Category Archives: Business Stories

True Story of a Natural Networker

Business Stories, True Stories,

Coincidence or synchronicity: two days ago I had a heart-to-heart talk with somebody about partners in business, and the natural networker concept came up in reference to a specific person I know. We were talking about partners and complimentary skill sets. He does what I never could. I’m not going to give you his name, but I call him Ralph.

This story started in the 1970s before “networking” was a word that any of us used. Even in college, Ralph was a natural friend, somebody who liked other people and was always ready to do somebody else a favor, when he could.

Ralph was never subservient, but he was always helpful. That was in his bones, as pure instinct. He was the archetypical nice guy. Everybody who knew him liked him. And because he did favors, he got them back. He was also smart and he was a hard worker.

What’s important to me is that this wasn’t Networking like we talk of it now, as a business tool, a set of tasks, something you’re supposed to be doing to succeed. It was just being a nice guy, and helping others when he could. It was never contrived. It was never thought out. At least, I’m pretty sure … and maybe almost never.

But when there were problems in the large company he worked for, and Ralph was set up to be the scapegoat, he didn’t get fired. He had too many people in the company speaking up for him. I saw that happen twice. He hadn’t failed or performed poorly, but it was a large company, and if it weren’t Ralph, he would have had to take the hit. He didn’t.

And when he needed help from somebody, he didn’t mind asking, and they were generally happy to help because that was returning favors he’d already done.

I always admired that natural instinct. It’s a good way to be. Good vibe, as we used to call it; good karma, if you like that word; and good business. I was never so outgoing, but at least I had the sense to respect somebody who was.  And still is – we’re still friends, 30 years later.

The General Rule In Startups Is That There Are No General Rules

Business Stories, Entrepreneurship, Starting a Business, , , ,

What’s the secret to success in entrepreneurship? Passion? Persistence? Doing what you like? Maybe it’s having a great business plan? I’ve written here that empathy might be the most important. But that’s a generalization too. What do you think?

Here’s the problem with that: there are no general rules. Scratch under the surface of entrepreneurship and you’ll find lots of people willing to put forth one characteristic or another. You can find examples for anything.

The people who strike off on their own are by definition people who split off from the group to do something different. So they don’t come in flocks, Generalizations don’t apply. I know people who fell in love with technology, a market, doing something they like to do, or even one or two who set out from the beginning with the specific goal of making millions of dollars. And I know people who started their own business mainly to be independent, set their own hours. I know people who did it just to prove that they were right when they said it could be done.

What reminded me of this was Susan Solivic’s What is Your Motivation? on Up and Running a few weeks ago. Writing about what makes people start companies, she suggests there are lots of different reasons.

Exactly. I agree.

(Image: Denny Onasta/Flickr CC)

Those Sad Stories of Elephants and Mice in Startups and High Tech

Business Ethics, Business Stories, Business Strategy, , , , , ,

Big squashes little. The elephant steps on a mouse and kills it, but never even notices. We stop on ants on the sidewalk without realizing.

You can probably think of a lot of these cases.

I had a friend who rode a big wave in the late 1980s with a PC-compatible add-on board that enabled a PC to send a fax as easily as printing a document. It was a huge win. Millions of dollars were made. Then Microsoft added a fax facility into a new version of Windows. Pop, crackle, snap.

At about the same time, there was a company in Canada that had a huge business selling compression software that worked with PCs. Then Microsoft bundled compression into a new version of Windows. Pop, crackle, snap.

I read iCloud Communications sues Apple for obvious reasons the other day on Engadget. Pop, crackle, snap.

It’s part of life in the world of startups and high tech. Big companies kill little companies without even knowing, much less caring. No law against it. No reason not to?

What do you think?

(Illustration: hikingartist.com via Flickr cc)

Stage Fright Can Be Good For Your Career

Business Stories, Presentation skills, True Stories,

I’ve noticed a pattern with myself, public speaking, and fear of speaking. I wonder if this holds true with others. Tim speaking

I think it was good for me that my job required a lot of speaking even when I was still pretty young. Before I was 25 I’d done radio and standup television for UPI out of Mexico City. When I was in my 30s I did workshops and speaking dates at trade shows like Comdex. And I’ve been doing business planning and startup workshops, and teaching, and some large-group speaking ever since.

For many years, certainly for most of my career, there was a strong correlation between nervousness and doing well. Strange, I suppose, but true: the more nervous I got beforehand, the better I did. When I’d be tossing and turning all of the night before my talk, or had that embarrassing dry mouth and shaking hands at the beginning of a talk, I’d end up doing better.

