The Power of Faces

29 06 2009

The web has always been social, from the days of its first invention to relay information to today, but what’s really powered the social web isn’t quicker and more convenient tools like IM, Facebook, and Tweets, but faces.  Faces, seemingly trivial, are the fuel to explosive user engagement – why?  Because you only get faces (users only upload their pics) when they genuinely trust your site and when other people see that they’re on a site that other people trust, they also put up their pictures.  It’s a network effect at it’s best.

Take a really simple example.  Look at my news feed on facebook:

Picture 10

Now compare that to my feed on LinkedIn:

LinkedIn Feed

Dramatic difference isn’t it?

Face to face communication has always been the bread and butter of human interactions and with online social media becoming what it is today, it’s coming one step closer to imitating the ‘real world’.  Will technology ever replace f2f communication?  Most likely yes.  Who knows what kind of magic we can invent a decade from now… holograms anyone?  :)


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Business People, you don’t need them…

17 02 2009

… until you launch.

(Disclaimer: All of this advice is from my personal experience running Eggsprout and probably won’t apply as much to larger VC funded companies)

Pre Launch
If you’re a software startup, which I’m guessing most of you are, you know that before you have a live product what really matters is… getting a live product.  Nothing else matters.  Don’t hire marketing people (you have nothing to market).  Don’t hire business developers (you have no business).  Don’t hire PR managers (you have no news), accountants, lawyers, customer reps, etc.  You get the point.  There may be occasional times when you need to do some legal stuff, some marketing stuff, or other business type things, but it’s so little, you should do it yourself.  You’ll learn something.

Post Launch
This is where it gets interesting – after you have a live product, you can’t go without business people for several reasons:  1) You’ll get feedback from customers  2) Businesses will reach out to you for partnerships  3) You’ll realize you’ve got a lot of things wrong.

#1 and #2 are pretty self-explanatory.  People will now start to talk to you and find you interesting.  You need someone with their head in the space and some business savvy to talk back.  #3 is a little bit less obvious – and I’ve only learned it through living it.  You probably got a lot of things right with your launch, but once you start talking to other people and hear their needs, you’ll realize you’ve done a lot wrong.  And by wrong, I mean, you’ve prioritized something that’s not so useful, or deprioritized something someone really needs, or missed or didn’t see an opportunity.  You’ll have a lot of ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ moments.  Every startup goes through the same things.

handshake

Eggsprout
After we launched Eggsprout, I’ve done no coding and no project management.  Our team has reshifted our responsibilities to allow me more time to be the ‘business person’ – do biz dev, sales, marketing, customer support, investor relations, public relations, etc.  And boy is it important.  I can’t even count the number of times I’ve come back with new insight into our customers or opportunities and refocused or reprioritized things for the team.

So for all you techies out there who believe business people are pretty much useless (I used to be one of them) – make sure you have someone or can hire someone that can pick up that role after you have a product.  You don’t want to run a startup that’s isolated from the world and wonder to yourself why your traffic isn’t picking up.  Biz people are important.  :)


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Categories : Entrepreneurship

Free is Powerful

3 02 2009

Free stuff sells.  I was just at Denny’s free grand slam breakfast today and even though I’m not a big fan of standing in lines for giant breakfast with over the top calories – I went.  How can you say no to free?  (The wait time was actually much shorter than I expected and they were very fast in terms of service.  Props to you Denny’s)

dennys

In business, free is good.  When we approach recruiters with the concept of Eggsprout, they’re always amazed at our concept of free job posts and free resumes.  On the big job boards – they go for hundreds of dollars a piece for job posts and thousands a month for resumes.  That’s a big contrast from free.  And it sells – because we make it such a no brainer.  What do you have to lose for trying us?  Just 5 minutes of your time.

My suggestion – in whatever business you’re trying to build, always offer a low-cost option.  It could just be a free trial, a basic package, or even a free place for people to connect with you and your brand (like a forum or blog).  Structures like these allow you to obtain new customers quickly at a very low cost.  You’re thinking this is pretty obvious stuff – and it is – but I really didn’t understand the power of free until I found myself dropping my plans today to spend the 10 minutes driving and 15 minutes standing in line just to get my little piece of the grand slam deal.  It’s powerful.

Want to get better than free?  Pay people to use your product.  It sounds strange, but that’s exactly what Google Adsense and Microsoft Live Search rev share does.  That’ll be a post for another time.


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Eggsprout Launches!

