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Wait, Am I An “Unemployable”? A Founder’s Problem

(Source: http://blogs.transparent.com/english/files/2013/10/odd_one_out.jpg)
Recently, I was described by an entrepreneur as “unemployable”. Hmm, well, since I was talking about potentially joining/ helping his startup, this could go a couple ways, but none sounded very assuring.
He quickly drew the comparison of him and me. Can’t be that bad, right, if he’s comparing the two of us?
But then again, I knew what he was referring to when he used the term. I just hadn’t heard the term before. Since Body Boss, I kept contemplating the role I wanted to pursue, and where/ how could I best help a company if I were to join vs. founding another startup of my own.
One of the challenges of true entrepreneurs – those looking to hop back on the startup grind even after failure – is finding that Next Move… finding the next home. Michael Tavani, co-founder of ScoutMob and now launching a design-focused incubator (simplistically) called Switchyards inATL, said it best: “Founders gotta found.”
The idea is that some entrepreneurs can be the idea guy, or can be the guy who really wants to start companies. It’s risky to hire these type of people because at any moment, they can strike some idea and run off to try to build it. I get that. I mean, that happens to me every other day it seems. Building Body Boss, I kept my spreadsheet of new ideas, and I never really pursued any. But when I was working as a consultant before for someone else or even with another startup, yeah, I get the urge to build something great… something that I can really ownand say, “I built that… I foundedthat”.
Of course, that comes with a price.
The price… or maybe the question is whether I can be a valuable contributor and committed to another cause. Can I be a team player, too? Can I be proud of helping to build someone else’s company? Fair questions, and I believe I can be all of the above.
No job is permanent, and with that, there are opportunities to learn and grow in just about any position. And of course, like I said last week, there is a “mortality” of being an entrepreneur and that coincides with my ability to keep my life sustainable amid that savings account. Building companies with little to no income can definitely be hard, so biting the bullet to be employable is perhaps a necessary step.
Hiring these “unemployables” can be hugely rewarding. Not just for their ability to think outside the box, but in general, they can keep a company continually building, continually inspiring others for greater. Just take a gander at Bloomberg Businessweek’s article “Need Innovation? Hire an Entrepreneur”.
To the entrepreneur’s point at the beginning of this post about the risk inherent to the unemployables, the hardest part is holding onto these entrepreneurs. They seek challenges and ways to continually promote their dynamism. For me, I know I work best when I really own several processes, not just one. I love doing just about anything and everything outside hardcore programming and okay, maybe some of that accounting/ finance, too.

Being unemployable isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it could be a great thing to know, and a way to challenge yourself to be employable, Yes, even if that means taking some time off your dreams in hopes of taking a couple years of more incubation and learning to then eventually reach those dreams. 
What are your thoughts on your employability? How do you fancy yourself to be team member? How can founding entrepreneurs fit into other startups after failure, and be kept motivated to continue as part of the new endeavor?
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A Case Against Entrepreneurship and Pursuant of Passions

Another Daryl Lu original (powered by Microsoft PowerPoint)

Okay, if I were to really pursue the dream that made me happiest, I’d be fighting my way into Jurgen Klinsman’s squad for the World Cup coming up on Thursday. (!!!!!!!!!! Super stoked about this!) But I’m not because there’s a gap in skill (maybe) and of course, the cost-benefit ratio/ opportunity costs to think about. There’s a graphic out there on the interwebs describing the crux of what most everyone falls into…

