Up and Running Blog

April 2011

Everyone Has Klout

Lessons From a Year at a Startup

by Megan Berry on April 29, 2011

(Note: reposted with permission from Part-Time Perfectionist.)

A year ago I had my first day at Klout. There were five of us, we were sharing a space with four other companies, and we were just about to launch Klout 2.0. Today, there are about 35 of us, we have our own gigantic space, and we just beta launched Klout 3.0. It’s been a crazy, busy, amazing ride and I have never been happier that I decided to join (plus I’m pretty sure this means some of my stock is now vested, so, woot!). So while I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that I have so much more to learn (cheesy, I know), I thought I’d share a few others things I’ve learned along the way.

Everyone Has Klout

1. Culture matters. At a startup it’s not just work, it ends up taking up a lot of your life. If you’re not happy going into the office on Monday (or at least once you’ve had that first cup of coffee), you’re in for trouble. And, as much as this is about loving what you DO, it’s about liking the people you work with, wanting to make awesome things, and this weird thing that develops out of that that is work “culture.” Once upon a time I thought people who worried about work culture were crazy. Now I totally get it. No wonder all those consultants make so much money.

2. Learn from the people around you. I’ve always been a big believer in learning by doing, but, it turns out, it is much less effective and — let me just say it — lamer than learning from smart people who have already gone through this. Or at least smart people who can help you break new ground together. Luckily Klout is filled with smart people. I’m always happiest when I’m learning and Klout has been amazing for that.

Klout3. Influence is hot. I probably didn’t have to tell you that and who knows if it’ll last, but Klout is hot right now because EVERYONE is trying to understand and measure influence. It’s a space I personally find intellectually fascinating and, clearly, I’m not alone. Please hit me up for debates about influence, reputation, trust, and, although I hate the term, personal branding any day of the week.

4. The social media community is amazing. I can’t even begin to count the number of awesome  people I’ve met through Klout and the social media community. Seriously, what a bunch of talented, kind, and funny people. Yes, there are haters out there too, but I try not to waste thought on them.

5. It’s good to be challenged. We’ve had our fair share of debates at Klout and my coworkers will be the first to tell you I don’t shy away from heated discussions. Although I like being right, I’ve discovered that there’s also a lot to be said for being wrong and learning from your mistakes. Perfection is overrated anyway.

There’s actually a lot more I could add in here about the perils of trolls, personal vs. work life, and many other lessons learned, but five is a good number (being the youngest of five kids, I’m quite partial to it) so I’ll stop there. Have you had similar experiences/lessons in your job?

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Women-Led Venture Forum Deadline May 2

by Tim Berry on April 28, 2011

I wish I’d posted this when I first got an email about it, maybe a week ago, but at least there is still time. Applications for the Springboard: 2011 Venture Forum close May 2. Here’s a quote from the announcement:

Springboard’s Venture Forums are designed to promote and showcase investment-ready, high-growth companies led by women.  And after 10 years of presenting over 400 businesses that have raised over $5B in capital, we’ve figured out the secret to overcoming the hurdles startups face when trying to raise capital: building relationships.

If that sounds like you or your company, I can’t say I have personal experience with this, but it sounds good to me.

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What is Your Motivation?

by Susan Solovic on April 28, 2011

Those who are fired with an enthusiastic idea and who allow it to take hold and dominate their thoughts find that new worlds open for them. As long as enthusiasm holds out, so will new opportunities. — Norman Vincent Peale.

Why do you want to go into business for yourself?  It is important to truly understand the answer to this question before you get started.

  • Are you running away from a bad situation with your current employer?
  • Have you been unemployed for a while and you hope by starting a business you can create an income stream?
  • Are you burned out in your current career and desiring to do something different with your life?
  • Do you have a burning desire to start and build a successful business enterprise?
  • Are you committed to do whatever it takes to be a successful entrepreneur?

There are many reasons people give for wanting to start their own business. However, not all of them are good reasons. Your motivation for starting a business plays an important role in your ability to succeed.

For example, if your sole motivation for starting your business is to get away from a job you hate, then you really need to think about your choice. Remember, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence. There is a significant difference in attitude when you are running away from a situation as opposed to running toward an opportunity. The same is true if you are simply hoping self-employment will create an income stream for you because you’ve been unemployed for a while and you don’t see any opportunities on the horizon. You aren’t truly driven toward business ownership, but rather you are pushing yourself into it.