13 01 2009

This is probably old news to alot of people, but Eggsprout is live – as of last Thursday.  Sorry for posting here so late, I’ve been swamped with awesome feedback, encouragements, fixes, meeting requests, etc ever since launch.  The entire team stayed up until 7:30am to get it out and it was EPIC.  Many stories to tell the grandkids haha.

logo

If you haven’t already checked us out, the site is here.  We also got some good coverage from John Cook (the most amazing Seattle Tech reporter ever).  Story is here.

I’ll be splitting my blogging efforts between here and the eggsprout blog.  Hopefully that means I’ll be blogging more often in both places – and not less.  :)   Alright, back to work.


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Categories : Entrepreneurship, Startup

Seattle record snow ‘08

21 12 2008

I’m sitting in my room looking out the window right now and all I can see is flurry of snow.  For those unfamiliar with Seattle weather, lemme tell you that this is extremely rare.  In the past 16 or so years I’ve lived here, we’ve only had one single day where we got 4 inches of snow.  This time, we’re nearing 8-10 inches and it’s been snowing every other day for at least a week.

You know you’re getting old when snow becomes more of a nuisance than it used to be.  Even though part of me is giddy with excitement and is dreading the feeling of dissapointment when it’ll all melt away, the other part of me is trying to calculate the lost in economic productivity from all the companies around here – including ourselves.

So, in an effort to stay productive, we did the only thing reasonable in weather conditions like this.  Build snow-eggsprout!  Here it is:

img_0518Our baby

img_0517Closer view

img_0511My bro Ian and I behind giant snow-eggsprout

And that’s only from the first day of snow… there’s plenty more now.  Alright, hope all you Seattle-lites out there stay warm.  Merry Christmas and Happy new year.  =)


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Categories : Startup

Deathnote

6 12 2008

A slight digression from my usual Startup theme’d posts, but I just finished Deathnote and it was AMAZING!  What if you could kill anyone by simply writing down their name in a notebook?

deathnote

Sounds disgusting (that’s what I thought at first too), but watch the first few episodes and you’ll be hooked.  Every episode is non-stop smartness all the way until the end.  I seriously believe my IQ has increased many points after watching this.  Make sure you limit yourself somehow though or else you’ll lose days of sleep without realizing it.

Highly recommended.


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When it’s all over: Economy, Depression, and Roofs

4 12 2008

It’s 2008.  We’re officially in a depression – my house price is dropping like an airplane that’s lost its engines, I lost so much money in my portfolio I’ve stopped caring, my friends are all losing their jobs, and every conversation I overhear revolves around doom and gloom.  But something different happened today, something I want to share:

I have a rental home (don’t get into landlording, many stories to tell here, but I’ll save it for another time), and recently I’ve had a pretty bad moisture problem.  Water is getting into the bedrooms, soaking the walls and carpets, and mold and shrooms have grown inside the house.  It’s any homeowner’s worst nightmare, and it costs an arm and a leg to fix.  Needless to say, it has not been a very pleasant few weeks.

But its fixed now, I’ve had at least 5 different people come inspect/fix things.  I’ve been informed that a majority of the problem is inadequate drainage of water from the roof, so today, I reluctantly decided to climb on the roof, rake the leaves, and unclog the drains.  It’s messy, it’s stinky, and it’s hard work.

I know this might sound cheesy, but as I was standing there on top of the roof, a weird feeling overwhelmed me – a feeling that anyone who’s been on top of a mountain looking across the vast landscape might know.  That after all the doom and gloom, all will be well with the world.  I saw all the little houses around me, the large trees that had been leaving their leaves on my roof looked less intimidating, the cars parked on the sidewalks looked like toys, and in the distant, I could see cars busily continuing their daily routine.

mountaintop

Standing on top of something big makes you see the world from a different perspective.  It mights you feel small, and it reminds you to stop worrying about all the tiny problems in your life.  What if your startup fails?  What if that round of financing doesn’t close?  What if your competitors are faster than you?  Just stop worrying.  Because in the end, the world will keep turning, and everything will be all right.

I suggest you try out your roof too.  It’s fun.  And it feels good.

Read more startup lessons from bma…


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Running a Startup: Time management

3 12 2008

Startups are time consuming.  At least 10 hour days, 7 days a week.  Not because you have to, but because you want to.  At this rate, even the greatest of the greats will burn out.  So how do you prevent yourself and your team from burning out?  Here’s a couple strategies we’ve tried, maybe some of them will help you:

time

4 hour sprints: Creative people (developers, designers, etc) need time alone to get things done.  Sure, teamwork and discussions are necessary, but studies have shown that context switches and interruptions – even in the form of someone asking a quick question – actually do a lot of harm to productivity.  That’s why every day, we have 2 large blocks of time periods around 3 to 4 hours each where everyone puts on headphones and just works on their part.  It works like a charm.  A lot gets done.

