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The i’s have it!

August 20th, 2010

Last night I had a chance to catch up with two companies involved in the Boom Startup group that I mentioned previously. The first was iCount.com (formerly known as Voycit), a website that facilitates conversations with your elected officials. After verifying that you’re a registered voter you can get informed about what is going on in a particular topic, engage with your local representatives by voting on issues that come up.

Their business model is currently based on display ads, providing analytics to politicians, and allowing lobbyists to contact you for calls to action. They will be holding a contest to see who can invite the most people. An iPad will be given to the winner so sign-up as soon as you can.

The second company wasn’t presenting but was there in the audience and I had a chance to chat with them about their progress. iActionable.com is a website that offers an easy API plug-in that is gives you a customizable reputation system. Meaning you can have the power of game mechanics available to reinforce whatever behavior you want.

It can also keep track of users and what sort of things they’ve done. For example, if someone were to leave a comment or review on a site that was using iActionable you would be able to see what other subjects or products this person has made the past providing you with a little better context regarding their credibility.

They’re both ramping up and getting ready for the big investor day coming up in September. I wish them the best of luck to both of them.

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Getting what’s coming to you

July 20th, 2010

Today, I spent much of the day sifting through a variety of legal documents that needed to be signed and finalized since there was an equity change with my little start-up. I’m comfortable with contract language having previously composed riveting material you find in policy manuals and handbooks but I can understand why many people wish Google Translate had a Legalese option.

One of the things I read had to do with the vesting schedule. It is called a Membership Unit Purchase Agreement for those that like labels or MUPA for those that live in the world of acronyms. Basically, mine says how many shares of the company I own and when they really become mine. It’s a way to ensure that everyone on your team is committed for a specific time period or until certain milestones are met. Investors like to use them when working with start-up teams. Customary vesting schedules are between 3-4 years for most CEO’s.

We’ve decided to escalate ours because we don’t imagine that we are necessarily the right people to be able to scale with the company and would like to be able to have our full shares when it is time to change leadership. My partner and I would much rather get the company to a point where someone else can take over and run the show while we make money in our sleep. I would argue that should be the goal of most founders.

Steve Blank wrote a recent blog post about the role of a founding CEO is to find a repeatable and scalable process. If they do that they should get all their shares. Then the board can hire someone that can take it to the next level. We’re just planning for that in case our investors don’t have as much foresight as Mr. Blank.

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Invitations and Opportunities

July 15th, 2010

Last week Tshirts4Hire.com was 1 of 5 teams to be invited to participate in Funding Universe’s CrowdPitch. You have 4 minutes (exactly-they cut you off mid-sentence) to pitch followed by 3 minutes of Q & A before the “judges” give you a American Idolesque critique. While we didn’t take home 1st place it was a good experience with great feedback from entrepreneurs, angels, and VC’s. Our pitch went well enough and though I could have done better with the Q & A it helped to validate what questions we still needed to answer or at least find better ways of communicating the answers.

Speaking of answers, for all those who are budding entrepreneurs or thinking of becoming one there are a series of short videos that walkthroughdefinitions, terms, and practices common to the industry on the following YouTube channel. It is put on by the incubator program I’ve “finagled” my way into. The cover things like the type of business you should  file, different sources of financing and how the work, even diving into different components of operating agreements in common in deals. Take a look see. It is at UsparkFoundryTV 

This incubator has been a great way to stay focused, learn or perfect new skills, tap into a shared network of resources, and meet some great people. I left the state to go pitch and a funny thing happened while I was gone. Another local Angel investor groupwas visiting our incubator hub and upon hearing where we were (one other team, CupAd, was also at the CrowdPitch and won it btw) have expressed an interest in talking with us.

Oh I guess that is another change I should have mentioned. We are seeking a single angel investor to invest between $50-75K in order to help get our site development moving faster and finish testing our market assumptions. For example, this next week or so we’re having a bunch of our iMarketers (t-shirt wearers) wear shirts with text message codes (thanks O-codes) on them to get some baseline data of how effective t-shirt advertising is. So if  you see a tshirt with a text message code please text it in-they’ll be in CA, OR, WA, AZ, UT, ID, NE, DE, GA, and a few other states. So keep your eyes peeled the last week of July. We’re also going to be having others count the number of people they pass in a day so we have comparable numbers to other forms of advertising. If anyone wants to do their own tally feel free to leave a comment on this blog with the result of your experiment. We’ll gladly share the results with others.

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Recovery

July 14th, 2010

When a habit is no longer a habit it is hard to transition back into the swing of things. So I’m going to take a page from What about Bob? and take baby steps to posting something, anything-so forgive the lack of relevance. I’ve imprisoned myself thinking I need to fill you in on all the adventures in ventures but never finding quite enough time to jot it all down or do it justice. So while I may have an occasional flashback to provide a foundational overview I’m telling myself I won’t have to give a detailed account of the past month or so. When something seems daunting break it down into smaller pieces of time to focus your energy and motivation.

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Mommy, May I?

