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MIT Startup Demo Company Shout-Out

Last week I was honored to be a judge at the MIT (Northwest Chapter) Enterprise Forum's 'Startup Demo' Spring Event.  We won the fall demo event last year...and thus I got to see what life was like on the other side.

I was blown away by the companies...business model aside (it was a demo event...they didn't have to get into business nuts and bolts and instead simply were asked to make us go 'wow), people were building some really cool stuff.

My takes:

The Winner:

ForWord Input:

Building software that allows you to input text using handwriting methods on a QWERTY keypad interface.  Sounds weird, but the guy FLEW through the demo and only messed up once or twice...PLUS, what was the most important to me, was that even post mess-up the revision process was FAR better than anything I've ever used.

Next Step: Get 20 18 year old girls in a room, pay them each $20 for an hour and have them text all their friends using the interface.  Chart the response.  This could be big.

My Runnerup:

Interview Studio.com

Extremely well designed web service aimed at changing how people apply/interview/recruit/choose applicants for companies.  Crowded space but looks like it could be the winner.

Next Step: Figure out a big, bold solution to keep it from becoming the next Monster.com with 5,000 applicants for every job opportunity.  

In no other order:

Ameritocracy:

Political user generated content site, looking at statements, facts, reports, etc edited by the American  people. A democratized version of Obama's new website.  

Next Step: Launch today while the political trail is hot.

Diagnosis Plus

A new way using the web for people to gain more information on their chronic illnesses; helps both doctors and patients with screening and management of such diseases.

Next Step: Make the back end extremely functional while making the UI extremely simple, elegant, and obvious to people who don't generally use the computer for much more than email and photo sharing. 

Hydrovolts

Great demo by the founder.  One of those save the world companies...takes small turbines, puts them in irrigation ditches, rivers, channels etc and generates power.  Apparently a lot of power

Next Step: Test.  Generate power.  Save world.

Snowflake ITM.

The company of the fearless MIT NW leader, I call it basecamp on steroids, but really it's a dynamic task management tool.

Next Step: They seem very close to launch....launch and make money.  Figure out how to make the switch from basecamp easy.

Thank you so much.

When was the last time you said thank you SO much to someone?  Not a genuine thanks or thank you, but an actually thank you sooo much?  When was the last time you said it to a customer? 

If you're like me you are genuinely extremely thankful for everyone of your customers.  Every single one.  Thank you SO much to everyone who has signed up and used Athleon.

I was at a street fair in the University District in Seattle a few weeks back.  Bought some 'fair corn.'  Delicious, and nutritious (except for the dripping butter).  And the lady who took my three dollars thanked me, very much.  She then thanked the person behind me.  Very much.  Sounded like she meant it every time.

 There were 20+ food vendors within a half a block of each other on both sides of the street.  I chose her.  She was thankful.  She should have been.  I had a lot of choices.

Online there are now 2000+ vendors.  All withink a click or two of each other, on both sides of google.  I choose you.  I hope you're thankful.  If you choose me I will be.

NOTE:  This is a picture of her tip jar.  You get one impression to get the change in my pocket... why not have some fun with it.  Well done corn lady. 

Pearls of Wisdom from Blue Nile CEO

BlueNile.com Founder Mark Vadon served as the keynote speaker at the UW Biz Plan Competition awards ceremony last week...some pearls...or golden nuggets... of wisdom from his speech (which was one of the best I'd heard in a log time, Keynote speakers should follow his example of short, sweet, inspiring, and funny).

"Keep banging your head against the wall until the wall falls down."

"Don't be afraid of failure."

"I built my business around men having no clue."

"Steal good ideas from other entrepreneurs."

"Entrepreneurship is running out of a closed jewlery store near an airport with the windows boarded over and you have to fix the fax machine."

Night Before a Game

Sports are much simpler than life really..you know the rules, you know your opponent, the clock has a set time and you win or lose (usually), and then there's always next week...next season... your others sports...

Starting a company somewhat follows the same trajectory but without known boundaries.   The field has no lines, your competitor changes uniforms every 15 minutes, the referee forgot his whistle, and you never know if you get another game...another shot...another chance.

Sports for me were always nerve racking the night before, and I actually knew I'd play bad if I WASN'T nervous on the bus ride to the game.  Nerves are good, they focus you, and once you touch the ball or make your first hit they just turn into energy anyways.

