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Models and Frameworks for Upstarting Your Startup

I know a few folks who are diving into new ideas. One way of starting up has been fleshing out the Lean Canvas — a simple one-pager in lieu of a business plan. 
Like a business plan, the Lean Canvas helps folks capture the key elements of a business without building out a detailed, largely never-to-be-used-again business plan. It’s certainly a good way to get started while thinking holistically. 
Another method I’ve been thinking about after reviewing “landing page how-to’s“(see Julian’s Landing Pages handbook) is what I’ll refer to as the Alternatives-Value-Personas (AVP) framework. This is a stripped-down version of a Lean Canvas. In fact, this may be a preceding model before the Canvas. 
 
(Source: https://www.julian.com/guide/growth/landing-pages) 
  
In this framework, the idea is to dig into the pain today — what exists — and describe the value of a proposed solution as well as the people involved. Why I bring this up as another option is to understand the problem and the people greater while having a hypothesis of the value of the solution. The most important facet of starting out a business is the market and the pain. Is there a pain at all? What exists solving the pain, or even contributing to the pain? 
Another option for folks is building on a Simplified One-Page Strategic Plan as David Cummings calls it. This is an outline layout of the key aspects of the business. You’ll recognize here, too, the template has specific sections for values, purpose, promise — cultural elements.   
 
(Source: https://davidcummings.org/2016/11/29/2017-simplified-one-page-strategic-plan/)  
There are a lot of different options to get started. However, the most important piece is understanding the audience and addressing real pain, or as one VC describes “hair on fire“. 
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Two Entrepreneurs Working With Two Devs (Part 1): Equity and Experience

I’ve talked with a couple entrepreneurs recently who are struggling with early partners. I’ll break this post into two parts – 1) this post describing the opportunities of equity and experience, and 2) the follow-up post next Tuesday regarding the traps of early partners with minimal startup experience. But first, the setting:
  • Entrepreneur A hired a developer early on to build an alpha product with a promise to pay for services renders in a couple months. Post-work, they’ve parted ways, and the entrepreneur wants to pay off the developer and retain all code. The dev, however, wants some ownership of the company and code.
  • Entrepreneur B is highly successful in a services business, and now wants to build a product addressing a pain in the current business. The entrepreneur planned to work with a developer to build the product as a test before any mass market approach. The entrepreneur wants to pay for the consulting services with no equity share, while the dev wants share for mass market opportunity.

In both cases, the entrepreneurs hatched the ideas and have the intellectual property to market their products. The devs do not have industry experience and bring “pure” development capacities. Neither dev has worked in an early-stage startup before; however, they’re highly interested in working in a startup due to the potential. This, of course, is expected. Entrepreneurship and startups are the “it” things today, and everyone wants to latch onto something and someone successful.

Typically, experienced pros with early-stage startup experience (devs or business-oriented) tend to ask for money rather than equity. (I say that with lots of asterisks, though.) Experience shows that most startups fail rendering equity meaningless while even moderately successful startups yield modest disbursements to equity employees. Salary is the “sure thing”. David Cummings even refers to equity as “icing on the cake” with benefits and salary as the main financial compensation.
The flip side of this is what the entrepreneurs bring to the table that make the opportunity more enticing for pros to sacrifice salary in favor of equity. Here, expected opportunity outweighs the (risk) loss of immediate salary.
Okay. I’m going to stop here, and let you noodle on what you think the trap is for both entrepreneurs as they work with (have worked with) the devs. Till Tuesday!
What do you think the traps are? How would you handle either/ both situations if you were the entrepreneurs?
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Time For A Change: Hacking My Writing Style

I just passed the century mark for posts, and I’m interested in changing my approach and writing style. At least, try a more concise writing style for 15 posts.
Scroll through different blogs, you’ll find there are many different styles from long text-heavy posts, story-oriented writing, concise and focused posts, to the list-centric. My style has been an adapted, hybrid approach with lists and examples per bullet. However, my writing can be… long-winded.
I’m changing my writing style for this and the next 14 posts towards a concise format no more than 300 words with short bullets, if appropriate (à la Master Blogger David Cummings). Why? Let me bulletize…
  • I love experimenting and self-improvement. I don’t want to be so rigid to not be open to potentially better, different ways of doing things.
  • I can be a little too verbose sometimes with redundant wording. This is an exercise in staying focused and to the point.
  • I value perspectives. This new approach will give me a new perspective into writing and thinking.
  • Test reader behavior. Shorter posts are more easily digestible for readers. I’ll review Google Analytics, and see if this new approach has made a difference in subscribers, time spent, pages visited, etc.

I’m excited about this, and I’m looking forward to assessing my attitude and perspective to this new style. Depending on how the first five posts go, I may also change my post frequency.
Any other ways you’ve experimented to change some long-standing way you’ve done things? Any tips on challenges or things that helped you sustain the change long enough to gauge its impact?
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The Next Act for an Entrepreneur With Breadth, Not Depth – Am I A Product Manager?

