The Second Pitch

One of the most important days in your life will be the first time you pitch your idea to investors.  And I will tell you right now that you will fail, with out a doubt.  First of all they know more than you about new businesses because they've invested in more successful companies then you've created.  They will poke more holes in your business strategy and "big idea" with in the first five minutes then a block of swiss cheese.  

But once that's over and done with you will know what to expect so I wanted to present a couple of ideas about how to go about your second pitch to investor's so it doesn't turn out like the first blood bath.  

First things first, sit down with your business partners and write down all the questions that you weren't able to answer decisively in the first meeting and answer them.  However, don't work them into your presentation.  Just be informed and know your company in and out.  When the questions start flowing you'll be comfortable this time.

Second, scrap that Power Point presentation with a 56 slide deck that put the investor's to sleep. Practice using slideshows with strictly visuals or animations.  A great way to do this would be to create a visual info graphic that is designed to match your brand and reports important information.  According to Zabisco 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual and visuals are processed 60,00 times faster in the brain then text.  This will help get your idea across to the investors.  Most of the time investors won't invest in a company because they claim they don't understand the concept when in reality it wasn't explained properly or effectively.

Next, bring a prototype and include the investor in the pitch.  Let him or her hold something and play with it. This will do a couple of things according to Kimberly D Elsbach from the Harvard Business Review.  They will respond better if they feel they are participating in the presentation and it will present the idea to the investors that you are a collaborator.  This will also lighten the mood and level the playing field.  

Finally, keep it short and sweet and just know your company and your margins.  As long as you know the answers to tough questions you are almost better suited leaving them for the investors to ask.  By answering with confidence it will be more impressive then just giving them the answer up front.  Use the presentation to tell a story to your audience and engage them.  This is far more important then going over projections on investment return.  Trust me, that'll be the first question they ask.

The Up Side of Habitual

A day in the early life of the entrepreneur may consist of emotional highs and lows.  This could be due to the roller coaster effect of new discoveries and disappointments, but I submit that’s not the most efficient way to go about becoming successful in your chosen field.

It is far better to keep things rolling along on an even path because this is the course you’ve chosen.  You’ve planned for it and most importantly you have foreseen yourself attaining each milestone along the way. 

This is not to say that unexpected things shouldn’t pop-up all the time.  This is life right? By definition life equals the unexpected.  What I’m talking about is controlling the controllable.

Laney Griner

There are scads of lists titled “the successful habits of so & so,” and some are huge selling books because they are indeed very good.  Combing through various and sundry lists I started picking out the habits that were shared among a good many of the them.   More importantly, I started choosing the ones that may best apply to an entrepreneur just starting out.

Here’s what I summarized to be the best ones:

Visualize What Success Is – We’ve touched on this in earlier posts, here and here but this deserves to be repeated.

1)   If you don’t have a good idea of what success looks like then how can you know when you find it?  Part of leveling out the emotional highs and lows involves knowing where your going and understanding that getting there will indeed have some bumps along the way.

2)   “Fake It Till You Make It” may the best advice I’ve ever received, (Thanks Dad!)  It doesn’t mean being fake or phony at all. What it does mean is if you think, act, walk, and talk like you are headed straight toward your definition of success then it’s only a matter of time till you reach it.

Establish Priorities – This one is a common habit of success shared among the most famous of lists namely, Steven Covey & Brian Tracy and deserves to be repeated often. 

1)   Hit the big stuff early.  By cracking the big nuts early in the day we set ourselves up for success for the rest of it.

2)   We also free ourselves up mentally for giving the smaller things their proper focus

3)   80/20 Rule – This applies to so many areas of life it’s staggering.  Only 20 percent of what’s done during the day produces 80 percent of the results.  Recognize what that 20 is and tear through it.

Eliminate Waste – Funders & Founders provide some excellent tips for focusing in a digital age and eliminating the chatter that interrupts work.

1)   Turn off the news – hardly anything important happens during our busy times.  If they do occur someone will let us know quickly.