(Source: https://bobbiblogger.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/rich.jpg)
This is a good portrayal, I think, in the world of Venn-Diagrams telling you what to do. However, I think we should step back a second and assess where really you want to be. In most cases, I think it’s being happy and if you were [knock-on-wood] to pass tomorrow, would you be satisfied? Or, what regrets would you have… how do we minimize regrets?
The buzzwords today are “entrepreneurship” and “startups”, and with the Hollywood flick of The Social Network about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, along with the many success stories we hear about including Snapchat’s $4B acquisition offer by Google, WhatsApps liquidity event at $19B to Zuck and Co., and others, there’s obvious stardust in our eyes to dream big. That, and we all like to think we can be billionaire bosses. The truth is, though, we can’t and most aren’t.
Having spent the better part of the last few years making no money on a startup (even as a tech firm with low costs, there’s still some costs to cover) and then shuttering, we’re still one of sooo many stories of unfortunate failure and like I said, no money. You know how media goes, though… in the world of startups, hype up the big acquisitions and startup successes. That sells.
But looking at this gorgeous wedding this past weekend I attended in Jamaica, it also brings about a harsh reality some (many) entrepreneurs face… without income, you limit yourself on what you can do or how much you can enjoy things. It’s a hard road going uphill while most of those around you are in cushy positions living it up in otherwise more stable occupations. For me, I’ve traded the lavish lifestyle of consulting (let’s tone down “House of Lies”, by the way) for the uncertainty of startups.
It’s definitely sucked to go to bachelor parties at nice steak restaurants (my favorite), and hold back or not order anything at all while the rest of the group chows down on glorious meaty plates.
Luckily, I’ve got some runway from savings from years of lavish consulting and still frugal spending. However, for the last several months, I’ve eaten countless loaves of bread with peanut butter for lunch and I’ve stopped taking my whole family out to dinners just because… instead, it’s my family definitely supporting my dreams (me).
In fact, an entrepreneur once used the term “mortality of an entrepreneur” as a reason why he seeks funding for any of his endeavors. He only has so much to keep going on personally. Not that I can say I want to be beholden to someone else, or really have a living off another without a really good, profit-generating business, but it’s interesting to think about.
It’s a tough life, and one day, I hope to pay back my family and friends for the support with dinners, random gifts, vacations with friends and family, etc. For now, I’ve got to watch the wallet (especially from homeinvaders at night), and keep plugging away with the belief that I’ll pivot and find my entrepreneurial success to give me the stability and flexibility we all really crave. I don’t think financial security necessarily gives us the “freedom” we want as much as we want the “flexibility” to change our directions.
I know several friends who say they want to do their own thing one day, which could very well be true. However, looking at their lifestyles right now, you can also see how a job is just that – a job. It doesn’t come back to bite them at night. It doesn’t keep them up. However, their jobs enable them to have and live a lifestyle they’re completely happy with.
Entrepreneurship certainly doesn’t guarantee happiness, much like a current “corporate” job. If in the end, you’re happy and your job enables a lifestyle you’re happy with, you’re able to travel the world like you’ve always wanted, then that’s okay, too. We should all be okay with that, rather than push into the media-hyped world of entrepreneurship and startups.
So if you think you want to be an entrepreneur, it’s important to really understand the difficulties and be strapped in for the long run. At least for me, I subscribe to the idea of “plan for the worst, hope for the best”. At some point, if the money doesn’t come through one of these entrepreneurial endeavors, there’s going to be a harsh reality for me to mitigate my risks while perhaps embarking on a journey that may take a step back toward entrepreneurial greatness. It sucks, but taking two steps forward and one step back is still better than no steps forward.
And before I close this article up, I do have to include the obligatory bulleted list of some pros of the harsh realities of entrepreneurship:
  • Lack of income creates some creative solutions
  • Having a set meal everyday frees up time thinking and shopping for what you’re going to eat
  • Like a dog backed into a corner, you have to fight to survive
  • Without stable income, you find you can cut out a lot of extraneous niceties (#firstworldproblems be damned!)
  • Most people will never understand what you’re going through, but with a strong startup community, you’ll find a niche of those who have gone through it, ARE going through it, or will
  • You emerge from the darkness with incredible strength and mental/ emotional fortitude (I hope)
  • If you’re like me, you thrive on challenges and building something from nothing. Entrepreneurship is certainly ONE avenue to do so, and the one I’m using as a vehicle to make a bigger impact. You can find yours, too

Without great risk, it’s difficult to attain great benefit, and so yes, I definitely still view full-time pursuit of a dream is the way to go, but like I said before, it’s wise to mitigate risk through preparation personally (familial), financially, professionally, mentally, emotionally, and socially (all the other -ially’s). So if entrepreneurship is going to make you happier or help you get there, by all means, do it. If it’s not, then do what you can to achieve what makes you happy.

What are your thoughts of why you shouldn’t pursue entrepreneurship or some other passion? What are the cases to overcome the risks involved?
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5 Entrepreneurial Lessons Learned from Coming Face-to-Face with an Intruder at 4AM

Scene from the “Walking Dead”. (Source: http://cosplayclaire.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/rick.jpg)
Excited for it to be June now. May just couldn’t end fast enough. Given my run-in with a ninja cat that left me bloody like I was attacked by Wolverine earlier in the month, the end of the month somehow trumped that story with… a break-in to my house at 4AM. It’s quite the experience when you wake-up in the middle of the night to find someone in your dining room you don’t know going through your house. I’ll step back just for a second to give you a backdrop because I know you’re going to be wondering…

Last Wednesday night, I went to bed a little early, and forgot to not only lock my door (to my house and car) but also forgot to set the alarm. During the night, my alarm chime went off signaling a door was just opened. In my daze, I think I thought it was a dream, so went back to sleep. However, I woke up a few minutes later realizing that that’d be a strange thing to have in a dream. From my room, I can see through the house, and that’s when I saw a figure at the dining room table. Wanting to ensure it was not just a friend, but also being cautious, I followed the figure into the kitchen. Not more than 5 feet away, I was staring at the back of someone I definitely didn’t know. 

After about 5-10 seconds of running a highlight reel of every scenario possible (including “is this the moment I go ape-shit-crazy on someone while I have the element of surprise?”). After careful and QUICK consideration, decided it’s probably best to notify 9-1-1 in case I got in a fight and lost. Slowly crept back into my bedroom with ninja-stealth at which point I dialed 9-1-1, and waited for the police to arrive. Long story short, police flooded the house, and caught the intruder hiding on the other side.