Eat together: We also cook together, but just eating together works too.  A lot of really good things happen when you eat together – you learn about each others quirks, you have extra time to discuss stuff, you get everyone comfortable with contributing, you can talk about stuff completely unrelated to work, etc.  Teams that eat together, stay together.

Play: Wii’s, Xbox’s, guitar hero, super smash, etc are a must.  No better way to relieve the stress and take your head off that annoying bug than kicking each other’s butt in an epic game.  Ah, so many stories to tell.

Work from home: Find people that work well by themselves and can motivate themselves even when not at ‘work’.  Working at home is one of the best things ever – you’re more relaxed, you dramatically lower the chance of someone interrupting you, and you’re on your own schedule.  This also has the strange benefit of making it so ‘work’ never ends.  :)

We’ve played around a ton with how we work as a team and have settled on something that combines the 4 of the above items.  We work together and meet 2 to 3 days a week.  Usually M, W, F, where a typical day contains of: cook breakfast, work 4 hours, cook/eat lunch, smash, work 4 hours, go home, shower, work 4 hours.  All the rest of the days (weekends included), we work by ourselves at home and stay on IM for any immediate needs.  Works really well for us, but I’m sure every team is different.

It takes a long time to find that “team rhythm” but once you’ve found it, it’s a great feeling.  Cause things get done.


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Why do a startup?

2 12 2008

Because you’re frustrated with some problem or inefficiency and you think you know how to solve it.  You see other people suffering and it pains you.  You need to solve it.  And you need to solve it now.

Too many people are into the “startup thing” for the wrong reasons.  Money, power, impact, influence, social status, ‘coolness’, etc.  Focus on the problems, solve it, and all those ‘other’ things will come. If you’re in it for the wrong reasons, you’ll find yourself (and your team) burning out very quickly.

startup

Forget about the money.  If you’re solving the right problems well, that will come.  Hopefully.


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Startup Visualization

1 12 2008

One of the bigger challenges we had at Zillow was how to aggregate up house listings when you’re zoomed out on the map – like at the neighborhood or state level.  It wasn’t an easy task, and that’s why I was so impressed when I saw this:  http://www.crunchvision.com/

Startups from Cruchbase on a map that’s easy to navigate and loads fast.  Very cool.

crunchvision



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5 tests: Are you a startup guy/gal?

25 11 2008

Startup people are rare.  Actually, I take that back.  People that dabble in startups (side project here and there) – plenty.  People that are willing to risk everything and go at it full force – rare.  So what is it that makes someone a “startup junkie”?  Here’s what I’ve gathered from observing successful startupers:

You want to change the world – This one is pretty obvious.  You want to have an impact and you want to help people.  You see things that are inefficient or problems that people just overlook and it frustrates you to no end.  There’s a constant bell that rings inside your head everywhere that you go, whatever situation you’re in.  “There has to be a better way”.

You’re stubborn – People think you’re crazy.  Even worse, they think your idea is horrible.  But despite all that, you don’t listen.  You believe in yourself and your idea so much that you tune them out.  Maybe they’re right, maybe they’re wrong, but it doesn’t matter to you.  No one’s going to sway you because you’ve made up your mind.  Lets just hope they’re wrong.

You embrace failure – Failure doesn’t irk you, because you know failure like the back of your hand.  You know you will fail.  You’ve stopped fearing it and now just expect it.  Your job is not to not fail, but to not fail so much.  And when you do fail you know how to respond – by learning.  Each failure only builds you up.  And when you fail, you’ll know – cause there is no one else to blame.

You’re financially stable – Lets talk practical.  Everyone who throws themselves at a startup venture first calculates their risk.  And $$ is a big part of that.  Financial stability doesn’t mean you have millions of dollars.  It just means you can support yourself for a while (at least a year) even if some disaster happens.  Though hard to control since it really depends on your environment, (age, family, relationships, connection to money, savings, market, economy, etc) there are definitely little things you can do to make yourself less risk adverse.

Thought of being a drop in a bucket of water drains you – It actually physically drains your soul.  You’re tired from all the energy you spend pulling down the red tape only to get your project approved 6 months later when you don’t care anymore.  You’re tired of politics.  You’re tired of not making an impact.  Don’t get me wrong – there are a ton of awesome large corporation people – you’re just not one of them.  The comfy couch is not you.

puppycouch

Do you fit these criterias?  If so, you are one in a bazillion.  Get off your couch and do something.  Live the dream.  Fix the world.


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How to get Smarter… read.