2)   Turn off the phone – Obviously we can’t disconnect from the world completely but we can set aside blocks of time for no interruptions.  Let others know when those times are and if need be allow yourself the opportunity to answer the expected call that will help you move forward on that project.

3)   Limit email replies – If you cant reply to an email in a minute then put it aside for later.

4)   When you get stuck creatively, map it out.  Even if it means sketching something on a napkin, having something tangible and visual helps to shape ideas into actions.

Routines Matter – Part of the reason we choose to be entrepreneurs is because we can’t stand the hamster wheel effect we associate with going to the cubicle farm everyday.  However, routines for how we start and finish everyday can add productivity and help us recognize when we are getting sidetracked.

1)   Early morning habits like picking clothes, leaving the house, etc. can help us remove distractions.

2)   Setting up routines for healthy eating help to reduce the mental chaff that accumulates over time.  This may sound like the road map to boredom but it doesn’t mean bland and if we accomplish more in the process isn’t it worth it?

Relationships Matter – Two habits I found in my search really stood out to me.

1)   Never eat lunch at your desk alone.  This is a very good time to share those somewhat relaxed moments in the day to get some feedback on your ideas but more importantly, offer advice and help on the ideas of others.  Cross pollenating is hugely valuable in harvesting our crop of ideas.

2)   Provide Utility to Others.  In addition to the lunchtime idea/advice we can also share with others short articles we run across that can help with their projects. Put a comment in there saying what jumped out at you.  Also, this will come back as rewards when others share valuable information they run across and could provide big payoffs.

I hope this helps those that don't practice any of these habits now and for those

that already do may this help to reinforce good habits already established.

Money Tools: Crowdfunding

Most companies need initial investments to get off the ground.  But what happens when you think you've struck gold with a great idea and don't know where to look to get the financing to back you.  Now there's a solution and its been around for quite a while.  Crowdsource funding is becoming more and more of a legitimate option for people around the world to pitch to the world their idea and the best part about it is you don't have to give up any equity to receive the funding to make your idea into a reality.  

These outlets such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo are great tools for young or inexperienced business owners to turn dreams into reality.  We've seen phenomenal success from companies raising as much as $8.5 million in funding from over 60,00 contributors for a gaming console on Kickstarter.  Now this is definitely a success story and doesn't happen all the time but it proves that it works.  56,872 projects have reached their target funding and only 6,138 projects raised less then $1,000 (statistics found on Kickstarter's statistics page).  

There are a couple of things that you have to keep in mind about choosing a crowd funding platform.  Although Indiegogo and Kickstarter will gain the most traffic for investors you will also be up against the best competing campaigns.  You want to make sure that potential backers won't look at your project page and compare it to a project that is more appealing and therefore your money will be lost to your competition.  So you need to analyze your company or product and ask yourself if you can compete with the big dogs.  It might make more sense to run your crowd funding campaign on a site like Rockethub.  Rockethub is great because it is becoming more popular for backers and they have programs like FuelPad and LaunchPad that will help you market, connect, and collaborate increasing your chances of success.  

Also look into crowdfunding sites specific to your field.  Appbackr is a site strictly for application startups or Quirky crowd funding for unique inventions.  

Any way you slice it crowd funding is a great opportunity for producing financial backing and is a very promising strategy.  

Innovations That Could Save Our Planet

Similar to the motivation behind social entrepreneurship, consumers feel more comfortable buying products from or investing in companies when they know their money is also going toward a worthy cause.  A very popular trend with forming new businesses is creating products or offering services that help preserve our environment.  So while you’re pondering your next big idea, think about ways in which common products harm the environment.  There might be a way to achieve your dream and AND help the environment.  We scoured over AngelList’s list of Environmental Innovation Startups to find a few companies that may help inspire you to consider solving the issues that plague our planet while starting your own company.

      1.     Tumml – I know it’s cliché to put the number one followed company on AngelList as my number one choice but Tumml is the epitome of lending a helping hand.  They are attempting to help guide startups that will help revolutionize the next batch of great environmentally friendly products.  It’s more of an initiative than a company but it's a great example of looking at the big picture when starting a company.  This is a mission driven business and I love that.

