Home Leadership Turn Archives Me RampUp Solutions  
 

  • Categories

  • Archives
 

Entrepreneurs: Young, Wealthy, Alone and Lonely

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

www.flickr.com/photos/29074894@N05/4733118093/Successful startups have spawned thousands of wealthy, young, predominantly male, workers who spend the majority of their daily 24 hours on a computer programming, gaming and surfing.

Additionally, more often than not, if they aren’t on their computer they’re doing the same stuff on their cell phone.

Most have little social life and fewer real-world social skills; more comfortable interacting with their buddies than with someone of the opposite sex.

Over the last few years ‘entrepreneur’ has come to mean anyone starting any kind of business.

The abundance and easy access to a myriad of Internet tools combined with the power of social media marketing makes it simple to start and run a business, whether it’s all online or has a real-world presence.

The combination forms a powerful attraction to another type of entrepreneur in Silicon Valley.

Josephine” — a local prostitute — arranges a collection of t-shirts across the table. They’re emblazoned with phrases like “Winter is Coming” and “Geeks Make Better Lovers.” She wears them in her online ads to catch the eye of the area’s well-off engineers and programmers.

“I’m trying to communicate to them that I understand a little bit what it’s like to be techy, nerdy, geeky,” she says. There’s another thing Josephine and her clients have in common: Like many of the techies she caters to, Josephine views herself as an entrepreneur. (…)”I’m quoting Belle de Jour, who did Secret Diary of a Call Girl, but you know, you sell the strength of your arms when you dig a hole. Selling our bodies — which everyone thinks of as this big scary thing — anyone who has a job that requires labor does that.”

I don’t see this as a bad thing, as long as pimps, drugs and coercion are not present and the cops seem to agree.

Kyle Oki of the San Jose Police Department, works on San Jose’s Human Trafficking Task Force, which focuses on stopping coerced prostitution. He sees technology as one of the sex trade’s biggest growth drivers.

Some of the women have day jobs, but not all.

“I consider the sex work that I do my career,” Siouxsie says. “I would like the podcast to be a vehicle to really humanize sex work and have people see that I am just a girl trying to make a living and pursue the American dream.”

What I do consider sad is that most of the guys don’t have a clue to handling themselves in social situations.

Stryker’s a comics fan with tattoos of molecules on her neck who considers herself a natural-born nerd, and is happy to “train” geeky clients on how to interact with those they’re smitten with. “You explain it to them in a way that’s like a formula,” she says. “Then they say ‘ohhhh, math. It’s math. Eventually if I plug these things into the formula, it will work.’

Sad as well is the story of YouTube celebrities Jenna Marbles and her ex Max Weisz.

They both say the work is lonely. “Luckily, I have a buddy now who holds my camera for me,” Mr. Weisz said.

Ms. Mourey, on the other hand, still operates the camera by herself. She is adjusting to living alone in a city where, for all her Internet fame, she has few friends and rarely goes out.

Like lots of other YouTube personalities, Ms. Mourey said, “for the most part, we all just stay in our houses, alone, making videos.”

Your twenties used to be a time to learn about yourself in relation to other people; develop interpersonal skills that would last a lifetime and form relationships that would do the same.

It makes me wonder what kind of future life these kids will live.

Flickr image credit: 22Lauren

If the Shoe Fits: Tough Questions

Friday, April 5th, 2013

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

5726760809_bf0bf0f558_mAsk any recruiter or manager who has been around for awhile and they’ll tell you there is only one guarantee when it comes to talent: supply and demand are always at odds.

The danger is highest for those to whom hiring is newest and founders can be especially vulnerable.

Obviously, founders and others in a startup are excited and high on what they are creating or they wouldn’t be there.

And therein lays the danger.

In the heat of competition from other startups and the excitement of converting the candidate to their vision interviewers forget or avoid asking certain questions.

Worse, if the candidate is super-hot or possesses badly needed skills interviewers often avoid asking anything that might spoil the deal or turn the candidate off.

But it is of little use to hire even extraordinary talent if they don’t stay or bring in someone who will trash the culture and tear the team apart.

Which questions are most often ignored?

The tough questions, which are, by definition, any question to which you don’t want to hear the answer.

Simply stated, tough questions are the ones that bring a negative answer when you want a positive one and vice versa—in effect killing the deal.

