Entrepreneurs Need Focus on Their Business Model

Many entrepreneurs work hard on the proof of concept (technical), but skip any proof of the business model (revenue flow). In other words, once they are convinced that the product works, they assume their price, sales channel, and marketing will bring in the customers. These days, the technical side may be the easy part.

Proving the business model requires a different approach than proving the technical concept. For example, one CEO I know gave away his software product to the first ten customers. Customer personnel seemed to like it, and it worked, so he was totally devastated when he couldn’t sell one for a “reasonable” price in the first two months of hard work.

So how do you go about proving the business model? It starts with a customer problem or need, and includes proving the technical concept, but starts earlier and goes much further, per the following key steps:

1. Quantify problem cost-of-pain first. Before you design your new solution idea, gather evidence and estimates of how much money a customer is willing to spend (if any) to solve the problem. Factor in your margin, and you will have an upper bound on your solution cost. You won’t succeed with a product that is too expensive for the market.

2. Prove the technical concept. If the product doesn’t satisfy the need, or it doesn’t work, no business model can work. Start by testing the requirements on real customers, and providing “beta” versions to get real feedback. Iterate and improve the fit until your test customers are delighted, not just tolerant.

3. Use focus groups. Gather some representative customer contacts, and give them your best sales pitch, including price, channel, and support. Then listen carefully to the feedback. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get it right the first time. Changes at this stage cost almost nothing.

4. Talk to domain experts. Here is where your Advisory Board can help you in finding real people with deep experience in your product domain, and gather some unbiased feedback. Listen to potential angel investors, who have domain expertise, and aren’t afraid to ask the hard questions on pricing and channels.

5. Limited rollout. If you have a physical product, try it in a couple of stores first. If you are on the Internet, try one city. This is tricky, since you have to do realistic marketing to see realistic results, but don’t roll out the big viral campaign yet. Look at product costs, margins, commissions, and other expenses to make sure you still have a bottom line.

6. Get a reference customer. You should descend on that big best customer candidate with everything you have. Don’t give the product away, but make sure he has every bit of service you can provide. He better be so pleased that he is willing to provide a testimonial for your real marketing campaign.

7. Sample trade show or user group. If you use the big “Coming Soon!” sign correctly, people will stop by your booth for a look. Make sure they are real customers, and that they get the whole story (not just a technical demo), including price and channel. Otherwise their feedback has no value in proving your business model.

All this assumes you have done the right job first in assessing competition, establishing the sales and marketing channels, and optimizing costs. I see business plans with a great analysis of competitor’s product features, but competitor’s business models rarely get mentioned.

Over the last few years, the right business model has become the key to converting a good idea into a winning startup. Your business model can be your competitive edge, or it can be your soft underbelly. Prove it out, before you dive in with the sharks.

Marty Zwilling

Prepare Your Startup Team for Investor Due Diligence

If your startup is great enough to get a term sheet from angel investors or a venture capitalist, the next step for the investor is to complete the dreaded due diligence process. This is the last step of the process, where surprises in the evaluation of the management team, documentation, and personnel problems can derail the investment.

Some startups do nothing to prepare for the due diligence process, assuming the people and business plan documents will speak for themselves. Others stage elaborate “training” sessions, to “assure” that everyone tells the same story. The right answer is somewhere in between.

I believe that proactive preparation for due diligence is a bigger job than the work for investor meetings, because your whole team is involved, not just you as the CEO. If there are financial anomalies, or someone on the team doesn’t know the current strategy, or is unhappy with you or the company, the investment will be jeopardized.

Even if you feel that all is well, here are some thoughts and actions I would strongly recommend:

• Whole team must know the plan. Make sure the Business Plan and all related documents are current, synchronized, and in the hands of every key employee. If everyone gives a different story, you have no story.

• Personnel situation is stable. Ask everyone to update their resume, and personally call probable references, so there are no surprises. You need to brief the investor ahead of time if there are career anomalies or personnel situations that could be a problem.

• Don’t surprise the team. Call a company meeting to communicate what is happening, and why. This is a good time for the CEO to present the final investor charts, and answer any questions from employees. All need to know who will be there and what you expect.

• Contact key vendors and existing customers. Explain that they may be called, and use the opportunity to check their satisfaction with your company and your product. Again, if you find problems you can’t fix, be up-front with the investor to avoid a surprise.

Depending on the availability of staff and needed information, the due diligence process generally takes 2–6 weeks to perform. During this time or earlier, you should also be doing your own due diligence on the investor, as suggested in a recent article on avoiding problem investors.

Here is a quick summary of the priorities normally covered by the due diligence process:

1. Evaluation of key players. This is the highest priority item. As a starting point, an investor will ask for resumes of the “key players,” and will then follow-up to verify that executives are experienced, honest, and committed. That means questioning each of these key players, and calling references or prior associates.

2. Validation of product. This will cover the technology, the current state of development, and customer satisfaction. Is it something consumers need or simply want, does it work, and is it ready to ship? What are the “kinks” or certifications that need to be resolved? If the product is in customer hands, expect some customers to be interviewed.

3. Size of the market. Having a great product or service is not enough. One of the criteria for a good investment is a large and fast growing “potential market.” Investors will talk to their own experts on the size of the potential market and the expected growth rate. They will also assess trends in the market and how current economic, political, and demographic conditions relate.

4. Sales and marketing strategy. This will involve an analysis of the company’s distribution channels, advertising, and pricing strategy. An investor will try to get an independent reading on competition, barriers to entry, price sensitivity, and what percentage of the market your company can expect to capture.

Remember, once investors contribute money to a company, a long-term relationship is created. Unlike a marriage, however, it may be very difficult, if not impossible, to get a divorce. Your objective is not only to survive, but also to make it an enjoyable win-win relationship.

Marty Zwilling

10 Team Building Actions That are Louder Than Words

Success in a startup is not possible as a “one-man show.” An entrepreneur has to engage with team members, partners, investors, vendors, and customers. In my experience, the joy of positive engagement is sometimes the only pay you get in an early startup. Amazingly, many successful startups are built on this basis alone, with almost no money.

I will talk here primarily about building the internal team of a startup, but the same principles apply outside to your “extended team” and customers. I like the ten practical and transformative steps outlined by Bob Kelleher, in his book “Louder Than Words,” from his many years of experience in corporate environments. These are easily adaptable to the startup environment:

1. Link high engagement to high performance. Don’t confuse engagement with satisfaction. The last thing you want is a team of satisfied but underperforming people. Kelleher defines engagement as “the unlocking of employee potential to drive high performance.” Set and reinforce high performance goals.

2. Demonstrate engagement at the top. Leaders must demonstrate support for an engaged culture by personally living their company’s values. Then engage team members in tough decisions. In today’s recessionary times, leaders have large shadows – and team members are watching everything they do!

3. Engage operational leaders first. Studies show that if one’s line manager is disengaged, his/her employees are four times more likely to be disengaged themselves. To stay engaged, I always practiced “management by walking around.” There is no better way to find out how engaged the rest of the team really is. It works at all levels.

4. Focus on communication at all levels. If you neglect to articulate a clear vision of the future, expect only a minimum of energy to make it happen. Successful leaders provide robust communication, built on clarity, consistency, and repetition. It always amazed me as a leader how many repetitions were required before everyone heard the message.

5. Individualize your engagement. Today’s leaders must tailor their communication approaches, rewards, and recognition programs to the unique motivational drivers of each employee. Communication must be tuned to the different generations, diverse groups, and each individual.

6. Create a motivational culture. Long-term motivation comes from people motivating themselves, but you have to create the right culture. Leaders are more apt to get the discretionary extra effort of their team when they create a culture of empathy and concern about team members as real people!

7. Facilitate and use feedback. For open and honest communication, your practices must include the means for that to happen. Entrepreneurs need to ask team members what they think, and then act on the feedback. The bases of feedback may be a suggestion box, social media, town hall meetings, or “open doors” all the way to the top.