I know — my PowerPoint skills are amazing…
Right after making the decision to zombify Body Boss, I met with a local entrepreneur about my Next Act. Except, I didn’t have one, yet. Instead, I talked to him about what was learned, what I may do next, and I asked him what he thought the best role for me would be in a startup.
Not sure if I was so big-headed (figuratively, in addition “physical” – I know I have one… takes a while to find a helmet or hat that fits well), but I was envisioning the scene in my head going, “Daryl, you should continue building. Your best role would be CEO of a startup… your own, preferably.” (I’m now shaking my head muttering, “stupid titles… who cares?!”) Well, those weren’t the words he used. Instead, he said, “I think you’d be a great Product Manager.”
Admittedly, I didn’t know anything about Product Management, at least, not from a formal sense, so I was a bit… (naively) disappointed. I had to think about it this.
I was in this mode of “there were two roles in startups – Builders or Sellers,” and “Product Manager” seemed a bit “back-office” to where the action was. Except in an early-stage startup, especially, Product Management is deep in the action as the company strives to reach product-market fit.
For Body Boss, I played a role largely on the Sell side leading the sales, marketing, biz dev efforts, but I was also heavy in Product Management along with our developers and designer.
As I look back at my Body Boss experience, other startups like Beachscape and 1Q, and even my prior life as a consultant, Product Management perhaps is, indeed, my bread and butter. I never really had the corporate sales role which many startups seem to like, but I’ve had a lot of experience in the other initialism of “PM”, Project Management. In many ways, effective Product Managers and Project Managers share many qualities.
TheNextWeb.com (TNW) featured an article “Product Managers: Who are these ‘mini-CEOs’ and what do they do?” by Ken Yeung back in October of 2013, and more recently, David Cummings (DC) wrote a piece “The Product Manager”. I found both articles to be insightful, and wanted to share some great sound bites and commonalities.
  • In a way, it’s almost like they’re the mini-CEO, complete with the influence, but no authority — they aren’t the direct supervisors of the engineer or designer and can’t fire anyone for not following through, and focused on the success of the product’s mission. [TNW] This couldn’t ring more true for Body Boss where the four of us co-founders had no “hierarchy” and equal equity. We formed a four-headed Product Manager. This can be incredibly challenging when everyone has a different vision, though, as wheels spin and development halts.
  • [Josh] Elman wrote a post entitled A Product Manager’s Job and in it, he says that a core part of it involves having a good feel “for what seems right or wrong, and are also good at listening to early feedback from testers and others who try it.” [TNW] It’s rare there’s a dedicated Product Manager in a startup. In reality the CEO and the lead engineer (and designer) take on the role together. However, the take-away here is the importance of involving feedback from testers and partners early and often in the development of the product. This mitigates risk of building an unwanted product or non-essential/ useful features.
  • True empathy for the customer is a must-have (we’ve all used products that didn’t feel like they had the customer in mind). [DC] Going hand-in-hand with the preceding point, building a product with the customer in mind is critical. Like at Body Boss, none of us were professional strength coaches, and yet, we were selling to them. We didn’t have true empathy, though, and thus, we missed some of the big pain-points early. This was hard moving forward from the start. Note the little nugget in what I just said, too: none of us were professional strength coaches. Having experience in your market/ industry can go a long way in developing empathy and leveraging your network for traction growth.
  •  […] PMs need to have an appreciation for leading while also understanding that it’s about solving the holistic problem. Being a PM can teach you a lot about leadership and also about yourself […] it’s not about using your power to accomplish something — he sees this action as a sign of weakness. It’s all about inspiration, vision, and analysis while keeping in mind that it’s a team sport so you’re not going at things alone. [TNW] and Attention to detail and planning skills are crucial due to all the moving parts. [DC] Product Managers are connectors. They have great communication skills and enough know-how of the business, sales and marketing, design, and technical know-how to empathize with the right touch points of the product. Just as you move higher up the ladder in a corporate setting, a leader’s duties shift to more strategic initiatives and people influences… much of what a Product Manager does.
  • [Joanna] Wright says that managers need to be aware of three things: knowing the product and its users, having tenacity by picking up ideas and following through even though no one may believe in it, and being able to collaborate and working with others to have a strong vibe together. [TNW] Joanna’s points here highlight every critical aspect of an effective Product Manager… they are multi-faceted and view the product holistically… they are leaders – inspiring, team-oriented, collaborative… they persevere with the vision believing in the long-run benefits than short-term challenges… they are internally and externally people-focused as people are what drive the product either consumption or creation… they don’t just drive execution, but they motivate execution.
Hmm, it’s a no wonder TNW’s Yeung and Cummings view effective Product Managers as difficult roles to fill.

I can’t say whether or not being a Product Manager explicitly is “my thing”, though. Product management is definitely a part of what I do and what I want to continue to do. In fact, it perhaps fits me best as an explicit role as it embraces my interest in breadth rather than depth. However, I love early-stage startups because of its necessity for product management in addition to the external-facing role of business development.

So if my Next Act is to join an existing team, perhaps Product Manager is a great role for me. If I’m going to start another startup, then playing Product Manager will likely just be part of my greater role anyways.