Not in my house… (Source: http://www.resto.be/static/images/11/0/117360_1126.jpg)

So like my run-in with the ninja cat, this obviously gives me yet another great story to share with people, but also to somehow draw some entrepreneurial lessons out of this. Yes, I’m that crazy. I’m drawing parallels in the oddest of places/ situations. Ready to hear me out?

  1. Protect your house. When it comes to today’s technology startups and the loads of data available we all put online, it’s paramount to have safeguards as a company. The most important “things” in the house are the people. In your company, it’s your employees, customers, users, etc. Ensure you have the right mechanisms in place to protect user data as it could have painful/ costly repercussions.
  2. Be diligent in security and safety. It’s funny (now anyways) to think how I have locks and an alarm system. However, if you don’t USE the safeguards you put in place, you kind of defeat yourself. Make sure your security procedures are up-to-date and running. Use monitoring tools to check the status of security, the server, etc. You only need one lapse in judgment, one moment of negligence to have the greatest regret of your [company’s] life.
  3. Redundancy is a good thing! In my prior life as a consultant, business continuity was commonly an area of weakness for organizations big or small. That is, if the server farm goes down what’s the back-up plan? When I was on the phone with 9-1-1, I had 3 dominant thoughts in my head if this situation went south (too dramatic?): 1) how do I tell my loved ones I love them and to pursue their passions? 2) Is this going to hurt my leg work out in a couple hours? And 3) do my business partners have all they need from the presentation and financials I was working on? At least in the 3rd concern, my partners have access to all my work vis-à-vis the Cloud.
  4. Calling for back-up is smart. I think I’m right to say probably every man in the world has dreamt of the situation I was in, and like me, had envisioned pummeling the intruder, and emerging as a hero. In the situation, though, I decided that if things went south, people may not find me for days… That, and I don’t know if there are more guys outside, if he’s got a weapon, or if I’m a bad fighter/ he’s a good fighter. At the end of the day, best to call in someone who can handle the situation. As an entrepreneur, you’ll likely have so much belief in your way of marketing, selling, etc., that you will rely on your judgment alone, but there may be someone on your team you can delegate to who is better equipped, or can complement your “genius”.
  5. Don’t panic. It’s about damage limitation/ mitigation now. In my head, I was pretty darn calm to be just a couple steps from a potentially dangerous person. Hopefully, the 9-1-1 tape doesn’t go public portraying me otherwise. Being calm about this situation or any negative situation in a startup is perhaps redundant advice. However, it’s worth reiterating that having a calm-functioning head as a leader in a company goes a long way in keeping your employees, investors, and customers’ morales up, while presenting a solid face (even if you’re going crazy in your head). Check out what Walt Disney said to his brother when Walt just learned he lost his employees, his product/ idea, had no income, etc. in Inc.com.
We all dream of being a hero, right?! (Source: http://184.168.230.109/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/hero.jpg)

So like my run-in with a ninja cat, there are some lessons to be learned in coming face-to-face with an intruder that can be ported to entrepreneurship and startups. It’s already a great story that draws the attention of people at Starbucks (it’s not a pick-up line, but somehow, I’m getting introduced this way by others in just a week since – Monica, this is your shout out). No doubt this will be a fun story to share and to use in drawing some sort of attention when I start running some sales and biz dev efforts (trust in relationships is built on personal connections, not actual work – think “water cooler”).

What are some other take-aways/ lessons you think you’d get out of running into an intruder? How do you think you would react in my situation?
And of course, out of the 40 t-shirts I grab from my closet, I grab the one about a donut race to go to the police department… They got a kick out of it, though. Shout out to the quick Brookhaven PD!
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Starting a Startup and the Multi-Tools Available to You

The Multi-Tool of Tools for Startups. (Let’s hope I don’t get in trouble for copyright infringement.)
Okay, you already know starting and running a business is tough. When it comes to what kept myself and my co-founders up at night (many nights) included specifically sales and product development. That makes sense, though, as a technology startup. However, there are obviously many other parts of running a company like the boring administrative tasks, office, etc.
Luckily, there are a number of tools available to companies of all sizes to help handle things like marketing, setting up the business, and to even virtual team meetings. So what were some of the cool tools we used that helped us get set up quick?

Information Technology – the core of our business, right?

  • Ruby on Rails (RoR). This programming language was easy to learn and get set-up quickly. Further, there’s a highly collaborative community behind RoR wanting to help.