8. Reinforce and reward the right behaviors. Employees are incredibly motivated by achievement and recognition, more than money. Money can cause disengagement if team members perceive unfairness. On the other end of the performance spectrum, there must be consequences if you expect behavior to change.

9. Track and communicate progress. Leaders need to reinforce progress real time and frequently, by telling their team members what is expected, how they’re performing, and where they fit in. These are key both for alignment of priorities and engagement.

10. Hire and promote the right behaviors. Sometimes teams don’t have an engagement issue, so much as a hiring issue – hiring the wrong behaviors and traits to succeed in the startup culture. Also, promote only people who exemplify the behaviors that are most important to your success.

Always remember that your actions speak louder than your words or any written policies. Maximizing team engagement is the key to capturing that extra discretionary effort that separates winning startups from losing ones. This is a never ending responsibility that starts on day one. Are you living these steps today and every day?

Marty Zwilling

Smart Entrepreneurs Plan Key Networking Activities

I often recommend business networking as the most effective way for a startup founder to find investors, advisors, and even key executive candidates. But what if you are an introvert, or new to this game, and don’t know where or how to start?

I have learned over the years that there is an etiquette to this process, just like there is for social networking. Here are a few of the “do’s”:

• Post your profile on LinkedIn and Twitter, and join in relevant discussions. There are other networks that also work, depending on where you are in the world, like Ryze, Plaxo, and Facebook, but setting up an account on MySpace probably won’t help you.

• Join and actively participate in local business organizations. Business groups like TiE-The Indus Entrepreneurs and EO-Entrepreneurs Organization are places to meet people you can help, as well as people who can help you. Remember it helps to give a little to get something back. Another place to start is the local Chamber of Commerce.

• Get introductions from existing business contacts. Start with the people you know, who know your work, and would recommend you to others. It isn't always the first introduction, but the friend of a friend that may be the one that pays dividends.

• Volunteer to help out with entrepreneur activities at your local university. All universities love and need to get help from people in the “real world” for coaching and judging activities in their Entrepreneurship and MBA programs. In return, you will meet or be connected to many people who can help you.

• Attend an investment conference. These events are swarming with potential investors, and this is the forum where they are actively soliciting new opportunities, so don’t be shy about handing out your business card at breaks, lunch, mixers, or scheduled activities.

Join a local investment group. If you can meet the SEC “accredited investor” criteria ($1M net worth or $200K annual income), this is a great way to be seen by potential investors as peers before you need money. Plus you will see how the process really works from the other side of the table – the best preparation you could have for your own approach later. In most cases, these groups don’t require that you invest in others, as a condition of membership.

If all of these are obvious to you, then you are already on the right track, and you probably wouldn’t consider doing any of the “don’ts.”

• Don’t do cold calls or email blasts of your resume and business plan to potential investors.

• Don’t corner and barrage that heavy hitter you heard about with your life history at a social gathering.

• Don’t send your unfinished business plan unsolicited to every VC or investment group you can find in the phone book, just to see if they like the concept.

• Don’t hand out your business cards to everyone in the room, in hopes that one will be impressed with how unique and expensive it looks.

• On LinkedIn, don’t complain to everyone that you are limited to only 3000 invitations, and request them to send you an invitation to become friends.

Back on the positive side, I like to say, especially for us introverts, that networking is more about listening that it is about talking. Believe it or not, most successful investors have big egos, and will probably remember you better if they do most of the talking at first. Nevertheless, have your elevator pitch honed, and don’t be shy about giving it. Don’t forget your enthusiasm, and have fun, but remember your manners!

Marty Zwilling

Entrepreneur Smarts Comprise 8 Dimensions of IQ

I’ve long believed that entrepreneurs are different. We all know successful entrepreneurs who dropped out of school, and people with high IQs that cannot manage a business. I used to call this “street smarts,” but recently I found a better explanation, called multiple intelligences. Successful entrepreneurs always seem to have several good intelligences.

The theory of multiple intelligences was developed way back in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner, at Harvard University. He suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence, called the Intelligent Quotient (IQ), is far too limited. Instead, he now has broad acceptance for at least eight different intelligences that cover a broad range of human potential. These include:

1. Linguistic intelligence (“word smart”). Linguistic intelligence is the ability to think in words and to use language to express complex meanings. Linguistic intelligence is the most widely shared human competence, most evident in poets and novelists. It is also evident in entrepreneurs writing good business plans and convincing investors.

2. Interpersonal intelligence (“people smart”). Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand and interact effectively with others. It involves effective verbal and nonverbal communication, sensitivity to moods and temperaments, and the ability to understand multiple perspectives. Entrepreneurs particularly need interpersonal intelligence.

3. Intra-personal intelligence (“self smart”). Intra-personal intelligence is the capacity to understand oneself, and to use such knowledge in planning and strategy. Intra-personal intelligence involves not only an appreciation of the self, but also of the human condition. It is evident in psychologists, spiritual leaders, and business leaders.

4. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (“body smart”). Bodily kinesthetic intelligence is the capacity to manipulate objects and use a variety of physical skills. This intelligence also involves a sense of timing and the perfection of skills through mind–body union. Inventors and people providing mechanical products need this intelligence.

5. Logical-mathematical intelligence (“number/reasoning smart”). Logical-mathematical intelligence is the ability to calculate, quantify, and think logically. This intelligence is usually well developed in mathematicians, technologists, and computer programmers, and is usually associated with traditional IQ.

6. Naturalist intelligence (“nature smart”). Designates the human ability to discriminate among living things as well as sensitivity to other features of the natural world. I believe that good entrepreneurs use this to discriminate among consumer needs, and pick the most marketable products to offer.

7. Musical intelligence (“musical smart”). Musical intelligence is the capacity to discern pitch, rhythm, timbre, and tone. This intelligence enables us to recognize, create, reproduce, and reflect on music interests and needs, as demonstrated by composers, conductors, musicians, vocalist, and sensitive listeners.

8. Spatial intelligence (“picture smart”). Spatial intelligence is the ability to think in three dimensions. Core capacities include mental imagery, spatial reasoning, graphic and artistic skills, and an active imagination. Sailors, pilots, sculptors, painters, and architects all exhibit spatial intelligence. It’s easy to see how this is important to entrepreneurs.

Robert L Schwarz once said “The entrepreneur is essentially a visualizer and an actualizer. He can visualize something, and when he visualizes it he sees exactly how to make it happen.” That’s a combination of intelligences many people don’t have. If you have it, flaunt it, and enjoy your successes.

Marty Zwilling

The 10 Best Sources of Cash to Start Your Business

Money to build the business is the number one challenge for most startups. Don’t believe the urban myth that you can sketch your idea on a napkin, and professional investors will throw money at you. In reality, only 3 out of 100 companies who apply are successful with Angels, and the success rate with VCs is even lower. A large percentage of startups never apply to either.

You need to explore more common and more productive approaches for getting your startup moving forward. Of course, every approach has pros and cons. For example, with any outside investment, you give up some ownership and control, and with bootstrapping your growth curve will likely be longer and more organic.

Yet, I find that startup founders often fixate on one or two sources, often to the detriment of their business. Following is my prioritized larger list of sources, with some “rules of thumb” which may save you a lot of time and energy:

1. Bootstrapping. Self-funding is the preferred source of cash for your startup – if you can do it. The advantage is no time and effort searching and preparing for the other alternatives, and you don’t have to encumber yourself or give up control of your company. Just don’t quit your day job before your new company is producing revenue.

2. Friends and family. After bootstrapping, friends and family are the most common funding sources for early-stage startups. Use this approach before you have a real valuation, a real product, or any real customers. As a rule of thumb, it is a required first step, as outside investors will not normally consider providing any funding until they see “skin in the game” from one of these first two sources.