How does a Product Manager role sound for you? What are your thoughts about being a Product Manager or Product Management vs. a role in one of the other “specialties” where perhaps you’d be the responsible party a PM would work with?
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Goodbye 2014! 3-Part Reflections: Starting with 6 Reasons I Blog

I was tempted to use a mirro #selfie picture as a not-so-subtle play on “reflection”, but decided on a less cheesy route. You’re welcome. (Photo cred: http://splitshire.com/focus/)
Ready for the new year? Whether or not you are, it’s coming. I do “micro-reflections” at the end of each day about what I did well, what I could improve on, what’s on tap for tomorrow/ next week, etc. As it’s the end of the year, it’s time for a more “macro-reflection”.
Recently, I’ve been asked more than a few times why I blog, and asked to capture what was accomplished this past year and what I’m looking forward to next year. So for this macro-reflection post, I’m going to write a three-part series. Part 1 (today) will be…

Why do I blog?

First, it’s a challenge.

Writing was not a strong point for me growing up, and not one I enjoyed doing. However, I think it was largely about context. I didn’t find anything I was writing about compelling to me in school. 
Now, I write about startups and entrepreneurship with a sprinkling of leadership and psychology. I’ve already started writing about Finance (another weak point), and soon, I’ll be adding some technical posts to my repertoire. Each post has fed my passion in entrepreneurship.
Blogging has been a challenge for me to not only keep writing and improving my writing skills, but it’s been a great driver for me to continually read and learn.

Secondly, blogging plays a role in BRANDING.

As I said in my personal story, I realize that I’m a representation of many people who have influenced me either directly or indirectly. Blogging allows me to continually build and refine what my name means and who I am – my personal branding.
Even looking at my LinkedIn profile, my Facebook profile, or my resume, it’s largely a static image of myself till the next time I update it which can be infrequent. However, with a blog, I can give better context as to who I am as supplemental to a LinkedIn profile or resume.
Others can read a few of my posts and quickly see where my passions lay, what motivates me, etc. I try to keep my writing authentic to who I am, so I hope my personality comes through the words.

Thirdly, blogging introduces me to many others with a similar passion.

I got a chance to meet ​Tricia Whitlock, ​Editor of ​Hypepotamus, one of Atlanta’s major tech-blogs. I reached out because I enjoy the content she and her team provides not just from a quality standpoint, but also for the breadth and frequency. A key to their writing has been reaching out to others either for interviews or to showcase what new startups are up to. It’s been a great way for the publication’s staff to meet others, stay in tune with the startup scene locally and regionally, and continue to pump out fresh, relevant content.​ I’m seeing how Hypepotamus can become one of, if not THE, premier startup news aggregator here in the Southeast.
When I was blogging for Body Boss, we reached out to strength coaches to guest post with us. This situated us as a connector to coaches. But also, it gave us an opportunity to connect with those outside Body Boss, and we could connect coaches everywhere to one another. It became a powerful marketing tool for networking, inbound marketing, outbound marketing (newsletters), etc.

Fourth, blogging can inspire, motivate, and teach others.

I’ve met so many people who have stumbled on my site. They ask me questions about starting up their own ideas. Or, I’ve met others who have taken some of my lessons and applied them to their current startups which has helped them avoid pitfalls.
At the end of the day, it’s great to see others taking some of my experience and applying it to their own lives. Heck, it doesn’t even have to be entrepreneurial. I think the lessons and skills learned through entrepreneurship are highly adaptable and applicable to, yes, the large corporate jobs. Everything from customer discovery to rapid prototyping to user experience has been hugely beneficial in even consulting projects.

And then, blogging is therapeutic.

My mind can be a bit… frenetic. It runs 200 mph with ideas and questions that used to just marinate in my head. It kept me up at night or didn’t let me fall asleep in the first place. Conversations with friends would go in a million directions.
By writing, I have a release valve for me to share these questions and ideas. I can hone in on specific ideas or go full-bore with a multi-part series like this one. Plus, it gives me a way to share questions and ideas others have shared with me, too, and discuss with others.

And finally, it’s a challenge.

No, that’s no typo. I’m repeating it because this is the major reason for me to continue writing, much like why I love entrepreneurship. It’s the rush taking on the challenge and to compete against myself and in some ways, against others – me writing consistently where others might have faded away.
Blogging has forced me to be more comfortable with myself and push new ways of learning and expression… to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
Up through undergrad, my personality tests would tell you I’m an introvert and my close friends would tell you how I was… more quiet and reserved. Since then, I’ve rewired my brain a bit aiming to be a better leader and more charismatic. Blogging has been a great catalyst of the change for me.
For example, blogging has forced me to be consistent in my actions and purposeful and comfortable knowing that my writing will NOT resonate with everyone. It took me a little while to get over that. Much like building a business, you have your target market you’re catering to. Respect those outside of your target market, but know that not everyone will appreciate who you are or what you’re doing/ selling.

