New Business Sans Partners
Posted on August 5, 2008
Filed Under Business, Entrepreneurship, Partnership | Leave a Comment
I am now single in both my personal and professional life. When we launch the new company, Yut Media, Inc., it will be without any partners. There are a few people who have a stake and a say in the company but no business partners in the traditional sense.
Back in May of 2007, I thought I had actually figured out how to make a partnership work and that I had found a good partner. I clearly spoke out too early. I was right on the criterion needed to have a good partnership:
Bottom line when you consider taking on business partners, make sure they bring to the partnership the skills and strengths you don’t yourself possess, make sure they are just as fully committed with their time, energy and financials; also, make sure they have the same values and work ethics. Lastly, make sure you can trust them and know that they are now part of your family.
But wrong on how long it takes to ensure you have road and time tested the validity of those criterion in each of your partners.
I’m not going to get into the details, in this blog post, of what happened with the former partnerships; rather, I’m going to discuss my current view of partnerships. (Note: I’m talking partners not investors)
It Will Be A Cold Day in Hell
Haha!! Okay, not quite that dramatic!! But the truth is, with as far as I am with things, the odds of me taking on a full partner are extremely slim to none. That’s because the odds of a partner bringing to the table real, true, must have value is doubtful. Also, at this point in the game, the odds of getting someone who is just as invested into the venture as I am is next to impossible. There are so many other ways I can get the same value elsewhere at this point.
Hire Talent
I’ll bring on hires, who will get shares as part of their compensation package, but again – those are not quite the same as partners.
It’s entirely too easy to find the duty experts, hire them, learn from them, listen to them and properly leverage their skills and knowledge.
Strategic Partners
The other option is to outsource to strategic partners. Get folks to help you without getting into sticky agreements together. They run their business – I run mine. In order for both businesses to stay in business they are required to deliver. If and when they don’t – you terminate the partnership agreement. This type of agreement can lead to some hassle but there are ways to negate that.
Advisory Board
I still don’t have one but am looking. I’m looking for the duty experts in the fields and areas I lack knowledge to help and mentor me. As well as, assist in making connections.
I know better than to think that I’m completely right about not taking on another partner again…so we’ll see what it would take to see it in another way.
Pressed Against a Deadline – Tangled in Loose Ends
Posted on August 4, 2008
Filed Under Business, Entrepreneurship, Startup | Leave a Comment
Who wants to be in my shoes? For the last few weeks I’ve been working my eight hour a day job that has taken me on the road to San Antonio, New York, Philadelphia and next week to New Orleans, while managing to move from my home of four plus years to a room I’m now renting. In the midst of that, I’ve been working with three designers to create two new sites, two new blogs and the branding for a new company. I’ve been seeking an independent sales rep and supervising the development of one of the new site. And I had the emotional ordeal of giving away Mr. Boogey, my pet rabbit. To pay for everything I’ve been juggling my finances.
All to meet the deadline looming thirteen days from now, the scheduled launch date of August 17th. I’m most definitely tangled in loose ends.
How is it all going to come together?? I’m not entirely sure yet. A few folks are on the hook for their deliverables and I’m going to find out how many more hoops I can jump through.
I’m not kidding when I say that when I look back at the past few weeks I wonder how it is I didn’t end up crawled up in the fetal position in the corner somewhere. Pretty sure I put on a few extra pounds in the process though…
It wasn’t bad planning that got me in this situation – but rather taking on a sh*t load. Why did I take on a sh*t load? I want to get back to being a full time entrepreneur as fast as humanely possible and in order to do that I need to generate income and get back into fund raising ASAP. All you have to do is read yesterday’s post to know how hungry I am to finally meet my entrepreneurial success.
So it might have seen like I’ve been quiet the last few months…but you’ll soon see that appearances can be really deceiving.
Fear of the Known!??!
Posted on August 3, 2008
Filed Under Advice, Development, Foundation, Technology, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
I started my first business about three years ago upon getting out of the Marine Corps after ten years of service. At the time, people said to me “You’re very brave and courageous to start your own business” – I thought it was an odd thing to say. I was excited about the potential and wasn’t afraid of the unknown.