Here are some sample tough questions and their potentially deal-killing answers:

  • Q: Does the project turn you on?
    A: Not particularly.
  • Q: Then why are you here?
    A: I heard I could make a lot of money and get a ton of stock options.
  • Q: What do you find attractive about the position?
    A: The perks are awesome.
  • Q: Do you like our location?
    A: Well, it’s about an hour from where I live.
  • Q: How soon after accepting can you start?
    A: I’m in the middle of a project and would have to finish, and I’d like to take a couple of weeks off—say, about three or four months.

Money questions are often a minefield.

  • Q: What kind of compensation package do you want?
    A: Well, I just got a raise, a promotion, and a large stock grant and currently I have six weeks of vacation, and I’d like to improve on that.
  • Q: Our salary range goes to $100,000.
    A: Oh, I’m currently making 95 and have a review due in a couple of weeks.

The important thing to keep in mind about tough questions is that if the response kills the deal or raises serious red flags you are better off to know it sooner rather than later, before you spend time crafting an offer or having to contend with a hire who damages the company.

There are other important benefits from asking though questions.

Bringing potential problems out in the open gives you the opportunity to solve them, but first you have to identify them.

Finally, the discussion itself is valuable.

You learn more about a person’s priorities, ethical structure, style, and personality when discussing difficulties and solving them is the beginning of the bond that is the basis for the most productive relationships.

Image credit: HikingArtist

If the Shoe Fits: Long-term Success Means Being Open

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

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

5726760809_bf0bf0f558_mYou recognized a need or a problem and had an idea for a solution.

You started your company based on that idea.

You attracted a team and customers because your idea worked.

Now what?

Early success doesn’t always translate to long(er)-term success.

Why?

Because one-product companies don’t prosper long-term.

Extending and expanding product uses based on customer feedback will provide further growth, but for longer-term success you want additional products.

The best new products will address your current market place.

Why?

Because your current client base knows and trusts you, so they will be more willing to try a new product from you.

And this is where many founders go astray.

They assume new product ideas will come from them, another senior manager or a senior developer, instead of allowing ideas to bubble up from anybody on their staff.

Which is why they are so surprised when a lower ranking staffer resigns to do a startup that plays to their market.

Where is your next idea coming from?

Image credit: HikingArtist

A World I Won’t Live In

Monday, March 4th, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/igorschwarzmann/6243421484/Two stories today made me really happy.

Happy that I won’t be around to see the world that the Silicon Valley mentality is working frantically to make happen. (I say ‘mentality’ because startups are all over as is the mindset described.)

It’s a world of instant solutions, from quasi-immortality, postmortem tweets from soon-to-be-launched LivesOn, to futurist Ayesha Khanna’s idea for smart contact lenses that would make homeless people disappear from view—out of sight/out of mind.

Solutionists err by assuming, rather than investigating, the problems they set out to tackle. Given Silicon Valley’s digital hammers, all problems start looking like nails, and all solutions like apps.

And then there is Seesaw, which allows you to “crowdsource absolutely every decision in your life” and practically guarantees siloed, homogenized attitudes over the long-term.

The drive seems to be to avoid thinking in general, let alone any of the less comfortable deep thinking required to mature and develop anything vaguely resembling wisdom.

Leszek Kolakowski argued that, given that we are regularly confronted with equally valid choices where painful ethical reflection is in order, being inconsistent is the only way to avoid becoming a doctrinaire ideologue who sticks to an algorithm. For Kolakowski, absolute consistency is identical to fanaticism.

Or as Emerson said long before the rise of today’s technology, “A foolish Consistency is the hobgoblins of little minds, adored by little statesmen, philosophers, and divines. With consistency, a great soul simply has nothing to do.”

The main problem with so many innovators is that they want to solve problems with an algorithm, which ignores the entire messy human equation; much like medicine desperately wants to believe that one-dose-fits-all.

Nor, in the rush to innovate, do they give much thought as to the longer-term effects of their miracles.

The interactive dialog provided by digital media was hailed as a way to draw millions more into the dialog, which sounds great until you look at the real effect of negative comments on stories.

Comments from some readers, our research shows, can significantly distort what other readers think was reported in the first place. (…) The results were both surprising and disturbing. Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself.

Turns out it’s not so much the comment, but the tone that has the greatest effect.

So. No discussion, no disagreement within your little world, no ethical dilemmas, no deep thinking, mental struggle, stretching or growing.

Maybe no innovation.

Is this the world in which you want to live?