So that’s why I blog…

It’s exciting when I run into people I haven’t seen in a while who tell me they’ve kept up-to-date on me through my blog, Entrepreneurial Ninja. They talk to me about how some post really resonated with them at their job, or how hilarious my story of the 4AM break-in was. That’s fun.
I’m on the Atlanta Tech Blog’s list! Scroll down alphabetically 42 spots as of 12/24!
As I’m sitting here, too, I’m grinning ear-to-ear because my blog was shared with Atlanta Tech Blogs who now have my blog as part of their feed. That’s incredibly flattering and exciting. Heck, some of you may have stumbled on this article from Atlanta Tech Blogs. (Thanks for stopping in.)
I’ve always wanted to be not just a leader of a company, but a leader of an industry, a community. To do that, I need to be a thought leader. David Cummings is a prime example of an extraordinary blogger, and has really cemented his leadership and influence on startups, especially those in Atlanta. With more consistency and longevity, I might actually get there, too.
Of course, I need to also get a good startup success… tune in for Part 2 next week.
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The Finance of Startups: For Dummies (Part 1)

Okay, I’m going to admit something here. Publicly. I don’t know a lot of things when it comes to startups. *phew* That’s like a big weight off my shoulders. I’m sure you’re surprised. Well, let me be more specific – I don’t know much about the financepart of startups. Yes, I have one of those MBA degree things buried somewhere in my house, but I didn’t really grasp finance. Truth be told, my learning style was much different from the way my finance professor taught, and as it was the foundational course, I got very little out of it.
Starting with this month, I’m going to post an article or two about a subject I don’t know much about. I’m not sure what the structure’s going to be, but I’m going to start and just let it play out and course-adjust as I see things working out. It’s like a startup itself! Essentially, I’m hoping to disseminate my learning for you in, hopefully, an easily digestible blog post. Be sure to share at the end any concepts or questions you have, too.
Where to begin? I’ll start with a 3-5 questions or concepts that I and/ or a friend has wondered about and try to answer those through research. I expect some of the questions and answers will be simple for some of you, but for others, it’ll be useful information. Let’s get this finance party started!

Preferred Stock
I was working with a startup recently that was trying to raise capital, but the investors wanted shares in preferred stock. This was one part of the wrinkle in the fund-raising, but here’s our first subject – what’s preferred stock? Well, when it comes to stock, there’s largely two types – common and preferred. Common stock is what we normally trade on various exchanges.
Preferred stock represents some degree of ownership of a company, but as its denomination implies, preferred shareholders get a bit of “special treatment”. In the event of bankruptcy, assets are distributed amongst shareholders – creditors, bondholders, preferred shareholders, and THEN common stock holders. That means that common stockholders are last in the pecking order when it comes to receiving funds from a liquidation.
The other BIG area where preferred stock differs from common stock is in dividends. When companies have cash assets in the bank, the company can choose to pay out via dividends. With preferred stock, dividends are pretty much paid out on a fixed dividend like clockwork. Common stockholders, again, get dividends only after preferred shareholders are paid out. In the event dividends aren’t paid on some set date, then whenever dividends ARE paid out, preferred shareholders get their cuts first.
Note: different stocks can also have different CLASSES. Classes are set by the company to retain (diminish or empower) voting power to specific shareholders.

Dilution
You know the really concentrated orange juice you can buy from a store? If you drink the concentrate straight, it’d be wicked strong. You add some water to it (diluting) and it starts to be of a consistency you can handle without squeezing your eyes shut. However, there also comes a point where the more and more water you add, the less of an orange juice taste you get. You get more of it, sure, but it doesn’t quite pack that punch anymore.
Taking that terrible analogy (I can admit these things) to shares, we can look at dilution as a means of creating “more juice”; though, with less “punch” per cup you divvy out – a reduction of ownership percentage. Follow me. Dilution in the startup world typically occurs when holders of stock exercise their options (buy stock at some agreed upon strike price – more on that later) and especially if the company is raising a round of equity financing.
In a raise, startups may issue new stock to investors with some equity percentage. In this case, as more stock is created, the value of the company may rise (depending on valuation of the company), but the denominator (number of shares – “shares outstanding”) increases usually at a larger rate. Thus, each value of the stock decreases – gets watered down. And equally “thusly”, if you owned 100 shares before for 10% of the company (total shares outstanding = 10 * 100 = 1,000 shares), and the company issues 1,000 more shares (2,000 total shares outstanding), your ownership percentage just dropped as well to 5% (100 shares ÷ 2,000).
That’s not all bad, though. Even though your ownership has dropped, the value of the company will have most likely increased and the company could now be in a stronger financial position to do even better (or just survive… you know, whatever). So if you don’t look at it as a “percentage” deal and from a straight-value perspective, you’re looking better.

