Living the Startup Life

Yes, this is me sitting in my pjs, listening to music, and working my life away at 1:12 AM.  This is what an entrepreneur’s game face looks like.

So today we launched our private beta!!!  Woohoo!!!  It is actually a “Super” private beat, so you won’t get an invitation until next Monday.  Before today, I was in a real big slump.  We had no product, we just finished our website consulting client and there were no clients in site, the Machine Gun that I was working on was insanely mundane and boring, and I’ve been so far away from my team that at times I felt very alone.  When you’re in a rut, you become extremely depressing.  I swear I called Yu-kai a bunch of times just to get into random arguments.  I figured that if I could make Yu-kai miserable as well, then I would be happy.  Unfortunately, Yu-kai argues very well, so we usually end up in a stand-still.

Anyways… this is what you will have to deal with as an entrepreneur: no money, constant debates with your teammates, constant delays, and did I mention no money?  So why am I living this life?  Why did I give up my secure cubicle job to take on what seems like more than I can handle?

I take it on for moments like today

The feeling today was just so incredible! To actually have a product that you made online makes you feel incredibly accomplished.  All the months of planning, preparation, debates, and sleepness nights have finally turned into a tangible product - not a very well polished product, but we’ll get there soon enough.  Today I actually felt the possibility of succeeding.

So to all of you would-be entrepreneurs or currently struggling entrepreneurs, “The juice is definitely worth the squeeze.”  The struggling is, hard work, and sacrifice is worth seeing a product that you have made.

Now that the beta is up and we met our crunch-time deadline, I’ll be starting to post again on a consistent basis.  Look out for some more good stuff!!!

The idea of working for oneself circles the brain for more reasons than potential earnings, supposed freedom, and pure thrill - it does so because at some point we need to have our personal touch on business direction, and feel the joy of creating businesses that make a difference. Truly, no one knows business potential like each and every one of us does.

Beyond mere potential though, are the elements that make businesses successful; two of which are marketing and product creation. Last month I wrote about the differences between product-based businesses and service-based businesses in my given industry - forestry. At the risk of creating an “easier said than done” situation, in this post we’ll explore some tips and steps for taking a service-oriented business, and marketing it as (or making it) a product.

#1: Market Your Services As A Product

My biggest fear in creating a consulting business based on carrying out a service - in my case a service to both business and ecosystems - is that it is seen as an extra or mere option. To quell such fear, offer the service as a product, meaning that it must have positive consequences both long- and short-term.

The best way to carry out this transfer is to research and outline the consequences of ignoring your service. Cite law, case studies, and true benefits of your service. Incorporate them into your mission statement, as it is very important that you believe in them yourself. Lastly, market the ways in which your services make businesses run smoother, attract investment, and foster confidence and development.

When your system has been in place long enough, you may want to approach regulation that would make your business a necessity. An example of a service built on necessity is Environmental Assessment consulting: when development requires assessment to continue, the service deliverable becomes a valuable product.

#2: Diversify Your Services

Diversify your services not just for name and fame - but do so for multiple, viable revenue streams. Importantly, spreading your butter too thin may be worse than building a crap business to start with.

Identify people and trends that relate to your idea, and build them into your business plan. Integral to this are people you can trust to build your business alongside you; those who work in a niche which you may not be very familiar with. You must be familiar enough to know how to market and identify opportunities, then trustful enough to pass the task on to your business partner.

…and #3: Better Than Trend-catching is…

In fact, MUCH better than trend catching is trend CREATION. As with my first point, if you can take a mere trend, and make it a requirement you would be golden.

It’s a tough world out there. Not only are we seeing real signs of economic stagnation, but even the top performing businesses are cutting costs everywhere. Nowhere is this more evident in Canada than in the business I have the pleasure of partaking in, the forest and timber industry. But, hidden within the fact that the industry and its funding sources are in the crapper is the fact that we are in a time open to innovation and change, a.k.a the best time to build business.

Be that change, make that innovation, and most importantly, use it to follow your dreams.

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Helpful Links: Initial Steps, Management Help (more to browse within), and Canada E-business training.

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Torbjørn Rive is the writer and owner of Variable Interest. Variable Interest is also a member of the Brazen Careerist blog network.