  • Heroku/ Amazon Web Services (AWS). Bundled with RoR (to my non-programming knowledge) is Heroku, a backend easily integrated with RoR that helps you set up your Production and Staging servers. Brilliant move so you don’t push broken code live willy nilly.
  • GitHub. Version control. Need I say more?
  • Pivotal Tracker (PT). This was used for tracking tasks and assignments. We largely used PT for development-related tasks/ projects, rather than business assignments. This was great, but you have to really be diligent in working and closing Stories (mini-projects within the larger Project), else it’ll just keep growing and getting out of hand.
  • New Relic.New Relic was our performance dashboard for our server. Was great to quickly see where our bottlenecks were, and be alerted when the server went down. Oh, and it’s bundled with Heroku!
  • SendGrid. Gave us the ability to automate sending emails including sign-up emails, invites to join a team, forgot password, etc. This, too, was bundled with Heroku. You can upgrade and downgrade as needed.
  • Google Analytics. Pretty much the defacto tool for any web business these days to track your web traffic. It does an okay job of tracking, but there are certainly other tools out there that can give you a little more power and insight. But Analytics is free. (Win.)
  • TestFlight. Apple is very stringent on what apps pass through their App Store. Add that to your basic needs to test your product anyways, TestFlight allows you to distribute your iOS app to other devices without needed to push direct or through the App Store.
  • Mockingbird. Our preferred choice for wireframes. I liked using PowerPoint originally, and I’ve used Balsamiq, but Mockingbird was the preferred solution of the team.

Marketing

  • Tumblr. Used Tumblr for blogging. Andrew did a great job re-skinning the blog to match Body Boss’ theme. I, personally, use Google’s Blogger. Both are fine, but I think, actually, WordPress offers more customization. I’m already on the Blogger platform, though, with lots of posts, so I won’t be changing anytime soon. Hopefully, Blogger catches up in themes and customization.

  • MailChimp. MailChimp is an awesome, easy-to-use newsletter tool based here in ATL! Simple to import and export lists of subscribers and design your newsletters. The costs are very reasonable, but if you’re a startup, you likely won’t have that many people to distribute to for a while (read: it’ll be free for a while).

  • Social media. Pick one. We learned that Body Boss’s audience wasn’t really on Facebook or LinkedIn, but a few were on Twitter. It was obvious that social media wasn’t going to be the best to reach all coaches, but those who were on the platforms were probably more open to technology than otherwise.

Sales

  • Pipedrive. Okay, this is one tool that we actually didn’t use. However, I saw this later, and saw it was a really slick tool to help manage the sales pipeline. By the time I saw it, Body Boss was becoming a zombie, so I didn’t try it out. However, I did refer a few people to it, and they’ve loved it.
  • Excel. Yup. Body Boss was in the business of killing spreadsheets within the workout tracking setting, but when it came to sales, I used Excel to track my leads, who signed up, and then manually performed drip marketing and Tips & Tricks emails post-sign-up. Not sexy, but when you’re bootstrapped, you make it work.

Misc

  • Google Hangouts. We didn’t always meet in-person. We didn’t have an office, and if we did meet, it’d likely be at a local Starbucks. So when it came down to regrouping as a team, Google Hangouts let all of us in on the call at one time with also the webcam functionality. That was great just to break out the monotony and put on funny Google Effects like beards, glasses, and cat faces.
  • Gmail. I mean… do I need to say anything here? It’s just too easy to use, and it’s just powerful with features including the calendar, Gchat, Google docs… yeah. One trick you should know that helps if you’re testing things: if you add a “+” at the end of your email username but before the “@gmail.com”, you almost have “infinite” aliases. So daryl@bodybossfitness.com, daryl+boss@bodybossfitness.com, daryl+ninja@bodybossfitness.com are all aliases and go to daryl@bodybossfitness.com. If you didn’t know, though, Gmail for businesses now costs money for everyone ($5 per person per month).
  • Starbucks. Not really a tool, but it’s nice to have a place to work from outside of home. There are coworking spaces popping up everywhere, but some are hard to get to or cost $$. With Starbucks, you get some ambient noise (sometimes too much for phone meetings), people watching, and the occasional entrepreneur next to you who you can confide in.
  • Vistaprint. You’re probably well aware of Vistaprint, and you might think they’re great for business cards… they’re okay. Instead, they’re great for rack cards – one-pagers to hand out and leave behind. Great color and quality.

  • Moo.com. THE SICKEST business cards. I’ve gotten business cards from Moo.com for Body Boss (two types) and for Beachscape.com before. Each card has impressed anyone I’ve given it to.
  • Swaghound.com. When it comes to swag, we were often told we had the best swag around at conferences – we gave whistles. We would run into coaches months after the conferences, and they’d have the whistle on their lanyards or on the key chains. Also, the conference show organizers would take a couple, and would use the whistles to grab the attentions of large crowds – free marketing not just for the whistles, but to stop by our booth.
  • Team shirts. No, that’s not really a tool, but I think it was good to have – you can find plenty of shirt designers out there on the web. I would wear my Body Boss shirt with our Trademark “What gets measured gets improved” with our website, and people would ask me about Body Boss. I would have trainers, coaches, players, etc. just walk up and ask me about the company. Pretty cool. I started purposefully wearing the shirt everywhere, too, as a sign of pride.
  • LegalZoom. Not really sure all the different steps to set up a company, but that’s why we used LegalZoom. We ended incorporating in Delaware, as a foreign entity in Georgia. I learned that it’s a bit more paperwork, and I don’t think you get many benefits from this set-up unless you get real big. If I were to do it over, I would incorporate in Georgia (small biz friendly!), and then move later if we get big enough.
  • USPTO. For our Trademarks (we have two), doing it straight on the USPTO website was easy. It’s really not that daunting that you would need to file with a lawyer or LegalZoom for most cases. Heck, if you need help, tweet me, and I’ll help. For patents, that’s a bit more complicated so I’d defer to my patent attorney bud Jay.