Vesting Period and Strike Price
If you’re joining a young startup in the growth stage or earlier, especially, you may be given the opportunity to get equity in addition to your salary. Everyone probably thinks this is where you can become millionaires. It could happen, but it’s rare – how often are these billion dollar unicorns popping up? I digress… When you read your offer, you’re likely seeing some number of shares (say 100) with a vesting period of Y (say 4 years) with some “strike price” of Z (say $20). “What the heck is going on?!” you ask. Let’s break it down.
  • Shares… see above. You’re likely getting common stock, b-t-dubs (“btw” (“by the way”))
  • Vesting period. The vesting period is some time horizon that the employer has guaranteed some rights to ownership (via the stock) to the employee. During this time, the employee accrues these rights per some vesting schedule (if any), the employee can choose to “exercise” his/ her options. This mechanism encourages the employee to stay with the company as well as to do well (since a great company is better to own than a good company).
  • Vesting schedule vs. the Cliff. In the offer letter details the time periods the employee can exercise options per a vesting schedule. Or, the offer letter may make mention of a “cliff”. The cliff is some period of time after the start date of the employee for which the vesting may begin. From the cliff onwards, vesting occurs typically monthly. The cliff is a mechanism founders and investors like to mitigate attrition in the first year.
  • Strike price. This is the agreed upon price of each company share the employee accrues over the vesting period.

Okay, so let’s pull this together with a couple examples from above. 100 shares, 4-year vesting period, and a strike price of $20. Let’s say the offer says the stock vests according to the following schedule: 25 units in the second year, 25 units in the third year, 25 units in the fourth, and 25 in the fifth. If the employee remains with the company till year 3, the employee has earned 50 shares at a price of $20 each, but has forfeited the 50 shares. If the employee stays the whole five years (and then some), he/ she will have earned all 100 shares at $20 each.
Same example, but let’s look at a 1-year cliff vs. the gradual schedule. Only at the anniversary of the employee’s start date will 20 shares be vested to the employee. From each month onwards, 1.67 shares are vested each month (100/60 months). A fractional share doesn’t really happen often, but I’ll let it slide for now. So if the same employee leaves after 36 months, he/ she’d have accrued 1.67 * 36 months = 60 shares at $20 each, forfeiting 40 shares. See the difference?
Should the company go big and IPO later, the employee can choose to exercise his options by selling at the market price (“spot price”)… if it’s $100, then the employee can sell all 100 shares at $100-20 = $80 per share = $8,000.
Now, there’s a wrinkle to all of this (as always with finance, darn you)… you can’t just carry off $8,000. You must understand the rules of the plan as some vesting options do not let you touch the money till some retirement age before making penalty-free withdrawals.

Conclusion
Yowza, there’s a lot of good nuggets of information up there, so I’m going to stop at 3 today. This was fun to learn a bit about, and share with you, so I’m looking forward to keeping this train going. Next time, I’d like to touch on:
  • Types of financing including equity vs. debt
  • Convertible
  • Earnings per share (EPS)
  • Etc.

Next month, I’d like to also dive into some financial statements of a company or two, and share what I find interesting similar to David Cummings’ posts about companies’ S-1 filings – see “Notes from the New Relic S-1 IPO Filing”.

So before going, going to ask the same questions I usually do: what are your thoughts about finance in startups? What questions/ concepts are you wondering about that I can help do some research for you? What questions do you have about what I’ve shared above, or comments?
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3 Hours in Salesforce, and I’m (Finally) an Expert!

