4 Startup Tenets for Extreme Focus on Customers

New product startups rightfully begin with a heads-down focus on creating the ultimate product – whether it’s a new technology, a new look and ease of use, or a new low-cost delivery approach. Most then add customer service at the rollout, but very few really understand what it means to be truly customer centric, and even fewer really achieve it.

Customer centricity is far more than providing excellent customer service, although that’s a step in the right direction. Customer centricity is a strategy to fundamentally align a company’s products and services with the wants and needs of its most valuable customers, with the aim of more profits for the long term.

As I was reminded recently by Peter Fader’s book, “Customer Centricity” from the Wharton School, Wal-Mart and Costco aren’t really customer centric. They do provide the right products at the right price to save all customers money (with good customer service), but they don’t try to find their most valuable customers, and nurture them to buy more or bring in friends.

Customer centric means building loyal customers, like Apple appears to have done extremely well. It means recognizing that all customers are not the same, and that all customers are not always right. It means pursuing Fader’s four tenets that can lead to even greater long-term success and profits than a great product at a low price:

1. Accept that all customers are not the same. By recognizing the fundamental and inevitable differences among your customers, you can give your organization a strategic advantage over your product-centric competitors – who may know little to nothing about the customers who account for their success and survival.

2. Focus on individual customer value. By understanding that there is real and quantifiable value to be found in individual customers, you can better focus your long-term marketing efforts on precisely those customers who will generate the greatest long-term value.

3. Quantify the value and cost of acquiring every new customer. By working to quantify the value of each and every one of your customers, you can gain enormously valuable insight about how much you should be willing to spend to keep an existing customer and how much you should be willing to spend to acquire a new customer.

4. Personalize your offering to each customer or group. By moving forward with a highly focused customer relationship management initiative, you can gather and leverage more information about your customers. This will allow your company to serve those customers in a more personalized (yet genuine) manner than any competitor can.

In reality, you don’t need to get to know each individual customer. But you do need to segment your customers into homogeneous groups. Then you can decide on a marketing program, loyalty program, or a level of attention that is appropriate to each group, for acquisition, retention, and profitability.

Remember, this is not a one-time effort. The needs and interests of your customers are ever-changing, so you have to constantly re-align your resources to build mutually beneficial relationships. Don’t focus only on your products and operational efficiencies, unless you already have the brand image and leverage to prosper with price as the key differentiating factor.

Success hinges on progressing past lip-service, to the real work of building a customer centric organization to execute the focus. That means setting up operational and financial metrics, educating team members, and rewarding the right actions. Can you name three elements today in your startup that go beyond good customer service? If not, competitors are approaching.

Marty Zwilling

What You Can Learn About Startups From Great Cooks

I realized a while back that creating a new company for the first time is a lot like whipping up a great dinner entree for the first time – you need a recipe, even though it may look simple. You know the basic ingredients, and you can visualize the results you want. Yet you may not be so sure where to start, and how to put it all together.

In all cases, don’t skip the basic training. Alain Theriault, better known as StartupCoach, tells entrepreneurs that, on your way to being a great chef, you don't start by writing a cook book (business plan), you work in the kitchen for a while, you learn some tools of the trade, you experiment with a few recipes, you test on willing clients ... then you can start writing a recipe.

There are two parts to every recipe – the specific ingredients, and the instruction steps for putting the ingredients together. For a new business, you can provide unique ingredients, but the preparation steps in your business plan (cook book) must follow a tried and true recipe for startup success:

1. Identify a market with a real need. This means find some hungry people who would love a good dinner, and be willing to pay for it. If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. (not a solution looking for a problem)

2. Be sure you have a great team. You need a good cook, good marketing, and first-class service. Domain knowledge and experience is a huge success factor. All the investment money in the world won’t make your company succeed, if you have the wrong team. (investors invest in people, not ideas)

3. Effective and timely go-to-market. Don’t be afraid to test your ultimate entree on customers. Make them “feel the love.” Be adaptable to cultural tastes, trends in the market, and economic realities. But don’t practice too long. If your startup is over a year old, and your business isn’t yet ready, you have a problem. (time-to-market is critical)

4. Viable financial model. Have you set the right price for your entree, and correctly included all costs? Have you projected sales and marketing costs, cash flow, and capital requirements? Show return on investment, growth rates, and market penetration. (validate your business model)

5. Continuous improvement. Don’t stand still. Emeril Lagasse is always ready to “kick it up a notch!” Companies and cooks who rest on their laurels don’t last. Develop metrics with which to measure yourself and use these to incrementally expand and improve your offering as fast as the market and capital will allow. (scale up the business)

If you are already a chef, and you have your own money, you can skip the instructions. You can vary the ingredients, change the formula, or add an extra pinch of salt, and your pasta salad will still be great. If it’s your first time, don’t try to get creative on the “how to” side just yet.

If you are already a celebrity chef like Emeril, meaning you have a record of success using your creativity despite the odds, you don’t even need your own money, and you only need to scratch your business plan on the back of a napkin to get funded.

For the rest of us, the business plan must be the complete recipe, combining ingredients with process. If you don’t have one, your chances of success are low, even if you are an experienced chef. Now you know why professionals and experienced investors are quick to toss an incomplete plan.

Follow the “how to” instructions above for combining the ingredients, combined with you own “special sauce” (competitive edge), and I’m sure you will deliver a tasty dish, on time and with a profit. You can look forward to being a celebrity chef later. For now, get cooking!

Marty Zwilling

Does Your Startup Work Hard But Not Gain Momentum?

Too many entrepreneurs confuse motion with momentum and results. We all know someone who repeatedly tells us how “busy” they are, when it’s hard to see what they get done. Momentum is moving things forward (mass x velocity). Founders or employees in constant motion, but with no momentum, will never get off the ground.

It is true that motion in any direction is often better than no motion at all. But motion without momentum is even less productive than no motion at all. For a more complete discussion of this phenomenon, see the book entitled “Fake Work: Why People Are Working Harder than Ever but Accomplishing Less”, by Brent Petersen and Gaylan Neilson.

So how do you fight this, and get real momentum going in your startup? Here are some key recommendations:

• Measure results, not work. Build your business plan and day-to-day operations around real results that are quantifiable and measurable. For example, a result is not forty hours of work, but a prototype complete, partner contract signed, or first customer sale.

• Focus and prioritize. There will always be more things to do than anyone has hours in a day. Focus means act instead of react, act on the important things. Don’t allow yourself to be interrupted by “urgent” issues of the moment, which may not be important.

• Live the 80/20 rule. Pick the 20% of your important tasks that will deliver 80% of the results. Judiciously apply the 20% of your energy where it will achieve 80% of the momentum you desire. Maintain that balance of work, family, sleep, and unwind.

• Communicate effectively. People can’t do the job you want unless you communicate effectively. So they scurry around trying to look busy, or work on random things that they hope might generate momentum. Tell people what results you expect, tell them how they measure up so far, and tell them how much you appreciate their efforts.

• Recognize the finish line. Don’t burn yourself and everyone out, by continuing a forced march after you pass the finish line, or even a major milestone. Gather your thoughts and savor the small successes along the way.

During the early start-up phase, most of the momentum in a new company derives from the entrepreneur's own commitment and self-sacrifice. You do almost everything by yourself, and your focus is on building enough cashflow so you can start bringing in people to help you. Watch yourself for wasted motion during this stage.

Cashflow is the element of momentum that allows you to hand over jobs to other people and do more of your core passion jobs, like creating content or designing new products. This creates more value in your business and increasing cashflow – more momentum.

