Up and Running Blog

December 2009

Despair Humor Success

by Steve Lange on December 30, 2009

Here on the Business In General blog, and at Bplans.com, we are committed to optimistic support of entrepreneurship and the startup and growth of business, especially small- and medium-sized businesses.

I’m not Pollyanna-ish about our business environment, however. It is unrealistic to think, or even hope, that a few short months of so-called recovery, including a pre-and-post-holiday spend-a-thon, can repair the damage caused by a decade of questionable high-finance economic activities. It is a time of despair for the tens of millions of people who have suffered the devastating impact of the current depression.

Still, humans are resilient, hence the old, often paraphrased saying, If I didn’t laugh, I’d surely cry. And with that sense of humor and appreciation of the absurd, comes opportunity. Despair.com is one company which has succeeded in business by encouraging us to poke fun at our adversities, to laugh, albeit cynically, when we are most suffering from social and economic hardship.

I discovered them early in the last decade when they released a series of Demotivational posters — humorous send-ups of those smarmy, pretentious posters that were supposed to make us all happy about working harder for less.

Since then they have added greeting cards, calendars, more Demotivator posters, laptop computer skins, t-shirts, a Pessimist’s “The-glass-is-half-empty” mugs and glassware, and more. This year they are offering “The Rise of Mr. Ponzi“, the long-suppressed autobiography of Charles Ponzi, the great-granddaddy of financial and investment wizards.

Despair.com has shown that opportunity and success are possible, when the prospects seem worst, even as they busily make fun of their own industriousness and schadenfreud. Go to Despair.com. Look over their site and their offerings. If you cry, it could be because you are laughing so hard.

Steve Lange
Palo Alto Software

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Is the Apple Tablet an eBook Reader?

by Tim Berry on December 30, 2009

Here I was thinking that the tablet computer might finally reach a point of critical mass, with an Apple tablet. But now the latest rumor, on VentureBeat, is that it’s not a tablet. It’s an eBook reader. 

I should emphasize: That’s a rumor. As the buzz has it, Apple’s going to announce something on Jan. 26. It’s bought the domain name “islate.com” and pictures have shown up in a few obscure places. The one here appears on the VentureBeat story by Paul Boutin.

He says:

I believe this for one simple reason: After years of false starts, the market for e-readers is finally hot. Amazon claims eBooks outsold paper books in total dollars spent at Amazon on Christmas Day. Book and magazine publishers are the last holdouts against a fully digital media world. And although their revenues are down, they can still get people to spend $10 on a novel in digital format.

Either way, I love the way the rumors develop and how trends build. Here it is the last workday of 2009. Tablet computers have been around for five or six years, and eBook readers for more than 10. What makes critical mass? Is it the major player jumping in? But Sony’s been struggling with an eBook reader for several years now, and my first tablet computer was made by Toshiba. Those are big names.

Both of these technologies are very attractive to me. But I have to admit, as an owner and user of both a Kindle and a tablet computer, I’d rather have my tablet computer read eBooks when I want it to, but I also want to take notes, watch videos and browse the Web. And my iPhone with the Kindle software does a great job as an eBook reader already.

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Tablet Computers Trending (Again)

by Tim Berry on December 29, 2009

With the high-tech world all abuzz about tablet computing, I enjoyed Steve King’s Lessons from OLPC post today, about the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative and its version of the tablet computer

Steve put the illustration shown here on his Small Business Labs blog post. Here’s his summary of the design specifications:

Their new tablet will be made of a single sheet of flexible plastic that will be unbreakable. The hook on the corner will be used for carrying the PC and the price goal is less than $100. Low-cost components mean less power than a full-sized PC, but plenty of juice for almost all PC users.

I’ve been a happy user of tablet computers for several years now, and I’m eager for the Apple tablet to appear because I want to own one. I’ve been using Motion Computing tablets mostly.

But Steve’s right. One of the most interesting developments in computing is the low-cost student laptop. Even now, it’s because of OLPC that we can get decent netbooks for $300 or less. This is a trend worth watching in the future.

(Illustration courtesy of Steve King, Smallbizlabs)

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On Gooses and Golden Eggs and Nitpicky Savings

by Tim Berry on December 28, 2009

It’s hard, as businesses grow, to cross the divide between simple enthusiasm and normal management. Things like time clocks and cost cutting can seem like good ideas – management – but end up as very bad ideas. Buzz killers. And startups thrive on buzz.

Over the long holiday weekend I caught Can a single bottle of soda decimate your company? Absolutely. on VentureBeat. Author Steve Blank nails it as he describes how a growing company shot itself in the foot by cutting off the free drinks and free snacks for the engineers. It made sense to financial management, but sparked an exodus of the best engineers.