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Truly an inspiring video…

Failure is a part of life.  It is said that 9 out of 10 businesses fail… well then, that just means I need to build 10 businesses.

Have you guy seen those billboards all over the place and all of those commercials going “Woo hoo” for Washington Mutual?  Well at first, I thought this was a very funny approach to advertisement.  Their goal is to associate a positive emotion, “Woo hoo!”, with their company so that you react on that positive emotional feel.  All purchase decisions are made emotionally, so this could prove to be very effective.

You see, Washington Mutual is hitting you from two sides with their campaigns.  There commercials hit you on the logical side because it tells you about their free checking.  Then when you’re driving around on the street, you see these gigantic billboards that prompt your emotional side to associate Washington Mutual with a positive feeling.  It all sounds good and dandy, but I had never before realized how effective the campaign was, until now…

On Monday, my girlfriend and I went to a Washington Mutual at 5:59pm (1 minutes before they close).  I thought that we would feel rushed, but the Wamu employees were very welcoming and all had smiles on their face.  On the wall it said, “Free Smiles,” and that’s exactly what I saw in there.  The amazing thing is that this campaign, the “Woo hoo” campaign, is not just for us - their clients.  The campaign is also for internal use among their employees and to promote the company culture.

It was now 6:09pm, most of the registers were already closed, but they kept open a register for Kim.  All over the walls I saw signs that said, “Woo hoo,” so I had to ask: “Do you guys ever break out into a spontaneous “Woo hoo!”.  “We do it all the time.  We also give special treats to clients who do a little dance and yell out Woo hoo!” she responded.  So of course, I had to do it.  I showed them a little spin and I did a kick like Michael Jackson in his black days.  Everyone got a kick out of it and they rewarded me with the Woo hoo sticker I tagged above!

Ok, so the sticker isn’t all that amazing, but what was amazing was how this Woo hoo campaign has contributed to an amazing company culture.  I bank at Bank of America, and everything feels uptight and not that personable.  At Wamu, they really make an effort to make you feel welcome and like a friend rather than a client.

When building your company brand, don’t forget about branding ineternally among your employee culture.  If you’re National Geographic, then have dinosaurs, animals, and images of different cultures all around the office.  If you’re PetSmart, then allow all of your employees to bring in their pets once a weekso that you promote the animal friendly culture.  If you’re Wamu, then you’re employees all wear smiles, yell out Woo hoo spontaneously, encourage their clients (friends) to do the same.

Does your company culture reflect your company brand?

This is what Web 2.0 is.
This is what Web 2.0 is doing.
Our generation is now massively collaborating online, blurring the lines between privacy, commerce, government, love, facts, ideas, proprietary content, and life.

How has Web 2.0 affected your life?

It has now been officially 8 months since I left the corporate world to pursue my dreams of being an entrepreneur and running my own successful company. My good friends from UCLA have been in their corporate job now for about 10 months, and we have kept in very close touch, describing our experiences and describing what we like and dislike about our jobs. This post is about what we have each learned about ourselves, the nature of our work, and the culture that we work in.

1. Nature of the Work

Corporate: In an entry level position (and we’re talking about big firms here), a lot of the work that you will be doing is “grunt work.” My friends that are accountants at the Big Four and consultants for litigation, IT, economic and human capital consulting firms all tell me, “after doing this for about a year, I’ve gotten used to the work.” The key words are “used to the work.” In contrast, all my friends who are investment bankers or strategy consultants absolutely love their jobs. Even though they work about twice as many hours as my other friends, they love the “high level” work that they are doing and feel that they are surrounded with extremely intelligent people that were top students as undergrads.

Many of my friends feel trapped because it is very difficult to work in another industry. If you’re an accountant, it is very difficult to become a consultant. My friends have all started studying for the GMAT and are thinking that their MBA could be their ticket to a higher paying, more rewarding job. If you’re a banker or strategy consultant, it seems that you’re taking your MBA to move on to private equity, private wealth, or venture capital.

I think that there is one universal factor here: my friends who say that they look up to the managers and directors at their firm and want to strive to be like them are ultimately much happier with the work that they are doing than my friends who don’t look up to their managers and directors. Notice I’m talking about happiness with the actual work, and not happiness with the culture or people at the office.