My game tomorrow is a pitch at the UW Business Plan Competition.  Winner gets 25k.  That's a heck of a W to chalk up.  The problem for me with pitching is there is no first hit...there is no first touch of the ball. There's only you.  Your teammate is your slide deck but they're the bench warmer to your Michael Jordan..they aren't going to carry you when you're nervous for the first inning.

So, with no real starting bell, no whistle, just some less-stringent boundaries on clock management and some judges in ties instead of zebra print shirts, it's off to the races.  First to finish doesn't win.  The person with the most points doesn't win.  The person who tries the hardest doesn't win.

So who wins?  I guess we find out tomorrow.  I'm guessing the person who can turn the judges from analytical about business model and market segmentation to people bouncing up and down with possibilities, thinking how they'll tell their kids in 10 years that 'they met this guy Jeff who said he's sell books online 2 years before he did'

Meanwhile, I'll be looking for the first hit, before the nerves turn into energy and muscle memory takes over.  After all, hitting is a lot more fun than being hit.

What To Do When You Screw Up

So. This Happened. Papa Johns printed out tee-shirts making fun of the most popular player in basketball. Um? No words really.

I understand how it starts... some Wizards fan at PJ corporate says oh, that's funny, Lebron James crybaby shirts, we should print those and hand them out. Get a chuckle from the folks at the office...but shouldn't someone STOP them before actually going through with it?

Regardless, it happened, so today Papa Johns probably sold 2 pizzas in the state of Ohio. So what do they do? Something very smart. They offer $.23 pizzas to all Cleveland residents. Lebron James' number. Well done.

But why are they limiting it to one-topping? They're going to lose a bunch of money anyways. Why not offer a free pizza, any pizza on the menu, anything you can dream, to every Cleveland resident? You want to get back on their good side...don't short change them with one-topping.

Very creative solution though. I'm impressed. Would be interested to see Papa Johns pizza sales before and after in Cleveland...so if you happen to find a graph somewhere let me know.

Some Things I've Learned

A year or so into this whole 'starting a company' thing, some stuff I've learned, in no order what so ever (they may be obvious, but we sure didn't learn them in business school):

• No matter how basic you think something is, you have blinders on, and it will still confuse some of your users/customers.

• Nothing is better in a business than a great, random, unsolicited testimonial from a user.  Well, maybe cash is better.

• When someone pays for something, they have much higher expectations of the product than someone who uses something for free.  Those expectations take a lot of time to manage.  It's worth considering if your product is ready to  be purchased yet...even if you have customers who will pay.

• People use your product in ways you never imagined, and don't do things the way you want them to.  Fighting them or trying to force them to use it the way you want them to is a waste of time and effort.  Letting your users define your product makes much more sense.

• Treating every user, even the ones who want to remove their account, like the most important thing on your schedule is good business.  They should be the most important thing on your schedule.

• Everyone in your company at a startup is first and foremost a salesman followed closely by a customer service representative.  Their third job title is CEO or CFO or VP of whatever.  Sales and customer service are your first job.

• It's easy to forget about HR requirements in a startup...including your own.  Sometimes taking 30 minutes to drink a beer away from the computer is good for the bottom line.

• The easiest way to not overspend is to not have any money. 

• Never hire someone who can't do something better than you can...even better if you only hire people smarter than you.

• For all the stress and heartache and late nights and financial forecasting spreadheets and Ramen noodles, there's nothing like watching an idea come to fruition.  Except for maybe cash.

Kidding.

Go build a startup.  You won't regret it.

When Anger-Dispersion is your Primary Job

Some jobs are tougher than others by nature.  I can't imagine it's easy to run a funeral home, or run customer service for a crappy product, or be the airport worker whose job is generally to tell people either that their flight is delayed.  Customers come to these people pre-agitated... making their job a thousand times harder. 

My car needed some work recently.  A lot of work.  Expensive work.  After it had had more expensive work a week earlier.  I wasn't happy.  It's easy to blame the service guys  My attendant did a good job of listening...but he didn't make me relate to him.  He didn't give me his story.
Photo: Creative Commons Credit: 177

My father had something similar happen to him a few years back, and he was equally agitated after needing multiple trips to the dealer in the same week.  His attendant stopped him and explained that he was driving a high-end car and that their job was to give him high-end service.  They weren't paid commission and they don't see any money by recommending more service; they simply love working on cars, and they don't want to put their name behind a car that doesn't work.  If something's wrong, they want to fix it.

That's a story.  That makes sense.  Yeah, the thousand dollar service bill still stings, but it's harder to be mad at the service guys when you look at it through their eyes.  Great form of anger dispersion.

