The Company That We Keep
As the founder of a new startup that is nearing its launch I find the company that I keep is constantly changing based on the rapidly shifting priorities that an early stage startup demands. Over the last three years I divided my time between the various national conferences that relate to the space the startup is in and the seemingly endless number of professional and user group communities that relate to many critical aspects of the startup. You can’t miss out on who the up and coming competition is any more than you can miss out on the latest design and software engineering trends if you really want to be on the cutting edge. There is so much that I have learned during this time. Looking back at the experience ten years ago when I started my last software product company the conversations, conferences and groups seem a lot different. Back then every group seemed a lot more like a happy hour group and the conferences where where you went to learn something new. Maybe it is because I am older now or know who is who more, but I am beginning to notice that the user groups are where people are really going to learn and the conferences are where people are going to drink. Maybe this is because the conferences, while they are different in subject, are becoming more like the high tech happy hours. I attended numerous conferences and happy hours last year. The major difference seemed to be how much the sponsor fees were ($5000 vs. $50 for “BarCamps”) and where the venues were (actual Bars and night clubs vs. Company offices or University Campuses), not who spoke or what was discussed. The SXSW conference discussions (in particular) were more about the party and less about the learning and to top it off, the speakers were the same people that I was encountering at local happy hours. My stock answer for people regarding SXSW is still that I will be going to when I have something that I would like to share with a lot of people who will appreciate something new and cutting edge. The founders of Twitter seemed to both get this and benefit from it too.
In keeping with the title, ‘The Company That We Keep’, I should point out that along the way I have made a lot of amazing friends and acquaintances over the course of the last few years of user grouping, conferencing and hopping from happy hour to happy hour. But in all honesty, somewhere in the last year I started to sense that it was time to move on. Perhaps move on is too strong of a phrase and a better choice of words would be “evolve” or “diversify”. Maybe it was the session at BarCamp on Microbrewing that made it out of the gate or the fact that made a discussion around someone else’s presentation from another BarCamp (rather than being original) or the fact that the Web 3.0 discussion didn’t happen at all (due to a scheduling oversight that killed lots of other cool discussions too) or maybe it was just the fact that the real though leaders just stopped showing up as often and were replaced by the Social Media groupies. Whatever it was, the company that I keep has been evolving as the startup community evolves.
Lately I have found myself mixing it up with user groups when my team is looking for key people that may be found hanging out at a particular event. Right now, for example, we’re looking for a PHP, Ruby on Rails, and JQuery programmers so you may see me at a local PHP, Ruby on Rails or JQuery meetup near you. I’m also spending a lot of time mixing it up with other early stage founders who are considering whether or not to ask for money from investors or who are in the process of raising funds to keep the lights on. A few are looking to turn up the lights. The contrast between the crowds could not be more different. Suits and ties are more common. Hipster shoes are still pretty common. One thing that is a very noticeable difference is the proportion of sales outsourcing firms and lawyers to designers and engineers. While attending the social media mixers and early stage startup events I feel like there is always a large pack of freelance designers and developers. At the investor related events there is always a flock of lawyers and sales outsourcing firms. Another major difference is the number of companies and people who are still talking about offshoring software engineering. In the community and social media events offshoring is still very much a taboo subject, or at least a subject that doesn’t come up frequently. In the investor friendly community offshoring comes up a lot. Even still, there is crossover.
At the end of the day though, the biggest difference that I have found in the two different communities – the social media and early stage crowd vs. the middle to later stage crowd – is the fact that the later stage crowd is full of CEO’s who have done things and who have both feet in the fire vs. the do lots of little things CEO’s who have no idea whether or not they will quit their day jobs and/or freelance gigs to focus on rolling the dice. I still find myself somewhere comfortably in the middle of those two groups. I am self employed and have been for the last going on three years now and am incubating a second company that will be launched in the not so distant future.
