The Reality of Entrepreneurship

A friend sent over the following article, which he found in the Entrepreneur Corner. Good piece, especially the notion that you won’t probably be right with your first idea out of the box. However, I like to believe that if you have the ability to take your idea, change it, move it in a slightly different direction, then not being right the first time isn’t as negative a notion as it may seem. I would also add a fifth harsh reality...If you're going to fail...fail fast. There is nothing wrong with failing...especially since the experience of launching and failing can often lead to success the second time around. However, if you're going to fail, you have to make sure to learn something about why you failed. Nothing sadder than the entrepreneur who makes the very same mistakes on the second and third ventures. Failing is OK, as long as you learn something from it.

5 harsh realities of being an entrepreneur
December 15, 2010 Jason Baptiste
(Jason L. Baptiste is the CEO and co-founder of PadPressed and co-author of the OnStartups blog. This story originally appeared at that site.)
There’s always talk about a startup’s end game – whether it’s in the form of an acquisition, funding announcement, or eventual flame out. But we rarely hear about the harsh realities that entrepreneurs face. This isn’t meant to be a downbeat and negative article, but actually quite the opposite. By knowing the harsh realities that lie ahead, you can be prepared when they come about. Here are some of the oft unspoken realities I’ve noticed entrepreneurs face regularly.
Your first iteration of an idea will be wrong – Very few people get it right out of the gate – but as it turns out, this is actually a good sign. No idea survives its first interactions with its customers. This sort of failure requires you to synthesize feedback to adapt to the customer. You could be prideful, not listen to what your customers are telling you, and keep things the way they were, but that leaves you with no customers and a product you may not even use yourself. It’s okay if things change up a bit when it comes to your idea and its implementation.

Your friends and family won’t understand what you do – “You’re an entrepreneur, so that means you’re un-employed?” or “Oh that’s nice.” are some of the many reactions you will get from close friends, family members, and others over the course of starting your company. Even if you achieve milestones that are worthy of praise and denote success in the entrepreneurial world (customers, fundraising, new traffic levels, press, etc.), people still won’t get what you do.
Unless you build one of the few consumer success stories that come around every few years, things probably won’t change here. The b2b space is even more difficult to explain as most people aren’t your customer, especially if it’s a niche workflow. But just because they don’t understand it, doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong or unacceptable. I doubt most of Larry Ellison’s family understood Oracle (that database company that stores information), but things turned out pretty well for him at the end of the day.

You will make less than normal wages for a while – If you got into entrepreneurship first and foremost for the money, then you’re in the wrong business. Sure you may sell your company, but that day is probably far far away. Even if you raise a good chunk of cash, the money is better spent on hiring the best talent than paying yourself a higher wage.
There’s nothing wrong wanting to make money, but in the beginning it’s going to be rough. You will make less than most of your friends, especially the ones doing the “normal” paths of things like finance.
It’s a litmus test in its finest form, though. If you truly love what you’re doing, the capacity to have a large bank account takes a back burner to completing your mission. Sure you need some basic creature comforts, but luxury items almost seem silly as you will not have the time to truly enjoy them.

Everything takes twice as long … if it even happens – Multiply everything by two, including the things inside of your control. When things take longer, you sometimes think that you’re doing it wrong or no one really cares. In reality, everyone else has multiple deals and responsibilities on the table. By factoring this into the expectations of your startup, it makes a lot easier to prepare for launching products, closing deals, and more.
Also, be persistent and get the other party what they need as soon as possible. And realize that most deals never work out – from acquisitions down to simple business development agreements. There are always many moving parts and excitement that can fade.
That’s okay though. If you’re building your company upon a single deal, then you need to re-evaluate things. Don’t be depressed when a deal falls through. That’s just the nature of the beast.
Titles mean nothing. You will be a janitor – When you’re the CEO, chairman or co-founder of a <10 person company with a product that doesn’t have customers, titles really don’t mean much. Everyone will be doing a little bit of everything, including cleaning the toilets. Don’t try to mask the grind of being an entrepreneur with some superficial title. Instead, embrace the nitty gritty of those first days.
Business cards are nice to hand out, but they really shouldn’t say more than co-founder or something else. Maybe someone inside the company plays more of the CEO role (speaking and being the face of the company), but that doesn’t really matter in the early days. You have to be humble and you have to be willing to do whatever it takes. You don’t have a staff of 50 to throw the task on to either. If you don’t do it, it won’t get done. Sure you could also try to optimize for efficiency, but that’s almost counter productive as the early days of a startup requiring doing so much, that it’s hard to just cut something out.

Marketing and the Kind Snack Bars

About a year ago, a friend of mine and I were sitting in a coffee shop and we were both drinking coffee and having a snack. I had purchased an overpriced and stale pastry, while my friend had a snack bar with an interesting wrapper that I had never heard of. He eventually took pity on me and gave me one of his Kind Snack Bar’s, and from that moment on I was hooked. I buy them now by the carton load at Wegman’s and I make sure to have some in my briefcase whenever I’m headed to an airplane. So naturally, when the current issue of Inc. Magazine carried a story about the founder of the company, Daniel Lubetzky, I made sure to read it. Take a look at “The Way I Work” feature, “I’m obsessed with marketing through random acts of kindness.”