But the damage had been done. The most talented and senior engineers looked up from their desks and noticed the company was no longer the one they loved. It had changed. And not in a way they were happy with.

The best engineers quietly put the word out that they were available, and in less than month the best and the brightest began to drift away.

This is an important reminder: a good story, well told. Spreadsheets are great, but you have to look up from the numbers sometimes, to see the whole picture.

But it’s not that simple either. We can all pause for a moment and feel superior to those small-minded bean counters who made that dumb mistake. And then we need to remember that the beans also add up. Somebody has to manage. It’s not like companies don’t go under for lack of financial management too. For every horror story like this one there’s at least one horror story that goes just the opposite way, another company, just as iconic as this one, that didn’t change structure and management style as it grew. And went under because nobody managed the money.

After reading that post, scroll down through the 30 or so comments. For example:

Once I started to work my way up into decision-making, I realized that what the market (i.e. customers) want rarely jives (sic) with the creative vision of engineers. The challenge of managing engineers is gently coaxing them into pivoting from their vision and create something that customers actually want. Not to mention the severe challenge of actually figuring out what the market wants.

And then this one, sort of a response:

You expanded CFO’s and HR types to ALL C-level execs. CFO’s and HR are the most time-sucking, meeting-causing, value-detracting bunch in any company. Even if they worked for free, they would not be worth the hassle.

Gulp. There are no easy algorithms for all of this. It’s all a matter of each specific case. The illustration here is supposed to remind you of nickels and dimes. But they add up.

(Photo credit: Jean Valley/Shutterstock)

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The Blog Week in Review — 12/23/09

by Jay Snider on December 23, 2009

Do You Undervalue Marketing You Can’t Measure? — Tim Berry reminds us of the days pre-Web, when we had to rely on less measurable marketing tactics.

What is your business really good at? — Define your core competency and focus on it to get the best marketing results.

Be Passionate and Be Prepared — An entrepreneur shares his experience incorporating martial arts lessons and business planning.

Fear of bad ideas — Seth Godin says you can’t have  good ideas unless you’re willing to weed through some bad ones.

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A Good Time to Pull Back and Reflect

by Tim Berry on December 23, 2009

This is the middle of the first of two holiday weeks. This is a good time to pull back a bit, reflect on things from a different perspective. It’s really good that our various religions, cultures and traditions remind us, every once in a while, to slow down and think. Especially this year, which has been a tough one for a lot of us, an especially difficult year for small business, entrepreneurship, economics, health care and politics.

Let’s pause a bit from normal business. Let’s think about what matters most, whatever that is, for each one of us. And then ask whether the way we spend ourselves–time, effort, stress, dreams–matches what’s most important to us.

One thing I’d like to suggest is looking for the common denominators we can all agree on. Like compassion. That ought not to be controversial. Especially during the holidays.

And thank you for reading this blog. I like writing it, and I’m grateful that my readership has grown more than 50 percent this year. Thanks for linking here, thanks for tweeting here, and thanks especially for your comments.

(Photo credit: Winter in Yosemite Valley, by Peter Weber, via Shutterstock)

(This is taken from Let he who is WITH sin cast the first blog, on Planning Startups Stories, which I posted Monday.)


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Let Them Down Easy

by Jay Snider on December 22, 2009

The sad truth is that sometimes companies fail.

Maybe there’s no such thing as a good way to let your employees know that you’re closing up shop. But there are decent ways, better ways. Call a company meeting and tell everyone face to face. Have managers pull their teams into smaller meetings to be told.

A great way NOT to do it?

Follow Arrow Trucking’s example. According to TheTrucker.com, Arrow stopped payment on the fuel cards their drivers used to gas up while on the road. So the driver’s first hint that something was wrong was when they found themselves far from home, with no fuel money to get their rigs home.

Others at the company headquarters reported that 200 workers were told today to pack up and go home, according to the Business Pundit.

Owning a business doesn’t automatically make you care about the people who work for you. I’m guessing the officials who had to make the decision to ‘suspend operations’ didn’t do so lightly. And maybe they even did think about all their employees and how they’d feed their families.

But it’s clear they didn’t think particularly hard about how to tell them the news.

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Your Business or Your Life?

by Tim Berry on December 22, 2009

Scene: a business conference, an expert talking about starting a business. The expert gives the good old “passion” pitch, how you have to be ready to sacrifice all for your business: “Either make this business work or die trying.”

A voice from the audience asks, hesitatingly, “Er, are those the only options?”

No. Really, no. It shouldn’t be your business or your life. If you’re serious about your startup, I’d like you to please read my post 10 tips for Saving Your Life From Your Business, on Planning Startups Stories (my main blog).