Razoo March Goodness Contest
The yearly ritual of March Marchness is almost upon us. For the Razoo team it’s March Goodness time. March Goodness is national nonprofit fundraising competition modeled after the NCAA basketball tournament. The contest includes 64 US nonprofits competing in the Big Dance and 32 smaller nonprofits competing in RazooNIT. The nonprofit teams will try to amass the most “votes” from individual donors (using the Razoo giving platform) in order to win cash prizes. Razoo is a web company that seeks to revolutionize the philanthropic marketplace. They have facilitated more than $18 million in donations to US charities since their launch in late 2008.
This year Razoo’ers are reaching out to the local DC tech community for sponsorships (prize money for the nonprofits), in-kind donations (fun stuff for donors to win), and cross-promotion. Last year’s contest raised $160,000 for nonprofits across the US, and awarded a big prize to a lucky organization. They are hoping we can double that amount this year and assist nonprofits in their ability to raise funds online and function the Web 2.0 way.
The Razoo team believes their sponsors have a unique opportunity to not only promote their own brand on a national platform, but also to support the causes and local charities they believe in. How about some link love for them?
If you are a DC local and want to chat over a beverage of your choice about March Goodness and Razoo’s ideas about getting involved, contact the Razoo team at anytime at marchgoodness@razoo.com or if you’d rather call try 202-684-7552.
Let the Goodness begin!
Invest in America Alliance Program To Fund Tech Companies and To Create New Jobs for College Grads
Invest in America Alliance, led by Intel and supported by 24 leading venture capital firms and corporations plans to invest $3.5 billion in US based technology companies over the next two years. These investments, which include a new, $200 million Intel Capital Invest in America Technology Fund, will target key innovation and growth segments such as clean technology, information technology and biotechnology. Joining Intel in this effort are: Advanced Technology Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures, Bridgescale Partners, Canaan Partners, DCM, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Flywheel Ventures, Good Energies, Institutional Venture Partners, Investcorp Technology Partners, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Menlo Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, North Bridge Venture Partners, QuestMark Partners, Sevin Rosen Funds, Storm Ventures, Telesoft Partners, Updata Partners, U.S. Venture Partners, Venrock and Walden International.
In addition, there are commitments from 17 technology and other corporate leaders to increase their hiring of college graduates, some by as much as two times, to create the products and provide the services of tomorrow. Organizations included in this pledge include: Intel, Accenture, Adobe Systems Incorporated, Autodesk, Broadcom Corporation, CDW LLC., Cisco, Dell, eBay, Inc., EMC Corporation, GE, Google, Inc., HP, Liberty Mutual Group, Marvell Semiconductor Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and Yahoo!. NEA and Updata Partners are both local funds.
TapMetrics Acquired by Millennial Media
Millennial Media, the largest independent mobile advertising network, announced today that it will acquire TapMetrics, a San Francisco-based mobile analytics firm, focused on application usage and behavior. TapMetrics launched at the most recent Social Matchbox event held in Washington, DC after graduating from the Launchbox Digital incubator program. More information on the acquistion can be found here.
Team Building for Early Stage Startup Companies
I have interviewed a lot of early stage startup company founders and one thing that they all have in common is a frustration with recruiting. It isn’t just with recruiters although for some the recruiters rank highly on their list of complaints. The biggest challenge for founders is to identify who to hire, how to convince them to work for a promise of something great that the founder has envisioned, and how to keep a team that is usually getting paid little or nothing save for sweat equity and the obligatory free coffee, sodas and food that comes with work sessions at the founder’s dining room table where work also happens to take place. Over the last few weeks I have heard from a lot of startup founders who are looking to add people to their teams this spring. Some are looking for co-founders while others are looking to hire employees 1, 2, 3, and so on. In light of this I have rounded up a series of articles on the subject for them. If there are any that I missed please let me know.
