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Welcome to the New Entrepreneurial Ninja

Welcome to the new site for Entrepreneurial Ninja and Daryl Lu (one and always the same). As you can see, the site has been restructured quite a bit. In short, I migrated from Blogger to WordPress on the backend. The cost for WordPress is higher as I am now hosting the site through Siteground where prior, Blogger was self-hosted and free.

Blogger was always a “good enough” blogging site. However, it lacked flexibility. This was apparent after working with WordPress for several companies. One of the primary areas I wanted greater flexibility was in formatting pages that were not blog posts. To this, you’ll see more updates come down the line starting with my My Story page. Then, I will redesign my homepage and so on.

As my roles continue to flex and adapt (as any good Ninja does), my digital presence must also flex and adapt. WordPress will allow me this flexibility.

All of this was spurred by the recent acquisition of the company I was building, Burner Rocket. I am unsure of what my long-term plans are. Building a new company from the ground-up is enticing. However, after 6 years of doing this with multiple companies, taking a break could provide some relief. Or, I can continue taking the plunge with another early-stage company. In any path I choose, I will have my personal mission to guide me – “to change the lives for the greater through entrepreneurial endeavors.” Whatever step that is, it will be a step.

I’ll keep you in the loop of whatever that next step is. Till then, enjoy the new look and feel of Entrepreneurial Ninja.

– Daryl, Entrepreneurial Ninja

 

Side note: For those looking for a similar migration from Blogger to WordPress, there are a few things to pay attention to in particular:

  • Retain link structures to assume search engine rankings/ equity
  • Most posts, media, etc. will transfer easily between Blogger and WordPress, but formatting may be off depending on the WordPress theme used
  • Page links will likely be broken due to the page structure defaulted by Blogger. As such, redirects will be needed
  • Changing from Blogger to WordPress will require updating DNS and nameservers – typically on the domain provider. The change may take several hours to propagate
  • Here’s a great walk-through of how to migrate from Blogger to WordPress from wpbeginner
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Take-Aways from a CEO of a Startup From 5-50 Employees in 12 Months


I attended a meetup recently with a Q&A session with George Azih CEO of LeaseQuery, a company that has grown from 5 to 50 employees in the last year. His company is solving a real pain-point. In fact, what his tool provides addresses a mandate by upcoming financial reporting regulations — specifically, lease accounting.

Having spent several years growing the business largely alone, he de-risked much of the business by proving traction. The company has been able to grow at rocket-pace all while still being bootstrapped. Nice.
A couple points that he attributes to the company’s success so far:
  • The product is a SaaS application that helps companies comply with new accounting regulations around lease accounting. Read: This is a MUST-have.
  • He has a strong leadership team that he regards as the three legs of a stool – he runs product and has two partners, Chris and Brendan, running sales and engineering, respectively.
  • The company sells and collects 3-year commitments upfront. This reduces the risk of vendor change after one year (and two). Instead of providing discounts, the company assures customers their price will be locked with continual product improvement.
  • His primary role as CEO is now removing impediments from the team. He enables his team to do their best work.
  • The real impetus for George to focus on the product/ company after 3 years as a side-gig was a stress-induced illness.
  • Building the business slowly also helped George become a deep expert in this area of accounting. He shared his knowledge via blog posts to build credibility with his target audience.
  • The CEO’s number one tip is how bad things can actually be good… and conversely, good things can be bad. Read: do your best with what you’ve got.

Not to take away from the great leadership and team in place executing, but it’s powerful to see how a MUST-have product can help a company grow.

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New Idea: Risks vs. Mitigation