3. Small business grants. This source often gets overlooked, but it should be a major focus these days due to government initiatives on alternative energy and technology. It’s not a quick solution, but state and federal funding agencies do not want ownership or interest payments from your company. Related sources include local business development agencies. You have to be relentless in this pursuit to win.

4. Loans or line-of-credit. If your company needs only a temporary or small infusion of cash, you should try for an SBA loan, or a bank line of credit. Many people are afraid to tap into debt sources because they don't want to be burdened with the debt if the startup fails. However, if you don't believe in the company enough to place your own credit behind it, why should anyone else?

5. Startup incubators. A startup incubator is a company, university, or other organization which provides resources for equity to nurture young companies, helping them to survive and grow during the startup period when they are most vulnerable. These resources would likely include office space, consulting, and even a cash investment.

6. Angel investors. If you are looking for $25,000 to $1 million, the next step is to tap into a local angel network. If you don't know any “high net worth” individuals, use your advisors to find them. Networking is key here, and you need to find an angel who understands your industry and shares your passion.

7. Venture capital. As a rule of thumb, don’t try this one in the earlier stages, and don’t try it unless you need more than $1 million. An investment from a venture capital firm is usually expensive, in equity and control. If you go for venture capital, don’t expect a quick fix, so prepare to spend at least six months searching for and closing the deal.

8. Bartering services for equity. Bartering technically means exchanging goods or services as a substitute for money. An example would be getting free office space by agreeing to be the property manager for the owner. Exchanging equity for services is worth negotiating with legal counsel, accountants, engineers, and even sales people.

9. Partner with distributor or beneficiary. A related company may see the value of your product as complementary to theirs, and be willing to advance funding, which can be repaid when you develop your revenue stream. Consider licensing and “white labeling.”

10. Commit to a major customer. Find a customer who would benefit greatly from getting your product first, and be willing to advance you the cost of development. The advantage to the customer is that he will have enough control to make sure it meets his requirements, and will get dedicated support.

Just remember that you don’t get ‘something for nothing’ in any of these cases. All funding decisions represent complex tradeoffs between near-term and long-term costs, ownership, control, and time and effort. Your funding strategy is a key part of every business plan, so don’t hesitate to check out the real alternatives.

Marty Zwilling

What Great Entrepreneurs Do Best to Earn Their Fame

At some point in their life, hopefully everyone strives to be the best in their chosen profession. Most people think that being the best requires more intelligence, more training, and more experience. In reality, in business or even in sports, the evidence is conclusive that it is as much about how you think, as what you do.

I saw this illustrated well recently in a sports excellence book called “Training Camp: What the Best Do Better Than Everyone Else”, by Jon Gordon. His evidence and real life stories conclude that top performers in all professions have the same key traits listed below. I agree they certainly apply to the great entrepreneurs I have known. You need to think about how they apply to you.

1. The best know what they truly want. At some point in their lives, the best have a "Eureka!" moment when their vision becomes clear. Suddenly they realize what they really, truly want to achieve. They find their passion. When that happens they are ready to strive for greatness. They are ready to pay the price.

2. The best want it more. We all want to be great. The best don't just think about their desire for greatness; they act on it. They have a high capacity for work. They do the things that others won't do, and they spend more time doing it. When everyone else is sleeping, the best are practicing and thinking and improving.

3. The best are always striving to get better. They are always looking for ways to learn, apply, improve, and grow. They stay humble and hungry. They are lifelong learners. They never think they have "arrived"—because they know that once they think that, they'll start sliding back to the place from which they came.

4. The best do ordinary things better than everyone else. For all their greatness, the best aren't that much better than the others. They are simply a little better at a lot of things. Everyone thinks that success is complicated, but it's really simple. In fact, the best don't do anything different. They just do the ordinary things better.

5. The best zoom focus. Success is all about the fundamentals, and the fundamentals are little and ordinary and often boring. It's not just about practice, but focused practice. It's not just about taking action, but taking zoom-focused action. It's about practicing and perfecting the fundamentals.

6. The best are mentally stronger. Today's world is no longer a sprint or a marathon. You're not just running; you are getting hit along the way. The best are able to respond to and overcome all of this with mental and emotional toughness. They are able to tune out the distractions and stay calm, focused, and energized when it counts.

7. The best overcome their fear. Everyone has fears. The best of the best all have fear, but they overcome it. To beat your enemy, you must know your enemy. Average people shy away from their fears. They either ignore them or hide from them. However, the best seek them out and face them with the intent of conquering them.

8. The best seize the moment. When the best are in the middle of their performance, they are not thinking "What if I win?" or "What if I lose?" They are not interested in what the moment produces but are concerned only with what they produce in the moment. As a result, the best define the moment rather than letting the moment define them.

9. The best tap into a power greater than themselves. The best are conductors, not resistors. They don't generate their own power, but act as conduits for the greatest power source in the world. You can't talk about greatness without talking about a higher force. It would be like talking about breathing without mentioning the importance of air.

10. The best leave a legacy. The best live and work with a bigger purpose. They leave a legacy by making their lives about more than them. This larger purpose is what inspires them to be the best and strive for greatness over the long term. It helps them move from success to significance.

11. The best make everyone around them better. They do this through their own pursuit of excellence and in the excellence they inspire in others. One person in pursuit of excellence raises the standards of everyone around them. It's in the striving where you find greatness, not in the outcome.

Jon is convinced that people are not born with these traits, they must be learned by everyone. He talks about staying mentally strong, and maintaining a big-picture vision while taking focused action. So if you aspire to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, or Sergey Brin, focus on your attitude as much as your business plan.

Marty Zwilling

Treat Your Startup Like a Business From the Start

I’ve noticed a great tendency among startup founders to ignore the essentials of business accounting in the early stages of their startup. Just because you are not profitable yet, doesn’t mean you can skip the record keeping.

In fact, just the opposite is true. When you anticipate losses for the first year or two, it is more important to properly document all expenses, including tricky ones like business travel, business meals, and your home office. Sloppy documentation and reporting of these expenses is an open invitation to an IRS audit, which is the last thing you need or can afford during the busy startup period.

Expense accounting is just one of the key record-keeping requirements for a successful business:

• Expenses and income. You'll need a check register, a cash receipt system, and a record of bills. Also you should include tax records, bank statements, cancelled checks, bank reconciliations, notices from and to your bank, deposit slips, and any loan-related documents. Keep good backups of all computer files.

• Corporate records. Include here articles of incorporation, bylaws, shareholder minutes, board minutes, state filings, stock ledger, copies of stock certificates, options and warrants, and copies of all securities law filings. In all cases, don’t forget permits, licenses, or registration forms required to operate the business under federal, state or local laws.

• Contracts. All the contracts you have, even expired ones, should be saved indefinitely. These would include equipment leases, joint venture agreements, real estate leases, and work-for-hire agreements. It is also good to keep correspondence sent and received by mail, faxes, and important e-mail that you might want in hard copy.

• Employee records. Include here completed employment applications, employee offer letters, employee handbooks or policies, employment agreements, performance appraisals, employee attendance records, employee termination letters, W-2s, and any settlement agreements with terminated employees.

• Intellectual property records. This is an especially important category. Make sure you file a copy of all trademark applications, copyright filings, patent filings and patents, licenses, and confidentiality or nondisclosure agreements.

Of course, these days you need a personal computer or laptop dedicated to your business with some basic software tools. You should investigate the wide variety of software systems that are on the market, and pick one you makes you comfortable, since you will probably be doing the basic data entry yourself. This not only will save you money, but it will keep you intimately aware of all expenses and the condition of your overall business. In my experience, the most common small business accounting system I see in startups is QuickBooks Pro by Intuit.

Even if you have the money to hire an accountant, you should keep a grip on your business financial affairs. You should be able to explain to yourself how much money you owe out to others, how much others owe you, and how much cash you have on hand. Don’t be shy about investigating local classes as adult education, or even a seminar with the SBA on bookkeeping.