Entrepreneur: As an entrepreneur, expect to do EVERYTHING!!! High-level work, grunt work, business development, brand development, human resources, operations, finance… absolutely everything! The thing with being an entrepreneur is that you have no one to tell you what to do, no one to tell you what you should do next after you finish doing what you need to do, and no one to tell you the priorities of your work. There is SO MUCH uncertainty that it could drive an insecure, unmotivated person insane.

Let me give you an example: Since we don’t have a product right now, I pretty much had very little to do (on the surface level). I contacted a bunch of companies to tell them about our future product, contacted VCs to tell them about our idea, and created all the good stuff: company FB, LinkedIn, Squidoo, and blog. So with time on my hands, I decided to create the FD Campus Rep system, Develop the FD Career, FD RPG, and FD Cache sites, start SiteVitamin (which should bring in some initial revenue), and develop the FD Startup.com idea. I had to develop these things to do in order to help my company succeed and bring in some revenue.

In a large established company, you are given all of the work, given your priorities, and are in a very stable environment where you know exactly what you will be doing next. If you just sit around on your butt, the work will come to you. In a startup company, everything is up in the air and you have to develop things to do. You have to push the company or else it won’t go anywhere. If you just sit around on your butt, no work will come to you and your company will die! Sound scary, or exciting?

(Hmmm… I just realized that this post could get very long considering everything I have to say about entrepreneurship. I was going to go into the 5 other areas of companies: culture, compensation, growth, competitiveness, and overall. However, I’ll just get into what I’ve learned in these 8 months.)

What I Have Learned

Entrepreneurship IS NOT for the faint of heart. There are many times when I have gotten discouraged, felt like I was being crushed by the amount of work that I have, felt frustrated because the programmers weren’t developing fast enough, felt alone because Yu-kai flew to Colorado for a business meeting, and felt like the company was going no where. The uncertainty, lack of money, lack of support from family and friends, and absurd competition is enough to make anyone run back to the corporate world.

An entrepreneur MUST have these two characteristics:

1. The ability to see everything as a whole (the company, market, competition) and develop the overall strategy, vision, and direction of the company.
   • I have seen many of my entrepreneur friends who get stuck on the details. They focus so strongly on making their product perfect, that they forget to digest the fact that the market is trending to a different direction. An entrepreneur must always be able to adjust to the ever-changing horizon.
2. Execution
   • You will sit through meeting after meeting and idea after idea. Often times your team will develop a brilliant idea. However, if you do not have the execution ability to convert the idea into reality, you’re idea will never go anywhere. You need to be able to execute on the drop of a dime. For example, we were running short on cash so I quickly got a website development client. We needed more credibility on the team so I got the founder of google adsense to be on our board of advisors. Execution is key!

I just love doing my own thing and dislike being told what to do. Entrepreneurship comes naturally to me.

(I wrote this post earlier this year for Monica at TwentySet.com.  Want to post it now in preparation for my follow-up post)

I have experienced the entrepreneur life and the corporate life. I understand the pros and cons of each and have realized that one is NOT better than the other. What I have realized is that the life that suits you most depends completely on your personality and stage of life that you are in.

Are You a Risk Taker or Do You Like Feeling Comfortable?

I was at my corporate job for about 3 months. I was a consultant and I have to tell you, it was such a comfortable and easy-going time. Don’t get me wrong, the hours were decently long (8am – 7pm everyday), but the work that I did was relatively easy and my responsibilities were not huge. We had casual Fridays along with bagels in the morning to spruce things up a bit. When I got home, I went to the gym, ate some dinner, and watched TV until I fell asleep. There was no work on the weekends, so I spent them lying on the beach with the girlfriend or going out to lounge with the buddies. It was very comfortable because they told me what to do, I did the work, and I could relax outside of work.

