Minimalist Office

Let's face it. Thanks to affordable computers, laptops especially, there's not much one needs in the way of office gear, furniture or equipment. My latest estimate puts it at:

A laptop fills the bill for in office and travel work and most come with built in cameras
25" monitor to avoid shuffling back and forth between documents on tiny laptop screens
A comfy chair is the item that requires most of your consideration
a desk to put the laptop on
a sound bar on your monitor for music and teleconferencing
a docking station for you cell phone
a router for access
An all in one copy printer fax scanner. And if you're truly digital, you only need it for the scanner.
soem cool chairs for guests

That's only 7-8 items. Gone are the filing cabinets and book cases of yesteryear. So long secretaries and her stuff. Everything is on the computer and backed up to your cloud.

But, if you're like me, the neat stuff is fun and can really make an office a fun place to be. Check out my Pinterest boards:

Steampunk Office at http://pinterest.com/georgeconstance/steampunk-office/

Mobile Office Gear at:  http://pinterest.com/georgeconstance/mobile-office-gear/

Home Offcie Design at: http://pinterest.com/georgeconstance/home-office-design/

Backyard Office at: http://pinterest.com/georgeconstance/backyard-office/

Music to work by at: http://pinterest.com/georgeconstance/music-to-work-by/

By the way, love to hear what music you listen to at work. Please comment!

Floundering Founders & Early Investors

Consider this scenario: You and two partners with equal ownership and voting rights  have developed a company and have finally turned a profit after two years of hard work and sweat. And its at the post announcement party that one of your partners introduces you to a principle at another business that expresses a desire to purchase your business. Great news, right? Nice to be loved. However, you know that the business, just having turned a profit, will be worth a billion times more in just a few more years. And besides, you’re now making money now and the pressure to sell is non-existent. Then the other shoe falls. The partner also tells you that he’s already agreed to sell his share of the business. As you take a sip of your champaign, you realize that if your other partner does the same, you’re a minority owner. Worse yet, if the purchaser is a competitor, he or she may only want to purchase the assets of your business and then shut you and your billion dollar valuation hopes down. At this point, unless you can convince your other partner to stick it out, you’re screwed. 

The remedy for this situation should have been addressed long before the first sale. Founder goals should have been on the table first. Things happen and a committed partner may find him or herself in financial trouble and need to sell. You could consider a no sale clause. But, it’s unrealistic and unadvised to create rules to force a partner to stay on. Who needs that hassle. They’d only borrow money against their shares and if they default, the loaning institution will be your new partner. Rules prohibiting this will only create a very irritable and unreliable perhaps even larcenous partner. 

The only option I see is a right of first purchase for all partners in the event another partner decides to bail. Terms must include a discount for partners below the offered price and a reasonable amount of time to obtain financing. 

Another item that should be included early in the business formation is the inclusion of at least one very interested advisor with the financial strength to act as the buyer or financier in the event a partner purchase should be required. This stakeholder would double as a financial advisor always keeping the business on sound financial footing from the perspective of a potential investor. It might be a good idea to offer this advisor options in exchange for performance, say monthly meeting attendance, to assure participation. As a participating insider, the transition from floundering partner to new partner with experience and commitment would also reduce time to achieve the sale and negate the impact of negative press. And finally, having more than one such advisor might be a wise move. 

Sigma Epsilon Rho Honor Society

I'd like to take a moment to ring my own bell and shout that I was initiated into Sigma Epsilon Rho Honor Society last night in Boston. Very honored. Hope to start a Hartford area chapter which will allow me to be more involved.

Capitalist View of Diversity

Never been a fan of diversity for diversity’s sake alone. Didn’t make much sense from a business perspective. But my experience with the Indonique Tea & Chai Cafe in New Orleans was an eye opener. 

We were open for nearly a year doubling customer count each month and turning a profit by month 12. But my employees and I all noted there was hardly a single black face in the crowd. In a city that’s nearly 3/4 black, this was an issue. Even with our impressive run up to profit in a less than a year, without African demographic, we were leaving a lot of money on the table. 

Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, one of my employees asked if I noticed half our customers were African American. Being me, I looked around and commented loudly, “Yeah and look at all those colored folks”, to which everyone of every color had a good laugh. A female customer, young professional black woman, near me shook her head laughing and just said “George”. I had to sit down and get her perspective on the subject. This is rarely done in real life. We’re all too damned uncomfortable with the subject. And that's a pity because her response was really enlightening.