Fast forward three years…one failed venture, losing multiple partners and getting burn by a plethora of other things I didn’t know anything about; I now feel anxious and a certain amount of fear about launching my new company.
I get it now. I realize why people said I was brave and courageous to start my own business. (Although, I’d like to clarify that it’s easy to start your own business – what’s hard is turning it into a success.)
I clearly remember all my struggles, pains, disappointments, lessons learned, and heart breaks. I lost my house, went into the debt and isolated myself from many of my friends and family.
With all that being said, the truth is that the anxiety and fears are based on more than knowing what launching a business and trying to grow it is about – it’s mostly based on the fact that there is nothing else in the world I rather be doing. What happens now that I’ve found my calling if I can’t make things happen? This is the proverbial fear of failure. Many people never try or do the things they really love and are passionate about because they can’t face the possibility that once they try; they might fail.
Three years ago I didn’t realize how passionate and in love with business/entrepreneurship I was. I didn’t know that my world would come to revolve around it and that it would bring me such a high level of satisfaction and happiness. I never would have guessed that being in business would challenge me and push me to grow faster than anything else I had ever done before. I definitely didn’t have a clue of how free being an entrepreneur would make me feel. As a matter of fact, I didn’t actually realize the depth of those things until I took a billet back in the Marine Corps. But now I know.
Defining Moment – This Fear is a GOOD Thing
I will soon step back out from having steady income (from being back in the Marine Corps) to running my own business full time again. My hunger to succeed is greater than ever before. The anxiety and fear that exist is new and actually welcomed.
It’s not the absence of fear that makes us brave – it’s doing those very things we fear in the presence of fear. I’m glad I’m feeling this fear. It will keep me conscious of not repeating any past mistakes. It will keep me on my toes and make me think things thoroughly instead of my former “jumping into everything head first.” This new fear is making me a wiser entrepreneur and although, I have never in the past appreciated having fears – this time, it’s a good thing.
One Year Anniversary of Blogging
Posted on May 27, 2008
Filed Under Blogging, Foundation | Leave a Comment
It was a year ago today that I became a blogger. What a year it’s been!! Blogging has been a journey of growth, learning, self-discovery, new friends, communities, and horizons!!
I began to blog with the purpose of capturing the entrepreneurial journey I was undertaking with WhyGoSolo however, what blogging turned into, was my introduction to brand new and exciting worlds.
Becoming a blogger and a blog reader, opened my eyes to so many things that were happening on the web that I wasn’t aware of; although, I was starting a web startup and claiming to know a lot about online communities/social networks. Bloggging has been a key to establishing my foundations in the web/social media communities, where I definitely needed to be for my undertakings.
I jumped into blogging the same way I jump into everything – head first. I absorbed everything there was to know about blogging and began learning about all aspects of all things that relate and “touch” the blogoshere.
I say that blogging is a journey because you don’t know who you might meet, connect with and what opportunities your blog might open up to you. Entering the world of blogging is entering a world of new opportunities and potential.
I now have three blogs…why three?? Because my world is a complex one 
My interests, my knowledge and what I dabble in expands in quite a few spectrum and although, they all tie back together, it’s best to separate them at the moment to appeal to the right audiences.
My Blogs (It’s rather ambitious of me to have three blogs so we’ll see what happens)
On the Official Plugged-In Blog for WhyGoSolo I write about what’s happening with WhyGoSolo. It’s my least demanding blog at the moment but that will rapidly change in the next two months.
Don’t Spray and Pray is to talk entrepreneurship – one of my most favorite topic of all time.
The Marine Corps, Social Media and Millennials is new and I’m finding it to be a lot of fun because it involves a lot of new research and exploration. I’m taking my knowledge of Social Media and seeing how it applies to the Marine Corps/Military…while discovering what’s going on with MilBlogs.
The Next Year
My goals for the next year is to hone my skills and my knowledge. To apply more of what I know and to learn more about SEO and monetization. By this time next read, I want to have 10x the readership I have now.