Just checking out what’s under the hood (image source: http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/media/jpg/gedney/med/KY0344.jpg)
So I’ve mentioned powerful systems like Salesforce in the past many times, but truth be told, I had never actually stepped foot in the Salesforce platform. However, when it comes to a CRM, it’s the go-to system. Heck, many of the DC Companies (David Cummings’/ David Cummings-backed) are built with Salesforce in mind – Rivalry for leaderboards and sales coaching [of record], SalesLoft for prospecting, etc.
When I speak to startups these days about Biz Dev roles, curiously, many tout the need for Salesforce experience. This has always been a… well, “curious” thing to me, but I get it. I was once in the Management Consulting world, and I know someone with SAP experience can get up and running much faster than someone without. However, Salesforce isn’t as ridiculous as SAP. Or at least, so I thought. I mean, again, I had never experienced it. My logic was rooted more or less in the many articles, talks, and even YouTube videos I had seen of Salesforce. I always questioned why Salesforce was a “needed skill” rather than a “nice to have”.
Yesterday, I took the first half of my day and spent it at Atlanta Tech Village to “play” in one of my friend’s company’s instances to learn more about Salesforce. I can’t keep preaching about it without having some experience, right? Okay, here are some take-aways.
  • The foundation of Salesforce is built on Leads, Accounts, Opportunities, and Contacts. In fact, check out a quick intro via Rivalry’s blog—“Leads, Accounts, Opportunities, and Contacts in Salesforce: The Basics”.
  • Re-packaged and glorified spreadsheets and Outlook in one. That is to say, when you play with Salesforce, you can quickly see how Salesforce grew so fast because it really is Excel and Outlook repackaged. In the end, many sales people started with cruder products earlier and Salesforce’s structure, the reminders, etc. were familiar already.
  • It’s massive, but also not so. Salesforce reminds me a lot of web templates you can get off the internet (think: ThemeForest). That is, you buy a template, and you get a ton of great features, CSS files, JavaScript, etc. However, you will likely scrap most of it anyways, and focus on a few core pieces relevant to you.
  • You can see its earlier “Big Platform” cloud beginnings. Marc Benioff (Salesforce’s Founder) is a former Oracle Exec. When you click around Salesforce, you can see very similar UI/ UX as some of the other big platform players like Oracle and SAP. Not originally Oracle, but I see similarities with Oracle’s Agile PLM, SAP eSourcing, etc. (full disclosure: I played with these systems three years ago).
  • Salesforce’s power is its core + all the third-party apps. Salesforce is #winning and killing it by being simple, and also the system that holds the data. At the end of the day, it’s hugely simple in concept, and what makes it powerful is integration to other powerful apps through its App Exchange like Rivalry, SalesLoft, Tinder Box, ToutApp, etc.
  • Salesforce is still cumbersome. The opportunity is automating/ mechanizing it. I love tools like those mentioned above, but especially Voxa. Everything Salesforce does, I was doing already in my own setup with spreadsheets. I could make it more powerful with notifications and the like, but really, that’s all it was. As I did Biz Dev for Body Boss and others, the biggest pain in the rear, and ultimately what makes Salesforce powerful is the data that is inputted. From this standpoint, every CRM is still annoying… until you can automate logging events like contact history, adding leads/ contacts, etc. That’s where tools like Voxa which can automatically log your activities and even detect human language to schedule follow-ups that much more powerful. You get around the biggest pain!
  • There are better tools, but they integrate to Salesforce, too. You really don’t need much time in Salesforce to see where it could improve. However, like I said in the bullets before, there are tools that are better and can MAKE Salesforce better. For example, as a pipeline tool, I’m visual guy, and I don’t see Salesforce’s Opportunities list as a great tool. It really just looks like a list. PipeDrive, however, is a much better, visually-oriented tool to manage your pipeline. Luckily, it, too, can integrate to Salesforce.

Obviously the above didn’t just come out of three hours, and okay, maybe I’m not an expert. Some of these were notions I had coming into the learning sessions, but were reinforced. Can’t say anything was dispelled other than Salesforce is really, really easy. I know during my three hours I didn’t play with every module, and maybe one day, I’ll get that opportunity in MY OWN instance. Or, maybe I’ll be a part of simplifying Salesforce into another CRM startup. (Okay, that made me laugh because there are several others that do a decent job.)

At the end of the day (or morning, rather), Salesforce IS powerful. It’s powerful because it’s simplified the structure of customer relationship (seems very sales focused, but not necessarily account management focused, but maybe that’s just the instance I was using) and enabled others to pick up the slack via the App Exchange. They’re really the big platform that profits, but also gives others including startups a chance to build businesses, too, off them. It’s a great ecosystem.
Salesforce is one of those simple tools that doesn’t need to be a “MUST HAVE SKILL” for a sales role. It’s simple enough that anyone can get started very quickly in the matter of hours. At least for me, I’ve seen the beast, and it’s really just a tiny rabbit with a big shadow. It’s not daunting, and I’m glad I got to spend a few hours in a Salesforce user’s shoes. 
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Spinning Wheels on the Next Move, but Finding Traction with a Serial Entrepreneur