19 11 2008

This seemed so obvious, I don’t know why it took me so long to realize it.  Influential people read.  It makes them smarter.  In fact, that’s what we’ve been taught to do since we were young.  Warren Buffet is a machine at digesting business/economic news and company reports – that’s why he’s so good at investing.  Bill Gates takes weeks off of work to read about new technologies – how else does he see trends and develop better things?  If someone has taken time out of their life to put their life experiences into a book, or a blog, or a news article, it’s worth your time to learn from them.

read

Ok, so I think reading undisputedly benefits us, so what should you read?  Everyone may be different, so instead of me telling you, let me just show you a sample of what I read:

Industry News – Everyone is part of an industry and everyone needs to stay up to date with the latest news in their area of expertise.  For me, it’s technology and the web.  So here’s a sample of what I tune into:

  • Techflash (John Cook’s tech news specific to Seattle)
  • TechCrunch (if you’re a techie and not reading this, you’re not a techie)
  • Mashable

Even narrower industry news – Everyone works in a niche.  When I was at Zillow, it was Real Estate.  Now at EggSprout, it’s HR and Recruiting.  If you’re running a startup, you better know what’s happening in your niche.  I like to seperate these between the official sources, and the individual sources.

Venture Capital – When you’re running a startup, you better be pretty in tune with the VC business whether you want to take in money or not

Other Startups – Better be staying on top of other startups if you wanna be successful at your own.  Celebrate their successes, learn from their failures.  It’s all about being part of the community.

Mentors and Heroes – Everyone has someone they look up to.  Or people they find interesting – I’ve found that my list changes over time, but here’s a couple I read:

Friends – I have a bunch of personal friends that I like to follow.  A bunch are on twitter, but a bunch also blog.  This category is probably where you get your most variety – your friends probably are passionate about many things that are not in your area of expertise.  You can learn a lot from your friends.

  • Hsu-Ken (has the most random entertaining posts)
  • Drew Meyers (brings deep insight into the world of microfinance, something I know nothing about)
  • Chris Chu (brings me stories from the far reaches of the galaxies)
  • Mr. CFO (Director of Finance at Zillow, must know something about the world right?)
  • Spencer (The real Zillow CFO.  Keeps on showing up on TV.  If I read his blog, I might learn something from osmosis.)

Hobbie: Real Estate – Everyone has hobbies.  Real estate is one of mine.  That’s why I like to read about stuff that’s happening there once in a while.

Other Media Sources -

  • Podcasts (I workout, have a bunch of great content updated daily on my Iphone)
  • TV (I eat, and like to multitask by watching the news.  It saves time)
  • Books (rare, but every so often, I run into some book some friend recommends)

Phew!  That’s quite a bit of reading.  And a ton of these sources get updated extremely frequently.  Talk about information overload!  I’ve learned to set a time limit for myself per day or I can easily get lost in the sea of information, but I do usually manage to get through all those everyday.  Read lots, learn lots, you’ll be glad you did.

Happy reading.


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Why you need a Co-Founder

18 11 2008

By far, THE most important thing (and probably one of the hardest) about a successful startup is finding the right co-founder. I’ll leave it for another post to discuss what to look for in a cofounder and use this one to discuss a couple reasons WHY you need one:

cofounder

1) They challenge you – Your ideas suck, get over it.  I’ve been shot down so many times, I’ve lost count.  You need someone there to double/triple check you and keep you grounded.  What you think is awesome may not be what someone else thinks is awesome.

2) They keep you in check – Startups are draining – mentally, physically, psychologically, etc.  There are going to be many times when you think to yourself “what have I gotten myself into?  I should just quit now while I’m ahead.”  You might be right, but most of the time you’re wrong.  You really need someone there to tell you which one it is.

3) They help you quit your job - I can’t even count how many “wantreprenuers” I’ve talked to whose sole reason for not going at it full-time is because they haven’t found a cofounder.  They’re right.  Don’t quit your job until you can find that special someone that will take that leap of faith with you.  Startups are hard – you need the inspiration.

4) You need one to raise money – If none of the first 3 reasons made you want to go partner up with someone right now, then this will.  More than likely, VC’s and Angel’s will not hand you money if you’re by yourself.  Why?  Cause they’re thinking “if this guy can’t even convince one other person that their idea is good, why should I believe their idea is good?”  If you’re thinking about taking in investment money any time in the future, you can’t live without someone by your side.

I’ve been blessed with not one, but a group of cofounders whose skills complement mine very well, but I’ll wait to write about them some other time.  Until then, good luck finding yours.  You’ll know when you have the right people/person, cause you’ll walk into work everyday feeling thankful.