Starting a business requires a huge commitment and it shouldn’t be something you do half-heartedly. I’ve counseled many people who have lost their jobs and have come to me for advice about starting a business. It doesn’t take long for me to identify the ones who are only going through the motions. They don’t have the sparkle in their eye when they talk about their business idea. It’s as if they are describing someone else’s situation rather than their own. I can sense that if another job opportunity popped up, they’d jump at it in a heartbeat. In fact, sometimes they’ll even ask me to let them know if I hear of any job opportunities that might be a good fit for them.  Someone who is genuinely interested in building a small business would never say that. No way.

People who start businesses as a Plan B are the ones who are quick to throw in the towel and close up shop. They don’t have the stamina to stick with their business venture, nurturing it so it grows. Customers and clients can sense the lackluster commitment which doesn’t foster confidence and trust. No one wants to do business with someone who is going to bail once they see a better deal for themselves. Customers and clients want to know you are committed and you have their best interests in mind.

Successful entrepreneurs are driven individuals who are passionate about their business idea. They derive energy from the excitement of building something from scratch. They see opportunities all around them and have a strong desire to control their own destiny. They have an inherent go-for-it attitude, and they are confident they have what it takes to turn their dream into reality.

So, before you make a decision to strike out on your own, question your motivation. Do you truly want to be self-employed?  Are you sincerely motivated to build a business from the ground up?  If you hesitate when you answer, then you should give yourself time for careful consideration.

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You’ve Either Started a Company or you Haven’t

by Tim Berry on April 27, 2011

I Have to apologize to Chris Dixon, because this is his entire post quoted here. I never do that because it feels unfair to the author. But his There are two kinds of people in the world is too good to pass over, or quote from, or riff on. Here’s what he says:

You’ve either started a company or you haven’t. ’Started’ doesn’t mean joining as an early employee, or investing or advising or helping out. It means starting with no money, no help, no one who believes in you (except perhaps your closest friends and family), and building an organization from a borrowed cubicle with credit card debt and nowhere to sleep except the office. It almost invariably means being dismissed by arrogant investors who show up a half hour late, totally unprepared and then instead of saying ‘no’ give you non-committal rejections like ‘we invest at later stage companies.’ It means looking prospective employees in the eyes and convincing them to leave safe jobs, quit everything and throw their lot in with you. It means having pundits in the press and blogs who’ve never built anything criticize you and armchair quarterback your every mistake. It means lying awake at night worrying about running out of cash and having a constant knot in your stomach during the day fearing you’ll disappoint the few people who believed in you and validate your smug doubters.

I don’t care if you succeed or fail, if you are Bill Gates or an unknown entrepreneur who gave everything to make it work but didn’t manage to pull through. The important distinction is whether you risked everything, put your life on the line, made commitments to investors, employees, customers and friends, and tried – against all the forces in the world that try to keep new ideas down – to make something new.”

(Tip of the Hat to Michael Arrington for The Pirate in the Arena, his post today pointing out this one.)

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3 Steps to Getting the Help You Need for Your Business (or Your Life)

by Carol Roth on April 26, 2011

There are a couple of truths related to getting help in business: (i) it is very hard it is to ask for help and (ii) we can’t build our businesses (or our lives) alone. So once you are ready, how do you get the help that you need? Here are three quick steps to getting others to help you (I know, that sounds like an infomercial, but it is really this easy- no Ginzu knives included):

1) Ask, or at Least Have an Answer

If nobody knows what you need, it is pretty hard for them to help you. If you need help, the onus is on you. We have personal, professional, alumni, social and other networks, so use them! Most people are very willing to offer help if they know what the heck you need. How many times have you been in a conversation when someone said, “How can I help you?” and the other party said, “I don’t know?”Know what help you need and be both willing and able to articulate it.

2) Make it Easy

Once you are ready and willing to ask, make it as easy as possible for others to help. Focus on one thing- not five. For example, if you are seeking referrals and have multiple services, only ask for referrals on one service per referring source. People have really short attention spans and if there is too much information or too many choices, the chances are that you will get nothing in return. For referrals, you can choose to focus all of your referrals on your highest margin service or perhaps have different referral sources referring different services, based on which service is most complementary to their business- but each source should just have one call to action.

Also, give specifics. Instead of saying you need “a lawyer”, let your networks know that you are looking to spend $X on a patent attorney that specializes in process patents related to software. The more specific you are, the better your chances are of getting back what you need.

And make sure to remove obstacles. Don’t make the helpers click through links, have to interpret information, or jump through other hoops. Make the route to help as direct as possible and if there are instructions needed, give step by step guidance so that your helper has to do the least amount possible.