This life did not suit me. I felt that they were not using my talents and abilities to the fullest. I decided to resign and pursue my startup dreams with my pledge bro from UCLA. It was a humongous risk because I went from receiving a steady paycheck to no income at all. Do you have the guts to live off of your savings until you are able to generate some income on your own? If the thought of living off of your savings, cutting back on expenses, and not going out makes your stomach hurt, then you do not have the balls to be an entrepreneur. I currently work about 100 hours a week (I work weekends as well) pushing and willing my company to succeed. I work in the morning, I work while at the gym, I work while eating, and I work while sleeping (I sometimes have dreams about my company). This is the life that you will endure as an entrepreneur.

Do You Have a Skill-Set that You Excel In or Are You a Hard Worker?

I had to work hard in my corporate life and I have to work now as an entrepreneur. You work hard no matter what. However, the big difference is that you must have an outstanding skill-set as an entrepreneur in order to succeed. What do I mean by this?

In the corporate world, you can survive by just getting by. Once you make it into the company, all you have to do is not suck and you’ll continue to get your steady paycheck and move up the corporate ladder. You don’t need to do anything extraordinary nor do you need to do more than you’re asked to do. You live comfortably.

As an entrepreneur, you will need to push yourself to the limit just to get one thing done right. If you don’t push yourself to do it, then your company will not grow and you will not succeed. When you begin your quest, you will start off with a small, tight-knit team. My company started off with three people: the CEO, the CTO, and me (the CMO). The skill-sets that I have had to develop and excel in is marketing, PR, and business development. There is no one else in the company who is pushing for clients or who is analyzing the competition and doing extensive market research. If I don’t do it, no one will.

This is what I mean by excelling in a skill-set. In a large corporation, if I mess up or don’t do something well, there are about 50 other guys who can pick up my slack and finish what I’m doing. As the founder of your own company, if you mess up, you better find a way to fix the problem or else your company will fail.

The Entrepreneurial Black Hole

Everyone starts off with the same plan: “I’m going to work for a few years and once I get enough experience, I’ll start my own company.” This is the entrepreneurial black hole that people fall into and never get out of.

The perfect time to start your own company is during college or right afterward. You are fresh, full of energy, with no commitments like house payments or kids to tie you down. You can argue that you have no real experience, but let me honestly tell you, the corporate world does not prepare you for the entrepreneurial world. What you learn at your corporate job will most likely not carry over to what you will need as an entrepreneur. More importantly, the more you wait to be an entrepreneur, the more responsibilities you will have and the greater the risk. You cannot start a company with a mortgage to pay and kids to feed. The checks that you receive every month become bigger and bigger, and it becomes increasingly harder to give it up and start living off of your savings.

The entrepreneurial life is not better than the corporate life. Which one you decide to choose completely depends on your personality and life situation. The best thing for you to do is to go out there and try both. Get an internship with a corporate company and try out the comfortable life. Start a company while in your dorm room to find out if the risk motivates you and stimulates your brain. After my experiences with both, I now know that I am an entrepreneur at heart.

Constance wrote a great post comparing the Y Generation to Britney Spears. To compare our generation to Britney Spears is truly a big leap, but I understand the connection that she was trying to make.

I think that we are risk-takers and that we are the generation that truly has a mind of its own. We switch jobs easily and try to look out for whats best for us. We really are not loyal to our employers and want to experiment with pretty much everything. We are the new media generation and we have a much lower sense of privacy than any other generation before us. We can become self-made celebrities using YouTube, we can keep track of our hundreds of friends using Facebook, and we can publish our deepest thoughts using blogs.

I think that Britney is just a person who is garbage (sorry for being so blunt). I don’t think she truly represents our Gen because even though you can say that she is a “risk-taker,” she is weak and got caught up in the hollywood glamor.

If I had to choose a female celebrity that encompasses the Y Generation, it would be Natalie Portman. She would be a great person to represent our gen. She graduated from a distinguished university, has become an internationally known movie star, is absolutely gorgeous (had to throw that in there), and is not afraid of controversy or putting herself out there:

She is a vegetarian, advocate of animal rights, and doesn’t believe in an afterlife.  She is our generation and I think the ideal female representative.

What do you guys think?

The Argument from Design:

“If you found a clock on an island and examined the mechanism within it, you would probably think that this intricate mechanism was not the outcome of mere chance, that it had been designed. You would also think that this could not have just been created by chance in this desolate island. Someone must have put it here.