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Mind the GAP Between Where You Are and Where You Want to Be

This is a Daryl Lu original brought to you by Microsoft PowerPoint. No judging. Work with what you’ve got!
I’ve been posting all these Quotes of the Week on Facebook, Twitter, etc. that are meant to be inspirational. Many of those as well as the blogs I’ve been reading have been about motivating/ inspiring those to quit their jobs in favor of ones that fit their passions. Or at least, pursue a future where you can be happy both professionally and personally – fits your values. UGA alum and recent TEDx’er Barrett Brookssays to pursue that job you say “TGIM” – Thank God It’s Monday, rather than Friday (TGIF). I like that idea, though, I’d suggest having that feeling everyday.
So, after all these ghostly voices telling you to pursue something greater, you’re ready to take the leap, right? No? Why not? Everyone’s telling you to. C’mon… Heck, I have a friend who just informed her grad school she’s dropping out to pursue her passion in singing. Ready? Set? GO!
Okay, okay, so let me fill in the gap – where you are, THE GAP, and actively entrenched in your passion. Yes, that GAP where you either are about to leap, in the air of your leap, or just leaped. What should you do?
  • Have a Personal Kumbayah Session. That is, take some time out of your “busy” day to realize who you are. When you’re making a leap either into foreign territory/ on your own, it’s important to do a little introspection so you hone in on what you want to do, who you’re looking to connect with, why you’re doing this, etc. This is also great to figure out if the voices in your head will bring you actual happiness (and all that hoopla) or if you’re actually hearing voices your therapist should know about.
  • Unify Your Marketing Message. I’m actively helping a startup right now whose message is a bit fragmented. As the startup looks to scale, it’s really important to unify the message for investors, customers, users, etc. From your Kumbayah, bring everything together with a succinct message so you can start marketing who you are to the masses and, especially, those who matter.
  • Build Your Brand. In my eyes for entrepreneurs, wannabe singers, dreamers, etc., you should start producing and sharing whatever it is you believe in. I started blogging a couple years ago because I wanted to be a leader in not only companies, but in industries. However, I already had great experiences to share, and shouldn’t need to wait till I was in my 40’s with several gray hairs to be valuable. First of all, I’m 29, and realized that my hair’s already thinning so gray hairs may never come. So start blogging, tweeting, singing on YouTube/ open mics, etc. Start building your brand and an audience. It gives you a “home” to fall back on and share with others, digital or otherwise.
  • Ask for Help or the How-To. I’m a big proponent of networking and reaching out to others and asking for help. I used to be pretty introverted and hated asking for help. However, people WANT to help you. If you’re going to go out and really change course, you’ll likely need help from others – partners, investors, or even potential customers. I’ll reach out to those who have been “there” and those who are where I want to be. You’ll be surprised with how small the world is and maybe find the new, exciting opportunity you’ve been craving for. Go to conferences. Go to meet-ups. Meet people. Volunteer!
  • Put Together a Plan. A lot of the above doesn’t quite lead anywhere if you don’t have some goals to achieve, and that’s why it’s always good to put together a plan with specific goals for what you want to accomplish. When you hit the goals, do a mini celebration, and continue on. Just remember, your plan is living and breathing and much like your journey, will need to adapt and be flexible, but don’t get carried away with delaying for the sake of flexibility.
  • Jump When You’re Ready. Or Not. I love the sink or swim mentality sometimes. When you’re backed into a corner, you have no choice, but to fight to survive. That’s why I love going full-time on a startup. A buddy from college was tired from consulting and booked a one-way ticket to Iceland and a 7-month sabbatical from work. When he returned, he quit the job, and is now pursuing his passion writing, traveling, and speaking — his story here on the Huffington Post.It’s rare you’ll ever be fully “ready”, but you’ll likely be ready enough. Refer to Jeff Bezos’ Regret Minimization Framework.

So what’s the point with all of this? Not everyone is an entrepreneur at heart or is ready for a startup’s demanding schedule and uncertainty (or to be a singer). But if you’ve got that pull to change direction or a great idea you want to explore, there’s certainly a lot of steps you can do to make that gap a little smaller as you decide to take that leap, should you choose to. I like to take calculated risks, so I hope this helps mitigate the size of the GAP for you. Happy leaping!

