blog364

Thank you Steve Jobs

No one but you (only the good die young) by Queen:

A hand above the water

An angel reaching for the sky

Is it raining in heaven -

Do you want us to cry?

And everywhere the broken-hearted

On every lonely avenue

No-one could reach them

No-one but you

One by one

Only the Good die young

They’re only flying too close to the sun

And life goes on -

Without you…

Another Tricky Situation

I get to drownin’ in the Blues

And I find myself thinkin’

Well – what would you do?

Yes! – it was such an operation

Forever paying every due

Hell, you made a sensation

You found a way through

One by one

Only the Good die young

They’re only flyin’ too close to the sun

We’ll remember -

Forever…

And now the party must be over

I guess we’ll never understand

The sense of your leaving

Was in the way it was planned…

So we grace another table

And raise our glasses one more time

There’s a face at the window

And i aint never, never saying goodbye…

One by one

Only the Good die young

They’re only flyin’ too close to the sun

Cryin’ for nothing

Cryin’ for no-one

No-one but you

… and thank you for so much magic!

One day, when my son was two years old I got a call from a friend of mine that needed to meet me right away. But there was a problem. At that time, my wife was out meeting a client, and our nanny had gone home early. So I had no choice but to bring the little one with me. The other problem was that he was still wearing his pajamas. For some reason I had this weird idea that taking him out in his PJs wasn’t acceptable. What ensued was a very long and draining battle to get him out of his PJs and into his day clothes. The battle lasted over half an hour and left both of use exhausted. About a week later, the same situation presented itself: I had my son with me (yes, wearing his PJs) and I had to leave the house in a hurry and bring him with me.

Now, my first instinct was to reach for an outfit and get ready for another “battle”. But before I could reach him, a thought came rushing into my mind: “I have two things that I’m trying to accomplish: 1) Get him out of his PJs and dressed and 2) Get out of the house with him ASAP. Now, which one of these two is the most important? In that instant, I finally understood the true meaning behind the saying: “Pick your battles.”

Budget	Schedule
Features	Quality

Now, you might be wondering how does this story relate to startups. Simple: In every startup there will always be multiple things that need to be done, and in our entrepreneurial OCD minds (lets face it, most entrepreneurs are!) they all seem equally urgent. Most of our first reactions will be similar too: how do I get them all done at the same time? Then we’ll proceed to flip out, stress and waste incredible amounts of time and energy trying to figure it out. This is ludicrous, because rarely, if ever are we in situations that will require us to complete all the tasks in parallel.

If you take an honest look, you will realized that the need to get it all done-right-now is more like a beautiful mirage than an actual helpful oasis. Look closer…closer… and you will see that there will most likely be one truly important task that needs to happen right at this very moment (in my case, it was leaving the house!). Usually a good way to find out which task is most important is by asking: Which of this task, if it doesn’t get done now, will keep me from completing the other ones?

In my current startup, most of our done-right-now tasks fall into one of these categories: 1) Budget 2) Schedule 3) Features or 4) Quality.

Like most all other startups out there, we want to hit high marks in all these categories. We wan to: Be well under budget (our investors will love us for this). Hit our release date (our investors AND users will love us for this). Have the most features (the only way to crush our competition…. NOT!). Have no bugs in the system (just like the other “startup” up in Redmond). And we want all this to happen by the time we release our Beta MVP.

But we are a small team (Mr. Smith and I) and know that this is far from realistic. So we had to make some decisions. For us, being self-funded, it was a no brainer. We had (and still do) to be within our budget. That was and still is our most important decision driving point. We know that if we run out of the little cash that we have for our venture that non of the other three points will matter. Sure, we still want to have our cake and eat it too, but that’s just not realistic. And nothing teaches you better the definition of reality than self-funding and bootstrapping your own startup.

So, being on budget became our do-it-now driver. Because, if we don’t pick this battle first, then we’ll never get to the other ones (i.e. delivering on schedule, features, quality). And, as any good General will tell you: winning a battle doesn’t win the war. You need to win all the battles (or at least the bigger, most important ones) to win the war. So start by winning the first battle. But choose which one to fight first you must, so do that carefully. Also, remember that it is the aggregate of multiple successful battles that bring the desired outcome. And, picking which battle to fight first doesn’t mean that the other ones don’t need to be fought. You will need to be able to extract multiple victories across multiple fronts in order to be ultimately triumphant!

Truly successful startups aren’t successful because they’ve launched a great product. Launching a great product is the end result, a visual manifestation of a company that has already become successful at mastering the art of “picking the right battles in the right order”.