An accountant may not be necessary, but you still can’t skip the tools. You can't walk in with a bag full of receipts. The more organized you are, the more organized you will be when presenting this material to an accountant. That translates to reduced bills from the accountant, and a reduced tax bill from the IRS. You will save time and money, and be more confident about your status.

Good record-keeping practices are required to comply with tax laws, and to operate your business properly. When you incorporate your business is the right time to establish the records system. Don’t let your dream get killed by ignoring business basics.

Marty Zwilling

10 Tips on Making a Memorable Investor Pitch

The average length of a funding pitch to angel investors is ten minutes. Even if you have booked an hour with a VC, you should plan to talk only for the first fifteen minutes. The biggest complaint I hear from investors is that startup founders often talk way too long, and neglect to cover the most relevant points. Or they get sidetracked by a technical glitch due to poor preparation.

If you start by pitching your extended life story, that’s the wrong point. Equally bad is an extended pitch on your new disruptive technology. Investors are more interested in your solution and your business, rather than your technology. Here are some tips on the right approach and the right points to hit:

1. Match your material to the time allotted. If you have ten minutes, that means no more than ten slides. Then match your pace to cover all the material. I’ve seen several presentations that never moved past the first slide before running out of time. An obvious effort to keep talking after the time limit won’t save your day with investors.

2. Remember you are pitching to investors, not customers. Some entrepreneurs seem to think that their product pitch is also their investor pitch. I outlined what investors expect to see in another article “Limit an Investor Pitch to 10 Pages and 10 Minutes.” These are tuned to the ten-minute limit, but are just as adequate if the investor gives you an hour.

3. Check the setup and set the stage. If the projector doesn’t work, or won’t connect to your laptop, you are the one that loses. Have at least one backup plan, such as copies of your slides to hand out and discuss, in case all else fails. The first words out of your mouth should be “Can everyone hear me, and read the screen?”

4. Research your audience before presenting. The most respected presenters are the ones who have done the research before hand to know who is in the audience, and have tailored their message to these interests. If you know only a few people in the audience, acknowledge them, and convince the others that this is not a random cold call for you.

5. Dress appropriately and professionally. It’s always better to be over-dressed than under-dressed. Business casual is the standard. Remember that most investors are from a generation where faded and torn jeans were on the wrong side of success in business.

6. Let the top person do all the talking. Tag team shows don’t work in short venues. More importantly, investors want to see and hear the top guy – typically the founder or CEO. They will be judging his aptitude, his character, and his passion. Others can be present for effect, but deferrals to team members for answers are a sign of weakness.

7. First, get their attention with your elevator pitch. Start with the problem and your solution. These are your hooks, and they better be covered in the first 30 seconds. State your value proposition, and what specifically you are offering to whom. Skip the acronyms, history of the company, and the colorful autobiography.

8. Lead with facts, but skip the details. Skip the generic marketing phrases like more user friendly, massive opportunity, and paradigm shifting. “According to Gartner, the opportunity is 100 million by 2015, with 12% compounded growth.” Investors don’t need to know the implementation details of your patent or customer support plan.

9. Don’t forget to ask for the order. How much money do you need, and what percent of your company are you willing give up for that amount? If you want investor interest, the business parameters of a deal should be presented as clearly as the product parameters.

10. Close by asking for questions and promising follow-up. Acknowledging feedback and actually listening for ways to improve will always lead to a positive impression. You should answer questions with data if you have it, but avoid defensive responses in favor of a promise to follow-up after the meeting.

Most importantly, don’t forget to practice, practice, practice. Just because you have given a thousand pitches in your life, don’t assume you can finesse this one by reading the bullet points in real time from the slides that your team put together for you. You need to be totally familiar and comfortable with your pitch to give it effectively.

Forget the theory that you can “rise to the occasion” and impress everyone with your dynamic speaking ability. If you are pitching the wrong point in the wrong way, the occasion will be more the demise than the rise of your dream.

Marty Zwilling

When is a Startup Non-Disclosure Really Required?

Entrepreneurs often get the advice from their lawyers and friends to always get a Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA or CDA) signed before disclosing anything about their new venture. Most investors and startup advisors I know hate them, and refuse to sign them. Who is right?

Let me try to put this question in perspective. If you are totally risk-averse, then push to always get signed NDAs. You won’t last long as an entrepreneur in this category, since a startup is all about taking risks. On the other hand, if you intend to patent an idea, you need a signed confidentiality agreement from everyone knowing details, or you will legally lose patent rights.

The format of an NDA is simple, and you can download a sample from my website. Here are some rule-of-thumb considerations that should help you decide when an NDA is really required, or actually has negative value:

• Trusted professional. If you want advice or funding, and the person you are about to pitch to is a certified investor, or a senior business advisor, skip the NDA. These people value their professional integrity, like your doctor or lawyer, and they are not competitors. Asking for an NDA is an insult and will jeopardize your case before you start.

• Unknown interested party. If you meet someone through Internet networking, or if someone with no visible professional standing contacts you with interest in your plan, an NDA is the least you should do protect yourself. Verifying credentials through multiple sources is even better.

• Strategic partner. The line between competitor and partner is a fine one these days. An NDA is highly recommended before you talk to a similar company about a joint venture, white labeling, or any investment options. I recommend a mutual non-disclosure, with a non-compete clause, for protection in both directions.

• Prior to patent application. As I mentioned earlier, you should never disclose details of a potential patent to anyone without getting a signed and dated NDA. That doesn’t mean you can’t talk in general terms about your idea, and even pitch to investors. Investors don’t need to hear the details anyway, until the due diligence phase.

• Trade secrets. A trade secret is a formula, practice, process, design, instrument, pattern, or compilation of information which is not patentable, but gives you an economic advantage over competitors or customers. When someone needs to know the details, get an NDA, even with your own employees.

• Period covered. Typically NDAs have terms of two to five years. In today’s fast moving world, a longer term makes no sense, and is viewed by the signor as an unreasonable restriction on future activities. You can always renew the NDA before it expires, if it is still relevant.

Venture capitalists and angel investors won’t sign NDAs for two reasons: 1) they don’t want the constraints or litigation a few have faced from rogue entrepreneurs, and 2) they feel that if by simply describing the problem you solve, you give away your business, there is almost no chance you will be able to create a defensible position in the market.

There will be some companies who, for perfectly valid business reasons, do not wish to sign an NDA. This doesn’t mean that they are dishonest, but simply that they may not wish to manage the risks involved. As an example, they want to avoid any future conflict with products they may already be working on.

Sharing original work which you intend to commercialize with a startup requires a high degree of mutual trust. Remember that without an NDA, you can still explain what your idea does, but not how it functions or how it’s made. That should be enough to excite interest at a first meeting, and the feedback is worth more than the risk.

Marty Zwilling

This Entrepreneur Malaise is Deadly for Any Startup

Founders almost always cite lack of money as the reason for failure, but if you look deeper, I believe the reason is more often about dysfunctional people and leadership. Sometimes it comes right back to the founder, in terms of a malaise often called “Founder’s Syndrome.” A few years ago I was intimately involved with a promising startup that taught me about this issue.

I’ll be short on specifics here, to protect the guilty, but I hope you get the idea. It’s not a disease, but it can kill your startup. You can find a more complete discussion of Founder’s Syndrome on Wikipedia, but here are a few of the “symptoms” I observed in the Founder and CEO in this case:

1. Advisors and staff hand-picked from friends and connections. Personality and loyalty are apparently the key criteria, rather than skills, organizational fit, or experience. The executive is looking more for cheerleaders, rather than people with real insights and ideas.

2. Reacts defensively and talks constantly. Sometimes it's time for quiet listening rather than talking. A strong and confident leader will always realize that a defensive response before the input message is complete does not impress investors, nor anyone else on the team.

