BlogFrog August 2010 Video Newsletter from Rustin Banks on Vimeo.
[Note: This is the first of the Solid Startups interviews. Today's interview with Holly Hamman is the third of three parts. The first part is here, and the second is here. I want to thank Holly for setting a very high standard for the interview series, and for some unexpected and valuable insights. The video above is a good example of what led me to ask her to premiere the series.]
JL: It seems we may be on the verge of seeing more women founders in tech, but the numbers are still very low, despite research indicating that female-founded business generate higher profit, use less capital, and last longer. How can we get more women into the mix?
HH: Women need other women role models. Not because those women are any smarter or more successful than men, but because there is relatedness. Like it or not, it is a different experience to run a business, go after funding, sell partners, and be in the tech space as a women than it is as a man. Not better or worse, just different. When you can learn from other women about issues that only women encounter, it can transform a person’s potential. I also think that traditional male traits lend themselves well to success in the business world whether its assertiveness, leadership, strength (figuratively and literally), and logic. Again, I am not being sexist, just stating facts. Women can tend to intuitively lean toward service roles or support positions and be shy or more insecure about asking for what they really want. Women tend to underestimate how much knowledge and skills they have. Many women would be shocked to know what kind of support is out there is they asked for it or just went out and got it. I love seeing women walking and working with unstoppable focus. That kind of energy makes us all want to be a part of it. We can get more women into the mix by being role models, seeking out those who need support, putting ourselves out there so we can be found, and by creating supportive communities. And as cliché as it sounds, we’ll attract more women into the space when we stop complaining about how hard it is to be a women in business. Success is as much ours to have as it is anyone else’s, male or female.
JL: What advice would you give a young woman interested in pursuing a path in tech startups?
HH: My advice would be to seek out mentors (male or female), find a supportive community, and spend the time to find out what really, truly jazzes you. Is it developing and coding, marketing, operations, working with customers? Are you an idea person, a strategist, or a closer? Knowing these things will help you know which areas of tech will be the most fun for you. There will always be hard work, but when you find the area that you have passion for, you are destined to be better in that area than people who aren’t passionate. A passionate person has curiosity and digs into the nooks and crannies of a subject way deeper than someone just trying to cover the material. A passionate person makes more intuitive demands, fights harder, and doesn’t give up as easily. Tech start-ups are scrappy environments and they need people like that on their teams. As a gender, women are intuitive, community oriented, and have strong empathetic skills. Combine that with a drive to solve a customer problem or change the way an industry works and you’ve got a powerful force! The tech industry needs as much of that as it can get!
JL: What’s next for you?
HH: My partner and I launched BlogFrog about 18 months ago and I would still call us an early-stage start-up. We are angel-funded and working to execute on our core strategy, which is to build a social platform that enables millions of web users to create and power niche communities. We are focused on serving the women and mom space first and have over 40,000 mom bloggers in the network and reach almost 3 million moms each month. BlogFrog is now the largest network of mom blogs in the U.S. but we still have a long way to go. I work with thousands of bloggers all trying to build communities by sharing their amazing stories on their blogs. There is so much we are learning about how communities form, grow, and create influence. I could write a book! I also have to see my kids through the teen years and maybe take a vacation in there somewhere. That’s what’s next for me.
About Holly
Holly has spent her career launching and growing start-ups in the Internet, bio-medical, entertainment, video, and other tech industries. She has a passion for researching and studying internet and social media use by teens, GenY, and women. She is a blogger, public speaker, contributing writer on technology and marketing to various publications, is an American Marketing Association “Marketer of the Year” award recipient and a guest blogger for The HuffingtonPost. She lives outside Boulder, Colorado and blogs about technology and parenting teenagers. You can follow Holly on Twitter at@hollyk
[Note: This is the first of the Solid Startups interviews. Today's interview with Holly Hamman is the second of three parts. The first part is here.]
JL: Everyone seems to have a personal definition of success. What’s yours?
HH: My definition of success is feeling that my actions and what I am building in my work and home match my values and priorities. For instance, in my heart my family comes first. When our home is in balance and the kids are getting the attention and support they need, then I can give to my work. If I get overworked and things start falling apart at home, I have to stop and re-calibrate. I want financial freedom, but not at the expense of my relationships. I also feel successful when I am solving a problem worth solving. There were many days at my big corporate job where I really didn’t know how the task I was performing was related to any problems our customers had. I was just too far removed. The start-up space is like walking barefoot – you feel every pebble, stick, piece of gum, and crevice in the road. And you know first-hand what its like for your customers.