Which battle will you pick next?

As consumers start to rely more and more on their social-networks and the wisdom of the crowd for products, services advice and information, will this cause a decrease in the consumers reliance on online advertising, thus causing a decline in online ads?

A bit like the situation that newspapers find themselves in. News haven’t change nor will they go away. But how we access them has certainly changed and that has had a huge impact on Newspapers business models.

Advertising... Go away!

Advertising won’t go away, but how we access and extract value from them is changing and will probably affect its business model as well. So, may be in a not so distant future, we’ll either stop seeing online advertising (at least in their traditional shape and form) or see a big decline as advertisers start reaching and using direct lines of communication with their target markets (permission marketing & Seth Godin) and engaging them in the promotion of their services and products, thus, making online advertising as we know it today obsolete.

Imagine this…

You are in racecar, driving at 100 mph and you are in x place (but not in first).

All of the sudden, you start noticing some vibrations in the car.

At first you try to dismiss them as little bumps on the road. But then, the vibrations start to get stronger and stronger, making driving and staying in control almost impossible.

100 mph

What do you do?

You could speed up…. Hmmm… stronger vibrations and some parts of your car start flying off. If you keep going like this there’s a good chance that you won’t finish the race and might not even survive another lap.

What do you do?

You could slow down…. Hmmm…. if you do, then there’s not a chance to catch up to first place and win.

What do you do?

You stop. You pit out!

Pit stop

That’s right, you STOP!

Ask any experienced race car driver and he/she will tell you that most races are won not just by going fast and having nerves of steel, but by knowing when to stop. Stopping at the correct times allows you to make adjustments and corrections before they become “life threatening” issues. It’s on the pit where your entire support team is at and where the best assessments as to the current situation and best course of action can be determined and implemented. Even though you are alone in the “car” you are not alone in the “race”. Your entire team is in it with you, and you need them as much as they need you in order to win. Yes, racing and building successful companies are team sports!

So, if it feels like you are starting to lose control and may not make it another lap around, consider stopping. It may not only save your life (if you are heading for a crash as your car/company starts to fall apart), but it may give you a new fighting chance. Some people call it “the pivot”, some call it “regrouping”. The fact is that something has to change. You cannot continue moving forward this fast and this out of control.

You’ve built a team around you to help you win. When those vibrations start to make the going get tough, the only way they can help you is if you stop and pit out. This gives the chance to the entire team to assess the situation, and how to best correct it and send you back out on the race with a winning chance.

Stopping is not a sign of weakness, lack of drive or commitment. In fact, it’s a sign of strength and focus. A mind that is present and focused on the task at hand, is better equipped to anticipate the need for the stop even before the first signs of trouble present themselves. Thus, saving you precious time, energy and resources, three things that are always in short supply in a racing situation (and a startup is exactly that: a race to execute before you run out of those three elements). Most of the time, the winning teams are the ones who best manage and balanced these resources.

If you stop, what’s the worst thing that can happen? You don’t win the race? I’m willing to bet you money, that if you continue driving, regardless of how hard or fast you drive you won’t win anyway and you may face terrible consequences. Something tells me that deep down, your gut is telling you the same. So listen to it.

Now, start to slow down. As you do, you’ll be able to regain some control. Good! You see, it’s not that hard.

Radio up your team and let them know that you are coming in. Once you get to the pit, stop and work with them to resolve the problems and set a new strategy.

Are all systems working? Are you, your team and car/company firing on all cylinders? Good. Step on the gas and go. You may not win the race but at least now you have one more fighting chance!
—

Note: Notice that when I set the scenario up, I said that you were in x place but NOT in first. Why?

Well, if you are in first place, chances are that you and your car/company are performing at 100% efficiency, and sans some unforeseen tragedy, are probably on your way to a win. But at some point in the race, even you had to pit out to refuel, regroup, and make some minor adjustments. And, it’s very likely that this very same action of stopping at just the right time, gave you the extra edge to finish first!

I’ll see you on the racecourse.

The other day I came across two quotes that left me completely bewildered. I was bewildered not because I didn’t understand them, but because they shown a lack of understanding, vision, imagination and questioning of what is and what should be. And the worst part is that I know many, many people who repeat these two quotes on a regular basis as if they were some magic spell or New Age way of managing a business. And they are not! All they do is mask more serious issues and questions that should be addressed in a direct manner at every step of building or creating a new product or service. They are empty words lacking actionable power and guidance. Accepting their ‘wisdom’ at face value and expecting that they will lead to a successful and long lusting business is the same as thinking that you can solve an algebra equation by chewing gum.