What you then want is for the momentum to compound, with each new employee or outsourcer you hire to help, to give you get more time to create value and ultimately, increase profits. At this point especially is where you need to watch out for fake work, which thrives in less dedicated hires, outdated cultures, and old work processes.

Recent research indicates that across all business organizations, as much as 50% the work that people do in that stage is just motion not related to their company’s strategies. Think of the drag this can put on your momentum.

Starting a new business is a little like taking off for the first time as the pilot of a new airplane. You need to push that throttle all the way to the dashboard until your knuckles are white, but never forget the relationship between motion and momentum. Are you pushing the right levers?

Marty Zwilling

Find the Right Celebrity to Promote Your Startup

Most startups dream of attracting a celebrity endorsement, and assume that it will take their startup to the stars. There have been some “famous” successes in this regard, such as Charlie Sheen using Twitter last year to promote Internships.com, as well as some failures, including Airtime, launched early this year as a star studded affair, without the star studded success.

Startups using celebrities is such a hot topic these days that Gary Vaynerchuck, noted author and entrepreneur, has coined a new term “star-ups” for the phenomenon. New books are popping up on the subject of how and when to seek celebrity endorsements, including “Will Work for Shoes,” the latest by Susan J. Ashbrook, who has courted celebrities for twenty years.

She helps you decide if celebrity endorsement is a viable and reasonable alternative for your business, and how do you go about selecting and approaching the right celebrity. Following is a summary of the challenges that Susan and other “experts” have outlined:

1. Finding a match between your offering and a celebrity. That means finding the perfect person for your brand. Their values need to match your brand image, including the perception of quality, educational value, as well as recognition by your target demographic. Be sure the celebrity really believes in your product.

   You should start with a service like Q Scores, which attempts to measure the appeal of various celebrities within your target market. If you are selling to young consumers, Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber may be high on your list. For technology products, well-recognized investors such as John Doerr or Ron Conway are seen as celebrities.

2. Funding the relationship. Celebrity endorsements don’t come cheap. Does your marketing budget allow you to roll out the red carpet to meet celebrity lifestyles, including the investment in appearances, videos, and perks? Big fat advance checks and long-term royalties are often the norm.

   On the other hand, maybe you can emulate Priceline.com, whose official spokesperson, William Shatner, agreed to do the spots for free in exchange for stock in the company. The arrangement turned out to be quite profitable for Shatner, who has since made approximately $600 million from Priceline.com, despite the dot.com bust.

3. How to find and connect with the celebrity you want. As with all aspects of business relationships, funding, and partners, nothing beats a pre-existing relationship, or at least a warm introduction. Beyond that, the place to start is with publicists, agents, and other handlers. Major groups include Rogers & Cowan, Baker/Winokur/Ryder, and 42West.

   One of the inside secrets of finding and meeting the right people is working with charities. Celebrities have a passion for giving, and they respect people and companies who share their passion.

4. Potential for celebrities funding you. More and more celebrities are jumping on the entrepreneurship wagon. For example, Ashton Kutcher not only has the most Twitter followers of any “entrepreneur” (8 million), but he has actively invested in several startups. For example, he has helped Foursquare raise over $21 million to date.

5. Make the endorsement part of a bigger campaign. Building a brand and a successful company is a lot bigger than just getting a celebrity endorsement. The endorsement relies on a major marketing campaign to get the message out and setting the context for a successful delivery on the promises implied.

6. Prepare to handle endorsement success. Customers are a fickle bunch. You must be ready with the right array of retail partners, manufacturing, and distribution arrangements before the demand hits. Marketing momentum fades fast in the face of disgruntled potential customers and long waits in line.

Many entrepreneurs and investors assume that the fascination with celebrities is a passing fad, and not worth the effort. But the evidence is just the contrary. With the advent of the high-speed Internet for videos, real-time messaging via Twitter, and everything going mobile via smartphone, I don’t see things changing any time soon. The world now has an insatiable appetite for anything and everything celebrity. Take a hard look for your own startup.

Marty Zwilling

Few Entrepreneurs Achieve Extreme Leadership Status

By definition, most entrepreneurs are thought leaders. They have the ability to recognize a market need, the skills to design and implement a solution, and the drive to start a business from that solution. It all comes from within themselves. A business leader does the same thing and more through the people around them. Most entrepreneurs are not both.

In reality, a successful startup can be built by a thought leader, but growing a successful business requires a business leader. That’s why venture capital investors often replace startup CEOs as a condition of their scale-up investment. That’s why so many startups plateau after gaining some initial traction, and are run over or acquired by their competition.

Much has been written on this subject, including the integration and update of two famous business books by Steve Farber (former partner of Tom Peters), this one called “The Radical Leap Re-Energized”. Farber highlights succinctly the traits of radical and profound leaders (extreme leaders) as follows:

• Cultivate love. Successful leaders model the intensity and energy that it takes to stay ahead competitively and meet ever more ambitious goals. They do this because they love what they do. As they continue to pursue their passion, they remain focused on the contribution made to others and to the surrounding community.

• Generate energy. Ask yourself this question – Do I generate more energy when I walk into a room, or when I walk out of it? Do your actions create positive energy for those around you, or are you an “energy vampire,” sucking the life out of your workplace? Hopefully you are the former, and not the latter.

• Inspire audacity. This is a bold and blatant disregard for normal constraints. Thinking and acting, “outside the box.” Audacity inspires people to do something really significant and meaningful. It enables them to change the business, the world, and themselves, for the better.

• Provide proof. How do we prove to ourselves (and to others) that we are really exercising extreme leadership? The simple answer is “Do What You Say You Will Do” (DWYSYWD). The best leaders achieve their own success by raising the self-esteem of followers. They build credibility by looking for ways to respond to the needs and interests of others.

In this extreme leadership model, leaders aren’t afraid to take risks, make mistakes in front of employees, or actively solicit team feedback. Farber asserts that most of us, at some level, have the innate ability to become a business leader. Getting fully in tune with who you are, and then following your heart, goes a long way towards helping you discover the leader you can become.

Many entrepreneurs who are great thought leaders are unwilling to listen and network. They can’t imagine that their vision for the business can be improved, or even implemented by others. They don’t hire people until it’s too late, because no one else can do the job up to their standards, or with their commitment. At best, they hire “helpers” rather than help, and are too busy to train the helpers.

Obviously some people who call themselves business leaders are only posing. They wear the label and assert the title without putting their own skin in the game. The best leaders approach the act of leadership as an extreme sport, and they love the fear and exhilaration that naturally comes with the territory.

Business leadership is not a solo act. Real leaders accept the job of recruiting, cultivating, and developing other leaders as priority one, as well leading on the thought side. Learning to be both a thought leader and a business leader can make you great. Steve Jobs is an example of someone who struggled with this one, and won. Where are you along the spectrum?

Marty Zwilling

Entrepreneurs Learn New Rules for Real Influence

Successful entrepreneurs, like Tony Hsieh of Zappos and Casey Sheahan of Patagonia, have long since realized that influence is no longer something that you do to someone to get what you want, but requires listening and relationship building to do what they want, with a win-win outcome. We now live in a world where even subtle persuasion efforts are suspect.

If your business and your style is still focused on the “old-school” hard-selling push-marketing approach, it’s time to take a close look at how well it’s serving you these days. The new culture driven by social media is all about forging real connections and building relationships.