The last several months for me have been… interesting. Since Body Boss became a zombie, I’ve been poking and prodding and brainstorming and wandering what the Next Move is. I’ve helped out a startup with business development, but decided it wasn’t a good long-term fit. Though, I still have demos and conversations just to practice. It would appear at times that I’m spinning my wheels.
I’ve been putting myself in various positions whether that be working with startups, interviews of restaurateurs, and of course, good ole reconnects with friends and otherwise. A couple weeks ago, I was staring down from a new nadir… unable to sleep, I got up and wrote a Proclamation of sorts to my close friends and family about continued support and to push me and hold me accountable to what I’m trying to achieve. Needless to say, it was a dash of poignant revelations and a whole lot of “I think I can, I think I can”. It’s good to know I have some very good family and friends who push me and are supportive…
Aside from knowing who’s got my back, I was able to connect with a serial entrepreneur out in San Francisco who’s a friend of my older brother. I didn’t ask if I could use his name, so I’ll call him “Wayne”. Wayne has been an entrepreneur since his days in high school. He’s founded companies whilst at Georgia Tech, and had a great idea go bigger when he joined YCombinator (YC) a few years ago. If you don’t know Y Combinator, think of it as the Harvard Business School of technology accelerators with notable alums including Dropbox, Reddit, Airbnb, and so many more incredible companies. Since then, though, he’s founded another startup that is reaching crazy great levels of recruiting with specific roles, companies, and even select cities. It’s how he maintains some version of what Paul Graham describes as “wells” – target companies/ pains/ niches and go deep vs. going after a larger audience with limited depth of services or otherwise.
So, Mr. Wayne… I explained to him my position, and inquired about his experience and sought his advice. Here are some take-aways from our conversation:
  • If you want to be on the business side, know your numbers. I shared with Wayne an idea I’m currently incubating, and he had some great questions regarding the business model. In effect, he was testing the economic feasibility of the idea as well as my wit. Sadly, I didn’t quite respond as well as I wanted. His advice was to practice mental/ back-of-the-napkin math for ideas. That should at least help early on determine if there’s a viable business idea.
  • Early on, it’s about the product rather than the team. This was an interesting viewpoint. For… ever, I heard how VCs, entrepreneurs, etc. invest in the team behind the startup. Wayne’s point was that if the idea (i.e. product, service) is good, then the market will pull you up. From there, you’ll find money both from your customers and want-to-be investors. Also, the team will quickly learn and get the experience. Wayne cited this as a key learning from watching company after company go through YC.
  • Build a pain pill, not a vitamin. Okay, that phrase is actually pulled from David Cummings, but it’s apparent in what Wayne was prescribing (see what I did there?). From the preceding bullet, the underlying take-away is to find an idea that addresses pain points for markets. If you find a real pain killer, customers will come to you. Of course, marketing will help, too.
  • If you’re not a programmer, don’t bother. On Saturday, I bit the bullet and bought a MacBook to learn how to program in iOS for this new idea I’m incubating. Since then, I’ve churned through hours and hours of iOS programming tutorials (for Swift) through 4 courses. Wayne cited that if I wanted to stick to the business-side of things, get better at that. Many good programmers have been programming for a long time, and there are 18 year-olds who would smoke me. It’s always going to be catch-up. I should focus on what my experience has given me, and hone those skills.
  • Notion of “Liquidity” – 3 tenets: proximity of the sale, right product and right customer, and timing. At least for my current incubating idea, I must deal with these three sides of liquidity that will challenge my success vis-à-vis if I can EASILYaddress these three tenets to facilitate the marketplace.
  • It’ll take 2-3 years to reach any level of success. Obviously, that’s not applicable to every startup, but from his experience, that where he’s found the greatest success in his startups. He also cites that San Francisco could be a great place for entrepreneurs, but with the added cost-of-living considerations, there are significant downsides. At the end of the day, be good at where you are.

It’s great knowing a couple degrees of connections away is yet another successful serial entrepreneur. It’s incredibly inspiring. Though, I have to admit that it’s also incredibly daunting. You can tell Wayne’s got his $h!t together with how we speaks and his questions – no doubt through fine tutelage of YC and Paul Graham et al. I’ve taken a lot of his advice to heart, and I’ll be considering all of these take-aways and then some over my present and future (both short and long-term).
Though, I will say that I will still plug away at iOS. I don’t hope to become a CTO and CEO in a startup I found. Instead, I do want the ability to quickly build apps web or mobile and test out ideas. Wayne cited his earlier days in Berkley, CA where he was holed up in a house with two other co-founders, and they would build an idea a day. With that type of iterating, they were able to test ideas quickly. That’s where I want to be. I want to be able to test ideas quickly, and build something great like him.
Closing thoughts. Wayne suggested reading the following two Paul Graham essays:

What are your thoughts on my conversation with Wayne (or at least the take-aways)? How else would you recommend entrepreneurs building up for the Next Move?
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You and Your Clammy Hands Can Win at Cold Calls… Maybe

Executives are getting harder to reach from all the pitches and cold calls. (Image source: http://www.channelweb.co.uk/IMG/475/87475/hiding-under-table.jpg)
I first heard about John Greathouse from one of David Cummings’ posts of the top startup blogs he follows. I admit that I don’t often read his blog, but his recent post “How To Network With Really Busy People” is resonating with me well.
Currently, I’m working with a startup to get leads and sales. I’m not full-time with them, or officially employed in anyway, but I’m helping out because it’s one of the slickest marketing tools I’ve ever seen. That, and the chance to continually learn and hone my business development skills is very much welcome. I haven’t quite figured out my Next Move (with this company or otherwise), so taking this approach gives me some latitude to do so – figure things out.
Anyways, John’s article is titled Networking, but let’s call it what it’s really about – sales. Or at least, what he’s really writing about. I’ve been working with this new startup, and it’s been a bit of a challenge, to be honest. These days, cold calls can definitely lead to opportunities, but they’re also becoming more difficult per John’s post.

“[High-profile] people deployed brute force to screen out unsolicited, inbound communications.” – John Greathouse