     

      2.     InnSania – this company has developed a sanitary way to reuse water in bathrooms.  It comes in the form of a module and is still in a development phase but holds great promise.  This company not only aims to providing sanitation to underprivileged companies but it also conserves water.  Any companies with a dual mission like this one always have a greater appeal.

     

      3.     Weekend Swap – A great way to share your outdoor toys with others while making a little money doing it.  I’m a little biased because one of the founders is Zio Ziegler, one of my favorite artists.

      

      4.     Synodon – Synodon has a much more serious tone then some of the other companies I featured because they have created a product that can be attached to helicopters and can sense where dangerous gas leaks may be occurring. This video will help explain.

Is It Getting Cloudier?

In an earlier post I described cloud data storage as an introduction to what can be used for remote document access and how it can be crucial in starting a business. Now you may be asking, ”He’s not going talk about clouds more is he?”  Well excuse me while I kiss the sky but cloud data storage is an immensely larger topic than just accessing your Rolodex and calendar.  In fact, you could say it is the future of business.

While researching data clouds I ran across a several articles that all fell together like pieces in a puzzle.  A theme I discovered centered around starting a business or career that would prove to be lucrative and in great demand.

The first was 3-D Printing, either as a start-up company or as an engineer.  This is an industry that has only just scraped the surface of it’s potential.  Regarding future engineers one article talked about how these companies are going to need people who can design and maintain the printers.  The article was very clear when it said, “A lot of things they’ll be printing will be expensive so the wages you’ll receive will be very generous.”

As a start-up, another article looked at forecasts for the industry as a whole. By 2017 it could hit $6 billion worldwide and $11 billion by 2021, and this is after already seeing growth of 28.6% in 2012 alone.  Companies are already obtaining funding by crowdsourcing and the industry could literally become filled with businesses that started in the garage only to become a 3-D printing monster, figuratively speaking of course. Personally I’m waiting to see if someone designs a 3-D printer that produces more 3-D printers.

Ok, but what about the clouds?  Cloud data storage will be essential here as engineers need to share information across companies and start-ups begin to expand.

The next theme was Online Teaching.  As a career the specialist teacher is in growing demand as “millions of people want to learn about specialist subjects.”  The teacher in the brick and mortar classroom could change to become the one in a “flipped classroom” and bump their income dramatically in some cases.

As a start-up “ed-tech companies explicitly seek to dismantle traditional education structures.” The question of funding, as of right now, is taken off the table if you have a quality idea and business model.  Names like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are only the most well known among the numerous parties wanting to get behind great ideas.

As for the clouds, well none of these can even take the first step if students can’t get materials or if a company can’t share their data.  This will prove to be a booming industry not only for getting to students but the development of education apps will also grow in the flipped classroom but probably ever more so in the traditional setting.

The last thread is about producing the clouds themselves.  The cloud data storage as a start-up is an exciting and potentially huge next step.  Consider the question, as industries migrate to cloud data storage what will they do about securing their information?

In comes the newest product, Virtual Data Rooms.  “Think souped-up versions of Dropbox for the corporate user.”  VDR’s allow companies a much more secure lock on their information and records by the ability to set different levels of access whether it’s to the customers or the different levels of their own management team.

VDR’s as an industry is only going to expand, according to IBIS, from the $628 million in 2012 to $1.2 trillion by 2017.  The costs center around the quality of your IT team and software you design.  Capital is definitely out there seeking investment into companies since the primary industries interested right now are banking and law.

Right now the industry is very competitive and dominated by the giants like Google and Microsoft but for the futurists out there, the true size and scope of this market will allow for very successful niches to be carved out.

This is just the first look at what’s being done in what we’ll call the Cloud Industry.  Going forward we’ll discuss some of the current success stories of individuals and companies and try to find more common threads and trends.

The future of technology is indeed built within the clouds.

Write It Down! : The Importance of Long Term Goal Setting

Having dreams of starting and running a successful company is important, but where do these dreams exist in reality.  Those dreams will only exist as just that, dreams, unless you right them down.  By having a physical copy or a blueprint of where you see yourself and your company in three years is invaluable to your success.  