3. Staff meetings are for one-way communication. This Founder holds staff meetings only to report crises, rally the troops, and get status reports on assignments. There is no concept here of team strategy development, and shared executive agreement on objectives.

4. With no input and no “buy in” from the team, sets extremely ambitious objectives. These objectives are set based on the desires and dreams of the Founder, with no recognition of technical realities, costs, or time required.

5. Over time, becomes more and more isolated and paranoid. The first clue is some veiled comments about the motives of staff members, advisors, and investors. These become more specific as the situation gets more dire, to the point where key members begin to desert the ship in disgust.

6. Highly skeptical about planning, policies, and advisors. Claims "they're overhead and just bog me down". Founder perception is that his experience is more applicable than the input of others, and formal planning and policies are just a way of introducing unnecessary bureaucracy.

In the beginning, we all found our startup Founder to be dynamic, driven, and decisive. He had a clear vision of what his organization could be. He seemed to know his customer's needs, and was passionate about meeting those needs. Just the traits one would expect for getting a new organization off the ground. However, he had other traits, including the ones listed above, which became major liabilities.

The undoing of the company began when a potential investor, after months of search, was ready to put up $1M, but made it clear that his firm would likely need to replace the Founder with someone with more credentials and experience in this industry. With that revelation, the Founder killed the investment deal, and every other potential deal which raised the same issue.

Of course, no situation is this simple. There were product development problems, pricing problems, and early customers who demanded more features and delayed contractual payments. The ultimate result was a startup founder who exhausted his personal funds, drained the investments capability of friends, and drove away the team one by one.

For me, this is a most frustrating and difficult problem for any advisor or team member to deal with, since communication and learning can only occur when someone is open and listening. If any of you out there have seen this, or have some experience or ideas on how to deal with this situation effectively, let me know. You can be a hero if you have the cure.

For all you Founders out there, if you find this article anonymously taped to your computer, it might be time to take a hard look at yourself in the mirror. We can’t change you, but you can change yourself. It could save your startup!

Marty Zwilling

Are You Agile Enough for the New Business Economy?

Prior to the recession, many companies and even startups were acclimated to prosperity, maybe too comfortable. We have now been through some turbulent times, but has your strategy really changed? All too many simply hunkered down to wait out the economy.

Smart entrepreneurs are making changes now, to be more agile in defining strategy, making organizational changes, and analyzing markets for change. The rebound may be here, but business will never be the same. Look for new volatility, caused by inflation or deflation, new government regulations, and of course new technology and even more determined competitors.

These volatile markets are already creating unexpected opportunities and risks – you must be alert and agile enough to spot them and adapt quickly to survive and prosper. Here are the key aspects of agility requiring focus:

• Eliminating bureaucracy. Inflexible organizational structures can exist in small organizations, as well as large ones. Organizations, as small as a single person, are made up of people – and inflexible people are the real problem. Make sure your team consists wholly of people who are open-minded, empowered, and motivated.

• Proactive pursuit of new markets. An agile business listens to customers and proactively embraces change, rather than waiting for the pain of competitors’ arrows. Because change is perpetual, make sure you have a process for innovation and an ongoing program to adapt to new opportunities.

• Constant redefinition of roles. If your key roles and titles have not changed for as long as you can remember, they are likely obsolete. If any given person has been in the same role for as long as you can remember, that person is likely obsolete. Rotating good people to new roles keep both them and their new roles agile. Eliminate deadwood.

• Plan to innovate. Sustainable innovation is really the only sustainable competitive advantage. But innovation doesn’t happen without a process, and requires commitment from every member of the team. Track results and measure ROI.

• Speedy strategy to execution. Create a performance culture, rather than analysis paralysis. Once the decision is made, automate, and outsource functions that are not core to the business. If it routinely takes you six months to change a process, your company is still in the dark ages.

• Quick to fail. If your new idea doesn’t seem to be working, don’t hang on to it forever. With innovation, we know many great new ideas don’t work out. Make sure you have a process in place to measure progress and success, or to discard untenable ideas, before you spend a fortune in dollars and time.

• It starts at the top. An agile company starts with agile leadership at the top. It’s up to you to communicate the message, manage resources, and ensure fluid movement between people and projects. Managing change is not an element of your job as a business leader; it is the job.

Increasing the agility of your company is not a “big bang” one-time effort. It’s making hundreds of small adjustments every day to reduce costs, increase revenues, and penetrate new markets. All you need are profits that are two to four percent higher than the market average to stay ahead of your competitors.

Simply put, business agility means being proactive and quickly able to adapt to change. It can exist in any company at three levels at least; operational agility, organizational agility, and strategic agility. Where is your company today in this spectrum? The rebound is happening.

Marty Zwilling

The Cost Equation for a Startup is Better Than Ever

I come from a high-tech software background, and only a few years ago, it would cost at least a million dollars ($1M) for a team of professionals to produce any commercial software product. Now, with open source software components, and low-cost development tools, the same job can be done by one good hacker for a few thousand dollars.

Even for low-tech startups, the scope of information available on the Internet, and its global reach, has had a similar financial impact on the many other challenges facing every startup founder. Here are a few examples:

• Setting up the business. Establishing the legal structure for your business, registering trademarks, filing copyrights and patents, and drafting partnership agreements used to require extensive attorney fees and ongoing consultation. I now see and believe business plans that budget $1K for all this, versus a previous $20K or more.

• Facilities and staff. Founders now routinely use their home to operate their startup until they are well into the revenue phase. No office space rental, no secretary, and no accountant are required. That’s a burn rate of at least $10K per month that can be eliminated if you are handy with computers and Quickbooks.

• Technology costs. We all know how much costs have come down on computer hardware, computer software, printers, PDAs, high-speed internet access, servers, and security measures. Skip the IT consultants and build an entry website yourself to save $50K. Do basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing (SEM) yourself.

• Sales and marketing costs. Print your own collateral and marketing materials until the business is rolling. Use the Internet and social networking instead of public relations companies and advertising agencies. Try Web-Ex, free teleconferencing, and Skype instead of international travel for client meetings. Savings can be huge in these areas.

• Manufacturing cost and lead times. Remember when you had to build a $1M factory to roll-out a new product? Now you can get a product built in China almost overnight with minimal up-front cost, with delayed payment based on first-customer order commitments. With the struggling economy, manufacturers everywhere are negotiating great deals.

• Wages and benefits. Obviously, if you can do most of the work yourself, you need fewer employees, meaning less for payroll tax, benefits, and workers compensation. As a rule of thumb, you should double every employee’s salary in estimating employee costs, so less is more.

I recognize that different small businesses will have different types of startup costs. For example, a furniture retailer might need a storefront and staff, while you might run an online retail business, at home in your shorts, with no facility or staff at all. That wasn’t even possible a few years ago.

As a result, being an entrepreneur in now within the financial reach of almost everyone. No need to make the assumption that you will need a rich uncle or an angel investor for every idea you come up with. See my interview a couple of years ago with parallel entrepreneur Rich Christiansen, who has started 28 businesses with a target bootstrap investment of $5K each.

Best of all, it’s even considered “ultra-cool” these days to be a lean startup. Of course, a word of caution is also in order here. It makes no sense to rush headlong into a commitment as big as starting a new company without doing your homework on viability first. See specific guidance on “How to Give Your Startup Idea The Sniff Test.”

In summary, I see a historic shift taking place in the world today. More than ever, people are striking out on their own and starting their own businesses. New cost equations brought about by the Internet and social networking are causing a revolution, and a new age — the age of the entrepreneur — is dawning. Don’t be the last to get on board.

Marty Zwilling

Entrepreneurs Need to Brand Themselves First

Starting a business is usually the result of a personal dream or need. Investors tell me that they invest in people, more than the idea. Customers buy from people, not from a company, at least at the startup stages. That’s why it’s important to build a personal brand, in parallel and before your business brand. This will kick-start your business, and improve your odds of success.