Without any further due…

Go Build It!

Build it and they will not come: Oh, really? Well, duh! Ok, fine. Yes, it’s true: just building or creating a product or service is no guarantee that anyone will want to buy it. But what’s the option? Not to build it? If you don’t then there’s NO business, period! So clearly, not building it is not an option (at least not a good one). Thus the quote as it is written is empty of actionable value and pointless. You have to build it, you have no choice. You didn’t go into business to “do nothing, build nothing”. Most likely you went into business because you either have a crazy idea that you can’t get out of your head until you build it or you’ve identified a problem with a large enough user-base and think that you have a solution for it. Either way… you are in business to build it! So go ahead, make “your day”! If you don’t, then the quote becomes a self fulfilling prophecy even before you get started. If you build it, what’s the worst that it can happen? That “they” don’t come? Hmmm… well if you don’t build it, for sure “they” won’t come.

Let’s turn this empty quote into an actionable statement/question:

• How do I build it so they come?

But lets not stop there. Why? Because we don’t only want users to come… we want them to buy too. So let’s add:

• And buy it?

Now you have a product that solves someone’s problem in an efficient manner that’s worth paying for. But this only will get you so far, so many customer and so much money. It’s in the last part where the magic happens…

• And they tell all their friends about it?

Ok, so may be this is not much of a quote, but it’s one heck of actionable question/statement to help you build a solid product or service:

“How do I build it so they come and buy it and they tell all their friends about it?”

We can distill this statement into three actionable steps:

1. Concentrate on the core problem that you are trying to address/resolve/fix for your target users/market. Everything else is noise!
2. Implement a solution that in the words of Arthur C. Clarke is “indistinguishable from magic.”
3. To borrow/steal from Seth Godin: Make it a Purple Cow. Why? Because when you see one, the first thing you want to do is tell all your friends!

In the words of William Shakespeare: “To build or not to build? That is the question.” And the answer is simple: YES! Build it. You can’t afford not to!

Am I doing what’s good or what I’m good at: This quote really scares me, because the understanding is that you should be doing “what’s good” for the company. But what’s the value in doing “what’s good” if you are not “good” at it? If the most important thing is to do what’s best for the company but you are not the best at it, then by simply attempting to do “what’s good” you are in effect doing “what’s worst” for the company. What’s best for the company is adding value to it and you can only add value to it if you are doing for it what you do best. Attempting to do “what’s good” when you don’t have the right skills can end up in a worst situation than if left alone. Instead you should be focusing on what you are “good at” and then finding a way to use your particular set of skills to add value to your company, its products or services. If you want proof that doing “what you are good at” is indeed the best thing you can do for your company, then you don’t have to look any further than a professional sports team. Why? Because in a top performing team, each player (i.e. employee) as a specific position to cover and task to accomplish. And they are put in these positions because that’s what they are best at, not necessarily what’s best for the team. You wouldn’t expect a three-point shooter to be a great rebounder or a filed-goal kicker to be a great defender, would you? They have special and specific skills that they bring to the team and they add value by doing what they do best. It’s the collective actions of each team member doing what they do best that results in doing what’s best for the company.

Another good reason to do “what you are good at” instead of “what’s good” is that you’ll never stand out doing “what’s good” if you are mediocre doing it. You might get a pat in the back and a ‘good job’ here and there, but your contribution will be soon forgotten. Your only chance to stand out, to be what author Seth Godin calls a ‘linchpin‘ is to do what you do best!

I recently changed my mobile plan to a family one. Not getting all the information about it that I wanted online, I decided to go down to the nearest AT&T store to get more information in person. After finding a suitable plan I decided to make the change on the spot. The sales person helping me was very easy going and patient with all my questions and explained the entire plan in detail, including what kind of new monthly bill I could expect.

Everything was good until yesterday, when I received an email with my monthly bill (the first one under the new plan). Upon opening the bill, there in plain sight was the total monthly cost. Problem was… it wasn’t what the sales associated had told me it should be. I figure there must have been some kind of error (Yes, I did try to read/understand the bill, but they make them harder to decipher than an Enigma machine, and for good reason!), so I called AT&T customer service to find out what it was.

