A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Do you have values?

Do you clearly articulate them your team?

Do you strive to incorporate them into your company’s culture?

Do those values include building a sustainable business, kind to the environment, gives back to its community and actively contributes to the wellbeing of its workers?

Will you stay true to those values while growing, when both eyes are on the revenue/profitability of your company?

If so, you could apply to be recognized as a Certified B Corp, like Warby Parker, Etsy, and the Honest Company.

B Corp status is a step in the right direction — but…

When push comes to shove it’s not legally binding.

Public Benefit Corporations (PBC) are a step above and beyond.

And Kickstarter just joined their ranks.

There’s a profound distinction between a “public benefit corporation,” or PBC, and a “B Corp,” co-founder Perry Chen told me during a recent visit to Kickstarter’s Brooklyn headquarters. Both are for-profit companies who wear their missions on their sleeves, but B Corps have no legal responsibility to uphold their values. PBCs, on the other hand, have a legally binding duty to provide benefits to society. One is an accreditation, like “Fair Trade,” the other is an entirely rethought corporate structure.

Put another way, if a PBC puts maximization of shareholder value — the true north of Wall Street — ahead of the public benefits it declares in its charter, it can be sued by its shareholders.

“A value is only a value if it’s non-negotiable,” Chen told me. Kickstarter’s values are now codified in a legally binding document. They’re literally non negotiable.

What are those values?

In section one, the company restates its mission — thereby enshrining that mission in its legal foundation. The second sections lays out the company’s values, taking aim at five highly political corporate issues: Selling user data to third parties (it never will, unlike Google, Facebook, and pretty much most of the Internet), clarity in “terms of services” (it won’t seek legal gains just because it can, unlike, well, pretty much the entire Internet), political lobbying (it won’t lobby unless the issues aligns with its values, regardless of potential monetary gain — unlike … you get the picture), taxation (it won’t employ the “esoteric tax management strategies” beloved by giants like Apple, Uber, et al), and environment (the company is committed to reducing its impact across the board).

Most businesses incorporate in Delaware where the legal PBC framework was signed into law by Gov. Jack Markell in 2013.

Public Benefit Companies are a relatively new legal entity — Delaware, where many fast-growth startups incorporate, created PBCs just three years ago. Besides defining a public benefit as “a positive effect (or reduction of negative effects) on one or more more categories of persons, entities, communities or interests (other than stockholders in their capacities as stockholders),” Delaware’s code allows new PBCs to make “further commitments” beyond the state’s legal definition.

Method, Plum Organics, Alter Eco, and New Leaf Paper are all PCBs.

Kickstarter could just have easily chosen the road to unicornism, but chose their values instead.

What will you choose?

Image credit: HikingArtist

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

As most of you know, I subscribe to CB Insights (you should, too). It’s written by co-founder Anand Sanwal — good info and he has a great sense of humor.

Yesterday, I learned that founders are sometimes described as “blue flame.” I’ve never heard this term since we founded CB Insights so it could be that (1) It’s not really a thing or (2) I’m not blue flame.

Basically, blue flame is defined as below:
It refers to young people, preferably in their 20s, with lots of energy and no kids.

A blue flame is a fire that is burning at its brightest. A blue flame founder is willing to do nothing but work, forgoing all else but the company.

Per Twitter, no VCs seem to have ever heard this phrase (or won’t admit it –Miki).

Hilariously, it also refers to people who are too old to invest in.  I wonder how they know the difference without seeing them.

While a founder may be “willing to do nothing but work, forgoing all else but the company” it is the height of either lunacy or stupidity for founders to expect their people to do the same.

Especially in light of recent comments from the likes of Mark Cuban.

“For employees and investors they are SOL [s— out of luck]. That is, unless these companies wise up and start going public … The VC attitude of not going public is crushing the dreams of tens of thousands of employees with options.”

It was different in the first boom, when it was investors who got the shaft.

“In ’01/’02 most of these companies were public, so it played out in the public market. You had companies that went public and then lost 90% of their value or went bankrupt. But in the interim, the employees got something out in the public markets. … Here, there’s no liquidity.” —Alfred Lin, Sequoia

It’s called liquidity and it’s what unicorns like Uber not only don’t offer, but can’t because the public markets won’t support their valuation — public markets have an old-fashioned focus on sustainable business models and profit. (For a detailed look read this from Mckinsey.)