What other advice would you give to someone facing the Leap? How could someone narrow the Gap and position him/ herself for a successful pivot?
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Finding A-Players Out in the Wild and Harnessing Their Power

(Source: http://blog.vistage.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/high-potential-employees.jpg)
Have you ever been asked if you’re a “high potential”? How about if you’re an “A-player”? Athletic player?
I was recently sent this article by the CEO of a promising startup in marketing about A-players – “We’ll Trade 100 Employees For One A-Player” by Victor Belfor and Ben Smith. Context: the startup’s on the recruiting hunt for various roles, and the biggest trait they’re looking for beyond things like developer or sales is “A-player”. In the startup/ entrepreneurship world, there goes a saying… “Slow to hire, fast to fire.” There’s a reason for this…
Referencing Jim Collins’ book From Good to Great, Belfor and Smith write that A-players are those who possess the unique combination of humility and will. A-players have the will and drive that not only assures motivation, but enables them with the drive to run through walls, and not just see “no” as a reason for turning back. A-players are proactive. “The buck” stops with them. They may not be the brightest, necessarily, but you better believe that they will execute beautifully, and will have learned the skills and knowledge they didn’t have before.
Sadly (and rightly), you aren’t going to find “A-player” written on resumes. You ask a recruiter to find A-players, and they’ll say, “of course! Yeah, we can find those. Definitely.” However, it’s hard to really “filter” for A-players. Instead, it usually takes connections to find them. Here are some thoughts on A-players that I’ve noticed and found via articles I’ve been reading:
  • A-players can be anywhere and everywhere. They don’t come from Ivy League schools only, nor are Ivy League students all A-players. They aren’t exclusively found in Silicon Valley, Seattle, or otherwise. They surely don’t all drive fancy cars because they make a boatload of money. There could be a higher concentration in the Valley or in top tier schools, but they can be found anywhere. They can be young like 16-year-old Kelvin Doe of Sierra Leone who built a battery out of acid, soda, and metal scraps to help power the homes of his neighbors. (See article here.)
  • Connections know the A-players. Like I said before, A-players aren’t going to have “A-player” written on their resumes and CV’s. It’s difficult to really showcase that quality on paper. However, those who know A-players know why they’re A-players. Given a task, those guys (gals) hit it out of the park. Connections know the subtle cues of hardwork, execution, and humility that comes from knowing that A-player rather than reading about that person on a piece of paper.
  • A stands for Athletic. My former boss used to look for A-players, too, though, not necessarily using that term. Instead, he used the term “athletic”. That is, when we recruited at my previous company, we looked for those consultantswho could move from project to project, industry to industry, or business to business, and be able to pick things up quickly and unfazed. We looked for the kind of people who were “adaptable” and could pass the airport test.
  • A-players yearn for challenges. A-players aren’t motivated just for money. In fact, Zappos offered $2,000 for anyone to quit; the company believed A-players would rebuke the offer and stick around. Instead, they’re motivated by the challenges and the opportunities. They want to be in the room surrounded by more A-players. If you aren’t challenging this person mentally, socially, etc., you’ll bore them, and they’ll seek new challenges.
  • A-players have options. It’s rare that an A-player doesn’t have an alternative. Through connections, A-players probably have a host of opportunities, and it’s just figuring out which opportunities to pursue. Thinking that they don’t have options or worry about that person leaving is… silly. If you want them, why wouldn’t they be wanted by others? Treat them well to keep them!
  • A-players have the will to win. A former consulting Partner told me about how he hated getting flat “no’s” from clients and consultants during implementations. It wasn’t so much the rejection as much as it was that most times, people saw obstacles, and found reason to turn around. There was no thought or creativity for a solution. When asked a question, it was a “no, I can’t help with that”. A-players would say, “I don’t know that, but I’ll find out or find someone who does know, and get back to you.”

Richard Branson once said, “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” In general, he’s talking about employee satisfaction, but it’s very applicable to A-players. You want to attract A-players with challenges and opportunities. To keep them, you have to continue challenging them while continually building the momentum with culture (environment full of A-players, vertical job loading, etc.).
What are your thoughts on A-players? How do you view the importance of A-players in a startup? How about in a large corporation?
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5 Entrepreneurship Lessons from My Run-In with a Ninja Cat

(Source: http://static.neatorama.com/images/2005-11/ninja-cat.jpg)
I just received a great article on A-Players, but I’m going to save it for next time. Instead, for this week, I’m going to continue last post’s rather unorthodox post with this Monday’s rather… unusual situation and what equally unusual relations I could draw from/ with entrepreneurship.
That is, I was attacked by a massive, never-before-seen pterodactyl! I’d show you, but it vanished as quickly as it attacked me in true guerrilla warfare. Okay, I wasn’t attacked by some flying dinosaur, but instead, I was ambushed by a seemingly domesticated cat. Yes, laugh it up.