How this relates to influencing other members of your team, business partners, and customers is clearly illustrated in a new book “Real Influence: Persuade Without Pushing and Gain Without Giving In,” by business psychiatrist Mark Goulston and executive coach John Ullmen. They start by describing a four-step model for connecting and influencing people in this new culture:

1. Inspire people to great outcomes that they desire. Focus on the three ‘R’s of a great outcome: Results, Reputation, and Relationships. Real influencers go for something grand, build a reputation worthy of long-term commitment, and invest in relationships to get buy-in to desired outcomes.

2. Master listening to learn where other people live. To discover where they are coming from, you need to get to the fourth level of listening - not listening while ignoring, not defensive listening, not even problem-solving listening, but connective listening into other people’s world. It’s listening from “their there,” instead of “your here.”

3. Engage and connect with people in their space. True engagement and connection requires that you get “it” (the other person’s issue reality), you get “them” (at a personal level), and you get their path to progress (show a positive path to progress). They then sense that you are working with them, instead of manipulating around them.

4. Go beyond expectations to make yourself unforgettable. This means adding value before, during, and after an interaction. Find ways to add value in expanding their thinking, making them feel better, and helping them take effective action. You must do more (but not everything), and ask other people to do more.

After you have mastered these steps, there is still room to take real influence to the next level, and become a “power influencer.”

• Let adversity lead you to great outcomes. Don’t get stuck in the “I can’t” world, and don’t forget the positive lessons from every negative experience. Do acknowledge your feelings, because when you do, you can address them effectively. Do have the courage to let new great outcomes find you.

• Influence by getting out of the way. Every great outcome becomes a part of you, and it’s hard to let go (like handing over your CEO role). If you are strong enough to get out of the way, so others can take over, your great outcome can last forever, or become someone else’s even greater outcome. It also opens your door to more great outcomes.

• Influence positively after you’ve made big mistakes. To repair the damage from the mistakes we all make, we need to learn how to make them right after we’ve made them wrong. Be brave enough and humble enough to make amends to the people hurt. Let others help you dissect the mistake, and they will respect you and learn from your efforts.

• Let gratitude magnify your influence. When you perform an act of gratitude, whether you are thanking a person directly or talking about someone else who has helped you, the person who is listening to you feels a strong sense of gratitude as well. That immediately creates a stronger bond between the two of you.

Being an entrepreneur has always been all about influencing others, but the rules of persuasion have changed. What worked in the days of Dale Carnegie doesn’t always work in today’s more sophisticated and less trusting world. If you want to influence me to the contrary, I’m ready to listen. Are you?

Marty Zwilling

This Holiday Season Entrepreneurs Need to Reflect

It’s been a challenging business year, but I hope you are all taking some time off this long holiday weekend, to celebrate with the family. Even those of you who are not Christian and see Christmas as just another day should still enjoy the holiday spirit, take a break from work, and enjoy your loved ones.

Yet there will be some entrepreneurs can’t seem to make the decision to take a break. They forget that they probably became entrepreneurs, according to a recent DNA of an Entrepreneur study, for just this flexibility. More than nine in ten respondents (91%) found benefits from running or working in a small company, like flexible working hours and being in control of your life.

Related benefits cited include the ability to influence the direction of the business (48%), and greater pride in your work (47%). Other studies show that only about 30% list money as a key benefit of running their own firm. This indicates that lifestyle and satisfaction factors are usually more important than financial ones.

As with everything in life, there are advantages and disadvantages to every choice we make. Choosing entrepreneurship is no exception. Beyond the obvious advantages mentioned above, there are some additional advantages that get mentioned often.

• High level of excitement. Entrepreneurs love the continuous challenges of a startup, and the satisfaction of tackling them. Some are so high on this life, that they hate the fact that they have to "waste" part of their life in sleep!

• Minimal rules and regulations. Work in a conventional job is often difficult to get done because of all the "red tape" and consistent administration approval needed. With a startup there are no rules, until you make them.

• Challenge of originality. A good entrepreneur feels the incentive to offer a new service/product that no one else has offered before. That’s the same challenge an artist feels on every new canvas, or every musician feels when composing a new work.

• Beat the competition. Entrepreneurs are driven to offer a new or better product at the same cost, or an existing product as a lower cost. Competition drives innovation, and innovation drives competition. The cycle never stops.

Of course there are some disadvantages that every entrepreneur knows all too well:

• No regular paycheck. Starting your own business means that you must be willing to give up the security of a regular paycheck. In fact, most startup founders work for no salary during the first year or two of company operation.

• Few benefits. There will likely be no medical and dental benefits, and no vacations or other perks during the formative years. Don’t expect a staff to do the accounting, handle correspondence, or even clean the bathrooms.

• Decision responsibility. All the decisions of the business must be made on your own, better known as “the buck stops here.” This may sound like an advantage, but is actually a major source of stress and loneliness for startup CEOs.

• Staffing challenges. Hiring and firing decisions are hard, and that’s just the beginning. Often times, you will find yourself working with people who "don't know the ropes" and require extensive coaching and assistance. Then you have to deal with the mistakes.

By definition, if you see the rewards here as outweighing the risks, you are an entrepreneur. So you should fully appreciate the right to decide to take some time off, and enjoy the family. Take time this holiday season to savor the dream. You earned it, and you need the rest. Happy Holidays!

Marty Zwilling

10 Action Items to Keep Angel Investors Hovering

Every new startup I know dreams of being funded early by one of the 318,000 active Angel investors in the USA alone. But many entrepreneurs don’t realize that Angels are also extremely discerning in the projects that they will invest in, rejecting approximately 97% of the proposals submitted to them, according to the California Investment Network.

Most of these investors are members of Angel groups that have a rigorous filtering and screening process, to select the top 3% and most fundable proposals. What is this daunting process, and what can you do to optimize your chances of surviving it? Over the past 10 years, I have had the opportunity to see how the process works, several times from the startup side, and more recently from the Angel perspective (as a member of an Angel group screening committee).

Don’t expect the pomp and celebrity of the Angels on Shark Tank, but they do ask a lot of the right questions. So what should you do to prepare for this stage in your venture, and optimize your chances of making it through the process? Here is my list of top ten action items to best prepare you for success in achieving a funding event with Angels:

1. Incorporate the business now. If you expect to require external funding, you should first incorporate as an S-Corp, C-Corp, or LLC, rather than the more expeditious sole proprietorship or partnership. The corporate entity lends itself best to the concept of “sharing” equity required by investors, and unincorporated entities don’t get funding.

2. Line up an experienced team. Remember the old adage that “investors fund people, not ideas.” That’s why this item is so important, and is probably the biggest stumbling block I see in getting through the initial Angel screening. If the founders are not experienced, find a couple of advisors from the business sector to fill the gap.

3. Get your Internet domain name and website. In today’s world, if you don’t have a web site up and running, you will not be perceived as a real company. Investors routinely go to candidate web sites to get a feel for the tone and scope of the company, as well as its maturity and offerings. Reserve the company name on social networks to protect it.

4. Define some intellectual property. File a patent and trademarks to show real intellectual property. Having a defensible competitive advantage or “barrier to entry” is another critical step to funding, and another common stumbling block during all phases of the funding process. Start early on this one, or you will lose the opportunity.

5. Build a prototype product. A conundrum for many frustrated entrepreneurs is that they need money from investors to design and build a prototype product, yet most Angel investors expect to see at least a prototype before they invest. Use your own money or friends and family to demonstrate progress early.

6. Build an investor presentation and summary. Investors expect a one or two-page executive summary sheet for the initial screening, backed up by a ten-slide Powerpoint investor presentation. Remember to aim the content of both of these at investors, not customers. They must amplify your “elevator pitch” to investors, as well as key points from the business plan and the financial model.