JL: What gets you up in the morning?
HH: I like waking up to a plan that I’m executing on. When I am steeped in a well thought-out process, I wake up knowing exactly what my priority is for the day and what needs to get done. That feels empowering, like I can do anything. If I don’t have a plan or something to go after that day (even if its about my family), I feel a bit lost, like I’m wasting valuable time. Some people are probably way better at relaxing than I am J Intentionally doing nothing is very hard for me but I hear its healthy so I’ll have to learn how to do that someday.
JL: What keeps you awake at night?
HH: Usually the last thought that crosses my mind at night is “what am I missing?” What am I not seeing or what strategy have we not considered?”. Those are my thoughts about work. My kids are young teens (not driving yet) and I can’t seem to fall asleep until I know they are all in the house safe and sound. There are tons of teen issues that could keep me up at night but I know I can’t worry about them all and I have to simply trust that my kids have been listening to me all these years and will make good decisions.
[Note: This is the first of the Solid Startups interviews. Today's interview with Holly Hamman is the first of three parts, mainly because her answers were awesome.]
Holly Hamann represents everything I like about working with startups: she’s a seasoned serial entrepreneur, she’s passionate and present in what she’s doing, she actively seeks feedback about what she can do better, and she makes her work a part of her quality of life. Holly is a working mother who blogs, speaks, and writes about tech and the family, and she seems to have endless energy. She lives in Boulder CO, a burgeoning hive of entrepreneurial activity and a highly supportive startup community, and is currently VP Marketing at TheBlogFrog.
JL: Holly, I’ve lost track of how many companies you’ve started or worked in. Can you bring us up to speed on your entrepreneurial journey? How did you get here?
HH: I graduated from college with a degree in Mathematics and was recruited by the phone company to help them depreciate assets. Yes, it was as boring as it sounds. I moved around within the company, got promoted to help market new products, but the culture was still like being part of a huge, monolithic machine with slow-moving gears. The average time from product inception to product launch was 4 years! I eventually left, moved to Colorado and discovered start-ups. I joined a small start-up called Matchlogic, an online advertising firm that used demographics to target online ads for big brands. We could have a good idea one morning, talk to the CEO at lunch, and be doing something about it that afternoon.
The freedom to run after a great idea was addicting. Matchlogic ended up being acquired by Excite for $89 Million in 1998. By that time, I was hooked on start-ups, especially marketing and customer acquisition. Over the next decade, I helped launched several start-ups in the web, tech, or bio-tech space. Service Metrics was website performance monitoring company acquired by Exodus in 2000 for $280 Million. That was during the dot.com bubble heyday when e-commerce sites like eToys and eTrade were popping up everywhere. I helped LeftHand Networks market their network storage product in the early 2000s and HP bought them for $360 Million. There were more along the way including ThoughtEquity Motion (an online motion footage provider) and Regenexx, a stem cell therapy lab.
By 2008, I still loved the start-up environment but was itching to try launching a company of my own. I had been introduced to Rustin Banks, an aerospace engineer working on the beta for a blog community solution during nights and weekends. His idea was brilliant and I felt strongly we’d make good partners. So we teamed up in early 2009 and launched BlogFrog, a web solution that lets any blog or brand add an instant community forum to their site. 18 months later, we have over 40,000 women/mom bloggers in the network and reach almost 3 million moms each month. We’re now the largest network of mom blogs in the U.S. and it’s been an awesome journey!
JL: What are some of your personal attributes that you think have helped you along the way?
HH: Personally, I covet creative freedom more than I do security. I have had well-paying positions with companies that couldn’t embrace change or creative expression and I just didn’t last long. And by creative expression, I don’t mean that I wanted to come in late, needed a foosball table, or wanted to bring my dog to work. I wanted to have open discussions about how we could improve, new product directions, better ways to reach customers. Consumers are bombarded every day with new and improved ways to do everything from cooking their breakfast to buying concert tickets and companies need to be willing to listen closely and entertain change. If a company culture doesn’t support rapid change (or at least be able to talk about it), than its hard for me to stay. Being able to embrace change and loving the unknown are two personal attributes I have that make start-ups a good fit for me. I also like it when there are more variables in a formula than constants. The parts we’ve already figured out are boring. I want to work on problems that don’t have solutions yet. Start-ups take a lot of energy and you wear a lot of hats. Some people don’t like that variety but it keeps things interesting for me. Lastly, I love the beginning stage of start-ups where there answer to most questions is “I don’t know but I’ll find out”. It levels the playing field when building the right solution is as much about thinking creatively as is it about having experience.
