This post is for all the entrepreneurs and small biz owners who constantly tell me that the best (only) way to reach a large audience and move product is via Facebook.
It hasn’t been for many companies, such as Gamestop, J.C. Penney, Nordstrom, 1-800-FLOWERS, Delta Air Lines, Diane Von Furstenberg Studio and Seven for all Mankind.
Even Gap, which, together with its Banana Republic and Old Navy divisions, has 5.6 million Facebook fans, stopped selling on Facebook.
These are companies with abundant talent and dollars to invest in selling online, but they are opting not to do it on Facebook.
For young companies and small biz there is a major lesson here.
“It was basically just another place to shop for all the stuff already available on the retailer websites. I give so-called F-commerce an ‘F.’” –Wade Gerten, chief executive officer of social media developer 8thBridge
If there is one lesson that should have come down from the dot com era it is that visitors don’t necessarily translate to buyers.
This isn’t surprising if you look at people’s actions in the real world.
People of all ages spend time at the mall whether to eat, hang out with friends or for indoor recreation in bad weather, but that doesn’t mean they shop and even if they shop it doesn’t mean they buy.
This isn’t to say that you can’t build a store on Facebook and make it a success, but you need to think about whether that is the best use of your resources.
Before committing a large portion, let alone all, of your resources to build on the Facebook platform you should consider two inescapable facts.
People do hang out with friends on Facebook, but it is to socialize, rather than shop; and
you have no control on policies, such as privacy and information sharing, that garnering more and more attention from even casual users.
I’m not suggesting that you ignore Facebook and other social media sites, rather that you recognize them as great places to build your brand as opposed to selling your products.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
Most people consider it wrong to take something, whether tangible or intangible, from someone’s home without asking—it’s called stealing.
Most people will be highly offended, if not downright pissed off, if someone goes through their cell phone, contacts their friends or reads their texts and emails.
I’m not referring to sleazy porn sites, but to the biggest names in mobile and social, the ones that are role models; names like Google Android, Twitter, Foursquare, Apple i-Whatever (Apple claims they prohibit it, but Yelp, Gowalla, Hipster and Foodspotting all do it) and a host of startups and app makers.
The address book in smartphones — where some of the user’s most personal data is carried — is free for app developers to take at will, often without the phone owner’s knowledge.
Heck, appropriating data was actually industry standard, until they were caught, that is.
Now they all claim to be changing their practice and giving users notice when they take personal data.
Does that give you a warm feeling or do you still feel violated the way you would if your home was broken into? (Most people spend more time with their phone than their home.)
Do you trust them to be upfront/authentic/transparent/honest in the future?
Or do you wonder what else they are doing that they haven’t mentioned and probably won’t unless/until they are caught.
Trust is fragile and difficult to fix once it’s broken.
Even oblivious Americans are starting to notice.
Option Sanity™ is trustworthy.
Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock allocation process; so easy a CEO can do it.
Warning.
Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.”
Use only as directed.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.
Did you start your company to become a millionaire in a few years?
If so, you’re in for a rude awakening.
If candidates’ reason for joining is to become rich when the company exits should raise more than red flags; it should ring every alarm you have and send you running for the nearest exit.
That’s true no matter how badly you need his skills or how much the team likes him.
Candidates who join because they believe they’ll be millionaires in a few years are walking time bombs and hiring them could be your worst nightmare.
Why?
Because, as the man once said, “It ain’t gonna happen.”
This isn’t about the well know statistic that half of all startups fail (they don’t), but it is based on some interesting stats I came across in a blog called the “MarketInfoGuide” sponsored by China Research and Intelligence, a market research and consulting firm in Shanghai.
Slide sold for 200 million dollars to Google, but the employees made almost nothing, because so little was left for the common stock shareholders after the preferred shareholders were paid back.
I bounced it off Matt Weeks to see how solid the information and numbers were.
“Math is wrong regarding the participating preferred, but the main point is still pretty accurate… don’t join a startup to make a million in 3 yrs.”
Also, some phrasing slants the text in a decidedly negative way, but that doesn’t change the stats.
So why should you start a company?
To solve a problem, make a difference in people’s lives, maybe even help solve one or another of society’s ills and create a happy place to work.