7. Prepare an investment-grade business plan. Every entrepreneur needs a professional business plan for their own use, whether they intend to seek investor funding or not. As a founder, you may think that everyone understands your vision and plan from your passion and words, but it doesn’t work that way. It should answer every question an investor or associate might ask, including current valuation, funding needed, and exit strategy.

8. Finalize your financial model. Like the business plan, a financial model is required as much for your own use as to impress Angel investors. In most cases, a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is adequate, with projection formulas for revenue, costs, and cash flow over the next five years. Variables for “what if” questions add credibility.

9. Close at least one initial customer. This must be someone who is willing to pay real money for your product or service. Free trials don’t count. All the conviction and market research in the world are no substitute for real customers paying real money. This is called “validating the business model.”

10. Network to the maximum with investor connections. The last and possibly most important action item is to build relationships with investors and friends of investors BEFORE you need their help in building your company. A good start is taking an active role in relevant technology groups, trade associations, university activities, and local business groups.

In summary, being touched by an Angel can lead you to your dreams of a new and successful business, but it doesn’t happen without planning, hard work, and careful preparation. Most Angel investors are seeking psychic as well as financial benefit from their investment. Do your homework listed here first to get their attention, but don’t expect anyone to swoop down and wave a magic wand.

Marty Zwilling

6 Approaches to Maximizing Good Business Habits

Most of the entrepreneurs I know realize they have some bad habits, like maybe procrastination or not listening well, so they focus on dropping these. New studies indicate that a more productive approach would be adopting new good habits and behaviors that clearly move your business forward, like good time management and implementing customer recommendations.

These two approaches may sound similar, but actually require different skill sets. For example, learning to stop smoking may leave you with a gap to fill, but finding activities that remove your urge to smoke really gets you where you want to be. I recommend the following six techniques for solidifying good habits from “The Compound Effect,” by successful entrepreneur and writer Darren Hardy:

1. Set yourself up to succeed. Any new habit has to work inside your life and lifestyle. If you want personal healthy think time at a gym, don’t find one that is thirty miles away, because you won’t go. For better time management, tell everyone that you will be closing the door to you office during specific times of the day, and ask for their support.

2. Think addition, not subtraction. Instead of focusing on what you have to “sacrifice,” think of what you can “add in” to improve your business effectiveness. For example, most founders find that adding good customer discussions has a more satisfying payoff than just eliminating expensive marketing consultants.

3. Go for a public display of accountability. Put your commitments of a new good habit, like rewarding good performance, on public display by announcing a recognition event to be held each week in the office. Now you will be motivated to follow through, and the whole team will give you the positive feedback you need to keep it going.

4. Find a success partner. There are few things as powerful as two people locked arm in arm marching toward the same goal. If your bad habit is staying late at the office, link with one or more of your other key executives to retire to the gym at 5 pm sharp three times a week. You will all get out of the office, feel better, and make more decisions.

5. Use both competition and camaraderie. There is nothing like a friendly contest to whet your competitive spirit and immerse yourself in a new habit with a bang. It’s easy in a new business to inject a fun rivalry and a competitive spirit into improving your marketing programs, or improving production cycles.

6. Celebrate each small step of success along the way. All work and no play is a recipe for backsliding. You’ve got to find little rewards to give yourself every week or every day, even something small to acknowledge that you’ve held yourself to a new behavior. Measure results and promise yourself a real pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Change is hard. That’s why so many people don’t either give up their bad habits, or adopt new good ones. Successful entrepreneurs are the extraordinary ones that make the changes anyway. They just do it, and keep doing it, and the magic of compounding rewards them handsomely.

Another challenge is that your brain is not designed to make you happy. It is programmed to seek out the negative and optimize survival, and is always watching for signs of “lack and attack.” That’s why every entrepreneur spends so much time worrying about failures, lack of customers, and competition. We have to teach our minds to look beyond these, through discipline and being proactive about what we allow in.

But learning and discipline without execution is worthless. In the big picture, the habits you develop and nurture shape your destiny. Little everyday habits will take you either to the life you desire or to disaster by default. Spend more time instilling good ones, and the bad ones will disappear for lack of attention, making you a more savvy and successful entrepreneur.

Marty Zwilling

Privacy is a Startup Challenge and an Opportunity

With another list of the Top 10 Internet Scams and more identity theft, there seems to be a growing population out there worried about all the people intent on hurting them. Why is everyone so paranoid these days? My plea to entrepreneurs is to recognize these concerns as an opportunity, and go the extra mile to make people’s life better, rather than stoke the fires.

I must be the only one who believes that most of the data gathering in the real world, and on the Internet, is done by businesses to help you find what you want, protect you, and improve your experience, rather than invade your privacy or scam you.

In addition, there is a real business opportunity here for startups. I know companies who collect sensitive data from consumers all the time, and still seem to keep a squeaky clean image (Amazon.com, Ebay). There are others who are always a bit suspect, or have been hit hard by a privacy or security breach. Even Facebook continues to struggle with this issue.

The opportunity is to take advantage of the new power and tools on the Internet. Here are a few specifics on how to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem:

• Put a personal face and address on your site; don’t hide behind an “info” email address.
• Make your company visible, reachable and responsive through social networks.
• Market your solution and user benefits, not the mysterious technology behind it.
• Use video and audio, rather than jargon, abbreviations, and computer lingo on your site.
• Make navigation simple and consistent, with abundant online help

The good news is that, if your company does it right, it might be another Amazon. There seems to be an insatiable demand from consumers for a better shopping experience, meaning they will pay a premium to a company that can present them a better match in products to their interests, without jeopardizing their good name.

In support of this, despite qualms, consumers seem very quick these days to provide more personal data to get something they want. Young people naively enter their pictures and personal data for fun on social networking sites, ignoring constant feedback from the media that these are bad practices.

I certainly agree that just like in the real world, consumers have to assume that there are always bad groups on the Internet, as well as down the street, trying to rip you off, so stay out of bad neighborhoods, and keep your wits about you at all times. Internet users need to start watching out for themselves, like looking both ways before you cross the street.

The bad news for startups is that your company can lose big if it’s caught in the middle. Last year, the Sony PlayStation Network was hacked, with personal data of up to 70 million people stolen, and this black eye won’t soon go away. A few years earlier, PayPal was hit by a scam to get the personal information of its users, and some feel it hasn’t really recovered since.

Sometimes the problem cause is that startups forget the technical standards and quality processes that every Internet rollout must follow to reduce the risk. Don’t take shortcuts on these. I see lots of new software put together on a shoestring as a “proof of concept” – but then gets rolled out to customers “asis” due to lack of time or money to “harden” the product.

What I learned from a panel discussion a while back, sponsored by an association of lawyers, is that lawyers don’t have any answers, and are all too quick to fan the flames of fear and paranoia. They merely highlighted consumer privacy rights, with much hand-wringing about big bad companies that are capturing shopping habits without consumer knowledge on the Internet.

A better approach is to use your marketing power to tell people that you can now ring their cell phone in front of their favorite store for a special sale, and allow them to “opt in,” rather than surprising them with your new technology. Few people are paranoid about something they want and expect. That’s just good business.

Marty Zwilling

Ask Your Customers to Participate in Your Marketing

Have you noticed that more companies beg you to participate in their business today? It started with an email survey on your last stay at their hotel, but now includes requests for online product reviews, to social media input on the design of future products. They do it because engaged customers become loyal advocates and buyers. Welcome to the “Participation Age” of marketing.