Seth Godin called it 'pretending you care,' where the meter maid apologizes that, despite a great story, once the 'yellow button is pushed' she's required by law to finish writing the ticket.'  She then recommended that he contest it in court, where she said he'd probably win, and thanked him for coming to New York and apologized for the hassle.'  (Too bad he made up the story).

So, if your primary job is dealing with people, and it probably is, next time you have to disperse some anger, don't be afraid to make it personal.  Humbling yourself and explaining the full situation, even though you just want to keep yelling or through out the 'sorry, it's not my job,' just might smooth everything out.

Having a Conversation with Powerpoint, or, 5 Do's and Dont's of Pitching

We've given a bunch of presentations, demos, and pitches this past week...a few new rules for myself that I learned listening to myself and others.
My new Do's and Dont's for presentations:
1.  Don't open with an audience question, especially if you're not sure that the VAST majority of people are going to raise their hand.
2. Don't laugh at your own joke...life doesn't give you a TV show laugh track...either the audience thinks its funny, or it isn't funny  (or they're sleeping).
3.  Don't use the word empower.  Please.  I'm begging you.
4.  Don't name drop.  If they aren't a part of the story, then the name you just threw out, unless it's your CEO who just so happened to make a billion dollars selling ice to eskimos, is useless, and confusing.  Either cut them out..or rewrite the story.
5.  Don't follow the script.  Yes your pitch has to hit the 10 key points... but nobody ever said you have to do all 10 in order.  Our pitch became significantly stronger when we rearranged the marketing, team, financials, solution etc etc slides to fit the story we were telling.  Don't jump from your marketing to your team to your financials to your competitive advantage just because the slide prompt had them in that order.

Creative Commons- CogDogBlog

1.  Do watch Steve Jobs.  Read Presentation Zen.  Stop looking at your slides.  Bring a human brain.
2.  Do have a conversation with your powerpoint slides, and with the audience.  Jobs and others do so well because they aren't pitching or preaching or yelling or stumbling...they're just talking.  Your slide deck is like your friend that's hanging out behind you, integrate it into the conversation you're having with your audience.  Introduce them.  Make them friends.  It sounds weird but speaking
with ease between your .ppt file, your audience, and your brain just makes everything work.
3. Do seed the crowd.  I gave a speech a few months back to a room of over a hundred.  My teammates and girlfriend were there...and it was quite a pickup to see her being the first to laugh at my bad jokes.  If you're in a smaller room, find the object that you can focus on when the room's smiles fade...or, if you're able, place someone there to smile the whole time so that you can come back to them for a pickup in the middle no matter what the tone of the room is.
4. Do be present.  If you don't know what I'm talking about in #3, then you aren't looking at the people you're talking to.  Don't go into your own little talking world; understand the room, what's happening, and either feed off the positive energy or figure out how to draw them back if you lost them somewhere in the financials.
5. Do have stuff.  Humans like stuff.  Our physical representation of our customers pain point tend to be far more memorable than any slide.  Props work.

Ahh College Degrees

My co-founder and I had a random discussion about age, retirement, and the changing landscape of the 'elderly.' Our next president could be 72, and our richest man (give or take lots of philanthropy) and most 'important to their company' CEO will be 78 (ish).

In trying to figure out Warren Buffet's age, landed on Forbes' list of world billionaires. I already knew dropping out was a given to be a technology king, but I didn't realize that most weren't Harvard dropouts (hooray for public schools):

First, Mr Buffet did finish his degree (and more) but he did his undergrad at the U of Nebraska, which, as a Colorado fan growing up, we used to say 'put the N on their helmets to stand for (k)nowledge'

Lawrence Ellison, Oracle, Dropped out of U of Illinois,

Mr. Gates of course dropped out of Harvard.

Paul Allen, the other Seattle superstar, dropped out of Washington State of all places (too...many...wazzu...jokes)

And of course...that guy who started Dell computers (I once had this question on an exam at UW), never finished up at Texas.

Crazy. Stay in school kids (no, seriously, college was great).

Success of Your Speech in Your Hands

Posted a few weeks ago about speeches

From this month's Men's Health:

After monitoring the reactions of audience members, German scientists found that people immediately lost focus whenever a speaker made pointless hand movements... Stick with gestures that add emphasis to your oration.

They added pictures of five of this year's (well formerly) presidential candidates, Obama and Guiliani used their hands to make their point while Edwards was touching his belt, Clinton was scratching her chest and Huckabee was rubbing his shoulder.

Good to know.