Flickr image credit: Igor Schwarzmann

Entrepreneurs: Choose Your Type

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68751915@N05/6869768383/

Do you read Agnes? A few days ago she asked her friend if she was superstitious; when her friend said not often Agnes told her she was sortofstitious. Agnes then made an over-the-top superstitious comment and her friend said she was megastitious.

The wordplay got me thinking.

In reality, most entrepreneurs are superpreneurs or they won’t make any headway.

Then there are the megapreneurs who manage to innovate, create successful companies and then do it again (think Tony Hsieh) or stay in the same place and keep innovating (think Steve Jobs, the Google Guys or Intuit’s Scott Cook).

However, there are still plenty of sortofpreneurs, who create me-too businesses (think daily deals), that stand little chance of success (although they often get funding), instead of real innovation.

They have may have the passion of a superpreneur, but in their rush to riches they want to skate—not innovate, i.e.,

  • not solve a problem that needs solving or create something that nobody even knows they want;
  • not provide real value to stakeholders; and
  • not create an entity that provides jobs and futures to its people.

It’s not that sortofpreneurs can’t become superpreneurs, but to do so they need to give up (relatively) instant gratification and be willing to both slog and pivot as necessary.

A tall order for someone who is in it for the money.

Flickr image credit: 401(K) 2013

Entrepreneurs: Older is Better

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/moonlightbulb/4871952762/

Yet another study validates what many of us who work around entrepreneurs believe, i.e., startups aren’t just the province of the young.

That’s right; experience matters.

The best entrepreneurs are ones who work in their field first, gaining valuable real-world knowledge and experience for a decade or more. (We heard exactly the same thing from Google’s startup acquisition guy).

Every year of life improves an entrepreneur’s chances up until 40, but they don’t diminish thereafter.

What else is needed?

You need to be open-minded, flexible, able to pivot in a heartbeat. You need to be agreeable… You don’t need IQ as it is traditionally measured; you do need the ability to recognize patterns.

And only enough ego to avoid being trampled.

Older entrepreneurs have an advantage because they’ve

  • know they are entitled to nothing;
  • failed and lived through it;
  • seen a variety of economies up, down and around;
  • recognize that great ideas come from all types and all levels;
  • can recognize and a**hole from a mile away;
  • won’t sacrifice the culture no matter how good s/he is; and, finally,
  • they know that good or bad this, too, will pass.

Hat tip to EMANIO‘s KG Charles-Harris for sending me the link.

Flickr image credit: Selena N. B. H.

Entrepreneurs: Lessons from South Park

Thursday, January 31st, 2013

http://www.flickr.com/photos/popculturegeek/7640804586/

If you listen to the content industries, they are being killed by disruptive technologies, but is that true?

Not according to Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who have built an empire on content, with no consideration for the so-called disruptive platforms that have shown up over the last two decades. Originally created as shorts that went viral on the Internet, South Park became a series in 1997 making its creators multimillionaires and Comedy Central a force to be reckoned with.

“Disruption is overrated,” Stone said. “If you tell good stories, the platforms are sort of beside the point. We made the most analog thing you can think of, a play at the Eugene O’Neill Theater, and it worked out as well as anything we have ever done.”

He went on to suggest that each time new a distribution avenue opens, it has become a window of opportunity for their content.

Stone and Parker’s success was built on prescience, they negotiated a 50-50 split on all digital revenue before digital revenue meant anything, and patience, they keep control by investing their own money so they can take their time with new projects.

“Owning your own stuff means that you control not only the content, but the life you are living while you are producing it.”

There are worse things than being frugal and growing organically.

Like being forced into an early exit or excessive growth to give your investors their return.

Join me tomorrow for a look at the lengths one company went to in order to put the brakes on its explosive growth.

Flickr image credit: Pop Culture Geek

If the Shoe Fits: Antidote to Pain

Friday, January 25th, 2013

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

5726760809_bf0bf0f558_mWhether you’re looking for funding, creating a website or presenting to a potential customer, you would be wise to remember the words of Kon Leong, co-founder, president and chief executive of ZL Technologies.

“You have to present your story in their context, not yours.”

In Real Estate sales it’s well-known that only three things matter, location, location, location.

When creating an executive summary or presenting to investors only three things matter, market, market, market. Yet founders tend fill up the space or spend the time on how cool their technology or impressive their team.