May 31st, 2010

 Mommy Bloggers, as a recent NY Times article noted, “…were once little more than glorified electronic scrapbooks. Now they have evolved into a cultural force to be reckoned with.” I had a chance to meet many of the wonderful women behind this “cultural force” this past weekend at the Casual Blogger Conference.

I was there as a vendor to pitch the Tshirts4Hire idea and explore how receptive they were to it. Overall, they were quite open to the idea though most would only want to promote companies/products a few times a week instead of everyday. Many asked if they could have their kids wear the shirts because they didn’t go many places. Interestingly enough one of the barriers was the design or cut of the shirts which are men’s sizes and styles. Will businesses be willing to shell out some extra money so they can look fashionable?

There were many different topics or areas of expertise.

There were some that focused on saving money or finding the best deals like

http://bargaindivas.com               http://thethriftycouple.com       www.utahdealdiva.com

Others on recipes or photography while others focused on various areas of interest

Some were an extension of their own business

And some were just a family account using a certain voice.

http://themomnerd.com   http://scattergenius.blogspot.com http://thepersonalexperienceexpert.blogspot.com        http://thegregbeefamily.blogspot.com http://bridgetjohns.blogspot.com http://fangupofamily.blogspot.com  http://prematuritywithlove.blogspot.com  http://likeswimming.wordpress.com  http://andimeanit.blogspot.com  http://tracys-treehouse.blogspot.com

However, it doesn’t require attending a conference to meet all these amazing people. There is a great resource for those of you that blog or are interested tapping into the mommy blogosphere for advertising, reviews, or even customer groups can use Blog Frog. Blog Frog is a platform that provides an instant community for a blog so that its like-minded visitors can talk to each other. It also is searchable (currently has about 2 million blogs) so you can type in the product or service and find conversations and bloggers whose audience is interested in what you’re selling.

I also had the chance to witness a turning point for a successful small business. A nearby vendor, Oh Sweet Sadie, while helping a customer was invited to teach classes at a national conference (with over 12,000 potential customers present) by one of the biggest names in their niche business in September. One of the owners tried to put it into perspective for her husband (who’s a huge tennis fan), “it would be as if Pete Sampras had said he’d pay for you to come to the US Open with him because he values your opinion.”  It is great to see those moments of success. Good luck Oh Sweet Sadie and the rest of the bloggers!

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The Status of Management Reports

May 26th, 2010

Throughout my time spent in organizations I’ve seen a lack of communication. Most workplace conflicts were because there was a disagreements about who should do what, when, and how. Since starting to organize a startup or two virtually I’ve found that despite my best intentions that dearth of communication plagues my own creations.

Last week, however, I was introduced to a simple tool that helps minimize the communication problem within the organization. A weekly management report. That’s it-no drum roll necessary. I’ve include some videos of some training that was delivered to The Foundry by Adam Slovik of RemedyMD. They’ve been broken down to palatable blips of time and don’t include the introductory portion. For me personally it works as a great way to organize my thoughts and stay focused on the right things during the week.

Management Report

Metrics Section

Progress Section Part 1

Progress Section Part 2

Plan Section

Problem Section

Priorities Section

How to use them during the week

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Who wants to be evil?

May 19th, 2010

 

One of the great perks of having kids is that you have an excuse to watch cartoons again. I was watching a recent episode of Phineas and Ferb in which Dr. Doofenshmirtz was relaxing listening to a book on tape—The Adventures of Tom Sawyer-translated into evil.

This particular character every episode invents some scheme which is thwarted by a secret agent platypus. These schemes usually involve some creative, extravagant, and impractical solution to something that has been annoying him since childhood. Unfortunately, he was focused on solving his problems and not on the effect it would have on others.

Yesterday, I sent an email to Seth Godin after reading his blog post thanking him and asking for his perspective on Tshirts4Hire hoping for some guidance or a referral. This morning I was surprised to find a reply. It was a short few lines politely declining to comment and wishing me luck. Then I went to check out his blog for the day that left me wondering if it wasn’t some indirect feedback.

My original email expressed my concern about the polarizing effect of our idea and the view that this was creating “friendly” spam. The last thing we want is to appear to manipulate people or create more spam. So how do you ensure that? The only way I know is to be as transparent as possible and let people decide for themselves. Any other suggestions or things you think we can do to do no evil?

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Beginnings…

May 17th, 2010

The title brings to mind some sort of Hallmark card for a major life transition (graduation, marriage, etc.). So I hope that is the case for me as well. Early this morning The Foundry had its first of many Monday morning meetings. The meeting is comprised of a representative from each of the participating companies and is present to both ask and offer resources from the group.

Any time a new group meets it is always interesting to watch the group dynamics begin to form. I think many were expecting the director to take the lead but he refrained from doing so. Quite a few sat silent for most of the meeting while a handful of others spoke up sharing their needs. I don’t know if it was the morning factor or the uncertainty of expectations but the format definitely favors the aggressive.

Major themes included legal, website development, and people. The people issue was something that was continually brought up like an echo that kept bouncing of a canyon wall. So it was proposed that over the next few weeks if anyone came across people interested in working for a start-up they were to refer them to the Gangplank meeting on Wednesday night around 6pm to meet the different teams and find out what they needed. So if you’re interested come on down!