I definitely look forward to meeting a lot of new people and opening up new doors. My goal is to make it to Blog World Expo in September!!
Oh…and I’ll work on my typos and bad grammar.
Thank you!!
A big thank you to all who read my blogs!! You’re awesome. A big thank you to all who support my many endeavors and who have become a big part of my world.
The French Man says “PR Secrets?? It’s Bullshit”
Posted on May 25, 2008
Filed Under Advice, Entrepreneurship, Foundation, Startup, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
I gotta say I completely agree with Loic! I have disagreed with Loic in the past on his post: The idea does not count only execution matters: 10 rules to launch a startup today because I think Loic was overlooking all the work he had done (over many years) in order to be able to properly execute.
What I like about his new post: PR Secrets?? It’s Bullshit is that he acknowledges the amount of ground work he has done to establish his community in order to be able to launch his company without the help of PR folks and he points out that anyone can do this.
I wrote a blog post back last August called Who is Your Front man?? The blog post was something I was beginning to realize as an extremely important thing to identify and establish, as I was developing myself as WhyGoSolo’s front man.
What I wrote about back then and what Loic is writing about now is a topic I have been wanting to get into on this blog at some point, but looks like sooner is more an appropriate time than later. And that topic is Establishing Your Foundation: Building Your Personal Brand
I’ll write more about that in the next few days but here is some food for thought…since it is highly probable your first company will fail; wouldn’t time be well spent developing your own personal brand in order to increase your odds for your second attempt???
Back to Loic’s Post and a Comment that helps prove the Point which came from Jeremy Toeman
Loic, I think your assessment is fairly biased to your personal experience. The truth is most companies and individuals aren’t nearly as well connected as you are, and to just dismiss PR by saying “just go build a community” is frankly, naive. Even your business needs *significantly* more users than you have today, and at some point, if you truly want to accomplish your goals, PR will probably come into play.
Furthermore, many startup CEOs are heavily engaged in building their products/services, and don’t have the time to do the outbound marketing work.
There’s more to this than you make it seem. A lot more.
If you are a first time startup CEO let me dissect this comment for you and how you can’t listen to it:
1- It is your job to become extremely well connected. This goes back to other blog posts I’ve written on whether or not you are even qualified to start the startup you’re thinking of starting. If you aren’t well connected – GET THERE.
2- Building a community is a must. Again, your responsibility to excite people about what you are doing and finding your evangelists.
3- Seesmic will indeed continue to need more users, but anyone who is following what Loic is doing knows that he is continuing to grow his community. The main way he is doing this is through PARTNERSHIPS that come from his connections. Loic is bringing big names to Seesmic and those big names he brings to Seesmic have their own following…see how that works. PR is not required. Loic is a very smart business man. Not saying he might never require PR, but what he does is leverage his community, his product, his service and he adds value to grow on top of what he’s established.
4- All CEOs are equally heavily engaged in building their products – it’s not a reason to not build your foundation. Your team is going to turn to you and they’re going to rely on your connections and the foundation you’ve built to take the product to the next level. Which is why it’s best to establish your personal brand BEFORE launch or even better before you start your startup. You need to know what you’re getting yourself into.
5- Jeremy is right. There is more to this…it took Loic a few years to get to where he is and we’ll cover all the steps you need to start taking for you to be able to do the same.
On Episode 5 of Start-up Junkies: Are you Watching it??
Posted on May 24, 2008
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
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The other day Keith sent me an DM on Twitter to let me know I needed to watch Start-up Junkies on Hulu. I watched my first episode on Thursday night…it’s Saturday morning and I’m on Episode 5.
It’s an excellent “show” to watch. Very motivational. The show is about a Seattle based startup called EarthClassMail. The story starts after the company has received their initial seed round of 2-3 Million, so you’ll see they already have quite a few employees, a nice office, and they are operationally setup.
They have a solid and proven management team in place and a powerful Board of Advisor. They have all the makings of what I successful startup needs to have.