So what does it mean to “brand yourself?” Branding yourself means making yourself visible, and communicating via all avenues your personal value and what your stand for, with total clarity and consistency. It’s especially important to highlight your uniqueness in some easy to remember way, so people will think of you and what you do, in case they need your product or service.

Then do the same to brand your company. Branding guru Catherine Kaputa, in her latest book “Breakthrough Branding” says that branding is all about building a recognizable identity, and associating it with benefits and positive consequences. She outlines some positioning strategies, with seven key drivers of brand growth:

1. Brand boldly – for your business and you. A common way to position your personal and business brand is to boldly “own” an attitude on a key attribute. Every product or service has specific attributes that are important to key customers, like integrity and trust, or customer focus. Craft a simple message to make that your identity.

2. Dominate the category (even if you have to create a new one). Small brands that break through to grow big find a “small” idea that fills a gaping hole – a need in the marketplace that wasn’t met before – and they keep filling that need better than anyone. If you dominate the market, competitor copycats will only amplify your positioning.

3. Figure out how to grow and scale the business. Businesses that scale have leverage and more rapid brand growth. Technology businesses can be very scalable because you can develop a core set of assets, such as software systems, and then you can monetize them at low additional cost. Build your business model on systems, not on people.

4. Enchant your customers. At the end of the day, you’re only as good as your customers who love and appreciate you. That’s why having a special customer relationship model that’s hard to copy can propel your business growth. According to Guy Kawasaki, enchanted customers elevate your brand, like advocating a good cause.

5. Put “growth agent” in everyone’s job description. Growth means change, and that doesn’t come naturally to most people. Keep everyone focused on one key objective and three measurable key results, so “business as usual” is not an option. Find people smarter than you in each aspect of the business, and hand if off as you scale.

6. Strike the right balance between innovation and staying true to the brand. Ignore innovation and your competitors will quickly pass you by. Too much innovation will confuse your customers, and drain your resources. To stay true to the brand, use open innovation, and see the power of involving customers in the process of innovating.

7. Take advantage of good luck and bad. Sometimes a sprinkling of good luck after bad, along with pluck, can propel your business idea into a breakthrough brand. The early startup period (“valley of death”) is your most vulnerable time but also your most opportunistic, because it is the time when you can create tremendous brand value.

As much as we might like entrepreneurship and branding to be a science, because it would be simpler that way, it is not. Being a brand entrepreneur, both for you personally as well as your business, requires learning, and is an ever-changing art without easy formulas.

An entrepreneur these days can’t afford to hide behind an impersonal website or hole up in the corner office. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, connect your customers to one another, and you, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you don’t take charge of your brand, someone else will – and they are not likely to brand you in the way you want to be branded. Do you want the impossible task of undoing a negative brand?

Marty Zwilling

9 Leadership Failures to Avoid as an Entrepreneur

After working with dozens of startup founders, I’m still amazed that some seem to be able to do the job easily and effectively, always in control, while others always seem to be struggling, out-of-control, and fighting the latest crisis. I am more and more convinced that it is the right founder behavior that leads to success, rather than some exceptional intelligence or training.

In that context, startup founders should carefully review the points made by Denny F. Strigl, former CEO of Verizon Wireless, in his recent book, aptly named “Managers, Can You Hear Me Now?” He outlines the behavioral habits he has seen in managers who are successful, versus the bad habits of ones who struggle. These habits apply even more directly to entrepreneur startup leadership:

1. Failure to build trust and integrity. Poor leaders often fail to build trust initially, or they erode trust during daily interactions and operations. Without trust, there can be little cooperation between team members. This results in little risk taking, diminished confidence among employees, and a loss of communication throughout the company.

2. Focus on things that don’t really matter. Entrepreneurs who struggle spend too much time focused on things that don’t really matter. If it doesn’t fit into one of the Four Fundamentals: growing revenue, getting new customers, keeping the customers they already have, or eliminating costs, they should rethink what they are doing.

3. Shirk accountability and role model. Founders need to realize their behavior is in a “fishbowl” and thereby highly visible for the team to see and imitate. What the founder says and does in stressful situations sends a signal to imitate that behavior, even when they are not under stress. Poor performers thrive in an unaccountable work climate.

4. Fail to consistently reinforce what’s important. Managers often stress a particular message or a program for a couple of weeks, and then assume everyone gets it. When they change their message too often, team members become confused about what’s important. People perform best when what they hear is consistent and frequent.

5. Over-rely on consensus decisions. Some founders go too far to become consensus builders. This takes too much time in our super-competitive environment, and the result of a total buy-in is usually a watered-down version of the original decision or action they intended. Informed decision-making is not the same as consensus decision-making.

6. High priority on being popular. The first priority of a founder is to deliver results, rather than building friendships. Happy team members don’t necessarily bring you stellar results, although stellar results almost always bring you a happy team. Good managers don’t worry about shaking up the status quo, and realize that change is never initially popular.

7. Get caught up in their self-importance. Many founders fail because they get caught up in the “aura” of their position, and seek recognition and glamour for themselves. They love to give speeches to groups and in places that don’t really matter. These people seldom see what is causing their own demise in their attention to “all-about-me.”

8. Put their heads in the sand. Many founders struggle because they only want to hear good news. Team members quickly learn to report positives, while hiding problems. As a result, productivity suffers, employee morale decreases, and targeted results are missed. Encourage open, honest, direct, and specific communication always.

9. Fix problems, not causes. Don’t fix a problem without addressing the reason the problem occurred. The most common excuses given include lack of time to immediately address the cause, lack of resources to address the cause, or problem is outside of their control. Good managers always find the means to fix the cause.

In order to stop struggling and start delivering, founders need to close the gap between what they know and what they do. Avoid the bad behaviors outlined here. Do the good things, day in and day out, until your behavior becomes habit for both you and your team. This can override pure intelligence and create real success and positive results from everyone on the team.

Marty Zwilling

5 Reasons a Startup Mentor Need Not Be Your Friend

Friends tell you what you want to hear. Mentors tell you what you need to hear. When the message is the same from both, you don’t need the mentor anymore. In that sense, you should think of a mentor more like your advisor who has done all he can. You always need the friend.

Also don’t confuse a business mentor with a business coach. A mentor’s aim is to teach you what to do and how, in specific situations, unlike a coach who helps you develop your generic skills for deciding what to do and how. The mentor helps the entrepreneur fill an experience gap, and a coach helps fill a skill gap. Both may be required.

Before you are ready for a mentor, you must know yourself. Have you assessed your strengths and weaknesses? What are your goals? Where are you heading? Unless you know these things, no one can help you. Also you need to be prepared to take advice and criticism, if it is honest, helpful, and given in a friendly way.

Once you are ready, what are some of the attributes of a good mentor that you should look for? You need someone who:

1. Applies pragmatics to your ideas. Most entrepreneurs have lots of ideas. Some can be put into practice easily, but others will be off-the-wall and need refinement to implement. A good mentor will have some knowledge and some perspective on almost every business subject, which compounds their effectiveness.

2. Challenges your accountability. Entrepreneurs tend to be driven by the crisis of the moment. As such, it is easy to neglect the real priorities of growing the business. Sharing of your goals with your mentor means that if you don't complete them, you have a credible voice to remind you and help get you back on the right track.

3. Able to extrapolate the business. A successful business never stands still. You need a constant stream of ideas for scaling and expanding, with a realistic understanding of the costs and resources required. Then there is the exit strategy, which needs planning, connections, and forethought.

4. Has the contacts you need. When you need contacts for investors, equipment, and legal or accounting advice, your mentor has the contacts and knows where to find the information. More importantly, the mentor tells you what you need to do to build and maintain your own list of contacts.