In a previous post I listed out the different teams that were a part of the Boom Startup program (which also started today-with the pairing of the teams with their mentors and expectation setting) so to be fair and to begin to be bias here is a list (names and sites may change in the future-I’ll try to keep it updated) of the different Foundry teams with a brief and probably inaccurate summary of what they’re all about. (hokie pokie everyone!) My apologies for anything or one left out.

  1. Meta Restaurant-Nutritionally balanced fast food
  2. ColdSpoon-Spoon used for cooling food and measuring temp.
  3. Early Stage Legal-Documentation creation for entrepreneurs
  4. EngineerInc-GIS Planning System
  5. Patriotic Reflections-Internet retailer of high quality flag displays
  6. Artesian Systems-Fashionable and easily maintainable water storage systems
  7. RedFlower-Authentic Auga Frescas
  8. Dash & Cooper-Custom suit experience at a non-traditional price
  9. iPadGame Controller-Universal controller
  10. A Priori-Specialty foods wholesaler (by the way he has some great deals on fancy chocolate)
  11. Novobi-IT consulting and creation services w/team in Vietnam
  12. CupAd-Putting the brand in their hand (fun tagline) Ads on coffee cups provide free to coffee shops
  13. Seam Machine-Machine that replaces a 3-man roof restoration team
  14. Salt Lake Mobile Detail-Mobile auto detailing
  15. Tshirts4Hire.com-Marketplace for social media marketing
  16. Btree Media- Media Design and Marketing Company
  17. Reminiscent Pictures-Creating digital memories
  18. Life Sciences- Commercializing life sciences innovations

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How to become a Trust Agent

May 15th, 2010

As promised, the rest of the story…

Chris Brogan, for those that have had a chance to meet him, is very personable and comfortable being who he is. Many times he would go on a tangent rant or say less than political correct and then make fun of himself for doing so. He spoke with the audience with what felt like inside jokes make allusions to different movies or events. Very entertaining and the content was great too.

He began by echoing Julien’s call (“Touch the Burner”) to do and try things referring to what he called a baby mind. Seeing things for the wonder of it and exploring why things are they way they are; then sharing that story with others. Blogging is letting people inside your head. When they get to know you and your story they begin to trust you. Creating a community is about valuing the relation more than the transaction. It’s a human business. Digitally it is a database that needs love, seen and heard.

Does all that translate into business results? It definitely makes it more effective even in challenging methodologies. Chris’ email marketing open rate is around 75%; the average internet open rate is about 20%, according to Mail Chimp.

Attention is a form of currency without which most businesses, especially those with any sort of advertising business model. It requires promoting only those things that you think are valuable to your community. He referred to this as a conference model which consists of 3 pieces. Content, Attendees, and Sponsors. Visually they sit on the corner of a triangle each dependent on each other.

 Mr. Brogan threw out another interesting stat, that I didn’t have time to note the source, but presents a challenge for marketing on the web. He used the example of an age group, 13-18 year olds I believe, and said that 67% of the content they interact with on the web is created by other 13-18 year olds. We go where our friends are or where we can find friends. I especially liked this because I comforted my psyche telling myself  I wasn’t crazy and that consumer-created content was the way to go (i.e. Tshirts4Hire).

I’ll finish this post with a rule of thumb that Chris shared-which I kind of just broke in the paragraph above. Talk about others at a 12 : 1 ratio. Meaning promote 12 other services, sites or products that are valuable to your community before promoting your own 1 time. It helps keep you in check remembering that you need to care for others and give them something that makes their lives better. That’s how you become a Trust Agent.

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Start up Follow up

May 12th, 2010
I’ve been meaning to sit down and write a bunch of blog posts regarding events and thoughts the past few days.
So I’ll start with a follow up on an earlier post about the new incubator program called Boom Startup. They announced the 10 teams that will spend the next few months working to launch companies and get ready for an Investor Day.
So here are the 10 lucky winners:
  1. 3 Point Data-Delivers data that decision makers need
  2. Bazari-Text messaging based ecommerce that will service rural India
  3. CaseRover.com-Making lawyers paperless
  4. Fashion Genome Project-Aggregate fashion trends, preferences, sizing info for individuals
  5. iActionable-Customizable virtual reward systems
  6. Khumbu-Virtual loyalty cards using cell phones
  7. Mashworx-Create your own web experience
  8. No Ink Publishing-DIY publishing for iPad content with the initial focus on the children’s books
  9. O-codes-Text messaging based codes that allow consumers to access online when they’re offline
  10. Voycit-Political, social networking platform

As a result of Boom Startup’s program parameters another program emerged to meet the needs of non-tech, student-lead teams with business ideas. It doesn’t provide money to participate but then again they don’t take any equity.

The Foundry is a peer-driven program that has assembled 16 teams (42 people) from several of the universities throughout the state of Utah. It is a true incubator that is focused firstly on growing the individual rather than growing the company. Kind of like a Dead Poet’s Society/Fight Club/Justice League/Bad News Bears thing.

The Foundry is part of the U-Spark initiative at the University of Utah to reinvent entrepreneurial education. It will be fun to follow these two program this summer.

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