Sure enough, there were three “extra” charges that the sales associate had forgotten to mention (and I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt!):

1. Activation fee ($18)*

2. Internet access fee ($2 PER occurrence) – even though I had explicitly said that I didn’t want this option active in my mother’s phone

3. A strange pro-rated charge ($22) that the customer service person on the other side of the phone could not explain (not at least in a believable manner)

So there it was, an extra $42 added to my bill without my consent or knowledge. That totaled an extra 40% above what I was told the monthly bill would be. I explained to the person helping me that it didn’t seem fair to be getting charged for things that: 1) I wasn’t told were part of the deal, or that I had explicitly said I didn’t want, and 2) they couldn’t explain what they were, how they got in my bill or why I should have to pay for them. So he did the right thing and removed the extra $42 from my bill. Well done AT&T!!!

Apathy

I’ve always been of the opinion that if you can ‘pitch’ you should be able to ‘catch’. The same goes, if we can trash companies when they don’t behave ethically and treat their customers properly, that we do recognize when they do the right things (after all is not “that” often). So, once again, well done AT&T. You made me feel heard and that resolving my pain was, at least this time, more important than an extra $42 in your quarterly revenue report. Keep it up!!!

But, this post is not really about how AT&T changed, is changing, might change or what. No. This posting is about us, the consumers, buyers, customers, the ones that keep the business in, well… business. And how we seem to have grown used to, somewhat tolerant and, worst still, expectant of certain level of mistreatment from the companies that we used to provide us a product or service.

We sign up for services without reading the “service agreement”. We accept what comes on our bills without second thought or consideration. And most of the times, when we notices an impropriety (i.e.: extra charge, poor treatment, etc.) we don’t even bother to speak up. No wonder then, that companies are not chaining and still getting away with this type of behavior…. it’s call conditioning, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. And that’s sad.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. From Dell Hell to Antennagate, we’ve seen how making a stand for what’s right can make even the largest corporations stop, listen and, more and more often now, make changes that will have a long term positive impact, not only on their customers but, by association, on their bottom lines. The Internet, with all it’s tools (i.e.: search, email, Twitter, blogs, forums, etc.), is allowing customers to come together (there’s strength in numbers, and the Internet’s numbers can be mighty forces of change!) and hold companies accountable to their actions and demand changes. And that’s a good thing. But a tool is only as good as the person handling it and if we don’t continue pushing forward and demanding better treatment from companies then the momentum will be lost and it will be back to the status quo.

Our silence would just continue to reinforce that they are in control. But that doesn’t have to be the case. We are entering a new era of “customer empowerment”. This is a time to make our voices heard, specially when we feel that we’ve been wronged by a company. Companies need to come to terms with the fact that in this always-connected world, one bad customer service experience or “extra” charge can no longer be swept under the carpet. And that when these situations do occur, that we won’t stay on the sidelines and send, yet another, check in the mail. No. Now we’ll be tweeting, writing our blogs, posting on forums and sending emails all around the world. We’ll be asking for change and we shall receive it, because the price of doing nothing will be more costly to the companies than any short-term financial loss.

But for this change to happen we, customers, need to change too. And this starts by standing up, picking up the phone (or email, or whatever means of communication you deem appropriate) and contacting the offending company and requesting that they fix their errors. I know it sounds crazy, but it really is that simple. Call the company (be nice about it), explain what the issue is and how you’d like it to be resolved/fixed. Don’t accept NO for an answer. As long as what you are asking is reasonable, just and fair you shouldn’t feel bad for asking. You’ll be surprised how many times they’ll correct the mistake. Just be prepare to present a valid reason!

In the past month, I had three instances where I felt that I wasn’t being treated properly:

1. Over-billing

2. Negotiating a new car lease

3. Bad service experience at a restaurant

Each of these times I found who the correct person would be for me to talk to. I explained the situations and how I’d like for my needs to be resolved. Each time, I got exactly what I wanted. Had I not ask, not only would I have felt that I got the worst end of the bargain but I would have felt that I let myself down and that I didn’t have any control over a situation that I was part of.

We seem to have forgotten that the easiest way of getting what we want is by simply asking for it. Not doing so will cost you more in the long run, not just financially but emotionally too.

You are in control. And that’s not something that you need to ask for!

—
* This ‘activation’ fee is wrong for several reasons, and here are two:

1. No activation, no service. No service, no customer. No customer, no revenue!

2. Why should I pay to activate a phone/line which is already active under a different plan

NOTE: These ‘activation’ fees are the same as the typical gym’s “sign up” fee. It’s 100% profit. I know because I used to work at a gym. All it takes is for the sales associate to punch the new customer/client’s information on the computer and hit <ENTER>. So next time you sign up at a gym tell them that if they want you as a member, they better waive the fee!