3) Be Grateful (Not Greedy)

Last but not least, use your head. Make your “ask” appropriate to the relationship (i.e. don’t ask someone you met an hour ago to lend you their vacation home). Also, pick your battles. People are happy to help, but if you ask constantly, their helpfulness may wane. Make sure you are asking when you really need the help- not just when you are being lazy (hint: if all they have to do is a Google search to help you, then you are being lazy).

And finally, thank them. Help is a privilege, not a right, so acknowledge when someone has gone out of their way, and return the favor or pay it forward when you are able

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2nd Quarter = Prime Time Public Relations

A Little Known Media Exposure Tip

by Todd Brabender on April 25, 2011

As the year moves forward, many businesses and entrepreneurs continue to tweak marketing plans and budgets for the months ahead. When it comes to setting up your public relations/media exposure plan, WHEN you launch your campaign can be just as important as what and how you launch.

In the last 16 years of generating media exposure for our clients, my research shows that 41% of the media interest and exposure we generate in a year happens in the second quarter – that’s almost double the amount of any other quarter of the year:

  • 1st  quarter = 18%
  • 2nd quarter = 41%
  • 3rd quarter =  21%
  • 4th quarter  = 20%

So what does that mean? If you are planning to implement a  PR/media exposure campaign for your business or product in the coming weeks – congratulations. Your timing is ideal.
Continue Reading »

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Talent or Trainability

Talent or Trainability: Five Pivotal Points Often Overlooked in Hiring

by Kenneth McCall on April 22, 2011

You run a great business and you want to hire the best people. And who can blame you? You have a lot riding on the choices you make. Their performance reflects not only on your success as a manager, but on the fortunes of your business, too. If your new employees perform well, you succeed and your business gets a big boost. But if they don’t, then both you and the company suffer. It’s an important decision. So how do you go about making the best choice?
Talent or Trainability

Continue Reading »

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Share The Air

Business Plan Review: Share the Air

by Chelle Parmele on April 20, 2011

A few weeks ago a co-worker sent me an instant message:

“You’ve got to watch this business plan pitch. It’s crazy!”

Of course I clicked and watched it.

It only takes a few minutes before the “disbelief” starts. I’ve seen professionals shun slick PowerPoint slides to use handwritten or even marked up on whiteboard slides instead. So a handwritten slide deck didn’t immediately make an impact on me, but several things immediately made me stop and wonder what was going on.

The presenter, while energetic and dedicated to her subject, immediately shows us several facts which should throw big red flags. From incorrectly spelling her own name, to the percentage numbers on her “Air is” slide. (75+21+1+6 does not in fact equal 100), to the fact that she is willing to go to Atlantis to obtain this precious, magical air.

We know now that the pitch was part of a hoax for April Fools day, but let’s take a look at what she – as a business plan pitch person – got right and what she got wrong.

Mistake: Her target market is everyone. While that might be true, or you might really believe it’s true, it’s generally not wise to say so in your plan or pitch. Saying “everyone” tells me you’re lazy and haven’t really thought about who your customer is, which translates to wasting your time and your investors’ money on those not likely to buy. So slim it down. Pick a particular demographic that is more likely to buy than the others and start there.

Mistake: Not knowing what you need. In her investment pitch, she says she needs a team of “_________ specialists”. Point in her favor that she knows the company has a hole in the team, but to not know what type of specialist she’s going to need shows a lack of understanding of the “how” in her business plan. If you point out the positions in your management team that are not filled, it shows me that you at least know you need to fill them. As an investor, I will notice your company is lacking a VP of Marketing with experience in your field, but when you don’t mention it, I’ll wonder if YOU know that.

Mistake: The numbers don’t add up. I mentioned above that Rachel’s percentages don’t add up. But beyond that, make sure you check all your numbers. And make sure those numbers are in the right place and are correct. For instance, Cash Flow: this table tracks the cash balance (your checking account) and cash flow (how much that balance changes) from month to month and annually. The cash balance should never be negative; if your cash balance is less than zero, your checks will bounce. And if your business plan shows several months of a negative cash balance, I want the name of your bank, because my bank doesn’t allow me to keep spending money I don’t have. For months. And months.

Share The Air

So, here are some positive points from her pitch:

Good! Be unique. Admit it, if you had been in the audience, you would have remembered her pitch long after the event was over. So that take away is ‘make a lasting impression with your pitch’. The handwritten slides were memorable. Granted, there were several things wrong with that option, but if you watched 30 pitches in a day, would you remember the one with the hand drawn pictures of mountains and flowers, or the PowerPoint slide that had a picture of Mt Hood and a field of daisies?