“We didn’t know of we’d be accepted”. And before I could respond she followed her comment with an  apology for having stereotyped everyone at the cafe. She continued that there were places everyone’s been to where they weren’t accepted and was sure I’d experienced the same thing. She was right, I had, everyone has. 

“So what changed”, I asked?

“We just noticed a lot of different kinds of people in here and thought we’d try. Everyone was so nice and what I really liked was that your employees didn’t treat us or talk to us differently”. 

This was interesting stuff for me. I never gave diversity a second thought at the cafe. There was no diversity training involved, no earthy crunchy hippy talk. I looked around the cafe for clues and decided that our diversity advantage was that we just hired really nice intelligent people. No training required. Their parents did that for us. I suppose that’s one lesson to be learned here. You can’t change a cat’s stripes. Hire good people. No brainer right?

The second lesson learned was the most enlightening for me. Diversity starts with trust and has a very real business need. Gaining trust allowed me to make the “Look at all the colored people” remark without consequences. If you want to make a demographic comfortable, find a way to get them in so that you can shine. For us, a few comfortable customers through word of mouth doubled our business.

If I had to do it over again, I’d hired black college students to sit in and outside the cafe. Or maybe host events for a few traditionally black organizations. Waiting for it to happen naturally takes way too long. The word of mouth that filled our seats with every kind of customer in the city grew exponentially. And with exponential growth, you want to start early before someone else does. 

Final note: Our firm takes diversity seriously and incorporates it into every business strategy plan as a common sense approach to achieving profit.  

Customer Demand Versus Customer Product Education

A key to introducing a new product to any market is making sure the customer not only knows it's available, but what to do with the damned thing. In many cases exposure is enough, but often a new product doesn't have an obvious advantage.

It was just a few years back that my paleontologist pals saw absolutely no reason for using computers in the oil business. Index cards were just fine with them. What they failed to see was the potential of a digitized paleontological database. Nothing could sway them until a client demanded digital or no sale. The firm I worked for hired the geek, me, to digitize or die.

In this particular case, the customer saw the advantage and forced the form to adapt or die. Few businesses are this lucky. It's usually the vendor that sees the value and has to convey this value to the customer. Classic marketing proposition.



We have 17th century England and tea, chocolate and coffee to thank for modern marketing practices. Tea especially was in need of some marketing education. Prior to the introduction of tea, there wasn't much new to educate the customer about. Everyone ate the same foods that they'd been eating for generations. But this tea stuff was new. Take a look at this quote from http://www.panix.com/~kendra/tea/healthy.html

Then tea first arrived in Britain it was not advertised as a beverage, but as a medicine. In 1657 it was considered an effective treatment for gout, and in 1659 the first advertisement for tea, printed by Thomas Garraway owner of the London coffeehouse Garraway's, claimed tea would not only, "...maketh the body active and lusty" but also "...removeth the obstructions of the Spleen..." and "very good against the Stone and Gravel, cleaning the Kidneys and Uriters, being drank with Virgins Honey instead of Sugar" (Ukers 1935: 39). Garaway wanted to convince the British consumers that tea was an effective cure-all, so as to increase his trade.


Being first to market with a new product is a tremendous advantage. But keep in kind that startup funding should allot a considerable amount to understanding benefits for market segment and how to convey or educate the customer about these benefits.

For your enjoyment and a tribute to the tiny tea leaf that changed the world, I give you Professor Elemental and a "Brown Cup of Joy".


Cheers!

Green and Grey Entrepreneurs

Interesting discussion I’m following on Linkedin about “older” entrepreneurs. Part of the debate is what is an “older” for an entrepreneur. You can find it here on the Business Owners, Entrepreneurs and Startups Group.

When most of us think about entrepreneurs, the image of pizza chomping college dynamos in garages across America come to mind. But thanks to the aging of America and the fact that few older Americans can afford to retire in this really weird economy, the image has somewhat greyed. 

The reality is that the grey part of entrepreneurialism was always there. They were the financial and facilitating guys the garage bunch teamed with to actually turn their concept into a marketable product. As much as I hated hearing this a young man, I’m 53, experience is gold and essential for success. 