However, you’ll see that it’s still not a walk in the park. The first two shows definitely give you a good taste of the struggles of fund raising. This is the fund raising for their Series A round.
Watching what Ron – the CEO, is going through and how all is time is spent on the fund raising is exactly what the madness of fund raising is like. And Ron is a guy who has raised money before and sold a few companies…goes to show it doesn’t matter who you are; fund raising is hard.
Ron ends up selling his plane and his huge beautiful house to pursue his new venture. After making it…he decided to put it all on the line again, hence the name Startup-up Junkies. It’s an addiction and you gotta have skin in the game.
If you’re an entrepreneur and watch this show, you’ll be fired up and excited. You’ll relate to what they are experiencing and you’ll be ready to jump in and be part of what’s happening.
When I’m done watching all the episodes I’ll give a little more of feedback on it.
A Ding Or Two on Our Tech Guy
Posted on May 18, 2008
Filed Under Advice, Development, Foundation, Startup | Leave a Comment
I think the biggest pitfalls I’ve heard people say of the Tech Guy is that he rarely possesses a vision or the ability to take an idea to market.
I’m not entirely sold that the vision part is unique to the Tech Guys. I’ve met plenty of business people and entrepreneurs who can’t see past their initial business concepts/ideas…during my stint as a business coach the primary thing my clients needed was a vision.
Taking the idea to market…I have to agree with that, but here is why, and what I think are the real dings on the Tech Guy: Leadership and Creativity.
Leadership – or in this case the ability to motivate, build and manage a team. Our Tech Guy can build the prototype but the ability to take the idea to market requires building a team and surrounding oneself with key people who can move you and the product forward. That’s not an ability that many Tech Guys have…it involves a lot of networking, meeting people, and sharing of information. It’s more for the extroverted types, which the Biz Dev Buy normally is.
Managing a team requires being able to maintain a clear understanding of all the moving pieces…but again – this isn’t just the Tech Guy who can’t handle keeping everything straight. However, he is more likely to focus only on the tech end of things; forgetting there’s more to it.
Creativity – or in this case constantly coming up with alternative solutions and innovative problem solving. The Tech Guy is more logical in his thinking and the Big Dev Guy is more creative. Marketing, sales, and business development requires a great deal of creativity and quick thinking. Creativity isn’t a strong quality in most Tech Guys.
Quick Crash Course On Initial Things to Do
Most import thing for a Tech Guy to start doing is…Networking! Start meeting people and getting out there. Meet more people than just other Tech Types. Grow your network.
Bounce your ideas off the new folks you meet and get feedback right away.
Find out if what you are working on inspires others, that will be critical to build a team.
Ask yourself: “Can you go beyond the tech?” If all you want to do is code; you’ll need a partner immediately or you are better off joining someone who is looking for a Tech Guy.
Two Initial Strikes Against The Biz Dev Guy
Posted on May 14, 2008
Filed Under Development, Entrepreneurship, Startup | Leave a Comment
My last blog post on this topic received some fabulous comments well worth reading and I do believe that the consensus was that both types are ultimately required in order to create the needed combination towards the potential for success.
However, I want to further discuss what strengths and weaknesses both types (Biz Dev and Tech) bring to the table and how they end up complimenting each other. I’ll make some recommendations along the way in my Quick Crash Course. Than I will bring it back home towards qualifications, because no matter which one of the two you are…if you’re not qualified for the startup you aim to start then the odds are still against you.
Two Initial Strikes Against The Biz Dev Guy
1) He can’t code or program and that leads into 2) He doesn’t normally know diddly squat about coding languages and development…
This might not be the case of all Biz Dev Guys, but from my experience of the ones I’ve encountered, this is very true of most first timers. (It was certainly true of me)
In a web startup, it’s no shocker that development is key. The Biz Dev Guy starts out with a huge deficit since he or she doesn’t know how to develop and doesn’t know the intimidate details of development.
It’s much harder and more complicated then what you think and can possibly imagine. It’s also muy importante that you learn and know what’s going on.