All this just goes to show that whether you’re a six-figure knowledge worker or minimum wage slave, you are cannon fodder to your bosses and the money men.

Flickr image credit: s_p_a_c_e_m_a_n

How would you feel if someone constantly followed you and then shared that info with friends?

Would it bother you more if the info was sold for cash?

Would you report your stalkers? Or at least find a way to stop them?

Essentially, that’s what Google does.

It follows you on your jaunts around your cyber-world and both shares and sells that info.

Remembered the last time you surfed around looking for a particular product and then found ads for the same thing on every page you looked at for months afterwards?

What many of us consider commercial stalking Google and others call “improving the user experience.”

For decades, our Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has pooh-poohed the idea of any kind of privacy policy, such as Europe has, saying it would hamper growth.

My solution is using the DuckDuckGo search engine that doesn’t track you, or for total anonymity I use ixquick.

But what can you do if you’re addicted to Google and have been using it for years?

You can say thanks to Business Insider and use the step-by-step, illustrated instructions for deleting your history preventing continuing surveillance that they recently provided.

The funny thing is that what most people want is choice, i.e., the ability to easily opt out when a search is extremely sensitive — by their definition, not a third party’s.

And, at the end, since it’s all about money, perhaps if enough people opt out Google will change its approach and give you a simple way to decide who is privy to what in your own little corner of cyberspace.

Or, an even more heretical idea, pay you for it use.

Image credit: E Photos and Business Insider

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over nearly a Decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written. Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

I wrote this six years ago, but it could have been 60 or 160 or longer. There isn’t now, nor has there ever been, a good substitute for initiative — and I doubt there ever will be in the future. Read other Golden Oldies here.

Monday I wrote that so-called leadership skills are actually the skills everyone needs to live a satisfying life and to that end they are well worth developing.

I also said I would share the most important trait of leadership—and life.

It’s Initiative.

Initiative is the number one key leadership ingredient.

More so than vision or influence, it’s initiative that puts you in the forefront of any action, large of small.

Initiative is what

• separates the doers from the observers;
• stokes creativity and innovation;
• drives entrepreneurial activity at all levels; and
• makes the world a better place.

Initiative isn’t about schooling, although education can enhance it; it’s not about birth or clothes or cool. It’s not about networking or connections or followers on Twitter.

It’s about awareness; about noticing what needs to be done and doing it whether or not anybody is around to notice; doing it whether or not there is credit and kudos.

Initiative doesn’t wait for someone else to lead the way, nor does it play Monday morning quarterback to initiative taken by others, instead it actively contributes to that initiative.

Initiative doesn’t wait to occupy a certain position before becoming active, preferring to constantly seek ways in which it can contribute.

I believe that initiative is latent in every person, but it’s up to each individual to make it active.

Image credit: business mans on sxc.hu

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

Users, users, we’ve got users.

Hypergrowth has been all the rage for the last few years, but is it enough?

Twitter’s Q1 revenues  were $595 million, but it’s still not profitable. The stock tanked 14% in after hours trading and is about $35 below its 52 week high and $11 below its IPO price.

The company continued to lose money in the first quarter, posting a net loss of $80 million. That’s less than the $162.4 million that it lost in the year-ago period.

Meanwhile, Etsy turned a surprise profit a year after it went public; the stock jumped 12% in after hours trading, but that’s still down nearly 50% from its IPO price.

The crafty online marketplace posted its quarterly earnings on Tuesday, and reported its first quarterly profit since going public in April 2015.

For years, the attitude, fueled by the likes of Paul Graham, has been who needs profit?

Bill Gurley’s recent post was not only a wakeup call, but scared the hell out of a lot of founders who looked to funding, instead of profits, for their valuations.

In Silicon Valley boardrooms, where “growth at all costs” had been the mantra for many years, people began to imagine a world where the cost of capital could rise dramatically, and profits could come back in vogue. Anxiety slowly crept into everyone’s world.