What’s changed today is the total disrespect for older employees. They’re being pushed out of their comfortable downstream positions in favor of younger, cheaper and more eager folks. They’ve worked the system from a downstream position for years and the damned thing has turned on them. This has created a huger angry and very talented experienced pool of folks who are considering the entrepreneurial schtick for the first time. Or at the very least being forced to consider it. This is a game changer. They’re responding by moving upstream to seize more of the pie earlier and even contributing to concepts. Grey entrepreneurs have become a force.

So how does the entrepreneur and investor seize upon this new reality? They take advantage of it is what he or she does. The edgy hoodie wearing garage group, I call them Green Entrepreneurs, are now teaming up with grey experience for a concept that is aligned with the market AND a realistic plan to get to market. One younger entrepreneur I spoke with at a Starbucks' described his slightly greying partner as a wolf is sheep’s clothing. He’s your dad one minute and a wolf when we need it. He also described him opening doors he never thought of knocking on. For investors the team brings experience and stability on top the energy of a cultural insider. 

Lesson here is to expand your network into a cross generational model that take advantage of every possible human asset available. This is what an entrepreneur does anyway, isn’t it? The result is a much more attractive proposal for the investor.


For a second take on the subject, take a look at this SLATE article:


http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2010/12/grownup_startups.html

and this one from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/the-case-for-old-entrepreneurs/2011/12/02/gIQAulJ3KO_story.html

Giving Great Presentations

If you're on stage with a room full of folks focused on you and your not nervous then it's probably your funeral service. Everyone gets nervous. The key is to reduce the jitters and practice until you're at least a bit more comfortable. I came across this article about presenting that I found through Kenny Nguyen on Linkedin.

As usual, I;d like to add some personal observations. To get the point across use a story from your past. If you're older than twelve, you will have at l;east one incident in your life pr someone else's you know that is pertinent to the subject you're delivering. Use it.

Angel Investors to Avoid

Found this great short post "8 Angel Investors that Entrepreneurs Should Avoid"

It was posted by Jacky Wang on Linkedin. He's an avid poster of pertinent data for entrepreneurs and I encourage you to follow him on Linked in.

To this I'd like to add:

Avoid the Idiot nephew of a successful entrepreneur. That rich uncle knows his nephew is an idiot and will assume you are too.

Had a real doosey of a pseudo investor once that tried to pick up a piece of my tea business. In addition to having access to his rich uncle's fortune, he claimed to have invented the mascot and logo for a nationally known spirits company. Turned out the logo was older than him and he was merely hired to wear the darn  costume at an event.

Sadly, success draws vermin out of the walls like rotten cheese and rats. Some want a piece of something without the risk you've assumed. Some are arranging future litigation and others are delusional. And some are just scum. My favorite was a couple of guys, after hours threatening to expose me for financial wrong doing if I didn't agree to their onerous terms. I was squeaky clean and gave them the boot. These morons must assume everyone is as dirty as they are.

Moral of the post; stay clan and assume others aren't. You've sacrificed. Expect nothing less of others.

Love to hear your partner/ tag along and investor horror stories in the comments.

Paying Consultants to Secure Your Corporate Job

As a paleontological consultant I negotiate a standard deal with my clients as Mobil Oil. The contract called for a monthly check. This was viewed as necessary by the client manager as it allowed for termination when needed. A few months later, EXXON merged with Mobil and all contracts, including mine, were canceled. It would have been great to have negotiated a paid in advance contract that wouldn't be canceled as it was already paid for. This would have given me time to ingratiate myself with the new EXXON overlords. But would the signing manager had gone for that? You bet. I just needed to position the contract as in his best interest. I could have increased the fee and offered a 10% discount for payment in advance and indicated to him that prepaid programs are never canceled. It would have protected both of us.

Lesson, always think of the advantage to the business client, the value fo the work, and the value to the individual manager, in this case, the security of a program that can't be cut as it's already been paid for.

Product Alignment Marketing

There are so many components to a truly aligned product. I'd like to look at Marketing today. Without a truly integrated and well aligned marketing strategy, even the best of products will fail miserably.  To succeed, the product must be; ONE packaged to properly convey value and create desire and TWO known. This requires a knowledge of the market segment that is to be marketed to, the channels the product requires to get to market, value of strategic partners and an intimate knowledge of the means available to reach the target market. No one individual or firm can do all of this. It will require team of C-level professionals dedicated to the individual tasks and critically important a team that can function in a very interconnected way.