Confidence seemed to be a bad sign. For years, for most of my career, if I was cool and calm then my performance was not as good.

The extreme nervousness went away, finally, worn off I guess from years of it I’d had by the time I reached maybe 50 years old. But even now, with the big groups, the 1,000-seat auditoriums, I still get nervous and shaky, and the stage fright tends to make me perform (as far as I can tell) better, not worse.

In the end, I think the best way to get over this fear of speaking is to just do it, over and over again.

(Image: courtesy of entrepreneur.com)

Why Did I Start A Business? Not Why You Think

Business Stories, True Stories, ,

I was talking to a group of students recently and I was asked to comment on what makes an entrepreneur. The student who asked the question wrapped it in the mythology of the entrepreneur driven by the idea, stubbornly, tirelessly proving its value to the world. She wanted me to tell about me wanting to build something big.

But I had to admit that my case was different. I was running away from boredom, not building castles.sandcastle

When I left a good job at Creative Strategies and started on my own, in truth it was not because of something I wanted to build, not because of a creative vision, but rather because I thought I could make enough money to keep my family whole and do what I wanted. I wanted interesting work, and I wanted to choose my work. I wanted to actually do the writing and research, not supervise others. It was important to me that what I spend hours doing was something fun — I always found writing and planning and working numbers fun — even though I didn’t have the idea that would create the empire.

Or maybe you like this shorter version: I was married, had kids, so we needed the money; and nobody else would pay me what I needed to make.

And the idea of a software product, that creative vision? Yes, that happened, but that came about 10 years later.

(Image: sandyfeet/Flickr cc)

How to Explain Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Business Research, Business Stories, ,

Don’t get me wrong: I like research. Survey information is grand. I just say don’t bet the store on it. Use it to educate your guesses, but only as long as you stay skeptical. Read it, consider it, but don’t believe it.

Mark Twain said:

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics

Blogger and business researcher Steve King, a sometimes-Twain-like research analyst (well, a smart person who lives in California, at least) gives a great example in his recent post Why Surveys Show Wide Differences in Small Business Social Media Use on Small Business Labs. Steve is a researcher, one of the founders of Emergent Research, which does a lot of work for Intuit.

Steve pulls up two surveys with starkly different results. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that 70% of small business owners think social media is important.  But a Citibank survey said only 36% of small businesses use social media and a mere 24% have found social media useful for finding leads or generating revenue.

What’s up with that? Methodology and sampling techniques, Steve explains. The survey that was big on social media was taken from people it found online using Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. The other one was a telephone survey.

So, as they say, “no duh.” Most of the business people who use social media think it’s important. Most of the ones caught on the phone don’t.

The point is that both surveys are valid in their specific context, both were done professionally, and both can help you understand what a defined group of people thought – or told survey takers they thought. But they contradict each other. So if you’re using research, use it well, explore the assumptions, look for the built-in slants, and take all of that into account.

Humans make decisions. Statistics don’t.

3 Stories Your Business Strategy Depends On

Business Stories, Business Strategy, ,

Stories are not just stories; they’re experience repackaged. They can tell a lot more than just a story. If you own a business, or ever want to, you should be able to tell each of these stories well. If you can, you’ve already nailed the essence of long-term strategy. If you can’t, then here’s a good way to rethink your business.

You want to be able to tell these stories because they’ll help you understand, focus, and manage your business better.

1.  The Story of The Buying Event

Tell the story of an imagined best-possible customer wanting or needing something, finding your business, and buying from you. Try to describe that person (or company) in detail. Be able to describe the process in glorious detail. What did she want? What did he need? What led her to your business? What was he looking for? What problem did she have? How did he find your business, and what made him decide to buy? What were the important decision factors?

2.  The Story of Why We Exist

Be able to tell a simple story about how your business makes some people better off. Guy Kawasaki talks about making meaning, making the world better. And that’s not just the social enterprises or non-profits, that’s the shoe repair business on the corner, the marketing consultant, graphic artist, and the hot dog stand that appears before noon. Every successful business does something for somebody, or it doesn’t last. And that’s a story you should tell yourself. What difference does your business make to the world?

3.  The Story of Our Future

We used to call this the vision statement in the old-fashioned formal business plan. I don’t care whether it’s part of a document or not, but it’s a good concept to keep. Imagine your business three to five years from now. What does it look like then? What is it doing differently, then,  that it doesn’t do now? How has it changed? Is it in a different location? What new things is it selling, and to whom? How has its meaning changed?

—

If you can tell these three stories, you’ve got a business strategy.

(Image: istockphoto.com)

Startups Beware: Patents are Like Umbrellas. False Confidence.