- Image by scriptingnews via Flickr
Two Comcast-related things have happened in the last week that have me thinking about my clients’ businesses. First, Frank Eliason, Director Digital Care and voice of @comcastcares on Twitter, announced that he is leaving Comcast. Frank was a guiding voice that led Comcast from unparalleled depths of customer service quality to… slightly better customer service. Frank’s contribution was his team’s use of social media to establish conversations with frustrated customers. His leadership will be missed, and I hope the company continues to advance what he has put in place.
The second thing is that Comcast treated me like crap.
We recently moved into a new house. Having considered the options, I was loaded for bear to become a Comcast customer. The broadband is fast, the TV good… they are doing some technical things very well.
Upon calling to establish service, the customer service agent informed me that a technician would need to make a site visit to determine whether I am eligible to be a Comcast customer. He said this process would take up to 10 business days. That was over three weeks ago.
I live in downtown Denver.
This morning I received the following e-mail:
This is a courtesy reminder that your Comcast Billing Information needs to be verified.
In order to continue using comcast services, click the link below, sign in and and follow the provided steps:
http://customer.comcast-s.com/Secure/?Home.aspx
Regards,
Comcast Billing Department
That’s the first contact I have had from the company in the more than three weeks since I requested service. The Direct TV and Qwest technicians who set up the service in the first week both laughed that there were Comcast lines throughout the house.
Will I be clicking that link? Hell no.
What Frank knew but Comcast’s culture doesn’t get is this:
You have to make it easy to do business with you.
You should always be thinking of ways to make it easier to do business with you than not. This isn’t that hard, but some of the smallest companies I work with struggle with this, and for the following reasons:
- They can’t articulate their business model clearly (and thus chase any business they see).
- They fail to follow up with customers (or potential customers).
- They focus so much on the internal and the technical that they lose sight of why people want to do business with them.
This might sound harsh, but there is no acceptable reason for a business to put up barriers for motivated customers. Think you’re not doing that?
Are you sure?
It’s probably time to take a hard look at your business and yourself. What are you doing that makes doing business with you harder than it needs to be? What are you doing that makes it easier for a potential customer to do business with a competitor? What processes in your company take longer or require more effort than necessary? How can you focus more on cultivating customer relationships?
Comcast is a good reminder of how important this is. You have to get this one right.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Social Media, Customer Service & Comcast (customerthink.com)
- Comcast increasing cable, Internet charges (sfgate.com)
- Comcast raising rates 5 percent, Happy Fourth! (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
Brad Feld continues to set the standard for encouraging access for women in tech and entrepreneurship:
The meme of the lack of women in tech (or software, or entrepreneurship) appeared in several places today. Regular readers of this blog know that I’ve been the chairman of the National Center for Women & Information Technology for a number of years and deeply involved in this issue. It’s very satisfying for me to see a meme like this pick up speed and appear in a bunch of thoughtful articles and discussions. If you are interested in this issue, I have three articles from the last 24 hours that I encourage you to read.
I have been observing this in larger companies as well, and my sense is that the hurdles may be even greater there. What the startup world has in its favor is a great deal of built-in diversity through a marketplace of ideas and loose coupling among and between entrepreneurs. Larger companies have tighter norms as a result of more uniform culture and an often insular perspective.
That isn’t to say that there is anything like the level of diversity one would wish for the entrepreneurial world, nor that opening those doors is easy. We have a long way to go across business and society. What I am saying–adamantly–is that if I were a woman with tech chops and ambition, I would go the entrepreneurial route.
Related articles by Zemanta
- How We Can Encourage Female Entrepreneurship (huffingtonpost.com)
- Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley (dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com)
- Role Model Female Entrepreneurs, Investors and Leaders meet in New York to set Goals (thenextwomen.com)
- Image by Mario Sundar via Flickr
In addition to never wanting to hear “Web 2.0″ come out of anyone’s mouth ever again, I see some interesting implications for these businesses:
Meanwhile, a slew of Web 2.0 companies such as Ning, Hi5, and Digg are replacing CEOs,eliminating free services, whacking employees, or becoming social-gaming companies. Just last summer Ning raised money at a $750 million valuation. This spring, however, it named a new chief executive officer, cut 40% of its staff, and announced plans to start charging users. New Ning CEO Jason Rosenthal says the goal is to “build the best service for the most active group of users.” Not the most users, as once was the goal, but the users willing to pay. It’s a shift that companies like Tagged don’t have to make, because they took far less investor money and have more flexibility about how they run their business.