The first article, titled ‘Who Should You Hire at a Startup?, gets to one of the most important considerations: do you hire people who are cheap and available or do you shoot for the stars. You may get a star, but you are more likely to get a star as an occasional advisor than as a sweat equity or even early stage paid employee so don’t waste too much of your time chasing them. A better idea is to find someone who is really good at what they do but who isn’t quite to the peak of their career yet. A good example of this is with the head of your engineering team. I spoke with someone who was looking to start a startup – they had the vision and “needed a CTO” to execute it. In their case what they really needed was someone who could help them get a proof of concept for their vision started. This isn’t a job for a CTO, it is a job for a really productive programmer who knows how to build what they are trying to build. Again, a CTO would be a great advisor but is not the right person for a proof of concept – UNLESS that CTO is still programming productively. Albert Wenger from Union Square Ventures provides some very good advice on this subject in his article titled ‘Hiring a VP of Engineering or CTO for Non-Techie (First Time) Founders’. Much of his advice could be applied to hiring an outside team or person to do work for your startup.
The next article, titled ‘Hiring Employee #1′, talks about another major consideration: are you building a lifestyle business or a company that you want to take to the next level. I have this conversation with “founders” all the time who are building a cool app. Today they are doing it on the iPhone. A year ago they were still doing it on Facebook. There is no business model behind it, just a cool app. These app founders occasionally find the inspiration to pursue something bigger and better but most of them never quit their day jobs. I have seen a few really take off and turn into big hits that in turn lead to startup venture capital deals and much more. The point here, and one that this article talks about, is that you need to hire people who are on board with the direction that you want the company or product to go in. You definitely want to over communicate this to the people before and after you hire them. Another article, titled ‘Hiring the First 5 Engineers: What Sort of People Do You Want on Your Team?’ provides some really good thoughts on the attributes startup founders may want to look for when interviewing people. This article is right on the money and was very well thought out.
The next article talks about the importance of hiring product management first. This is a really important point too. Yesterday, over lunch, I was talking with another founder about a friend we both have in common. That friend is one of the best developers we know, but someone who is in desperate need of a product manager. Why? The answer is simple: this founder is building all sorts of different products and features hoping that one will be a hit and simultaneously looking for investors. While this shotgun approach to product management may work with iPhone and Facebook apps, it can cost you valuable time and leave you in a position that requires that you spend a ton of time supporting apps that didn’t make it. A better idea is to do your homework in advance, plan your execution, and make sure that you know where you are headed and why. Don’t get me wrong – you need to listen to your customers and adapt to the market, but you don’t need to be an app factory (unless your startup is competing with the iTunes store).
The next article, ‘5 Myths That Can Kill a Startup’, talks about the realities of being a startup founder. If there is one thing that I hear over and over again when talking to startup founders it is the So and So, who happens to be a big deal, said they did Such and Such, so I’m going to do it. It is really important to figure out the best way to get the job done, but it is even more important to think for yourself. Don’t get lost along the way because you are too busy following the herd.
The next article, ‘Ninja Hiring Techniques for Early Stage Startups: How to Get Your First 3 Employees’ talks about techniques for finding the people you want to hire. I talk to a lot of people who tell me that they want to find the people they hire on the Internet. That translates into Craigslist and Linkedin. Some will even blow a wad of cash posting their job on an expensive jobs list. The reality is that there is a lot more to it than posting an ad someplace. If that was the answer then there would not be 50,000+ job boards and a $1 billion plus dollar staffing industry out there. Recruiting is a numbers game as much as it is a strategy game. You need to work a lot of different angles in order to find what you are looking for. Another article I found talks about how “More candidate flow solves a lot of problems” and I tend to agree. You need to figure out how to get enough people in front of you so that you start to see patterns emerge. Once you start to see and recognize patterns emerge you can more easily differentiate and make good choices. It may not be the first person in 50 that you interview that is the right person, it might but the 51st in 100 either, but no matter how many people you talk to you need to follow one simple rule: trust your gut. The trust your gut rule applies as soon as you know what you are looking for and find the person who has it. Don’t spend too much time rationalizing things. I can’t tell you how many people look at things like where someone went to school or where they worked and allow that to override things like – this candidate can program in Ruby on Rails which is what we need someone to do (vs. the one with the degree from Duke can program in C#.NET and Java so they can learn Ruby on Rails).
The next article, ‘Startup sales talent: the good, the bad, and the costly’ covers another important subject for startup founders: don’t settle for the wrong sales people. An article that I found in Venture Beat titled ‘14 tips for building a startup sales team’ provides some good additional insight into this subject.