A friend recently spoke to me about an idea from helping clients work out tedious real estate issues. He worked with several clients who had poor management of a particular aspect of the business. Most of the work was done painstakingly in Excel, if any process was instilled. 
Like any idea, there are several risks. However, we talked about early mitigations:
  • Risk: As a standalone tool for a single “client”, usage would be infrequent. For one client, the problem occurs every several weeks. Mitigation: The target customer is an entity that manages several clients. This enables more frequency of the problem and exponentially increasing the pain. Thus, the benefit, too, exponentially increases.
  • Risk: Explicit pain could be felt with management of several spreadsheets. However, quantifying the impact of pain could be difficult. Mitigation: Benefits start with both monetary and legal exposure. As added bonus, there was a time-saving component. Stick to benefits that get closer to the wallet.
  • Risk: Is this a big enough opportunity? Are there competitors/ monetized solutions today? Mitigation: My friend had a colleague who left his company to start his own – similar services for clients. Meanwhile, my friend’s clients are large institutions and just a few of the large firms in Atlanta. Additionally, macro-economic environment points to a growing trend.
  • Risk: Introduction of a new solution to companies/ employees – adoption. Mitigation: the pain seems explicit and with good benefit potential. Many of my friend’s current clients are using incumbent solutions (i.e. spreadsheets). This also could enable an “import” process addressing empty-state issues.

A good early step is doing customer discovery. While doing so, ask prospects to agree to pilots of an MVP.

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When Seeking XX, Be Specific

I met with young professional several months ago who was looking for advice on the Atlanta startup scene as well as to share that she was in the market. She, like many others I’ve met, start out describing how they liked new challenges, feel a part of the company, work with a team, etc. If you read that and were wondering, “so what?”, you’re not alone.
What many people describe in their “next job search” are table stakes today. Why wouldn’t you want new challenges? Why wouldn’t you want to feel a part of the company? There needs to be specificity.
I liken this to the oft-written online dating profile. If you’ve been on any online dating site or app, many profiles read the exact same – “I’m nice, funny, love to travel…” You don’t say?.. Everyone says the same.
In fact, here are a few excerpts of actual submissions to a job requisition when asked, “Who are you?”

  • “strengths lie in developing customer relationships with my energetic personality”
  • “I am a well organized, enthusiastic, coachable professional”
  • “I have a proven track record of success”

Much like seeking a job opportunity or other partner, seekers should be more specific. What really drives the seeker? What type of challenges? What challenges do you notlike? What have you actually accomplished?

These are better examples:

  • “sales leader with a diverse background in Inside Sales, B2B Sales, Digital Advertising Sales, and Sales Management”
  • “After spending the past three years working as the Marketing Manager for an eCommerce SEM agency”
  • “They don’t always pan out, but constantly innovating and reinventing everyday activities in our lives has certainly made my life more interesting”

These share more details and are much more specific. They illustrate traits that the prior examples just list.

Think about the specifics.
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Engage Beyond the Persona and Into the Internal Narrative

Target persona is a marketer’s depiction of the profile of a single target consumer. Typically, persona includes the demographic profile of an individual. It may also include the motivations of the individual. For Body Boss, target personas included high school football coaches, collegiate strength and conditioning coaches, collegiate football coaches, professional baseball coaches, etc. Understanding the internal narrative of any persona could be the difference between making a genuine connection (and sale) or being swept aside with the rest of spam.
Google “internal narrative”, and you are left with how to write one, change one, or mixed in with “internal monologue”. My back-of-the-napkin definition is “personal story”.
Marrying the idea of internal narrative with persona would be a crude way of applying something specific and powerful to something otherwise abstract. Instead, internal narrative should be applied to the exact person being engaged with (in sales) – highlight “internal” as how she tells her story.
Persona-wise, I am a 30-year-old male sales and marketing leader at a startup. (There’s more, but let’s leave it at that.)
My internal narrative dives much deeper into who I am. I am highly ambitious with strong entrepreneurial ambitions. My role at SalesWise is to lead and learn. This will help me in the next phase of my career. I care about leveraging technology to further my team and company’s capabilities. With my company and team’s success, so will my own success.
My internal narrative is attuned to my goals, character, risk tolerance, etc. For a sales professional to effectively engage with me, s/he must go beyond my persona and understand my internal narrative – trigger a deeper truth and purpose.
Understand the difference between persona and internal narrative. Apply each accordingly.
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12 Years Later, My Lessons from Being an Intern at a Big Corp