Quick Crash Course On Initial Things to Know
99.9% of developers you will speak to will prefer the language they work with – some will bad mouth the other languages but the more professional developers will give you a list of pros and cons.
All languages have their pros and cons – none are necessarily better than others.
Within a language you often have other open source modular framework of the language…so for example you have PHP and than you have Drupal and Joomla!. One developer is not necessarily familiar with the other framework and the frameworks don’t integrate. BE CAREFUL! (It’s a pain in the ass)
AVAILABLE MANPOWER AND KNOWLEDGE is more important and critical then the language/framework itself.
Developers will make you feel real good about their particular language/framework – TALK TO MANY.
Because you don’t know anything about development – get a developer to review all code, verity tests and do quality control on the work of the developers you work with.
What looks pretty via the User Interface (UI) can be a complete mess on the backend.
UI and backend development are completely different from each other. Actually, if you don’t know this already you’re heading for an extremely steep hill!!
Development/programming easily takes over 3-5 times longer than anticipated.
Developers/programmers are not generally good at reporting what doesn’t work or what turns out to be more difficult than originally planned.
Going to end with the key point that I wish someone had clued me in months ago – Check the Available Manpower!! I can tell you that for Ruby on Rails – the manpower is hurting.
Conclusion
Thoroughly educate yourself and ask many questions. Go ahead and sound stupid – it will save you much aggravation in the end.
Talk to other business types in web startups and find out what they’ve learned the hard way about development. What have you already learned? Share it with others.
The truth is that whatever you want to implement on the business end of things it will impact development – their is no avoiding it.
SocialDevCamp: The Future of the Social Web
Posted on May 11, 2008
Filed Under Event, Startup, Technology | Leave a Comment
Yesterday I was at SocialDevCamp East in Baltimore – I was one of the organizers along with Keith Casey and Dave Troy. We gathered together the thought leaders down the Amtrak corridor (Boston, NYC, Philadelphia. MD, DC and VA) to discuss the future of the social web.
Understanding The Future of The Social Web
One of the sessions that didn’t make the list was – Where is Facebook Going Next?
Facebook is not the future of the social web
Facebook has become a staple amongst social networks and an end point where people view and receive information that isn’t likely to be replaced (much like MySpace)…and it isn’t likely to set any more trends – it’s overgrown the phase where the technology is fresh and kept at the edge of what’s happening.
Who cares about Facebook now? Their millions of basic users, advertisers and some folks in social media industry who still bother to entertain talking about Facebook. The people out to set new trends will always keep an eye on Facebook…but they’ve moved on.
This is nothing against Facebook – it has simply moved to another level. Innovation happens in systems that are small, adaptable, and at the initial stages of development or in smaller sections of bigger organizations…like Google. Facebook isn’t there yet. The sheer size of Facebook, the public status of Facebook, the players involved in Facebook, the monetization pressure on Facebook and the advance of Open Social has made Facebook irrelevant in this type of discussion.
What Were the Discussions About?
The sessions yesterday were about interesting topics:
- The Semantic Web
- Building a Social Hub – Integration of Social Networks
- The Psychology and application behind micro-blogging (Twitter)
- The Business of Monetizing Social Media Startups – Stepping away from the Free model based on advertisement.
- iPhone Applications/Development
- Location/Geo Based Application/Development
- Google Engine Applications/Development
- Persuasive Social Media
- Amazon EC2 and S3 (Virtual Servers and Development within the ‘Cloud’)
- Behavior Development with Rails, Merb, Ruby
- Data Portability/Privacy
- The Amtrak Corridor Start-up Business/Web Conversation
What This Means to You?
The reality is that you can’t start something on the web right now that is based on old web technology – no matter how good your business idea is. If you are entering the web space right now, you have to ensure you realize what the future trends are and work to implement those in what you’re doing. The advantage of working with an initial code base is being able to make the right implementations from the beginning.
I was impressed to find out from Bear what Seesmic has been up to – in the Semantic Web Session.