Some say it’s happening today because it’s new, and technology makes it possible. Others say it stems from Intrinsic Motivation Theory, which asserts that people have always been motivated by a desire to join, share, take part, connect, and engage, and find that experience rewarding. In any case, your business needs it today to rise above the crowd and edge out competitors.

If you want all the specifics, you must follow the new wave of marketing experts, like Daina Middleton, and her just-released book “Marketing in the Participation Age.” I’m most intrigued by one aspect that I believe relates to every business - the move from a hunter-based metaphor to a gardening metaphor – nurturing what we have planted, based on the following five rules:

1. Embrace test-and-learn values. That means constantly trying new marketing elements, understanding quickly what works, and immediately scaling, then moving on to the next alternative. Nurturing marketers reserve a minimum of 10 percent of their marketing budgets for testing and learning. It’s a dynamic customer environment out there.

2. Innovate; don’t perfect. The nurture approach leverages from the best of the moment, quickly adding value before someone else does it first. The concept of continual innovation is crucial, because the best may not last long. Pick something that is good enough and embrace the flaw as an opportunity to learn. Adapt quickly and move on.

3. Act quickly and motivate others, including participants, to act on your behalf. Motivate people, including your customers, to do something to improve your marketing today. Inspire your organization to act quickly and create an environment that rewards moving quickly. Estimate and act; because if you don’t, your competitors will.

4. Mix and blend; don’t invent. Partner with others to create unique solutions that might benefit your brand, product, or solution. Choose an agency partner who is pushing the envelope and remember to consider technology, media, and creative opportunities. Look for elegant blends of all three, not an elegant single media solution.

5. Embrace risks and champion failures. Prepare to learn from mistakes and accept that failures are inevitable in finding success. Partner with agencies that are willing to put skin in the game and get paid only if they deliver results. It often takes several failures to find opportunities that yield the best results.

In the current world of escalating change and information overload, marketing is not a luxury, and participative marketing can be the key to success, even for very technical solutions. We often see a mediocre product with effective marketing outperform a good product with little or poor marketing. Big marketing budgets alone and single blockbuster campaigns don’t assure results.

The message is simple. Ask your customers and partners for ideas, try them all, measure results, and scale up the ones that work. The participants, not the marketers, are in control, and they are demanding a relationship, not just a marketing message. If they don’t find value in the relationship, they move on. The choices and opportunities are theirs.

The situation is not unlike the attraction of current major social media sites, like Facebook, successful multiplayer game sites, like Activision, and today’s real world sports and politics. Gen-Y members were born participants, and they are a major force in every business domain. People thrive on continually learning, feeling empowered, and providing input to the world they live in.

So if you are a startup, or even a mature business, you need to nurture these intrinsic desires and develop more meaningful customer relationships that yield greater revenues. Marketing is no longer a one-way conversation. Does your marketing include listening as well as talking?

Marty Zwilling

The New Breed of Startups Master These 5 Processes

I see more and more entrepreneurs who seem to have everything going for them – vision, motivation, passion, even a good business plan, product, and money, and yet they can’t close customers. Maybe it’s time to look harder at the mantra of a new breed of gurus and successful entrepreneurs, including Steve Blank and Eric Ries, called “nail it then scale it” (NISI).

You can review all the specifics of this approach in a recent book by Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom, appropriately titled “Nail It then Scale It: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating and Managing Breakthrough Innovation,” but I will net it out here. I found their five phases of the process to be compelling, based on my own years of experience mentoring startups:

1. Nail the pain. Great businesses begin with a customer problem that has a big and monetizable pain point. Avoid the three big mistakes, of guessing but not testing the pain (on real customers), selecting a low customer pain (solution is only nice to have), or selecting a narrow customer pain (small number of customers willing or able to pay).

2. Nail the solution. Neither breakthrough technology nor maximum features will assure that “if we build it, they will come.” In fact, NISI recommends starting with the minimum focused set of features and technology that will drive a customer purchase. Success demands testing the solution early and quickly in the market, then iterating to get it right.

3. Nail the go-to-market strategy. In parallel with nailing the solution, you need an in-depth understanding of your target customer’s buying process, the job they are trying to get done, the market infrastructure, and a stable of serious pilot customers. Do real tests with real pricing to see if customers will pay you, without being pushed.

4. Nail the business model. Leverage your customer conversations to predict and validate your business model. For example, when you think about distribution channels, revenue streams, or the relationship with the customer, ask customers what they expect. Don’t forget a viable financial model of costs, margins, customer acquisition, and break-even.

5. Scale it. Don’t attempt to scale it until you have a proven repeatable business model that predictably generates revenue. Only then is it time to focus on the get-big-fast strategy, and the transformation of three key areas from startup to a managed growth company. These areas include market, process, and team transitions.

These pragmatics and points of focus can effectively counter three core myths which trap too many enterprising and capable entrepreneurs today:

• Hero myth: Why believing in your product leads to failure. All too often, founders fall in love with their products or technology, ignore negative feedback from customers, and spend years building a product based on a vision that no one else shares.

• Process myth: Why building a product leads to failure. Conventional wisdom is that after a great idea, the next steps are raise some money, build a product, then go sell the product. This doesn’t work when attacking unknown problems with untested solutions.

• Money myth: Why having too much money leads to failure. The old saying that “it takes money to make money” isn’t so simple. Money allows entrepreneurs to execute a flawed business plan far too long, rather than stay focused on the market and adapt.

At the heart of it, to be a successful entrepreneur you have to be totally customer centric, and learn to change and adapt as fast as the market. The pace of change in the marketplace is escalating, so entrepreneurs have to improve their ability to deal with change.

At the same time, more entrepreneurs are jumping into the fray, and less money is available from investors. It’s time for a new startup model. In my view, savvy “super angel” investors such as Mike Maples, Jr., and leading incubators such as Y Combinator, are already on this one. How far behind is your startup?

Marty Zwilling

Starting a Business is Good For You and Your Resume

If you are one of the many people still searching for that job lost during the recent depression, or about to dump the loser of a job you have now, you should be working on starting your own business, in parallel with looking for that ideal job. Let me explain why this is a win-win deal, no matter what the outcome.

You have probably secretly always wanted to run your own show, but with an existing job, never took the time to consider a startup. Then there was always the risk of failure, which of course doesn’t apply once your real job is gone. Also, for most of us, not having done it before, we have no idea where or how to start.

Here are my recommendations on how and why initiating a startup while looking, or about to be looking, for a job is the right thing to do:

• No gap in your resume. Instead of an embarrassing gap in your resume for your period out of work, you have an entry for your startup business, showing initiative, leadership, and breadth of experience.

• Fun learning experience. It’s more fun tackling the challenges of a startup in between job search activities, than sitting around feeling sorry for yourself and waiting for status callbacks on interviews (which seem to have gone out of style).

• Find a partner. Unless you are a true loner, you need someone like-minded but complementary in skills to help you with the startup plans. It’s always good to have someone to test your ideas, keep your spirits up, and hone your business skills. Now you have a reason for talking to people who may become lifelong friends.

• Incorporate an LLC. First, pick a name for your company and do the paperwork on starting a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC). Almost anyone can handle this without professional help, and the cost is less than $100 in many states. It shows everyone you are serious, and limits your liability on any mistakes.

• Develop low-cost plan. Pick a startup business that you can do for minimal cost, like a services business with the skills you have. With simple software available today, pick a domain name and implement your own website. Use social networking and blogging to get your message out. You don’t need an investor for this approach.