5. Gives the outside view looking in. A mentor knows what to look for, and sees what your customers see. It’s natural to become so immersed in your business that you forget to step back and look in from the outside. Like living next to the railroad tracks; after a while you don't hear the trains.

How do you find a person who meets these criteria? Sometimes a mentor just appears naturally, but do your networking among friends and colleagues. Look for a person who could be a good role model, someone who has the skills and personality that match your chemistry.

This person could be a professional who does this for a living, or a role model in a related business who is willing to help you. An ideal candidate is someone from the Boomer generation, who is semi-retired, but still active in local organizations or the investment community.

I don’t mean to imply that an entrepreneur needs a mentor more than a friend, just that friends are not normally positioned for double-duty as mentors. You need at least one of each, and the ability to tell the difference.

Marty Zwilling

7 Attributes of a True Entrepreneur, Young or Old

To be an entrepreneur, you have to be navigate lots of unknowns, and the path is fraught with risk. Once you are past a certain mental age, you know too many of the things that can go wrong, so you never start. Sort of like the old saying that if we didn’t have young men to fight our wars, we could achieve world peace in no time.

People who are young, or young at heart, don’t know all the negatives, or don’t worry about them. The result is that they achieve things that no one else ever thought possible. That’s the definition of a true entrepreneur. Many people, including Mike Michalowicz, in his highly irreverent book, “The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur,” have identified specific reasons for this:

1. Resilience. Youth brings an ability to rebound that many people lose with age, unless they remain young at heart. This resilience allows you to bounce back after defeat and try again, unscathed. The entrepreneurial path is littered with pitfalls and roadblocks; you need the capacity to come back again and again relentlessly.

2. No false pretense. The young foresee many more possibilities and great experiences ahead. As a young person your life IS still ahead of you. The best part is, you can determine just how great a ride it will be. In fact, at any age your life isn’t over yet. Smart people are still determined to make it a great ride, rather than a sickening spiral downhill.

3. Responsibility pressures. Most young people fresh out of college don’t have children and spouses to support, so they can put real focus into launching a company. Later in life, when the kids are grown and gone, someone young at heart can again focus on dreams without overwhelming responsibilities.

4. Energy and passion. No question, a young person has more energy than an older person. Likewise, a person at any age who is living their passion as tremendous amounts of energy. Those who are young at heart feel the same passion, and can even use their experience to do the same job with less energy.

5. No preconceived notions. Young people, in general, are far more willing to try something new. As we age, we often look back at our younger years and can’t believe the crazy things we tried. But it’s never too late for some to be young, be crazy, and launch a company.

6. Not schedule driven. One of the first freedoms that most young people enjoy is to ignore conventional schedules. They may party all night and work all day, or the other way around. Getting away from large company schedules is also one of the key reasons that experienced professionals jump ship to start their own company.

7. Money isn’t a big deal. Since most young folks have yet to experience what it’s like to have lots of money, going without isn’t perceived as much of a hardship. On the other end of the spectrum, most people learn that money doesn’t mean happiness. The motivation to follow you dream actually can keep you young at heart.

There is plenty of evidence that raw intelligence and advanced degrees are not the key to success as an entrepreneur. What does matter is how smart you believe you are, how talented you believe you are, how driven you are, how focused you are and how persistent you are. These are the domain of the young at heart, of any age.

Launching a business is about surviving and doing it intelligently. If you have the will, there is a way. Being young or young at heart makes it even easier. As Mike Michalowicz would say, all you need is to get down to business. NOW!

Marty Zwilling

Even Startups Can’t Innovate Without a Process

Most entrepreneurs I know are individually very innovative, but a successful startup can’t be a one-man show (for long). That means they need to build an innovative team, which is not a skill that most people are born with. In fact, some very innovative individuals, known as ‘idea people’ or inventors, often end up creating the most dysfunctional teams.

A typical approach to dealing with team dysfunction or no innovation process is to work around it, which normally leads to startup failure. The only way to build productive, collaborative, innovative, and cohesive teams is by resolving core dysfunction issues and implementing a structured process for innovation.

There are many resources out there to help you address team dysfunction, but very few provide much insight on a process for maximizing startup team innovation once you have the motivated people. Recently I was reviewing a new book by Chris Grivas and Gerard Puccio, “The Innovative Team,” which seems to hit the issue directly, with stories to illustrate key points.

They outline a simple process or framework for fostering team innovation, called FourSight, which is composed of four steps, capitalizing on the leader’s and other team member’s strengths and interests, that is consistent with my own experience in big companies as well as small:

1. Clarify the situation. Innovation is not all about coming up with new ideas. It really is first figuring out which challenges are the most important. Clarifying means sorting out the real problem from the symptoms or distractions, and focusing all team energies there to change things for the better.

2. Generate ideas. This requires divergent thinking, with the strengths of every team member, to generate as many ideas as possible. Then it requires convergent thinking when there are enough ideas to choose from. Look for that sparkling new idea or “eureka” moment to develop into a workable solution.

3. Develop the best solution. No idea is born perfect. Here the goal is to transform a novel idea into one that can be implemented successfully, with tinkering, adjusting, and polishing. True creativity brings novelty and usefulness together. This step includes verification will the solution will actually work, and the improvement can be measured.

4. Implement plans. This is the stage where project plans are created and implemented. Now it’s all about action, and in many ways, about managing change. People who prefer this stage of the process tend to be drivers, known for making quick decisions and getting results. It always helps to temper their preference with patience and sensitivity to others.

In business today, it takes a team to get work done, whether we are talking about a startup or a large conglomerate. The potential of any team is defined by its members, not just individually, but collectively. Then the right process is required for innovative thinking that is greater than the sum of their individual talents and skills.

Although most startups say they want to create a culture of innovation, they should realize that there are implications. Leaders have to focus on open and honest communication to maintain trust. Founders have to be willing and able to reject ideas that won’t work, in a way that still encourages more creativity.

Entrepreneurs have to remain open to creativity and change, despite high-pressured investors driving more toward “making it through the day” and “timeline deliverables” than producing well-developed and novel products, improvements, or new directions.

By becoming more consciously and deliberately creative, entrepreneurs can enjoy their lifestyle with more satisfaction, enabling their team to do the same, and together produce results that no one has yet dreamed of. Are you building a team yet which fits this mold?

Marty Zwilling

Is User Base or Profitability the Key to Scale?

Every entrepreneur dreams of that sweet spot in the life of their business when it will reach critical mass, and they can focus more on scaling it than finding another investment round, or pumping in more cash. The challenge is how to recognize the point where the business is self-sustaining and stable, rather than spinning out of control at the slightest glitch.

In fact, in the last decade, the whole concept of a business critical mass has been sent into a tailspin. It used to be simple – when your business became cash-flow positive, it had achieved critical mass. Then came the advent of social media companies like Facebook and Twitter that declared a critical mass with no revenue, counting on their user base of millions of people to get them market values in the billions of dollars.

Now most entrepreneurs are confused. Should they focus on revenues and profitability, or focus on growing their customer base at all costs? In my view, the pendulum is swinging back, meaning that while the size of your following and customer base is valuable, most investors are looking for the old-fashioned indications of critical mass in a new venture, like the following:

• Your business is living off internally generated cash. When cash-flow positive, there are profits to put in the bank or invest back in the business. In fact, you are able to invest in the business, even explore new avenues to grow, without always putting your business in jeopardy.

• Margins and revenue are healthy. Exact margins depend on the business model, but most companies at critical mass must generate a gross profit margin of at least 55%, and an operating profit margin of at least 20%, and have been doing it for a year. Critical mass also usually implies an annual revenue stream of at least $1 million.

• Low customer churn and employee turnover. Productivity is critical to enhanced profitability, and you can’t get productivity if you are continually churning customers, and hiring new people who need experience and training to be productive. Productivity is measured in ratios like cost of customer acquisition and revenue per employee.