Here are a couple of my favorites from those 10 tips:

  • Don’t obsess; plan. Don’t wander through the rest of life with business thoughts running through your head like helicopter background noise in your dreams. Take a few deep breaths. To get the business-helicopter-mind out of your head, keep the planning realistic. Planning gets a lot of things out of your head and into the plan. When you wake up at night obsessing, go to your plan. Write it down. Relax, and go back to sleep.
  • Do something you can believe in. It’s not just finding the best business opportunity; it’s finding one you believe in. There’s quality of work as well as quantity, and high quality makes high quantity easier to live with. Make sure that when you take a step back from it, every so often, you can see how what you do made other lives better.

This particular post is special to me. I believe it’s important. Lots of supposed business experts, particularly startup experts, talk about how you have to sacrifice all for your business. I don’t think that’s true.

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Don't Forget the Basics

by Guest Author on December 21, 2009

Social media is all the rage.  Many, many companies are trying to figure out the best way to use these new tools to engage their prospects and customers – whether B2B or B2C.  But before you start blogging, tweeting and facebooking, ask yourself if you have done the basic foundational work that you need to do.

The goal of most social media programs and approaches is to help people find you and find out more about you – as we say with Duct Tape Marketing – it helps to build “know, like and trust”. So when people find you, what are saying to help them get to know you?

Have you told them who your ideal customer is – so that they can figure out if they are a good fit for your organization?  Oh, you don’t want to rule anyone out – so you haven’t clearly articulated your target market  (many companies do this). Well, here’s another way to think about that – if you haven’t ruled anyone out, you also have not stated who should be included. Making the process of trying to find out more about you much for difficult for a prospect.

Have you communicated to a prospect (via your website, blogs or success stories) what your unique value proposition is?  I can tell you for sure that it is not your great service or how well you know your products – those may be strengths, but they are not unique.  And if you are competing on price, then you better be explaining why your costs and therefore your price, is less.  You can sit around with your staff and try to figure out your unique value proposition or you can pick up the phone.  Your current customers will tell you more reasons about why they value working with you than you can possibly dream up by yourself.  Call them. If they are happy, you’ll get great info. If they are unhappy, you’ll get a moment of truth to interact with them and create a new fan.

Have you given them a way to try out your expertise or service? Trial is a great way, if not the best way, to build trust.  If you are selling expertise, maybe it’s a 30-minute conversation and follow-up advice at no charge.  If you are selling a product, figuring out a way for them to try it in a full or limited way will build your credibility.

Finally, have you made the commitment to fit a social media strategy into your marketing calendar – yes calendar.  That list, by month and by week of activities you are doing to build your business.

So before you jump into tactical marketing programs using the newest technology, services and approaches, set back and build the foundation.  Who you want to talk to – the demographics, they way they think and what is important them; what you are going to say to them and how they are going to experience their interaction with you, is as important as ever.

ducttapemarketingbadgeDan Kraus is the president of Leading Results in metro Boston.  They help small businesses to stop wasting money on marketing and start getting business building results through the use of a systematic and predictable marketing approach.  Dan has spent over 20 years in technology marketing and sales and now works as a Duct Tape Marketing coach and as a fractional VP of Marketing for a number of small businesses.  You can learn more about Dan and Leading Results at www.leadingresults.com or by email at dkraus@leadingresults.com

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Good Competition for High-End Startups

by Tim Berry on December 21, 2009

If you’re one of those high-end startups, meaning you’ve got new technology, defensible, with good growth prospects and a credible (to investors) management team, then the new showcase program at TheFunded.com looks to me to be a good opportunity. Tune up your plan and pitch, and take a shot at it.

I’ve posted about TheFunded.com before. I’ve been keeping up with it for several years now. It’s a user-driven compilation or database of startup founders’ responses and reviews of investors. Sign up (it’s free), and then you can browse the database of investors, read reviews, participate in discussions.

What’s really valuable with this is the opportunity to look at potential investors so you can study them first, selecting very carefully, before you start contacting them. Looking for investors is something you should do very carefully. You want to select compatible investors who are likely to have an interest in what you’re doing.

The new showcase program gives startups a chance to put their business in front of people. You submit your company. People vote on whom they want to see. Here’s what the site says about it:

TheFunded.com Showcase lists new startup companies from around the world. Members are invited to vote on companies they like and, once a quarter, companies with the most votes get invited to an exciting event in Silicon Valley. You need to be a member to create a listing. Register here.

The Showcase offers advanced functionality as well. Members can introduce companies they like to investors they know, as well as provide feedback on the pitch. 350 investor introductions have been completed by members. See some of the “graduates” from the Showcase. Enjoy!

Clearly, this isn’t for everybody, and that means not for every startup. If you’ve got a shot at this, you already know who you are. Like the site says: Enjoy!


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