Our Community
SocialDevCamp was educational and thought provoking but the other major highlight of having such an event was bringing the community together. We had a fabulous turn out and people came from as far as Boston to attend.
It’s apparent we have a growing, energetic, talented and motivated web/tech/startup community. The more we come together and collaborate with each other the stronger we become.
I know I have many people to follow-up with!!
Links:
Blog post from Greg of Blue Sky Factory (one of the many fabulous sponsors)
Blog post from Harry Chen (Excellent presentation on Semantic Web)
Establishing a Foundation: My ‘SOB Moment’
Posted on May 9, 2008
Filed Under Entrepreneurship, Foundation, Startup | Leave a Comment
Everything I write about in this blog is gathered from personal experience and having lived through it – I know there’s nothing like a story to help people realize the importance of what I’m recommending you do. So here goes…
A couple of weeks ago I had a ‘SOB moment’. It came the morning after TECH Cocktail DC 2 at the Hangover Breakfast hosted by Micah Baldwin of Lijit.
A few of us were sitting around shooting the breeze talking business, business models and investment options. One of the guys sitting in the crowd was Eric Olson…and the fact that he delivered my ‘SOB moment’ is unbeknownst to him. Eric is an associate at DFJ Portage. He ran through a few scenarios of the entrepreneurs they see at DFJ Portage and the type of investments they make and why.
As he kept talking the main theme about the people they invest in was very clear: “They invest in the most knowledgeable and qualified people within their fields in relation to the startup they aim to start.”
They invest in the most qualified of the people/teams; I obviously knew that and had heard it many times before but it hadn’t really sunk in the way it did that morning. The way Eric explained things, clearly parted the clouds for me to have my ‘SOB moment’. It made me think about what we’ve been working to establish and what our qualifications were to pull it off. I realized as I walked away…”Fuck – We’re not quite there yet.”
In our case, the qualifications have nothing to do with how well I can lead a team and be the CEO, how awesome our tech is or how sharp our sales team is – the qualifications have everything to do with the market…our contacts, knowledge, and background of our market.
Forgetting About Our Target Market
When I started WhyGoSolo – I knew that I needed to establish a foundation by having a strong presence on the web, the startup community and within the social media circles for when WhyGoSolo would be ready to launch. I did that and I did it well.
I just happened to overlook a major key foundation over time – Our Market. Granted, our market has shifted, but I hadn’t caught just how much of a disadvantage we were getting ourselves into, until that morning.
Going To Skin that Damn Cat
It’s a crappy time to realize you’re on first base when you’re suppose to be on third base and you’ve got a lot of skin in the game.
Side story…
This kinda reminded me of The Basic School. “What now Lieutenant? We’ve lost communication with second squad, first squad took two causalities and they need a medical evacuation for two others; we’re low on ammo and completely surrounded. What now Lieutenant? What are your orders?”
The Situation
What now boss?? We’re exposed to the market, the competition is moving in our space and we don’t have the contacts, knowledge or background needed to address our target market…
It took me a few days…but than I gathered the team and said “Gents, here is what we’re going to do” (Sorry – not going to divulge the specifics just yet).
We’re going to skin this damn cat – we might not have had the best foundation in place when it comes to our current target market, but we’re building it now in a strategic fashion off of the foundation that has been put into place.
Hello, McFly!!
I can’t go back in time but I can ask myself “WTF, Hello McFly…how did you miss that?” (My internal dialogue has more cursing than my external dialogue) I missed it because this is my first go-round and I’ve had to learn on the go; it’s painful to learn things first hand. I did however, try to avoid that.
Advisor/Mentor
For the past year I’ve been looking for a good advisor/mentor but haven’t found him/her. That’s a huge part of establishing your foundation. Find someone who has been there before, so they can help to guide and direct you in order to avoid making mistakes as much as possible. (Will do a blog post on what to look for in an advisior)
Do Keep Reading This Blog
I will continue to pass on what I’ve learned and know. Hopefully you’ll listen to it and avoid some setbacks…particularly if you’re not strong at thinking on your feet when bombs are coming your way.
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