Why should you join a startup?
To work on the bleeding edge of technology, contribute to something amazing, be challenged, grow exponentially, be happy.
Whichever side of the table you are on remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day, Google was founded in 1998 and IPOed six years later; and Facebook was founded eight years ago in 2004.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
Bosses hiring for startups (or existing companies) wax lyrical on the benefits of hiring “stars” and are willing to jump through almost any hoop to get one.
Those of you who crave stars would do well to read the story of Jeremy Lin, who plays for the NY Knicks in the NBA.
Nobody considered Lin a star or even a potential star.
He was cut in December by the Golden State Warriors, his hometown team, after one season in which he rarely left the bench. The Warriors were intrigued enough to sign him but not enough to keep him. The Houston Rockets gave Lin a quick look and cut him.
Of course, his coaches didn’t play him, so they never learned what he could do.
The Knicks almost made the same mistake.
Lin started with two strikes against him; he is Chinese-American and graduated from Harvard—he doesn’t fit “the profile.”
In spite of superb high school playing he received no scholarship offers.
Similar scenarios play out every day in hiring decisions across industries and around the country.
In doing so managers walk by some of the best talent available.
How many Jeremy Lins have you missed?
How many of them now work for your competition?
Option Sanity™ recognizes stars-to-be
Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock allocation process. So easy a CEO can do it.
Warning.
Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.” Use only as directed.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.
As an article on in Forbes points out, your culture is the only part of a company that can’t be duplicated and is, therefore, your biggest and most sustainable asset—if you take the time and invest the energy to make it more than great-sounding words.
While the article doesn’t break new ground it did offer up a great image bite that may resonate with you.
All music is made from the same 12 notes. All culture is made from the same five components: behaviors, relationships, attitudes, values and environment. It’s the way those notes or components are put together that makes things sing.
It points out that the reason that culture can’t be duplicated is context, meaning that two people arranging the same components will have a different result.
Even identical twins won’t have identical MAP because MAP is the result of perception, not just experience.
The problem is building a culture that sings, whether concerto, R&B, pop or rap, takes effort, entrepreneurs are always in a time crunch and culture gets pushed to the back burner.
When that happens just remember that when reality requires you to pivot, when success requires you to staff up quickly, when the bugs surface or your competition is killing you the strength to overcome will be found in your culture—or not.
Don’t kid yourself, ‘but me’ is what makes the world go round.
‘But me’ is why people get married; fly in a plane; text while driving; rob a bank or a myriad of other actions—both good and bad.
Heck, if it wasn’t for ‘but me’ they probably wouldn’t even get out of bed.
It is ‘but me’ that feeds the roots of entrepreneurism—from the hobbyist who dreams of turning passion into enterprise to the serial entrepreneurs on their umpteenth startup.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
I seem to write too many stories about bosses who don’t walk their talk, which, I realize, is an overused, hackneyed expression.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not an accurate one.
Here’s the background and I have to admit it really floored me.
“Mark” is a thirty-something engineer and was the third person to join 23 year old “Jim’s” startup early in 2011.
Out of several offers he chose Jim’s. He’d read and heard a lot about the values that Millennials demanded and Jim’s description of his values and the culture he was building based on them closely matched Marks own.
Things were going well and they had grown to 6 people when they landed on the radar of a major corporation.
Near the end of the year Mark heard a rumor that the company was being acquired.
When he asked Jim if it was true he said it was and that they hoped to keep the staff.
Mark was flabbergasted; not because Jim was selling, but because the acquiring company’s culture was known to be diametrically opposed to almost all of Mark’s stated values.
When Mark said as much Jim said that it was an amazing offer and that he would be a fool to turn it down. Although they could easily raise an investment round, his holdings were far more valuable with the acquisition than if they were diluted by new investors.
Mark asked Jim if he had meant anything he said during the interview or if it was all just BS.
Jim’s response really blew me away.
Mark said he shrugged and said “that was then and this is now.”
What do you think? Was Jim justified? What would you do?
Several people I’ve talked with recently have quoted from Eric Ries’s The Lean Start Up with almost the same religious fervor people espouse Guy Kawasaki or Steve Jobs.