• Get business cards made. Nothing says you are serious about a business like handing out professional business cards at local events and Chamber of Commerce meetings. Do them on your home computer for a few dollars. Offer to help a couple of customers free, just to get your act together and your presence known.

• Highlight your startup efforts in job interviews. Work your startup efforts into every job interview and application. It will definitely show off your energy and vision, and will make you a more competitive candidate for any role.

• Make the decision – job or business. Obviously, at some point you will need to decide whether your startup business is better than the job opportunities. That’s good because it’s always nice to have an alternative, rather than feeling that you just have to take the first dead-end job offered.

There are other startup related points I could make here, like joining an existing startup as a “volunteer” for a time, just to learn more about what is required. Also, in most geographies, there are organizations springing up, and university workshops, to mentor people out of work and contemplating a startup. Get some help from them if you need it.

Just remember that problems are really just opportunities in disguise. Don’t miss out on what may be the best opportunity you will have in your lifetime for a new career. Start up now.

Marty Zwilling

Building a Startup is Navigating an Obstacle Course

It would be no fun if starting a business was simply plotting a straight line between your idea and success, with no challenges along the way. Zigging and zagging amongst the obstacles is the fun part of being an entrepreneur, and it’s what sets you apart from the average worker who knows exactly what he or she has to do every day to get paid. Relish it, or if it scares you, don’t try it.

That doesn’t mean that starting a business should be a random walk into the unknown. There are certain foundational elements that every entrepreneur must build on to succeed, as well as some critical tools we all need. I found these tried-and-true principles summarized very well in a recent book “The Zigzag Principle” by serial entrepreneur Rich Christiansen:

1. Assess your resources. At some point financial capital if usually needed to meet business goals. But it’s not a substitute for the other critical resources, mental capital (domain knowledge, skills, and passions), plus relationship capital (friends and advisors). Money results from mental and relationship capital, not the other way around.

2. Identify your beacon in the fog. Start with a big audacious goal to guide you, so that every once in a while you can hit a smaller goal, to provide a break in the fog and catch sight of the beacon before those next steps into the darkness. Goals need to be written down, measurable, and realistic. Expect your fair share of zigzagging to get there.

3. Create a catalyzing statement. This is a key element of every elevator pitch, with enough specificity and fuel to keep you and everyone around you moving toward the beacon in the fog. This quantified big dream should be a long-term goal that your short-term zigzags are all leading to. Use your values as the foundation.

4. Drive your startup to profitability. A first zig of getting to profitability is important to every business, because being broke and always fighting for funding can cause a lot of pain. More importantly, profitability can drive you to find hidden assets, zag to interim revenue sources, and force you to pace yourself in getting to that final destination.

5. Define processes and add resources. After the initial zigs and zags to get profitable, it is time to formalize and document the processes that worked. Only then can you expand those things that led to your initial success. It also means that it’s time to stop micro-managing, hire some of the right people, and start giving up some control.

6. Scale the business. This is implementing a model that you can replicate, to get your product or service out across the country, and around the world. Scaling models charge by the transaction, or subscriptions, or have digital assets with no cost to reproduce. Switch to a mindset of working “on” your business, rather than “in” your business.

7. Stay within your guardrails. Set up some rules to constrain your zigs and zags to prevent “out of control” situations. Common controls include some spending limits, time commitment limits, financial milestones. These guardrails should be closely aligned with your values. Practice the art of saying “no,” and the discipline of delegating.

8. Develop reward systems. To keep you and your team from burning out, you need to define a simple system of motivators and rewards. Too much reward leads to an entitlement mentality. As you hit each zig, you need to take a break from the intensity, celebrate, and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

The alternatives to planned zigzags are a planned straight line, or a planned random walk. Neither of these are realistic for an entrepreneur seeking success, but I still see them every day, and I see the pain that results. Smart entrepreneurs are nimble and flexile, bootstrap to the maximum degree possible, and pivot for emerging opportunities. Be one.

Marty Zwilling

Serious Entrepreneurs Master Media Training Early

Not so long ago, training to meet the press and television reporters was a realm reserved for top business executives only. Now, even the earliest stage startup can rise to visibility or be forever lost by their first media spotlight, so it behooves us all to know the rules early. Most entrepreneurs I know admit to a poor first media interaction, and many are still waiting for the instant replay.

On the social media side, the stakes are just as great. Ask Eric Migicovsky, founder of Pebble, who raised over $10 million on the Kickstarter crowd-funding platform for his relatively low-tech wristwatch with programmed clock faces. Kickstarter may take a bit of the credit for this, but they admit the majority of projects without media attention don’t even approach their funding goals.

There are lots of expensive public and media relations firms out there who can give you the full treatment, but I recommend starting with a good book on the subject, like the one just released by media training expert Brad Phillips, “The Media Training Bible.” He provides 101 two-page lessons divided into eight learning categories as follows:

1. Learn the ground rules for traditional media. Few of us have the background to know when to turn down an interview request, or never use the “no comment” approach, or when it’s more effective to comment “off the record.” Even practical issues, like understanding reporter deadlines, and your own editing rights, are critical.

2. Craft messages and message supports. A message is a one-sentence statement that incorporates two things: one of your most important points and one of your audience’s most important needs or values, with a call to action. Message supports are stories, statistics, and sound bites that reinforce your message. Both need to be clear and direct.

3. Make every interview memorable. The key to any effective interview is to articulate a message or message support in almost every answer you ever give. Speak in complete sentences, aimed at the 12-year-old language level, and skip the acronyms. Avoid tentative phrases like “We’re trying” in favor of the stronger “We are doing.”

4. Answer the tough questions. You must answer every question, every time, or risk appearing evasive, online or on camera. Yet quickly transition back to the message and supports. In all cases, you must stay cool, avoiding anger, sarcasm, or the urge to walk away. Never offer an answer unless you know it’s true – it’s better to say “I don’t know.”

5. Use appropriate body language and attire. The main impression you leave with an audience may have little to do with your words. Show energy, eye contact, and gestures to enhance the impact of your words. Wear solid colors, and make your look true to your brand and yourself. People judge you and your company in the first few seconds.

6. Handling different media formats. These days the media formats range from email, phone, radio, television, to social media. Social media includes blogs, social networks, and video-sharing sites. With social media, you are always “on the record” and once you say it, it’s out there forever. All the lessons from traditional media apply, and more.

7. How to respond to media in a crisis. A crisis is an event, precipitated by a specific incident, that attracts critical media attention and lasts for a definite period of time. It could be a product quality problem, or a major customer complaint on Twitter. The challenge is to be prepared, and communicate quickly and effectively until it’s over.

8. Prepare, prepare, prepare for every media event. Even the most experienced executives write down what they need to say, and practice for every event. Steve Jobs was a master at this, even though he had years of experience. The result was that every interview or event, online or live, came off naturally and positive. Why do many entrepreneurs think they can “wing it” and get the same results?

Every entrepreneur in this new era of shrinking attention spans, social media overload, and sensationalized reporting needs to know how to create positive messages, cut through the noise, and motivate audiences with multiple media. Don’t wait for a reputation-destroying disaster to start your learning. You won’t get a second chance for a great first impression.

Marty Zwilling

Let Five-Minute Mentoring Scale Your Productivity

I’ve always wondered why every executive meeting has to be one hour in length, or longer. That’s probably a tenth of your day spent on one issue. It better be a critical one, because you have a hundred others waiting. I believe you can be much more productive, as well as a more effective leader, if you approach most meetings as mentoring opportunities, and limit them to five minutes.