As my journey through consulting, post-grad education, entrepreneurship, and startup leadership continues, I’ve gained a greater appreciation for my co-op experiences at a big corp more than 12 years ago.
Especially now as I’m recruiting, oftentimes, less experienced candidates than in my past, I’m realizing the value of spending more time at a big corporation.
At Georgia Tech, I was a co-op for four semesters at a major 3rd-party logistics provider in Atlanta. I remember falling asleep at my desk more than a few times that first semester. It wasn’t the most exciting as I was the spreadsheet analyst at first. Over the semesters, my projects became more complex, and I earned my stripes with my own special projects.
It was some of the best experiences I’ve ever had, and laid the foundation for things to come. Here are some lessons now looking back at what I’ve learned.
  • Politics – Implementing changes at a big company is like steering a massive ship – it takes time, and a lot of effort. There’s a lot of personalities involved. There will be proponents and champions as well as blockers and gatekeepers. Knowing how to speak with executives while tactfully navigating the cluster of people is imperative. Politics and risks are huge facts of life that cannot be glossed over.
  • Structure – Big companies come with big structures. As much as you may jump and grimace at “structure”, structure gives us balance and the ability to prioritize. As a co-op, I learned the value of structure through workflows, time management, and simply, how to build an analysis.
  • Professionalism – I’m hiring in a startup. Yeah, you can wear a t-shirt, if you want. We’ll throw a stress ball around and crack jokes, but you can bet we will be professional with each other and with everyone we encounter externally. Too often candidates think professionalism is just “thank you” and “yes, sir”. Professionalism is about communication – both explicit and implicit. It can be silent communication through your body language. Professionalism is how you receive feedback, speak on the phone, and write an email. Too often candidates rely on what they think is good to him/ herself but fail to recognize what’s good for others.
  • Connections – Humans are social creatures, so relationships are vital to us. In the business world, relationships enable sales, recruiting, etc. I didn’t do a great job of connecting and forming good relationships with the full-timers. I did, however, form very good relationships with my fellow co-ops that later led to all sorts of opportunities. This is where I strive to better everyday in daily interfaces.
  • Reality – This sounds simple, but it’s not. Reading the best practices in books and learning about case studies is one thing, but reality sets in in the real world that toss much of what we hope and dream for out the window. That’s not to say things can’t be better, but there are details that make businesses so much more complex. Striving for better is always the goal, but failing to realize the holistic picture of yesterday, today, and tomorrow’s business can lead to disaster.
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Lessons from My First Year Working at Startup

One year ago, I announced I jumped full-time with a startup called SalesWise. It had been several years since I had worked for a company (April 2012, I left Chainalytics and the corporate/ consulting world). They say one year in consulting is like working seven years in “corporate” job. I’d say that’s more fitting to say from my one year at SalesWise, and hungry for more.
SalesWise is still an early-stage company. When I joined, I was the first business hire. It enabled me to get in on the ground, and start building out… well, everything – sales, marketing, customer success, and more.
A few lessons learned:
  • It’s been a lot harder. When I joined, I was thinking, “wow, the product is great! The two founders are experienced. The CEO has even started four with all four successful exits. This will be a rocket ship!” Not so much. Modern B2B sales is harder than most people think. Every new startup is a new company with, likely, a new idea. There are tools to make things easier, better equipped, but it’s still very, very hard to build a company.
  • I’m doing what I feared I would – keep wanting to do more. I joined the company because I felt I was starting to distrust others. I joined to help me trust working with others. But no matter what, I catch myself wanting to do more, so I don’t have to rely on others. I think to myself how can I learn to program some, just so I can help speed things up. It’s crazy. I’m already manhandling the other sides of the business. I want us to be successful, and I have this insatiable hunger to do more – to test, to deliver, to sell. I need to specialize on my side of the wall, and let others specialize where I don’t.
  • There are so many tools to help a company… and confuse. The number of SaaS tools available for companies is daunting. There are so many analytics programs, customer success tools, support apps, marketing platforms, etc. It’s a dizzying array of programs to help a company know everything that’s happening, and to keep the company buzzing. However, it can be too much. I have four screens around me – most split-screened so I can monitor everything. Is it too much? Maybe. The key is using each tool effectively for what it’s supposed to do.
  • A passionate, highly intelligent team members is more amazing. I didn’t meet everyone at the company before I joined. However, it’s been fascinating the personalities at the company. Each person is highly, highly intelligent – perhaps the smartest folks I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Most are very passionate about the direction of the company, and they truly own their areas of expertise. We have plenty of passionate debates during team lunches. They’re all healthy, and they give perspective to create the best approach.
  • Following a highly successful leader who is also very transparent and honest is… amazing.I can’t tell you how often I’ve been amazed at how my CEO has been open about our company’s direction and funding. He’s listened to everyone’s input, and though he may disagree at points, he hears us all out. He’s taken time to share his intentions while looking out for our own ownership stakes in the company, and he’s making decisions in the best interest of us, our customers, and our investors. There hasn’t been as much of explicit 1-on-1 mentoring with me, per se, but I’ve been absorbing everything just in everyday interactions. It’s been fascinating, refreshing, and hugely motivating.