Harry Edwards, an emeritus sociology professor at Cal, recently made a very apropos comment, although he was talking about race and the NFL.

“Progress is one of those issues that’s like profit: It really comes down to who’s keeping the books.”

“They” keep saying that the problems today are different than those that caused the dot com crash. But I think at heart they are very similar.

In both cases the emperor had no clothes.

Granted, for a long time his clothes were described differently than in 2000.

But the in both cases, the clothes were strictly in the mind of the beholder.

Image credit: HikingArtist

I am an inveterate article-sender, although to a very select list.

I sent the story of the guy who took a vacation from being human by becoming a goat to my sister.

After some discussion, she asked me if I thought he was normal.

I responded that years ago someone I knew said that normal = average = the top of the bottom of the well.

Based on that I am not normal nor do I have any desire to be so.

And I added one of my Rules.

We are each of us our own normal, i.e., he is his normal, as I am mine.

And its corollary.

We are all kinked and our friends are those who are kinked synergistically.

Image credit: Princeton Architectural Press

Kg and I share numerous articles and factoids. We are both avid readers and, fortunately, we access different sources, so there is little repetition.

He sent me this one yesterday.

The total cost of the US military’s F-35 program, $1.45 trillion, could provide free college education to every student in the US for 20 years.

Oh, and by the way…the program has been a total disaster.

Nine years into development, the F-35 fighter jets (the most expensive American weapons ever built) are still not ready for combat, and their software is so flawed that they may never be ready. Great…

The question, of course, is how important is the software?

The answer seems to be subject to circumstances.

2014 “The enterprise now deals with ALIS as if it is a ‘weapons system’ and a critical part of the F-35 program.” — General Bogdan

2015 “The responsiveness, the timeliness of ALIS information for the maintainers and for the war fighter is at the top of our priority list.” –Assistant Secretary of the Navy Sean Stackley

2016 “It is a software-intensive system that connects to almost every piece of the F-35 program.” — General Bogdan

“ALIS has yet to meet its full promise and we’ll need to go the full distance in that regard if we’re going to succeed in meeting our goals for reducing the ownership cost and increasing the operational availability for this complex aircraft.” — Assistant Secretary of the Navy Sean Stackley

But after a negative report from GAO the tune suddenly changed.

And now, in a surprising twist, General Bogdan is saying ALIS is not really critical after all, insisting the F-35 can fly without it for 30 days.

Really? After claiming the ALIS was the heart and soul of the system?

It’s one thing to have buggy apps crash your computer or phone, but quite another to have buggy maintenance software crash your jet.

Obviously, free college would probably offer our country a higher ROI than flawed software in a weapon system going nowhere, although not the bragging rights so dear to the hearts of our military.

Of course, ROI has never carried much weight when it comes to funding pet projects — which holds true for industry, too.

Martin Cooper/Flickr

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over nearly a Decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written. Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.  

How often do you find yourself reacting angrily to another’s actions? Saying/thinking stuff that would turn the air blue or gesturing to voice your feelings? We’ve all been there, so this post is as true today as it was when I wrote it nine years ago. Read other Golden Oldies here

I write a lot about the actions fostered by good MAP, how to evaluate your own MAP and how to modify/change it if you’re so inclined—but this only applies to output, what about input?

Now and then we all find ourselves dealing with %#@$&, better known as jerks or, to be truly polite, difficult people.

The Talmud says, “We do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are.” Further, it’s often as we are that particular day, or even minute, and even as we change, minute to minute, so do others.

There’s lots of good information on identifying and dealing with jerks in the article; also, here are four of my favorite MAP attitudes that have helped myself and others over the years.

• Life happens, people react and act out, but that doesn’t mean you have to let their act in.
• Consider the source of the comment before considering the comment, then let its effect on you be in direct proportion to your respect for that source.
• Use mental imagery to defuse someone’s effect on you. This is especially useful against intimidation. Do it by having your mental image of the person be one that strips power symbols and adds amusement. (Give me a call if you want my favorite, it’s a bit too rude for a business blog, but has worked well for many people.)

And, finally, the one I hold uppermost in my mind

At least some of “them” consider me a jerk — and at times they are probably correct.