In a traditional meeting, another person presents you with multiple options, and you make the decision. With the five-minute mentoring approach, the mentee asks for your support in their decision, or asks for your insight on the considerations for them making a future decision. Which approach do you think is more fulfilling for them, and best for your company in the long run?

The time limit has more to do with setting an expectation that the meeting is not for solving the problem, but coaching on the parameters and the approach. If you are a problem solver by nature, this requires you to change your mindset from giving the “answer,” to helping someone else understand the process, and come to an even better solution.

I have used this approach with high-tech roles, like software design, as well as business development roles. It works, but in all cases, to be a successful mentor, there are some key things you have to do:

• Be available always. If you are “too busy” most of the time, or locked behind closed doors, no mentoring relationship can work. It has to be evident to the mentee that this relationship is important to you, and you will make short periods of time available on a moment’s notice as required. If you often make people wait, they will take extra time, which will make more people wait longer and later.

• Adapt to each individual learning style. Start by open listening. Some people learn best from anecdotal stories, and others need concrete pointers and step-by-step instructions. Respect each mentee’s desire to grow and honor their individual style. Remember that five-minute listening is not the same as five-minute mentoring.

• Respect discussion confidentiality. Mentor discussions must remain confidential, so both parties can talk freely to each other without being quoted around the water cooler later. The mentee must not be afraid to show false starts or a naïve perspective.

• Provide honest and constructive feedback. Personal attacks and emotional comments are not appropriate, but people need real feedback to learn. Set the context by clarifying your goals and expectations on a regular basis. Critique the work and not the person.

• Hold the mentee responsible and accountable. Encourage the mentee to generate their own solutions, and make it clear that they must accept full responsibility for their personal choices. Good people won’t want it to work any other way. Most people learn best from making mistakes, so you have to let them fail sometimes.

I’m definitely not proposing the “traditional” style of mentoring, where the goal was a one-way transfer of a broad range of knowledge or information. Here the mentor was the authoritarian source, and directed all other aspects of the mentoring relationship. The mentee was a passive recipient and often had little say or control in the relationship.

Today’s learner-centered mentoring is a dynamic and two-way relationship that involves critical reflection and full participation in short period increments by both partners. The mentor assumes a role of a facilitator. The mentee becomes a proactive and equal partner, helping direct the relationship and set its goals.

The primary responsibility of a startup founder is to provide vision and leadership. Use five-minute mentoring as one tool and stick to it with unwavering zeal. There's nothing worse than getting off course and entering areas that lead you away from the primary track. Your greatest contribution is maintaining focus and guiding the team. Give it a try. You’ll get your time back and real respect.

Marty Zwilling

Business Innovation Requires Successful Execution

Most people think innovation is all about ideas, when in fact it is more about delivery, people, and process. Entrepreneurs looking to innovate need to understand the execution challenge if they expect their startup to carve out a profitable niche in the marketplace, and keep innovating to build and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage.

Everyone thinks they know how to make innovation happen, but I can’t find much real research on the subject. At the same time, myths about innovation are commonplace in business. Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble, in their book “The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge” have done the best recent research I have seen on this subject.

They take you step-by-step through the innovation execution process, in the context the ten most common myths about innovation, which I think makes their approach particularly instructive:

1. Innovation is all about ideas. While it is true that you can’t get started without an idea, the importance of the Big Hunt is vastly overrated. Ideas are only beginnings. Without the necessary focus, discipline, and resources on execution, nothing happens.

2. A great leader never fails at innovation. When in comes to innovation, there is nothing simple about execution. The inherent conflicts between innovation and ongoing operations are simply too fundamental and too powerful for one person to tackle alone.

3. Effective innovation leaders are subversives fighting the system. Effective innovation leaders are not necessarily the biggest risk takers, mavericks, and rebels. The primary virtue of an effective innovation leader is humility. What you want is integration with real world operations, not an undisciplined and chaotic mess.

4. Everyone can be an innovator. Ideation is everyone’s job, as are small improvements in each employee’s direct sphere of responsibility. Yet most team members don’t have the bandwidth or interest to do their existing job, and well as address major innovations.

5. Real innovation happens bottoms-up. Innovation initiatives of any appreciable scale require a formal, intentional resource commitment. That requires the focus and resources from top executives to sustain, even initiate, relevant efforts.

6. Innovation can be embedded inside an established organization. Some forms of innovation can be imbedded, like continuous product improvement, but discontinuous innovation is basically incompatible with ongoing operations.

7. Initiating innovation requires wholesale organizational change. Innovation requires only targeted change. The first principle is to do no harm to existing operations. A common approach that works is to use dedicated teams to structure innovative efforts.

8. Innovation can only happen in skunk works. Innovation should not be isolated from ongoing operations. There must be engagement between the two. Nearly every worthwhile innovation initiative needs to leverage existing assets and capabilities.

9. Innovation is unmanageable chaos. Unfortunately, best practices for generating ideas have almost nothing to do with best practices for moving them forward. Innovation must be closely and carefully managed, during the 99% of the journey that is execution.

10. Only startups can innovate. Luckily for entrepreneurs, many large companies are convinced that they must leave innovation to startups. Yet research suggests that many of the world’s biggest problems can only be solved by large, established corporations.

Everyone agrees that the goal of innovation is positive change, to make someone or something better. Entrepreneurs need it to start, and established companies need it to survive. The front end of innovation, or “ideating” is the energizing and glamorous part. Execution seems like behind-the-scenes dirty work. But without the reality of execution, big ideas go nowhere, even in startups.

Marty Zwilling

10 Entrepreneur Qualities That Tag You as Fabulous

To be successful as an entrepreneur, you don’t have to be a fabulous person, but it helps. Some people, and some entrepreneurs, have that something extra, like Simon Cowell is searching for on the X-Factor, that you can’t quite put your finger on. But the entrepreneurs that have “it” seem to be able to effortlessly get team members, investors, and customers to follow them anywhere.

In a recent book on this subject, “The Essentials of Fabulous,” Ellen Lubin-Sherman, who has been tracking fabulous people most of her life as a writer and journalist, tried to net “it” out. She identifies less than a dozen primary qualities for fabulous people in general, and I have honed and tuned these to ten that apply especially to entrepreneurs, in my experience:

1. Be passionate about life, as well as your business. Entrepreneurs who have passion in business, as well as their life, may drive us all batty, but there is never a dull moment. These moments are always being transformed into options to be explored. They make life interesting and an adventure, and everyone loves an adventure.

2. Be delightfully authentic and honest. Authentic entrepreneurs are destined and determined to have fun, as well as move forward in business. They have an unerring confidence that’s inspiring yet attainable. They savor relationships, and are generous with themselves and their smarts, so they attract a savvy following.

3. Be revered for an amazing positive attitude. Rather than cave when things get tough, optimistic entrepreneurs go analytic, looking for pivots that keep their goals in sight. They are disciplined, upbeat thinkers, but they don’t take themselves too seriously, and know how and when to laugh it off. A negative attitude takes everyone down.

4. Be warm and completely accessible. Warmth comes from your smile, and facial expressions that indicate genuine interest. Investors and partners look for entrepreneurs that will look them straight in the eye when speaking, and give their full and undivided attention while you’re speaking. Everyone looks for “rapport talk” rather than “report talk.”

5. Have impeccable manners and flair. Entrepreneurs who are always looking for opportunities to be gracious and considerate are going to be liked, admired, sought after, and trusted. In business, that means staying connected, showing up on time, with no signs of boredom or preoccupation. It’s not always about you, so dress and talk for them.