When I started, we were launching a product for sales (reps and leaders). We had no customers. We pivoted a couple times last year before landing on our current direction. We’re now selling specifically for sales leadership. We have a dozen customers who are passionate about what we’re doing, and we’re seeing engagement numbers climb steadily. Our close rates are incredibly high at about 4 of 5 trials converting. We just raised $1.3M to build a repeatable customer acquisition process before cranking up the machine. We’ve hired several sales professionals, and are now in the market looking for a marketer. We’re building out the Business Relationship Intelligence category. It’s going to be an exciting next year.
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Why I Joined This Startup – Comparing the CEO Mindset vs. Mine

One of the reasons I joined the current startup I’m at was to learn from a successful CEO/ founding team – to be mentored. So far, I’ve appreciated every moment.
It’s fascinating to me how he thinks. He’s highly successful with prior startups; so, to say his mindset is different from mine would be an understatement. In fact, we’ve approached many things from completely different perspectives.
Some observations and disparities in viewpoints:
  • Him: time and money (big). Me: test and money (small). Oftentimes, he thinks in time first, money second. He recognizes time is a resource we don’t get back. Meanwhile, time is also money. Recently, we debated about testing messaging. As I thought about testing variants for efficacy that may take time, he thought about burn rate. Specifically, how much time and money will have been spent for an effective test? He would rather test quickly and burn through a list, for example, and then get another list later, not go through 4 weeks of burn before finding something that works.
  • Him: Get results now, and get efficiency later. Me: Get results soon, and get efficiency later. To the point above, my CEO is acutely aware that we may have to freestyle a bit now which may be inefficient. However, he’s cognizant of what he needs now to show success. If we find success now, we can build out the right strategy to be more efficient and scale.
  • Him: top-down numbers. Me: Bottom-up numbers/ approach. Having boot-strapped my startups in the past, I think “organic”, bottom-up like acquisition. I think about acquiring a handful of customers through highly tailored approaches. I think about piecing together the grander message for marketing. My CEO thinks about conversions. He thinks about the math of filling the pipe with XX number of cold leads converting to YY leads converting to ZZ opportunities converting to AA customers. He thinks about what he can do now, how much more resources to commit to yield customers at the bottom. Then, refine the approach for scale.
  • Him: Get on the plane. Me: I’ll try to get them on the phone. That is, we need to learn as much as possible as fast as possible and keep everyone happy. From bootstrapping, I’m reticent to spend $100 on a customer (even if that fits in fine for our cost of acquisition). Again, I’m thinking about money, but from a “small pockets” perspective. For my CEO, I can spend what’s needed now (including hopping on a plane) to meet with prospects or working with an early customer to ensure we get the most out of our customers (beyond revenue). 
  • Him: Everyone pays. Me: Friends and family five-finger discount (free). Friends or not, if they find value, they’ll pay. I was always under the impression of giving a handful of friendlies free use of the product in exchange of learning. For my CEO, he wants to test if even his connections value our service enough to pay for it. That’s pretty important. Getting things free is great, and using it can be great. But that doesn’t tell you if you’ve created a product of VALUE.
  • Him: Your time is valuable. Me: I can discount my time. Same as the first couple points and the “finding value” bullet preceding, my CEO ensures contractors and the like get paid. When I was starting out, I offered to work for free as a trial to see if this relationship would be worthwhile. He was adamant on paying. It sets expectations. Free can discount effort. Don’t discount your value.

It’s been a fun ride, and I will continue learning from him. I haven’t set up explicit “mentoring” or “coaching” sessions. Instead, I’ve just taken so many mental notes on his approach to… everything. It’s fascinating, and I know this experience will pay off in the long-run. Heck, they’re paying off today.