Indeed, in my recent efforts, it’s fascinating the routes many people take to deflect calls. Cold calls are hard for a reason. The CEO of a sales organization I recently talked to isn’t so bullish on cold calling – “that’s so 90s”. What I’ve found, and what John writes about is the need to really pay attention to your messaging. That’s stupid advice, right? Good. Then you’re onto something, too. No, seriously, here are some methods I’ve been using that has been finding some more success mixed in with John’s advice:
  • Get the appointment. The goal of the first communication is not to sell a product (though if you do, awesome). Instead, it’s about getting an appointment/ introduction.
  • Respect and Flatter the Gatekeeper. I read in “Never Eat Alone” by Keith Ferrazzi, Founderand Chairman of Ferrazzi Greenlight and networker-extraordinaire, the need to respect the admins, secretaries, and assistants of execs. These pros have the holy grail of the execs you’re trying to reach – their schedules. If you’re nice to them, not only can they find time to fit you in, but they also overhear a lot of the strategies potentially giving you a leg up.
  • Subjects Lines Are Key Lines. When you’re going to email someone, think about that subject line intently. That can either inspire someone to open your email, or immediately put you on the back foot if you’re too “salesy”.
  • Track what you say. If you’re going to do some cold communications like calls or emails, it’d be smart to have a script ready. You don’t have to necessarily memorize it word for word, but know the gist to be able to speak naturally, not like a robot. Test the script with different audiences and fine tune as you go along to develop a message that truly resonates.
  • Use every tool at your disposal… timely. With the ascendency of social media in business, it’s not a surprise to find execs of large companies using things like Twitter to communicate and have a presence. Depending on their position, industry, etc., Twitter can be a very easy way to interact with an exec vs. the “not cool” phone or email. At least, not at first.
  • Quality is to warm as quantity is to cold. Cold communication can be a simple way to quickly advertise/ outbound market to people you don’t know. However, you’ll need to reach out to many in order to get a response, let alone an enthusiastic appointment. At the end of the day, warm leads are obviously better, but you definitely need to put in a little thought so that you’re not burning a personal connection or wasting a potentially great connection. In the end, a mix of the two can do wonders till you create that inbound marketing machine.
  • Be creative. This is more of a hypothesis because I’m still fiddling with what is creative and what can be creepy weird. However, sometimes you need a little interesting way of getting your product/ service out there, especially if it’s truly innovative (startups!). Whenever people see a demo of the product I’m selling now, people get excited and their imaginations run wild with what they can do with it. However, it takes them to SEE it. Pictures don’t do it justice for obvious reasons. Instead, I’m going to try including a GIF where I can record a demo, and insert it as a picture into emails. I’m unsure if it’ll work, but it should be a quick and easy way to demo, while being educational.

I’m in the midst of testing out many different strategies for sales. It’s not a clear process all the time, and in fact, it’s a living and breathing process of meeting a prospect on the other side of the table. Some of the above are learned and experienced by myself and borrowed from John, but things like the last one are so open that they’re hypotheses in flight. I’ll have to follow up with what works and what doesn’t work later.

What are some tips for selling your product or service via cold communications/ networking? How would you sell a new product or idea that many entrepreneurs or startups often do? 
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Wow! Your Free Trial Is TERRIBLE! (Did I say that out loud?)

Source: http://www.leadformix.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/free-trial-green.jpg

How many free trials have you ever started and then never used again outside that first sign-up? How many free trials did you use, and then you were just floored by the value or what you could do that you signed up as a paid user? Or maybe you just continued your free account?

David Cummings just posted a post “Time to Wow” on his blog touching on free trials, and implicitly, their true purpose. In it, Cummings actually references another article by a blogger named David Skok — “Growth Hacking Free Trials: Time to Wow! is the key to success“.

So let me touch on this little subject with some anecdotal evidence:

  • “Wow” can be facilitated with ease of set-up. I touched on the ability to quickly get set-up in “Who’s poised to profit in this fragmented, online dating world of startups?” But if you can get set up quick on  a free trial, the easier and faster users can use and love your app. You can use things like social media sign-ins (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.), or being able to import pictures (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, etc.).
  • Engaging, high quality, fun media can be Wowing. If you can bake into your free trial some engaging content like a tutorial that steps through your app to show some value, it can be engaging in showing high quality content while also helping your customers learn to use your product.
  • Not all Wow is good. “Wow, this app is really big!” or “Wow, this product is confusing!” are obviously not good Wow moments. Simplicity in design can be a Wow in itself, or at least hedge the negative Wows.
  • Is your free trial demonstrating your value? Free trials are tricky because the user(s) usually doesn’t have any skin in the game. Hence, free trials don’t always convert well. It’s implied in Cummings and Skok’s advice to potentially narrow down the Wow values sometimes to the core of your product/ service to get the buy-in quickly and explicitly.
  • Track what you can effectively with free trials. Since users oftentimes have little skin in the game and can quickly end or switch to another competing product/ service, you should aim to capture as much detail as effectively possible, and make the trial better to up conversions. Track who signed up for the free trial, what did he/ she do within the free trial? Was there a hiccup? How can you reach out to help him/ her?
    Source: http://thesprogblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Amazed-Face-300×300.jpg

    Converting prospects to free trials can be tough, and then converting from free trials to paid subscribers can be even tougher. Add to that, free trials are oftentimes the only chances you get with those prospects with today’s plethora of options in the market. Thus, you need to weigh the strategy of the free trial heavily. Get your Wow factor apparent to the user to engage them quickly. You’ll know ineffective trials when you aren’t converting to sales or if the users aren’t using the product more than a couple times during the free trial.

    What are your thoughts of the free trial? Where or how else could you make Wow moments in a free trial or even beyond? 
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