Advice, Business Stories, Intellectual Property, Starting a Business, , , , ,

For startups, patents are nice to have, but not if you trust them to really protect you. In that they’re like umbrellas. Good protection in a drizzle. False confidence in a downpour.

I write that because I’ve read about 50 real startup business plans in the last two months, and I’ve gone through at least two dozen pitch presentations, and I think it needs to be said. patent pending

Patents are usually better than nothing. I like it when a startup has a patent portfolio already issued, but also promises to keep trade secrets very tight and has a budget for patent defense. I like it more when they have a letter from a patent attorney talking about coverage and defensibility of the patents.

I hate it when the startup says a patent has been applied for, or there is a provisional patent, and says (or implies) that therefore their business is defensible.

Having a patent doesn’t mean much anymore. A provisional patent, less. And having applied for a patent, even less. The world of high tech is littered with fallen companies that were smashed to bits by a large company getting around, or violating, their patents. It happens all the time.

Sometimes I feel better with a strong trade secrets policy, a fast ramp-up, and great marketing, which I think offer the best real protection against copycats.

I suspect that the patent system is broken. Some bad patents that should never have been issued feed the coffers of patent trolls. And good patents are hard to find, slow to get, and hard to enforce. Sure, they’re good to have. But don’t trust ’em.

(Hat Tip to Twitter simile contributors @pierzy, Joel Libava (@FranchiseKing), and Dan Ness)

(Image credit: istockphoto.com)

Torn: True Stories on Kids, Career, and Conflict of Motherhood

Books, Business Stories, Family Business, Work Life Balance, , ,

Today is the first day of distribution for Samatha Walraven’s book Torn: True Stories of Kids, Career, and the Conflict of Modern Motherhood. I got an advance copy and it’s a good read: for working moms, of course, but also for working dads, and everybody else who cares about understanding some of the people they work with. book cover

The book is a series of chapters from contributors, which makes it a great collection of experiences and point of view. It’s about how it feels, working through the problems, dealing with guilt, the importance of choice — which includes choosing to be stay-at-home mom too, by the way; there’s a whole section of pieces from that point of view too — and similar topics.

For example, this, from a Chapter called MommyCEO, written by Sabrina Parsons, my daughter, CEO of Palo Alto Software. I’ve taken a couple of snippets from a larger paragraph, just to give you the idea:

…there are things I have to deal with in the workplace that no man will ever face. No man will ever be in his office using a breast pump during a partner call … and very few men will ever face the reality that no matter how much government protection there is for maternity and family leave, there are some jobs that don’t allow a three-month leave of absence.

And here’s one from the following page:

Last night, as I sat in my boys’ room at bedtime, I thought about how much I have on my plate, how much I am juggling, and the items that fall by the wayside: my blog, my workouts, my sleep. My wingspan is simply not wide enough. If you saw me sitting in their room, you could actually envision this ‘wingspan’ — my arms stretched out wide between my sons’ beds so they can each hold a hand as they fall asleep.

That’s just one of 50 chapters, divided into seven sections, each written by a different woman. They divide into sections on balance, guilt, the superwoman, divided lives, the stay-at-home struggle, and, last but not least: “Maybe, Baby.”

Last week I posted about entrepreneurs needing empathy. Let’s have more empathy for the working moms, and for stay-at-home moms too, when they make that choice. This is a really good book.

Not the Customer’s Job to Know What They Want

Business Ideas, Business Stories, Business Strategy, Venture Capital, Web/Tech, , , ,

There was a nice short video on TechCrunch the other day, quoting Mark Zuckerberg, John Doerr, and two other industry leaders on how much the iPad has changed “everything.” I picked it up because of what John Doerr says near the end.

http://player.ooyala.com/player.js?deepLinkTime=02m46s&embedCode=kwZnh5MTrZtMPzfZVRRMNSLo3_EsC71X&videoProviderCode=11amo6qGw2oucN78pR-BYbDpCESk&width=480&deepLinkEmbedCode=kwZnh5MTrZtMPzfZVRRMNSLo3_EsC71X&height=290

The video snippet I’ve embedded here skips directly to my favorite part, at 2:45, very near the end, as John Doerr talks about Steve Jobs saying what market research has done for the iPad. Jobs says:

It’s not the consumers’ job to figure out what they want.

I like that. As we turn increasingly to polling and research for answers, the problem is that people don’t often say what they really think, and quite often don’t even know what they really want. One kind of leadership, to me, is leading people instead of asking people. You take a guess. When you guess right, you win big. Guess wrong, you lose.  Is it possible that this is also called entrepreneurship? What do you think?