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How to make your ideas stick

21 10 2008

I’ve been a PM (Program manager) for the core of my career and one of the things that comes with the job is figuring out how to make things sticky. (Picture is of a glue truck that fell over and dumped it’s load everywhere haha)

That’s why I was so excited when I ran into this interview from the book “Made to Stick” that explores why ideas stick: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/the_stickiness_.html.  There’s some concepts that hit me really hard and I wanted to share because I think it’s super applicable to any startup trying to wrestle with bringing their idea to market.

1) Abstraction makes a great Computer Scientist.  Concreteness makes a great Communicator.
When you’re building a site for millions of average joes, it’s better to be concrete than to be computer scientists.

“Make people play on your turf by keeping things concrete. It is so much easier to bullshit with abstraction than with concrete examples. Don’t say, “I think we should devote more resources to evangelism among mid-market IT decision-makers.” Say, “Here’s a list of 500 IT decision-makers in the area around Salt Lake City. I want to invite them to a one-day conference on Sept 29. It will cost $60,000 to pull off. Who’s in?” Even if they disagree, it will be productive disagreement, anchored in reality.”

2) We are way too smart for our own good.  Our messaging needs to be dead simple.
Read the southwest airline napkin passage.  Here’s an excerpt:

“The Curse of Knowledge. Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators. Think of a lawyer who can’t give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. His vast knowledge and experience renders him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can’t follow. And we’re all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise.”

3) Make the $100 bet

This is something I learned from a very wise adviser of mine.  When you’re in Vegas, the way to win big is not to split up $100 and make $10 bets here, and there.  That’ll just mean you lose some and win some and end up in the best case, with what you started with.  Take that $100 and make that one big bet.  If you win, you win big.  If you lose, it’s time to raise more money.

I know every entrepreneur can communicate their idea fifty different ways that sound good.  That’ll never work.  Put down the $100 bet.  Know your one core marketing message.  And stick to it.  Trust me, it’ll be much more compelling.

“Most entrepreneurs struggle for years to find a core message, but Kelleher started with his.  <snip-Just go read the section> Lots of entrepreneurs can tell you a dozen reasons that their product or service will transform the world. A good challenge for them would be to sort through the dozen reasons and pick the single most important one. It’s a worthy aspiration to paint a picture of the world that is simple enough and concrete enough to be sketched on a cocktail napkin.”

Just wanted to encourage all you startup peeps to mold your ideas/concepts into something that is plain dead simple.  Our else they won’t stick.  Now go read the interview, it’s very good.


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Comcast. Not Comcastic. Score: -32

26 08 2008

I’m not one to complain about things, but this is such a good startup lesson, I have to blog about it.  It’s about Comcast.  I’ve been a loyal customer for years – the occasionally call into customer support which is the usual horrid experience like any other company, but today’s experience just tops every other customer service experience I’ve ever had.

Let me chronicle my experience and keep a tally of Comcast’s “Comcastic Score”

  • 12:47PM: One of my tenants at my rental house email me about internet being down for the past day.  Me thinks: I’ll call comcast in a bit.  (+0)
  • 1:00PM:  I go to Comcast’s website to look for a phone number.  Lo and behold, I see a “Live chat option.”  Cool, I can chat online and work at the same time.  Score.  (+1)
  • 1:15PM:  I’m waiting for a rep.  (-1)
  • 1:30PM:  I’m still waiting for a rep.  (-2)
  • 2:15PM:  It’s been an hour and I’m still waiting for a rep.  Fail.  I give up.  (-5)
  • 2:30PM:  @comcastcares sees my random complaints on twitter and asks “Can I help”  (+2)
  • 3:00PM:  Still no reply from @comcastcares.  I figured I’d just call.  (-1)
  • 3:10PM:  Called in, went through usual customer service, reset router, reset stuff on their side, etc.  Call my tenants to see if internet works.  No.  I ask tenants to give them a call.  (-1)
  • 4:00PM:  Tenants call me back.  Apparently Comcast shut down our service yesterday because we were “using too much internet.”  We’re on 12 months probation.  ARE YOU SERIOUS??  Tenants likened it to getting kicked out of a buffet cause you’re eating too much.  (-10)
  • 4:00PM:  And we got zero notice, they just shut our internet down.  (-5)
  • 4:00PM:  And the guy they talked to was apparently a “rude inconsiderate jackass.”  Tenants didn’t think it’d make any sense to talk to him anymore cause they’d get nowhere.  (-10)

Let’s tally Comcastic score.  0+1-1-2-5+2-1-1-5-10-10 = -32.  FAIL.

Can someone please fix customer service for the good of the world?  kthxbye.

Photo courtesy:  Crunchgear


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