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Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for…

I wanted to wait to publish this week’s post, so it coincided with Thanksgiving. It’s a proper time to give thanks to those around me. Also, it’s a good time to reflect/ appreciate experiences to shape my entrepreneurial journey.
Since Thanksgiving last year, I’ve done many things:

Those seem pretty “professional-related”, but that’s also what has shaped much of my life. Accomplishing any of those has required the support of many others. Accomplishing any of those has also forced me to appreciate time alone and personal-growth. These have included:

  • Read six books with subjects ranging from sales to leadership to personal development.
  • Upped my yoga game, practicing at a legit yoga studio.
  • Maintained good strength and development in the gym.

So before I go into a reflective post best saved for the end of the year, my thanks:

  • My SalesWise team. Joined them at the beginning of this year, and we’ve been through a lot with our pivots. However, we’re getting some good traction now, and we’ve learned a lot. We’ve poured a lot of effort into the company. We’ve also had fun doing it. Meanwhile, the team has trusted me to do a lot. They’ve continued to put their faith in me to do right by them.
  • Infinity Yoga — that “legit yoga studio” I mentioned earlier.They were recently named one of the Best Small Business by Mindbody, and it’s easy to see why. The community at the studio is special. The culture cultivated by Becky (owner) and the other yoga teachers is amazing, and I’m proud to be a part of it. It’s why no matter how busy I get, I make time to end many weekdays at Infinity. Oh, and yes, the yoga teaching is top-notch.
  • Communities at Atlanta Tech Village and Starbucks. Atlanta Tech Village is a great place to connect with like-minded entrepreneurs. They’ve been there, done that, or are doing that. Starbucks, meanwhile, continues to broaden my circle of people from all walks of life. It may be a local Starbucks, but the people who walk in and out of the doors are anything but “local”.
  • My close friends. You know who you are. Many of you were editors for my book. Many of you have attended my speaking engagements to support me. Many of you “stop by” (via random texts, emails, etc.) to just say hello and see what’s happening. The little events are what make a big difference. Spending hours or minutes with people is great. But even a few seconds to say you’re thinking of me or have a question is precious.
  • My oh-so-many new friends. I’ve met so many people (beyond the Strangers) who continue to shape my day-to-day. I meet them at ATV, at Starbucks, etc. It’s an amazing feeling when you see these new and old friends. They always manage to bring a smile to my face no matter what. When they flash a smile, I can’t help but do the same. Smiles matter.
  • My family. Hard to say anything without my family, right? They’ve always been there to also pull me out of my work and alone time. My niece is growing so fast, that it’s been beautiful to watch.

Many more thanks to give, I’m sure, but that’s where I’ll start. Happy Thanksgiving!

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Investing In Things Like Conferences, Bring the Energy

Last week, my company sponsored a conference for sales force productivity. As I went into it, I remembered running booths with Body Boss…

I forgot how much fun (and tiring) it was to work a conference, and how important it was for those working the booths and sessions to actively participate. Walking around many of the booths, many people sat behind their booths. Some, even, working on their laptops. Not very engaging.
Perhaps because my company is a startup that I was determined to get as many conversations and leads as possible. Sinking the investment that we did meant we needed a strong return. I felt that my company’s investment was myinvestment.
As attendees entered and exited sessions, and walked by our booth, I was right there in the middle of everyone engaging with just about everyone. One piece of schwag we gave out at the conference was a green “squishy” stress ball. I must’ve put these balls directly in the hands of 75 people while casually giving my 5-second pitch to see if they’d stop by. I even up put one ball directly in the chest coat pockets calling them “pocket spheres” – new fashion accessories. Hey, I got laughs, and I got serious interest from them.
Okay, maybe I had too much energy – ha! But you know what? I have a stack of qualified leads and ongoing conversations with 20 or so contacts, while no doubt raising a lot of awareness. If a few of these convert, our investment and our enthusiasm will have paid off well. Isn’t that the most important thing? To drive a return on an investment knowing you did all that you could? I made the experience more personal for attendees while adding some ridiculous humor into it. Like making cold calls – you need something to get the receiver hooked and engaged for that initial conversation.
If you’re going to work, enjoy it. If you want a conversation, start it. If you’re going to make an investment, give yourself every chance to succeed and the highest returns.
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