However, there are some interesting nuggets that can be learned here that, like I said, I’d like to share with you that can be ported to entrepreneurship. Ready to see what weird parallels I’m talking about? Let’s see…
  1. Expect the unexpected. You’d never imagine getting clawed in the face by a cat, and emerge as if you got in a fight with Wolverine or an actual animal wolverine. I got a sense I was probably sitting in the wrong place as the cat soon became very territorial, and yet, I lingered. In a startup, if you have that gut feeling something’s wrong, don’t sit idly by and get your face scratched up.
  2. Don’t panic! Time for damage limitation. Once I knew I was bleeding a healthy amount, it was straight to the bathroom with Neosporin and cleaning wipes. It’s inevitable you’re going to run into troubles in your startup. What doesn’t help is rushing to fix a problem only to break something else. I remember once with Body Boss, we implemented “polling” in one of the apps – continuously hit the server with requests. It ended up crippling our server. We had to spend all night limiting the damage, while also putting in safeguards to mitigate against this type of event in the future.
  3. Be prepared with a First Aid kit. Goes hand-in-hand with the above about damage limitation. That is, be prepared with some plan to rectify problems. From many traps we stepped in at Body Boss (you’ll step in them, too!), we learned, for example, the importance of tracking more user engagement data while also building in stop-gates should certain apps or code have detrimental effects to our application. Our developers built in many other tests that automatically ran when we pushed new code greatly mitigating our exposure.
  4. Not all cats are going to get it. Domesticated animals are still animals. Some prospects aren’t really prospects. You may think they’re prospects, and you may get them to try out your product or service, but even so, you’ll find that some just aren’t going to change the way they do things to embrace your idea. Even if it’s a great idea… sometimes, natural instincts just kick in, and you have to be aware of that.
  5. What’s done is done. Learn and tell a great story. We can’t change the past. If we could, I wouldn’t be sitting here with streaks of wounds on my face. In a startup, whether you lose a great partner or sale or the whole ship goes down sinking, you can’t change the past. What you CAN do is learn from the mistakes and use that as a catapult to tell a great story and move on. I’ve already had some great conversations from the cat attack.
In essence, life goes on. With the ninja cat attack, I’ll need to monitor the scratches so that I can still live the dream of a career in modeling. Otherwise, I may just fancy hand modeling. (Yes, I’m completely joking.)
In startups, and in life in general, crap is going to happen. Sometimes you have the sixth sense, sometimes you don’t. However, be prepared to handle the situation, and if something does happen where badgers run rampant in your office, deal with it, laugh about it, and move on. Speaking of which, a great perk about being an entrepreneur is setting somewhat your own schedule so I don’t have to sit in an office and get awkward stares.
What are your thoughts about dealing with the unexpected? How have you dealt with a “cat attack” in your office? 
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Staring Into the Entrepreneurial Crystal Ball: Foresee Your Doom

(Source: http://s306.photobucket.com/user/paawkx/media/mario-foresight.png.html)
Rebekah Campbellknew at the beginning that the original plan for her tech startup wasn’t going to work. Yes, even before launching. Campbell is the Founder of Posse, the app where the community of your friends share recommendations and favorite places.
Campbell recently shared her experience on the New York Time’s blog – “When Plan A Doesn’t Work”. She had received funding for her loyalty app, to put it simply, but from the get-go, she knew that it would suffer. In fact, it crystallized as she forgot to download the loyalty app her hair stylist told her about after her appointment. She had focused so much attention on the merchant side, but didn’t think much around user engagement.
In many businesses, products and services actually cater to more than one user beyond your actual customer. Campbell’s experience is reminiscent of Body Boss, and how the two user groups we had to cater to – coaches/ trainers and players.
Some key take-aways from Campbell’s piece:
  • Step Into the Shoes of Your Users. Campbell heard about a loyalty app for her hairstylist’s salon at her appointment, and said she’d try it out. However, she forgot to download it. How would users of Posse download and start engaging right off the bat if she, like everyone else, forgot to download another app so quickly? (See “Eating your own dogfood and imitating the late Steve Irwin – Why would you do that?”)
  • Early Customer-Partners Are CRITICAL. Campbell was able to convince so many people prior to launch 2.0 to come in for focus groups, 1-on-1’s, and other tests/ interviews over and over again. That’s crazy amazing. To have a list of early customers/ users bought in to help you iterate and figure out what works is so incredibly valuable so you don’t build something no one wants.
  • Appeal to Those Who Like You. After focus groups, Campbell and team not only saw distinct behavioral groups, but that not all would be as receptive to Posse as others. Thus, she honed in on those groups that would be more inclined to engage with Posse. Save time, save money with focus.
  • Personalized Recommendations is the Future. The likes of Amazon reviews, Yelp reviews, etc. are great to kind of discover new places. However, how much credibility do you actually give some of those reviews? Instead, you more often than not ask those around you for recommendations of a good stylist, the places to go on vacation when in Rome, or where to go for BBQ in Atlanta tonight.
  • Be Beautiful. Be Simple. Be Novel. Everyone and their mothers are getting into tech these days. I regularly do a purge of apps on my phone if I hadn’t used certain apps after 2 weeks. With all that’s out there, it’s getting more difficult to stand apart. I found the following to be one of the most powerful nuggets in her post: “Like a lot of people, I’m lazy. If I’m going to try something new, it has to be so useful, so fun and so original that it blows my mind. Otherwise, forget it.”