What these companies are doing with what flexibility they have strikes me as duplicative and reactive to the point of incoherence. I’m sure there are some companies that can completely change their business models and leadership whilst continuing to be successful, but none immediately spring to mind. What would be the benefits of starting off in a new direction with all the baggage of the old? Sure, saving a company and having some structure in place are useful, but–and this may be the entrepreneur in me talking here–why would you want to take someone’s exhausted idea and try to bolt a new one on to it?
Isn’t it better to build from your own vision than to preside over someone else’s?
Related articles by Zemanta
- Ning Cuts 40 Percent Of Staff; Goes All Paid (paidcontent.org)
- Can Posterous be all things to all people? It’s trying (econsultancy.com)
- Ning’s Bubble Bursts: No More Free Networks, Cuts 40% Of Staff (techcrunch.com)
Dear Friend Jessica passed along a link from the New York Times today on Boulder’s startup community, which I have trumpeted many times as unfailingly awesome. The article features some people I know talking about a culture I love:
Experienced tech entrepreneurs and investors sat alongside people who had just moved to Boulder hoping to start a company in this small city, which is breeding tech start-ups at an attention-grabbing rate. In the first three months of the year, 11 Colorado tech start-ups raised $57 million inventure capital, solidifying Boulder’s place among the country’s up-and-coming tech centers.
“In Silicon Valley, you’re a small fish in a huge pond, and it didn’t seem as collaborative and a lot more corporate,” said Chad McGimpsey, who moved to Boulder a month ago and is now a regular at the twice-a-month coffee club. “Here, you’re a big fish in a small pond. Plus, there are the mountains.”
A long list of communities around the country have tried to become “the next Silicon Valley.” But very few have the mix of money, universities, a high-tech talent pool and appealing lifestyle needed to hatch tech start-ups. Boulder, however, has been luring tech industry veterans and young entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley and Manhattan with promises of a tech community that allows for lunch-break hikes in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Full disclosure before I continue: I do not live in Boulder. I live outside of Denver within easy reach, but I’ve not yet gone where the cool kids are (part of it has to do with the amount of time I spend on coasts West and East and proximity to DIA). That said, I spend a lot of time there around a lot of entrepreneurs, and they are awesome. I have great admiration for the the vision and determination of startup companies like Everlater, Napkin Labs, TrekLight Gear, SimpleGeo, and OneRiot (most of whom I do not work with, by the way–Boulder’s just like that). It is a very special place.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Boulder, Colo., a Magnet for High-Tech Start-Ups (nytimes.com)
- Building a Startup Ecosystems and Government role (growvc.com)
- Boulder & California (one.valeski.org)
- Why You Should Start A Company In Boulder, New York, or Somewhere Else (feld.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=1ef1ed81-eee8-4b16-a96c-5b2d41e2e284)
I noticed how people played at being executives while actually holding executive positions. Did I do this myself? You maintain a shifting distance between yourself and your job. There’s a self-conscious space, a sense of formal play that is a sort of arrested panic, and maybe you show it in a forced gesture or a ritual clearing of the throat. Something out of childhood whistles through this space, a sense of games and half-made selves, but it’s not that you’re pretending to be someone else. You’re pretending to be exactly who you are. That’s the curious thing. (103)
That’s Don DeLillo from Underworld, quoted in the excellent blog Research as a Second Language. Frighteningly common, and I myself have not always been immune. It’s something to think about when you’re deciding how you want to show up as a leader.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4c761350-6573-4649-be83-f40d8992e713)
- Image via CrunchBase
Sometimes someone just needs to say something out loud. Today, it was Vivek Wadhwa on naivete in obtaining funding for startups, specifically the idea that most startups will ever see venture capital or angel investment:
The reality is that the vast majority of startups don’t receive any VC or angel funding. Ask any VC about how many business plans they receive every month; it is in the thousands. And how many of those companies do they fund? Maybe one or two. Not great odds, are they? My research team did a study of successful companies in a variety of high-growth industries (in which VCs like to invest): those that made it out of the garage and had real products and revenue. We found that only 10.8% of them raised venture capital at any stage of their growth. In other words, nine out of ten didn’t get venture financing. Similarly, only 9.2% received angel financing. Here is another interesting statistic: according to the Venture Economics database, only 4.6% of venture capital went, over the last decade, to startup/seed-stage companies. So even the one in ten that received venture financing likely got this in later stages of its growth, not at the seed stage.