6. Be competent and confident. Competent people accomplish more in business because they’re driven by a pronounced sense of purpose. They are willing to put themselves on the line, and have confidently done their homework to know what it takes. They are reliably consistent, and unafraid to ask for help.

7. Able to just “get it.” Entrepreneurs who “get it” are emotionally attuned to peers and customers, so that their gut-level instincts become informed judgments that move the business forward. “With-it”-ness takes work, like reading the right blogs every day, challenging yourself to stay abreast of the latest technology, and social media marketing.

8. Have a big bandwidth. Can you talk, with equal engagement and respect, to your company’s CFO and the guy who pumps your gas? Look for opportunities to praise and nurture the people with diversity. Get comfortable out of your circle of interest and expertise. Go for that black belt in networking.

9. Be vivid virtually. Developing a superior virtual presence requires a mastery of several mediums – phone, email, text messaging, as well as handwritten notes – but the payoff is undeniable. But don’t overuse virtual communication to the exclusion of face-to-face time In all cases, don’t forget your sense of aplomb, mastery of tone, and the spell-checker.

10. Attract a superstar board of advisors. The right board is a group of individuals who may not know one another, but know you, and know your business domain. Plus, they need to be willing to put their brains and their expertise at your disposal as long as you need it. No entrepreneur is an island, so take the initiative to use an advisory board.

Paying attention to all these things is how you become a fabulous entrepreneur, with the X-factor. I’m sorry, but there is no magic, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Of course, it will never happen if you don’t start or don’t believe. But it’s worth the effort, unless you have something better to do?

Marty Zwilling

Software Patents Have Become a Startup Nightmare

I always advise software startups to file patents to protect their “secret sauce” from competitors, and to increase their valuation. The good news is that a patent can scare off or at least delay competitors, and as a “rule of thumb” patents can add up to $1M to your startup valuation for investors, or for M&A exits (merger and acquisition).

The bad news is that patent trolls (non-practicing companies that make their money from licensing patents) can squeeze the lifeblood out of unsuspecting entrepreneurs, as exemplified by the continuing mess around Lodsys suing small Apple IOS developers. This patent holding company has charged infringement and demanded royalties from every app developer for the iPhone and Android, for a feature most agree has been in apps for many years.

Yes, the software patent process is a mess. I say this with conviction even after I survived the process, and have a software patent pending. Consider this list of commonly recognized software patent flaws, as summarized from my research, Paul Graham’s “Are Software Patents Evil?” essay, and the “Enough is Enough” original Lodsys article by VC Fred Wilson.

• Process is onerous, expensive, and time consuming. Count on spending $10K to $20K per patent just for a USA application today, unless you do most of the work. Even after your application is accepted, the issuing process takes a lifetime in today’s technology (4-5 years). Then you need to repeat the process for every country of interest.

• Patents have become a tax on innovation. A lot of companies, like Lodsys above, buy up software patents that are over-broad, and hold startups hostage, after the fact, through royalties and litigation. They know that these entrepreneurs don’t have the skill or resources to defend themselves. Patents only help the big guys who want no change.

• Software technology changes rapidly. Software changes fast and the government moves slowly. The USPTO has been overwhelmed by both the volume and the novelty of applications for software patents, and they can’t maintain a qualified staff. Patents currently last 20 years, which is way too long in the software business.

• Patents granted that don’t meet the criteria. To be patentable, an invention has to be more than new. It also has to be “novel” and non-obvious. Moreover, patent law in most countries says that software “algorithms” aren't patentable. So lawyers routinely frame a software algorithm as a "system and method" to meet the criteria.

• Valid patent can be overturned by unpatented prior art. The USPTO operates on the doctrine of “first to invent,” rather than first to patent. This is ugly, as it means that a valid patent can be overturned by another inventor with a preponderance of evidence of prior art. This happened to RIM (Research In Motion), and cost them nearly $650M to recover.

• Applying for a patent is a negotiation. As a result, lawyers always apply for a broader patent than they think will be granted, and the examiners reply by throwing out some of the claims and granting others. They don’t insist on something very narrow, with proper technical content.

• Different rules around the world. What I have described so far is the situation in the US. In Europe, software is already deemed not patentable, and other parts of the world are somewhere in between. In some countries, software patents are not recognized, and in others they are not enforced. We need a global solution.

So what’s the answer? I would argue to simply eliminate the software patent – since software is an implementation and is already covered by trademark and copyright law anyway. Others are putting their hopes in a new patent reform bill, which tightens the definition of software patents and targets trolls.

Either way, new computational technology algorithms would still be patentable, as long as the algorithm meets the defined requirements for novelty, usefulness and inventiveness. I’m a big supporter of building and protecting a portfolio of real intellectual property, and maximizing your startup’s valuation, but it shouldn’t be just a legal game.

Marty Zwilling

Business Consultants Need to Look For a Real Job

Let’s face it, consultants have a bad image. Businesses want experienced people who get their hands dirty, rather than experts who give presentations, make recommendations, and disappear. Even consultants don’t like their job, since they don’t often get to see results, and too much of their time is spent looking for the next gig.

The Internet has changed the world. If you need to know how to do something, just look it up online. You will probably find more current alternatives and more recommendations on any given subject than any consultant could muster. For example, there are a dozen articles like this one for every area of expertise.

But certainly the Internet doesn’t do the job for you. My message today is to avoid the consultant stigma by signing up to do the job, not just talk about it. Then lead by example. There are a myriad of ways to make this happen in the world of startups. Here are a few:

• Take the end-role directly. An approach I suggest these days is for freelancers to contract for the actual role, probably part-time, of startup CFO, VP of Sales, or President. In this mode they take on the “doing” role directly, rather than any “consulting” role.

• Specialist versus consultant. Small groups of consultants have now become groups of specialists – CFO Services, Marketing Services, or Management Services. Specialists are consultants who do the work, rather than just make recommendations.

• Charge by task or fixed-rate. Another mistake many consultants make is to charge by the hour, and customers lose track and lose confidence as things change. A fixed rate will make sure there is no surprise at the end, and you will stand out in the crowd.

• Report within the organizational structure. In the past, consultants were taught to report only to the top executive, and to assume leadership rights in the organization. Today’s specialists have to earn their leadership, and prove their contribution to the department executive.

• Dress to fit in. Gone are the days when you can make a great impression by over-dressing. Dress to fit into the company culture, no more, no less. Share the everyday life of the startup team you are working with.

• Produce results. “Results” these days are not PowerPoint slides, or theories and recommendations. If you are the CFO, showing results means you set up the accounting system, and generate the first P&Ls. Speak to people, rather than write a document every time you want a change.

• Have "customers", not "clients." This is a minor semantic point, but an important one to the customer. A "client" implies that the consultant is in charge, while "customer" suggests that the service provider is beholden. All aspects of customer service apply.

• Be exceptionally easy to find. When your customer phones or emails you, his timer starts, so it behooves you to return his call or email quickly. Scheduling of a meeting at the end of the next week definitely tags you as a consultant whose focus is elsewhere.

So for all you consultants, maybe it’s time to consider changing your mode of operation as well as your title. If you have real experience in key business roles, or you are an expert in any one, then you have a good set of modern credentials. Use your credentials to figure out how to join a startup team.

Don’t be an outsider in attitude, recommendations, clothes, or rules of engagement. Every startup I know is looking for more team members, but none are looking for more consultants. If you find the right team, and do the right work, you won’t even need to look for a next gig.

Marty Zwilling