Of course I would love and appreciate this post – it was published on my birthday! Well, okay, it was obviously for its content. At Body Boss, we realized early on that we had two major user groups with very different inclinations for technology in coaches and players. We didn’t quite address this as quickly as we would have liked, and that could be a factor of our bootstrappy-ness; whereas, Campbell could iterate quickly with full-time employees with venture capital.
Campbell’s Posse 2.0 launched in March 2013 with over 70,000 users and 40,000 stores globally (at the time of publish). Looks like they’ve got some good momentum, and I’m hoping they go far.

What are your thoughts about Campbell’s article? How else could Campbell have iterated quickly to find the right product/ market fit to address customer engagement?
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Practicing Biz Dev Whenever, Wherever… For Instance On Match.com

Source: http://nataliethecoach.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/9395228324_036aa68eab_o.jpg
So this is kind of funny… you’re about to read a blog post about online dating from my past and current experience. This is going to fun to share.
With the recent announcement about Body Boss, I’ve been gathering my thoughts to figure out my Next Move. While doing so, I’ve also jumped into the online dating pool. (Shh, don’t judge me.) When I’ve told this to others, people are really, really curious why I’m on there. I’m not sure if that means people don’t think the internet would embrace a virtual me or because I’m so great in real life (“IRL” for you non-online dating folk). I’m hoping the latter.
In any case, I’m finding myself applying so many of the entrepreneurial ninja skills to work on my Match profile. I thought it’d be fun to blog about. It’s funny because business (relationship) development in this case is much different than approaching coaches and a lot more attractive for the most part.
So what are some take-aways? Let’s go.
The layout of your marketing campaign! (Yeah, I’m going to show you my profile… c’mon now.)
  • First, online dating apps are like sales channels. Why am I on an online dating site? Because I’m expanding my “sales” channel of me. I’m giving myself web presence in addition to the brick-and-mortar version of me. It allows me to expand my audience to those I may have difficulty (or never) reaching.
  • Skin-in-the-game is good. That is, in a product/ service setting of a startup, free trials/ models by themselves allow subscribers the ease to stop using your product. Likewise in online dating, free apps lower the bar for people to join which is good, but more often than not, those members don’t have any pull to really pursue a real relationship. Thus, joining a paid model helps weed out the non-serious members.
  • You are what you’re marketing. I’m not selling a SaaS product or an app. Instead, I’m selling myself to the ladies online. Sadly, like a bootstrapped startup, I’ve got limited funds/ skills so my pictures probably aren’t the best. I have to work on that. However, the basic principles of marketing are the same in that every picture, every line you write has to have a purpose to attracting your market.
  • Quality over quantity – simplicity is golden. In online dating, you’re trying to get a member to write you a message, or to respond to your own, with the goal of going offline for a meeting. Like a good slick for marketing your startup, don’t state every benefit in the world and feature to your customer. In online dating, state only the most pertinent information that would entice a member.
  • Customer discovery is fun but can get weird. You can watch how your “number of views” or “winks” counts change after you implement changes (geez, I wish I could do A/B testing), but in the end, you can also solicit someone like a friend who represents your target market, and get feedback. Just remember that like in a real startup, you’re looking for honest communication where partners aren’t shy to tell you what they like/ don’t like.
  • Know your target market – who’s in, who’s out. One thing I learned early on with Body Boss is that I have to accept some coaches were not ready for technology or interested, in general. There are just some who will not buy what you’re selling, and that’s okay. As they say, there are plenty other fish in the sea.
  • Don’t forget the Call-to-Action. Most online dating sites have a CTA for you in the form of a blue button that reads, “Email her now!” However, you can also help a reader start a conversation with a simple question like asking where would she go anywhere in the world tomorrow given nothing to stop her, or in my case, a simple WINK and I’ll start the conversation. (I think of this like a turn-key sign-up process where I’ll help you get started.)

Obviously online dating is not a startup. For one massive reason, I’m not looking for multiple customers. That’d be weird and terrible. So far, it’s been a fun experiment online with this new perspective of being a more seasoned entrepreneur. Now, I just have to attract the right partner… And to the point about the target market, I have to do a good job as a marketer/ sales person to make it like I’m the best product for the reader.

What are your thoughts about online dating or dating in general as it could relate to startups and business?  
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