Good! Emotionally connecting to the audience. As with any good story, you need to make what you’re saying matter to your audience. Whether you bring them in with humor, show them your passion or joy at using or participating with your subject matter, or make them a part of the demonstration, making them invested in what you are doing will ensure they become much more likely to want more.

Good! Have a real website. Real business plan pitch or not, she had an actual website. It has a “coming soon” on the front page but it’s real. This lends credibility to her business. Talking about a website without actually owning it shows a lack of attention to detail. You can mention having an eventual Web presence without naming an actual website name. That is much better than claiming ownership of www.taco.com for your taco stand, only to have your audience Google it later and find it belongs to a technical advisors company, and probably always will.

Even knowing the whole pitch was fake, here’s what did pique my interest: the Web app she mentions towards the end of her presentation. What a fun app idea! I immediately wanted to share that information with my friends. To me, the idea of marking the places I’ve breathed is much more quirky and fun than checking in via foursquare at the corner Starbucks for the 30th time.

Real or not, it was enjoyable to watch and has given us here at the office a lot to talk about.

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A Negotiating Lesson from My Dad

by Carol Roth on April 19, 2011

My dad can’t spell banana (literally, he spells it “banna”), but he can negotiate a mean deal.  Sometimes this is by annoying the hell out of the other party, but in this story, it was something different…

In the early 1990s, when my parents got divorced, my father had to sell our house.  Because the lawyers ended up with a good chunk of what was a fairly small asset pool to begin with, that meant downsizing. So, my father had the task of selling off some furniture.

One of the pieces was this “lovely” wall unit from that fine French furniture company “The House of Tackee’” from the late 1960s or early 1970s, complete with orange drapery behind wrought iron and wood, smoked mirror accents, a built in turntable/sound system and a flip-on fireplace (you can discuss the merits of this piece in the comments section…I know, I have no idea how this was ever considered hot or trendy) .

As you can imagine, there wasn’t a lot of demand for this type of furniture, so my dad had to be resourceful.  When he was at the local bagel shop one Saturday morning, the lady behind the counter mentioned she was looking for some furniture and so my dad asked if she wanted to come over to view the wall unit.

Apparently she had been smoking crack, because when she came to view it, she liked it.  She looked it up, down and all around and finally asked my dad what he wanted for it.

My dad said, “Why don’t you make me an offer?”

She paused and after several seconds held up two fingers.

“Two hundred dollars?” my dad thought to himself.  He knew he probably would have a hard time finding anyone else, so he said, “Well, it was less than I wanted, but if you throw in some bagels for a few months, it’s a deal”.

She agreed, handed him a wad of cash and said that she couldn’t pay for it all at once, but that she would pay it off in installments within a few weeks. My father was confused and counted the cash.  She had given him $500.

After another few seconds, it occurred to him that when she held up the two fingers, she had meant two THOUSAND dollars, not two hundred.  He put the $500 in his pocket and said, “No problem, you can pay the rest in installments.”

He actually got $2000 for something he should have paid someone else to haul away.  So, how did he do that?

  • He had the other woman make the offer first.  This way, he didn’t place any limit on it.  He only wanted about $400, but by letting her go first, he didn’t cap out the upside.
  • He wasn’t greedy.  As the saying goes, pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.  If he held out, he may not have found anyone to take the darn thing.  In this case, by not being greedy, he got more than he ever dreamed of.
  • He also kept his cool until he understood the circumstances.  When she handed him the cash, he could have blurted out, “But I was talking about $200”.  By taking the time to process what she was thinking (which was obviously different than he initially thought) he ended up with a deal that they were both very happy with.
  • Oh, and he got her to throw in some bagels, which was something that was easy for her to do, but still added value to him.

So, thanks to Bernie for this great lesson.  I will share in the future another time that I used the same strategy with much success.

And as a side note, when he was selling his king size bed, the first guy that came to the house looked at the bed and said, “How many people can this sleep”?

My dad said, “How many people do you want it to sleep?” [notice a pattern here?]

The guy said, “Eight”.

My dad sized up the bed and said, “It seems like it can fit eight…”

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Susan Solovic on ABC News on The Business Plan

by Tim Berry on April 18, 2011

I stumbled on this short video from ABC with Susan Solovic talking about the business plan for starting a new business. It’s a few months old now, but it’s also a really good summary of why and how you want to have a business plan for a startup, and what that plan should include.

If for any reason you don’t see the video here, you can click this link for the original on the ABC site.

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