Now look at the universe; is it possible that such an intricate mechanism, from the orbits of planets round the sun to the cells in your fingernails could all have happened by chance? Surely, this enormously complex mechanism has been designed, and the being that designed it must be God.”

I will now attempt to destroy the Argument from Design

To use the example of a watch is a bad example for an argument. I say this because a watch is not “natural.” By natural, I mean things that occur on their own in nature without the interference of man. A man (or woman) must create the parts used in a watch, must assemble the watch, and must calibrate the timing perfectly. A human must be involved from the very beginning to the very end of the watch’s creation.

Therefore, because the example is using a watch, then it implies that the creation of man and life to what we see today was completely guided and manufactured every step of the way. This means that God played a role in absolutely everything that has ever happened in the existence of the universe - similar to how man plays a role in every single aspect of the creation of the watch.

This is where the fault in the argument lies. God does not need to be involved every step of the way in order to create the universe. If we accept the Big Bang theory or evolution, then the universe could have just been created on its own through time and chance.

I am not stating here that the Big Bang theory is correct or incorrect. You can argue with me that God was the one who created the Big Bang because where could the Big Bang have come from if it wasn’t for God. Again, this is not what I’m arguing. I’m arguing that the Argument from Design is not a valid argument in proving the existence of God because the universe could have been created by time, chance, and evolution. On the other hand, a watch could not have been created by time, chance, and evolution.

Think of it this way, if you found a car on a deserted island, then you would naturally imagine that man must have been there to create it and put it there. It is such an intricate machine that must run on gas that it could not have been created by chance. Now think about a car-shaped rock that you see on a deserted island. This rock could have been created by chance and time.

The core of my argument: a watch-shaped rockis more like the universe that an actual watch. What? How can I possibly say that? You can argue that the universe is a million times more complex that a little tiny watch. The point is that that watch has so many little intricate things like the dial, numbers on the face, and clasp for your wrist that it is impossible for it to have all fallen together and created itself. On the other hand, scientists are able to peer out into the universe, see the creation of galaxies, and explain how everything is created naturally. When they look up into the stars, they don’t see God pushing a planet into orbiting a star - gravity is the force that compels a large body of mass to move around it.

The Argument from Design is not valid. Please feel free and try to argue in favor of this failed argument.

I have a big problem with companies or people who give job seekers very general information about interviewing.  Yahoo Jobs writes about how the “Why Should I Hire You?” question can make or break your interview chances.  This is true, but they don’t really do anything to prepare a nervous job seeker.  They give general advice like “use the story approach” or “demonstrate your accomplishments.”  If you are a nervous job seeker, does this advice ease your nerves?  Most likely… No.

So I’m here to tell you how to really approach this question and score big points with your interviewer:

Overview
This question tests how you handle yourself under pressure, your level of self-confidence, and your ability to be clear, concise, and direct. Be calm and self-assured when you respond. Believe in what you say. Sometimes this question is the tipping point, and the interviewer will make a decision based on what you say. At other times the question is merely a way to test for additional characteristics. Either way, it is among the most important questions you can receive, so develop a strong response.

Key Points

1. Talk directly about your strengths and how it will bring value to the company
2. Stay cool, calm, and collected
3. Differentiate yourself from your competitors
4. Confidence is everything minus 1.  Smile, be enthusiastic about yourself and passionate about working for the company
5. Your answer should be about 2 minutes (You want to keep it short because you want to be clear and memorable about why your interviewer should choose you for the company

Approach

1. Offer one concrete quality that can bring value to the firm
   • Show how your strength is real and “stronger” than those of your competitors by describing a key example of how you used your strength
   • Choose a quality that is unique and shows your personality.  A few examples are ones that relate to work ethics, technical skills, or a real passion you have for the firm and its work.
2. Tailor your response to the firm and its industry
   • Each firm and each industry values different characteristics, so share the ones that are relevant
3. End with passion
   • Be enthusiastic throughout your answer and end with passion for the company
   • If you believe in your response, then the interviewer will believe in your response

Remember, the interviewer is only looking for two things:

1. Can this person bring value to the firm?
2. Can this person fit within the company culture?

If you can demonstrate these two qualities effectively, then the job is yours.