Where did successful companies’ founders get their financing from? Seventy percent used personal savings, 15% took bank loans (probably on their credit cards), and 14% relied on friends and family. (Note: they typically use more than one source for financing.)
The way the system works is that if you build something of value, the money will find you. Yes, there is a catch-22: you need seed financing, but no one will give you a cent until you have a marketable product and your company is producing revenue—which means that you don’t really need the money. But that’s the way it goes. Ironically, raising millions of dollars is usually easier than raising thousands.
The several points of advice Wadhwa offers in his post are de rigueur for founders, especially those dealing with reliance upon connections, starting small, and learning to sell. The irony of not having access to capital until the company doesn’t need it isn’t that much of an irony at all–it’s actually just good business.
Related articles by Zemanta
- What’s an Angel Investor? (online.wsj.com)
- The Stages of Venture Capital Investing (dividendsandpreferences.blogspot.com)
- Our secret to getting funded (entrepreneur.venturebeat.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=93bc88b2-e463-45f1-ace9-111b1b0565e4)
- Image via Wikipedia
During my time teaching and practicing project management, I enjoyed the book Getting to Yes and used it often. I often had a nagging feeling about something missing, though–specifically, what if the right answer is no deal at all? Roger Fisher and William Ury addressed this, but not in great detail. This nagging feeling has followed me as I have moved from being a buyer to advising sellers, most of whom are startups. My concern with Getting to Yes in startups is that while the skills are vital, the entrepreneurial life involves a lot of “no”.
Anthony Tjan has written a great HBR post on getting to “no” faster, the assumption being that that is often the destination, and that an entrepreneur’s time is better spent getting a definitive “no” rather than a long “maybe”. His advice:
- Be clear on the “ask”. I have seen people pitch us with brilliant clarity of ideas, but a cloud of ambiguity on what they want from an investment partner in terms of both capabilities and dollars
- Set a firm deadline and sense of urgency. When meeting any prospective investor, customer, or buyer, set a clear deadline for a decision. In most cases you can get to a definitive yes or no just by being clear about a close date.
- Agree to and adhere to a post-pitch process. Outline next steps for the follow-up. What additional documents or meetings are required for a decision? When will these occur and will there be sufficient time given the deadline at hand? If nothing is required, agree to the next follow-up date and the form of the follow-up. Make the follow-up timing shorter than your gut tells you: if you think you should follow up in two weeks, say a week. A follow-up in two weeks often means that the person is revisiting the issue in 13 days (the day before follow-up) versus six days for a follow-up in a week.
- Affirm the silent no and provide an out. Become better at trying to confirm the silent no. Schedules change, people ask for more time, and other priorities take over. Know how to escalate to the no. Prolonged silence or indecision requires a forcing mechanism. Something along the lines of “I want to thank you again for your time considering this and realize that now may not be optimal timing. Can I assume a pass for now?” Human nature is more conditioned to a yes or maybe, rather than a no. Politely providing an out is usually appreciated by the other side, and it is a good way to elicit a definitive decision or gain clarity on the best next step.
A yes is obviously the answer you always hope to get, but the ability to get a no, especially if it is a quick one, is critical to maximizing efficiency and effectiveness. The sooner you get a no, the faster you’ll be able to look for that next yes.
That’s a tough one for many founders to follow, but a lot of opportunities–with potential investors, customers, and employees–won’t work out. Tjan is spot-on, and yet it takes a lot of courage to pass up opportunities when you’re burning cash.
All that said, though, we must acknowledge that decision cycles differ between startups and just about everyone they’ll work with; that is, there is a balance to be struck between the patience to reach “yes” and the courage to accept “no”. Were I more self-serving, I would recommend having a trusted advisor, Pragmatically, anyone who knows you and your company can play that role. They just have to have the fortitude to tell you the truth, and you just have to be emotionally healthy enough to listen.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Confirmation Bias – A Frequent Startup Trap (blogs.wsj.com)
- Don’t Confuse Your Client’s Goals with Your Own (freelanceswitch.com)
- Commitment and Common Purpose Make for the Best Co-Founders (blogs.wsj.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=d83eaa93-5771-47cc-a510-b9f2effddc2c)