Here's where we introduce the good and bad news bits. The bad is that this integrated process involves a lot of time and people and a bunch of cash. There's no way around it. The good news is that aligning it all makes raising funds possible. More good news, no one invests in small businesses. The alignment process is designed to create a large profitable businesses.

If you have a great concept, reach out to us to develop it into a fundable business strategy. You focus on the concept and we handle the rest. Give us a call and we'll discuss what' needed to get you to that next level and finding the cash to tell everyone who you are and what you do.

Meanwhile, check out our favorite marketers at Zande+Newman Design in New Orleans, a world class firm run by really swell and super smart and talented folks. The site describes the value of a truly integrated marketing firm.

Links Cited: Zande+Newman Design

We Raise Funds to Pay Marketers

If you're a marketing firm, I'm sure you've come across a few really great concepts, or concepts that could be great with the right marketing behind it. However, stop me if you've heard this one, the founders just don't have the funds to hire you. And I'm willing to bet that most of these founders have asked you to work for equity.

It's a chicken and egg thing. They need the marketing to make cash to pay you but can't make the money without the marketing.

Here's where we come in. We're not afraid of risk. If the concept is a good one that fills a need, we assemble C-level teams specific to the concept to build a great fundable business strategy, often for equity alone.

Got concept? Give us a call.

SugarSync vs Amazon Cloud Drive - SugarSync Wins!

Look I'm a huge fan of Amazon.com and think they'll eventually rule the word. I love the MP3 service that allows me to buy, store on their cloud for free and play from any device anywhere. No need to register a device like iTunes required when Amazon MP3 launched. Having all my stuff; music, video and books in one place is also great. And now with Amazon Cloud Drive, I can have all my other stuff like documents available as well. I was eager to get started, but very disappointed. Syncing from the synced folder to my Amazon Cloud just didn't occur. I logged out and logged in repeatedly. Still no file. If I manually uploaded to the Cloud, it worked. I wonder of there's an option to select I'm missing. Any suggestions appreciated.

Meanwhile, I synced the same folder to SugarSync and it worked flawlessly. I also noted that there's a "Briefcase" folder on Sugarsync that will sync any folder dropped into it on every device I have synced to SugarSync. Now that's service. It's great for updating co-workers and for home use. No worries, no seat, multiple current backups at no cost.

But keep watching. Amazon is an amazing company. Expect to see updates from them.

Pinstamatic ... Very Useful Pinning Tool!

Just discovered and love this tool for pinning. With the free web based product, you can pin a web page, a quote, a calendar, Twitter profile and more as a Pinterest image. It works effortlessly and creates a beautiful pin. It's perfect for pinning an event with details or promoting a web site or blog. Marketing potential is tremendous. Want to blog about a great site or service, pin an image of the web site. Want to market an event, pin the date. Want followers on twitter, pin your profile with an appeal to follow.

Well done Pinstamatic!

http://pinstamatic.com

Darwin as Business Strategist

Evolution and Business Strategy... The Same Process

I spent 22 years as a micro-paleontologist analyzing the relationship of individual species with other species and the physical environment they existed in. And as such, making a switch to the dramatically different world of entrepreneurialism and entrepreneurial finance was a daunting task, especially at my advanced age (52). But need dictated I roll up my sleeves and take the plunge. 

During the next 12 months at Northeastern University in Boston, while pursuing a MS degree in Technology Commercialization, I was stunned to discover that the entrepreneurial process was exactly the same science as evolutionary biology. Every product ever developed is part of an ecosystem developed by humans over millennia within an ecosystem developed over eons. 

And here’s where it gets so very interesting, for me anyway. This vast chain of interconnected parts provides opportunity for the development of visualization tools that can align a product with the business environment which includes forces not always obvious, exactly what I did as a paleontologist. 

My 22 years weren’t a loss. Entrepreneurial business analysis and strategy consulting were an natural progression for me. My business partner, Darwin and I see products as individual species. By analyzing the business environment, need, founders abilities and goals, market size, marketing channels, distribution channels, suppliers and competition, and other forces as a unit, products can be viewed as pre-adapted to survive, others requiring adaptation to survive and some identified as not likely to survive under any circumstance.


I am, however, at a loss to explain all the Neanderthals in key positions around the world.