I haven’t read it yet, but after reading a brief column in WSJ’s About Tech Europe and watching the video I realized that Ries probably doesn’t appreciate that kind of blind devotion any more than Kawasaki or Jobs and is quick to say so.
Much of what he says is common sense,
“If 10 people in a row hate my product is that statistically significant? It is not conclusive evidence, but it is certainly telling you something.”
If you have 100 customers you can already say what percentage are paying. If it is zero then I can already start to be a bit worried about the model.”
which is often the easiest to rationalize or ignore.
Of course, you ignore it at your peril.
If you have read The Lean Startup please share your thoughts below; I’ll share mine after I’ve read it.
The media loves to focus on young entrepreneurs and Internet startups, most of which offer little real value and solve few problems—other than how to acquire more stuff or a greater online reputation. (Sarcasm intended.)
However, there are exciting things happening that look to solve real problems using real science in totally innovative ways.
One is an effort, driven by scientists, that is pushing to end the scientific elitism fostered by exclusive periodicals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine. It is a movement towards a kind of “open source” science that is gaining traction within the scientific community itself. There’s been an explosion of open access archives on which a scientist can not only share research results, but also find research connections and collaborators they would normally never meet.
Dr. Michael Nielsen and other advocates for “open science” say science can accomplish much more, much faster, in an environment of friction-free collaboration over the Internet.
The DIY movement has made itself felt in many areas of life, but I find none more fascinating than its application to biological research and is another push towards more open scientific endeavor.
“I want to generate the sort of tools that make it easy to do DIYbio at home.” –Cathal Garvey, Cork, Ireland, inventor of the DremelFuge, a small centrifuge that can be fabricated by a 3-D printer, who offers the plans free of charge via the Net.
But the pièce de résistance comes from the National Science Foundation, which announced last summer the founding of the Innovation Corps, a program to turn the scientists of academia into entrepreneurs. This is not a fluff piece or election year propaganda, nor are they twenty-somethings locked in their dorm rooms coding all night. NSF recruited serial entrepreneur and now professor Steve Blank to teach the program—and a very tough program it is.
These weren’t 22-year olds who wanted to build a social shopping web site. Each of the teams selected by the NSF had a Principal Investigator – a research scientist who was a University professor; an Entrepreneurial Lead – a graduate student working in the Investigator’s lab; and a mentor from their local area who had business and/or domain expertise. And they were hard at work at some real science.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
Last summer I wrote about the damage done by misrepresenting the real facts of your company culture.
Today I want you to think about the damage that can be done by misrepresenting your past—as was done by Yale football coach Tom Williams.
Williams said he had chosen to pursue a career in professional football at the expense of a possible Rhodes scholarship — and never regretted the decision. Witt leaned on his coach for advice, and eventually decided to play in the game. Yale was crushed, 45-7.
But Williams’s story was a lie.
Bottom line, Yale lost the game, Witt lost the scholarship, and Williams lost his job.
It doesn’t matter if the lie is large, like Williams’ was, or a minor tweaking of the facts; these are personal lies and they go beyond damaging cultural touchstones, they damage lives.
Too many entrepreneurs believe there is wiggle room as long as the words or actions further company goals or land rare and needed talent.
These entrepreneurs are willing to sacrifice not only everything, but everybody, to their vision.
Are you one of them?
Option Sanity™ isn’t for liars
Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock process. So easy a CEO can do it.
Warning.
Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.”
Option Sanity™ is not recommended for micromanagers, manipulators, or politicos. Founders and CEOs with large egos, or a sense of entitlement, should avoid prolonged exposure to Option Sanity™.
Use only as directed.
Excitement and a strong feeling of virtue are expected; contact your Option Sanity™ rep at the first sign of smugness or if you experience any difficulty explaining Option Sanity™ to others.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.
Most people consider it wrong to take something, whether tangible or intangible, from someone’s home without asking—it’s called stealing.
Did you start your company to become a millionaire in a few years?
The media loves to focus on young entrepreneurs and Internet startups, most of which offer little real value and solve few problems—other than how to acquire more stuff or a greater online reputation. (Sarcasm intended.)
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