• High energy level everywhere for and in the company. The idea, direction, and business must be obviously inspiring the team to evangelize the offering, not because they are highly compensated, but because they are believers. You have critical mass you’re your customers are your greatest evangelists.

• Brand engagement is evident and widespread. Today’s customers want to know the brand, and you are the brand in a startup. You need to have established interactivity, visibility, and credibility with your customers. When your level of engagement is widely recognized, it spreads virally, and you have a critical mass.

While the last three of these are always relevant, some analysts and investors, like Jason Calacanis, are arguing that customer scale these days can trump revenue as the critical mass. Of course, this only works if funding is not an issue, and you are prepared to spend $50 million to get 100 million users. In my opinion, most investors still view this model as the exception, and don’t recommend Twitter as a role model other startups.

I realize that there are businesses today, like web services and social media, that are hard to monetize at all until you have an audience of scale. In all businesses, scaling is important, but the question is whether it comes before critical mass or after. For either to work, it better be part of your strategy to fit both your levels of commitment and funding from the start.

Overall, every new business is much like any investment that accrues compound interest over time. Your level of engagement, network, product quality, and customers all gather momentum to help you reach that critical mass. Your team has to be more productive, your quality better, and you need to make the right decisions to build this momentum.

Finally, don’t fool yourself into thinking you can relax when you reach this critical mass point. Now comes the real challenge of scaling the business return. That will probably require more time and more money, and will continue indefinitely. There is no end to the fun and the challenge for an entrepreneur!

Marty Zwilling

Entrepreneurs: Don’t Quit Your Real Job Too Early

Many entrepreneurs I know feel guilty about not quitting their day job when initiating their startup, worrying about not giving their all to an employer, juggling the multiple roles, or even a legal conflict of interest. I’ll try to offer some guidelines to address these issues, but I generally recommend you keep the day job until your new company is producing real revenue.

The exceptions to this advice would be if you are being paid for your startup position by external funding, or if you have enough money in the bank for both you and the startup to survive for at least a year. Otherwise, I suggest that founders be up-front with their employers, with an honest commitment that the “side” work on the potential startup will not jeopardize committed results.

Then there are the more pragmatic questions of how to make concurrent startup efforts productive. Many people simply can’t handle multitasking, so they struggle for years doing both, and really do both jobs poorly. Even if you are not in that category, I recommend the following guidelines, summarized from real experiences of Babak Nivi on Venture Hacks a few years ago:

1. Team with a partner. In a part-time effort, a co-founder is essential to keeping you on-track and working. At some point, you’ll hit a motivation wall, but if you have a partner who is depending on you, you will find a way past that. If you don’t have a partner, you’ll often lose interest and find something else to entertain you.

2. Pick a day and time per week where you always work together. Babek and his co-founder worked one weekday evening and one weekend day, every week. That doesn’t mean they weren’t working other days, but keeping a fixed schedule will help you through the phases of the project that might not be so much fun.

3. Set some real milestones. What will it take for everyone to dive in full-time? 5,000 active users? 10,000 uniques a week? Funding? The target should be a shared understanding. You don’t want one founder who is ready to go full-time while the other has reservations. That’s not fair to either one, and it leads to disasters.

4. Pick an idea that is viable part-time. Every startup is a hypothesis. If your hypothesis is, “we can build a better web-based chat client”, that’s something you could test quickly. If your hypothesis is “we can build a car that runs on lemonade”, that’s just not going to work as a part-time effort.

5. Understand that your first version will not be the final. Be prepared for a long journey and be surprised if your startup is an immediate hit. So with your first version, look for the tiny little flicker than you might be onto something. Use it to motivate you to make it better. Every week, make it better than last week and see if that flicker of light can be fanned into a tiny flame.

6. Use every spare moment at work getting smarter. While others are enjoying coffee or lunch, use the time to update yourself on your technology, your competitors, angel investors, or how to incorporate a new business. That said, be aware of the fuzzy line between using your cool-down time at work for your startup and stealing time or resources from your employer. If you’re paid to do a job, you need to do it first.

You also need to be realistic about the conflict of interest issue. If your startup could even have the appearance of competing with your employer’s business, you could lose everything later. Also check any employment agreement you may have signed that might dictate that “any” invention or development during employment is the property of that company.

Obviously, the alternative of quitting your day job early avoids these issues, and also removes any excuse that your startup is merely a hobby. There is nothing that drives a team like the fear of debt, starvation, and visible failure. Even you may be surprised what you can accomplish under pressure.

If all of this discussion still scares you, you probably need to keep your day job long-term, and give your startup idea to someone else. There is nothing wrong with a dependable salary, medical benefits, and a contributing 401(k) retirement savings account. At the very least, don’t take the entrepreneur plunge with your eyes closed.

Marty Zwilling

10 Realities, Risks, and Rewards of a Startup Role

Making the decision to become an entrepreneur is a major commitment, with huge implications for skills and lifestyle. Yet there is no standardized testing or certification required or available anywhere to help you decide if you are a good fit for entrepreneurship, or entrepreneurship is right for you. An MBA or other academic credentials just don’t do it.

Therefore, the least you can do is take advantage of some of the self-assessment tools around, and follow a recent guide on the subject, “The Entrepreneur Equation,” by Carol Roth, which highlights personal characteristics and skills required. Some day, I expect there will be a more formal certification required, like lawyers and accountants have to pass, to hang out their shingle.

Until that happens, I recommend that you consider the following ten reality checks from Carol on your entrepreneurial aspirations, before you step in so deep that it’s hard to back out:

1. Critically assess your motivation. Are you bored, wanting to be free of a boss, or eager to showcase a hot technology? These are not valid reasons to start a business. But if you're focused on solving a real problem, believe you can do it better than anyone else, and confident in wearing many hats, you have the right start-up mindset.

2. Say hello to multiple new bosses. When you start your own business, you are no longer in control. You will likely not have the freedom you dreamed of. You will be controlled by your customers, investors, lenders – and you are personally responsible for answering to all of them, all of the time.

3. Evaluate how well you work with others. Many people dream of opening a business as an escape from annoying coworkers and overbearing bosses. But now you have to interface with even more people, including accountants, lawyers, as well as clients and team members. You need to be comfortable with people and have sharp people skills.

4. Add up your responsibilities. Owning a business is very much like raising a child. It’s a 24/7 job. If anything happens to the business (including a loss of income), how will it affect your family or home life? Remember, the buck always stops with you.

5. Look at your management and industry experience. Being able to manage employees and vendors is the type of skill assumed before starting your own business. You’ll also need to know your industry inside and out. It helps to work in a similar company before you start your own.

6. Take stock of whom you know. Business comes down to not what you know, but whom you know. Good connections are worth their weight in gold. They will get you interest from investors and lenders, and you will receive better financing, prices, terms, and conditions from business suppliers and professional services.

7. Be honest about your relationship with money. Don’t expect your relationship with money to change just because you’ve opened a business. Opening a business requires money, as well as sound financial management. Do you panic about spending money or avoid financial risk at all costs?

8. Assess your personality type. If you are a person who likes stability and control, or if you prefer when things go as planned, the roller-coaster ride of a new business may not be right for you. Every new business has highs and lows, and plenty of the unexpected.

9. Examine the marketplace and your competition. To brand your business and woo investors, you'll need to understand why and how you can outshine competitors. Both good and bad competitors will influence how successful your business will be.

10. Test your scalability. Successful businesses rely on automation and delegation. Will you be able to teach other employees to do your work? If your business relies on your brain and skills alone, you might have a successful job, but not a successful business.

Please don’t take these steps as being too negative, but do remember that the risks are high. Statistics say that the failure rate for new businesses within the first 5 years is as high as 90 percent. That should indicate that a lot of entrepreneurs get more than they bargained for. Think twice before you invest your precious time, money, and energy, and then go for it!

Marty Zwilling