a Twitter campaign praising the company, do something on a social networking site, or even bake the team cookies.

9. Get in the door for a company you want to work for

If you want to work in a company or an industry, get yourself in the door. If you have to, take an unpaid internship. Regardless, don’t focus on compensation. If you prove you are a rock star and valuable to the company, they will take care of you as great talent is really hard to find. And if you don’t end up a good fit, better to use an internship to get into the door quickly and fail fast.

10. Interview the company

I’m always surprised at the number of job seekers that don’t have questions for the interviewers. As a job seeker, you want to make sure you are picking the right company. Come to the interview armed with questions (write them down so you do not forget) and learn everything you can about the company, the employees, the environment, and more. Good things to understand is the detailed company financial situation, its customer relationships, the corporate culture, how you are expected to work, and more.

A proactive job seeker will not only be more likely to get a good offer, but she will also be happier with the company she ends up working for.