When building a website, whether B2B or B2C, only three things matter, WIFM, WIFM, WIFM (what’s in it for me), but too often the focus is on the coolness of the product with the customer benefits almost an afterthought.

In all cases the same thing underlies what matters—pain.

Identify the pain, communicate how your product or service makes the hurt go away and they will buy.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Entrepreneurs: Where There’s a Will…

Thursday, January 24th, 2013

 

MilkandHoney shoesLast week I told you about an entrepreneur who insisted that a new winery was a business, not a startup and why I thought that was ridiculous.

Based on his thoughts, Zappos was not a startup nor was it scalable, but I’m sure that founder Tony Hsieh and acquirer Amazon have more than a billion reasons to disagree.

Now comes Milk& Honey, another startup that sells shoes online—a business using e-commerce; not exactly revolutionary, but one that is scalable and, once it proves itself, a prime acquisition target for someone like Zappos/Amazon.

In Ms. Howard’s case, that meant starting a business with her sister, Ilissa Howard, 39, in a field where neither had any business experience: fashion.

Make that two fields. Milk & Honey Shoes, their shoe company that allows women to design their own stilettos and pumps with the click of a mouse, is also an e-commerce business despite the fact that the sisters had zero tech expertise when they began.

Yes, they added a major tweak so that customers can design their own shoes, but even that isn’t original, Shoes of Prey is a direct competitor and Nike and Converse do it for sneakers.

What’s more, the sisters did the original funding from their savings; Milk & Honey, started in 2011, has already doubled sales, the company is profitable and they are now looking for investors.

Just as entrepreneurs come from many backgrounds, startups come in many flavors.

It’s a good lesson that applying labels and limits to human creativity, let alone human will, is a losing proposition at least 99% of the time.

Flickr image credit: Milk & Honey Shoes

 

If the Shoe Fits: The Real World

Friday, January 18th, 2013

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

5726760809_bf0bf0f558_mYet again, the startup world is changing.

I’ve watched it morph many times over the last 30 years, but what I find different this time is what I can only call entrepreneurial stupidity—a combination of arrogance, myopia and ignorance.

I don’t think it’s too widespread, but when you come head-to-head with it it tends to bring you up short.

“Jaime,” an entrepreneur with whom I, who has a B2B subscription startup, attended an event that had entrepreneurs presenting to investors.

He was highly offended because one of the presenters was looking for investment to start a winery.

Jaime said that a winery was a business, not a startup, nor was it scalable; when I disagreed he quoted Steve Blank to me, “a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.”

First of all, in the post, Steve says, this is “a new definition of why startups exist” and as to the scalable part, someone had better tell Naked Wines and its portfolio of startup wineries that they aren’t scalable.

It reminded me of a young woman I spoke with in 2000 when I was still a headhunter.

We were talking about startups and I said something to the effect that I’d been working with startups since the Seventies; she disgustedly informed me that startups were a function of the Internet.

I guess someone forgot to tell Hewlett and Packard, Steve Jobs and dozens of others, and, more recently, Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry, the two guys who started $100 million, 100 employee Method cleaning products,  that their companies weren’t startups.

The lesson here is that while some startups may go where no person has gone before, most will leverage the existing adding tweaks and new twists to add value.

Image credit: HikingArtist

RSS2 Subscribe to
MAPping Company Success

Enter your Email
Powered by FeedBlitz
About Miki View Miki Saxon's profile on LinkedIn

Clarify your exec summary, website, etc.

Have a quick question or just want to chat? Feel free to write or call me at 360.335.8054

The 12 Ingredients of a Fillable Req

CheatSheet for InterviewERS

CheatSheet for InterviewEEs

Give your mind a rest. Here are 4 quick ways to get rid of kinks, break a logjam or juice your creativity!

Creative mousing

Bubblewrap!

Animal innovation

Brain teaser

The latest disaster is here at home; donate to the East Coast recovery efforts now!

Text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation or call 00.733.2767. $10 really really does make a difference and you'll never miss it.

And always donate what you can whenever you can

The following accept cash and in-kind donations: Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, Red Cross, World Food Program, Save the Children

*/ ?>

About Miki

About KG

Clarify your exec summary, website, marketing collateral, etc.

Have a question or just want to chat @ no cost? Feel free to write 

Download useful assistance now.

Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.

Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
while $10 a month has exponential power.
Always donate what you can whenever you can.

The following accept cash and in-kind donations:

Web site development: NTR Lab
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.