By forcing yourself to do this simple task 3 things will innately occur.  

1. You will be able to ask yourself the same question over and over when facing small decisions: Will this get me closer to my goal of achieving success?  If the answer is no then you won't waste your precious time doing something that ultimately isn't worth your while.  It streamlines your success.

2. You will acquire a sense of urgency.  I can't stress this enough.  Urgency is a great motivational edge that you will have over your competitors because while they are contemplating how to accomplish the vision that they have in their head, you will be able to visually project wether or not you are getting closer to your goals.  When you are not, you will be motivated to get back on track.  Vince Poscente elaborates on using urgency as a tool that can be hard to come by in his blog post on the topic (http://bit.ly/1kb26ZY).  I've found that this can be acquired fairly easily through long-term goal setting.

3. It will teach you that their are no quick fixes to a solution and that success takes time.  You will stop attempting shortcuts that will ultimately take you two steps back because you will ask yourself before you attempt to take a shortcut that in the long run will this decision ultimately hurt my chances of reaching my goals?  If the answer is yes you will make the ethical choice and do things the right way.

So how do you do it?

1. Be specific.  Set a goal that you can pin point and measure wether or not you are on track.  Look at the difference between the goals for a hypothetical fashion company.

Scenario 1: In three years my company will be selling its products in retail stores along the East Coast.

Scenario 2: My company will have earned over 1 million in net sales and we will have solidified 3 contracts with separate retailers to sell our clothes.

By using specific values in your goal setting you will be able to visually compare your current margins with where you have set your goals.  

2. Be introspective. According to Peter Vanden Bos (http://bit.ly/1jC5UjU)  this will help you understand how your business ticks, what do you do well and who does what the best.  This should and will be a process that may seem counter productive at first but, will ultimately make your company more productive.  It will help isolate strengths and weaknesses and point out where you need to improve.

3. Do it now.  This will be a recurring theme in this blog and that's to start today.  Don't make it a short term goal to set long term goals.  Do it now. Before contemplating what the next step should be sit down and physically create the vision that you want your company to become and you'll be that much more likely to get there.

Mother Was Right

In a previous post we discussed the damage that can be done to our online reputation by the indexing that occurs whenever there is anything posted online, regardless of whether or not you deleted it.  The next obvious topic of discussion is, how do you overcome any potential harm from the past?

Going forward, you should only place things on the internet that casts a positive light on you?  There are countless pages of advice and research you can comb through but it’s really quite simple.  The best approach is to consider it as paying it forward.

From this day forward you, me, and everyone else should follow the lesson our mothers taught us; “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”  It all comes down to putting a polish on our SEO, (what comes up when a search is done.) What do people see when they do a search in Google?

As Lisa A. Sullivan, digital media marketing strategist, puts it , People do business with other people they “Like, Know, and Trust.”  She goes further telling us we should go out of our way to say something positive whenever we can.  A word of caution here, that can be taken too far as well.  No one likes the schmoe who goes out of their way to compliment how the boss’ ridiculous hair looks in a picture when it’s the worst hair piece ever.

Following Lisa’s advice, there are 3 practices that apply professionally and personally; “Be positive, informational, and helpful.” It’s basic common sense really and all it requires is a little consideration and there are some more in-depth tips out there but for now here are the basics:

1. Blogging may be the most powerful tool available especially for your business profile.  By posting helpful, informational content you take great strides toward improving your SEO.
2. Connect with others out on the web that are also offering positive information.  By linking to their sites you are making the connections that matter.
3. Social media and work are not the best combination.  You should avoid “Friending” anyone from work if at all possible.  There’s just too much potential for damage there.  I’m betting a Google search can help provide an excuse when needed.
4. On social sites like Facebook only accept contacts from people you have met and believe you can trust not to do the stupid things we’ve discussed previously.

By connecting with others who are being helpful and using a reaffirming approach in how we conduct all business and personal interactions online we start to improve our image online.  I propose that doing these things in person and not just online would also do us some good as well.