Something to Read This Snowy Sunday

Over coffee this morning, had the chance to read some interesting articles in Inc Magazine. The first three you should read deal with App’s for your company. Also take a look at an article that deals with ideas:

Does Your Business Need an App?
Four Tips for App Planning?
To Charge or Not Charge?
How to Kill a Bad Idea

Oregon Football and Entrepreneurship

Thanks to a very busy schedule (lots of students talking about ideas and their businesses), I haven’t been able to blog. But with the semester now coming to its conclusion, I’ll be back writing.

First, everyone who knows me knows how much I love the SU football team. All you have to do is spend ten minutes with Coach Marrone, and you’ll see why this team is succeeding. Doug is a great guy and someone who you just know is going to build a great program.

Last week in the NY Times there was an article, not about our Orange, but about another great football program that’s awfully fun to watch. The University of Oregon football team is what I like to call “must see TV.” If you’re flipping through the dial and the Ducks are on, you just can’t help but watch their unique brand of football. The article, Speed Freak Football, is an interesting read. The reason that I call it to your attention here is because the Ducks coach, Chip Kelly, is a guy who is constantly thinking outside the box, something as entrepreneurs, we have to do. Read the article, enjoy it, and think about how you might start thinking like Kelly does, and reinvent your company.

Special Entrepreneurship Section in Wall Street Journal

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a special section on Small Business. Lots of good things in the section, including information on the Perils of Being the Little Fish, How to Sell on YouTube Without Showing a Video and other things of interest. They also ranked the Best Country to Start a Business (US ranks number three) in the World.

Greyston...Great Brownies...Fantastic Mission

Bill Mistretta, president of CEO of Greyston Bakery was on campus today talking about the extraordinary mission that defines this outstanding company. As Bill put it, they produce a simple product…brownies…but in the process they help change people’s lives by providing employment and support to people who need it. Greyston had been featured in many news stories (including one on 60 Minutes), and they are now featured in a new book by Michael Russo, “Companies on a Mission: Entrepreneurial Strategies for Growing Sustainably, Responsibly, and Profitably.”

The Dilbert Entrepreneur

This morning, while at the office working on two different workshops that are going on simultaneously(Syracuse Entrepreneurs Bootcamp and The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans' Families) I took a break to glance through the Wall Street Journal….and ran across The Perfect Stimulus: Bad Management written by Scott Adams of Dilbert fame. So sit back, get a cup of coffee and enjoy entrepreneurship with a Dilbert flavor.

From the article:

I have always assumed there's a correlation between imagination and risk-taking. You wouldn't leave an unpleasant but relatively safe situation unless you could imagine a better outcome. So the people who leave a company first tend to be the visionaries who can best imagine entrepreneurial success. The last wave of people who leave are usually excreted just before the door is chained. They didn't imagine it would happen so soon. Bad management is how imagination gets wings.

Where in the World Do Ideas Come From?

Students are always walking into my office asking me where ideas come from. Thanks to Scott Nadzan, who sent this piece over to me on innovation, I now have an answer for them. Since I can't draw as well as this fellow, I'll send them to this piece on where good ideas come from. Steven Johnson, who is the author of this piece, has been a speaker at TED talks and provides a very interesting way to think about ideas.

Students and Social Entrepreneurship

I’m just back from attending the annual Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Center’s Annual Meeting which this year was held at Penn State University. One of the things that I really like about the conference is the conversation that you can have with other directors over coffee. This year, the topic of social entrepreneurship was hotter than ever, which I think is thanks to the “primary customer” that we deal with. Our “primary customer” is the student, and this generation of students wants to do more with their lives than just get a job. They want to make meaning in their lives, and they are starting while they are in college. More students than ever want to start or work for non-profits, more students are creating business plans for non-profits, and many want to start for profit businesses that will spin off money that they can then donate to non-profits. For all of the things that are said in the media about this generation, this is one thing that those articles seem to miss…that this group of students wants to do more than just get a job and make tons of money, they really want to try to make the world a better place. As a result, many of the colleges and universities that I spoke to at GCEC are retooling some of their courses to help these students make meaning, and understand the landscape facing social entrepreneurs today. Stay tuned, there is definitely more coming in the months ahead on this phenomenon.

Students Catching the Entrepreneurship Fever

Great story in Business Week on student entrepreneurship, under the article, Startup Fever written by Max Raskin. Now, of course I wish they had included our program, as we are one of the top programs in the country...ranked number seven by Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine, was number six last year in US News…and through our Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship, we have a fantastic program in the Couri Hatchery helping students who want to start their own business.

From Dream to Launch

Very interesting piece by Tim Beyers in Entrepreneur magazine that I ran across through Alltop, titled How to Make Your Business Dream a Reality.

Work with a bias toward action.No doubt accountability is a key feature of the action-oriented startup, but perhaps the most important attribute is a propensity to act. For that to occur, Belsky says entrepreneurs need to unlearn some things."It's important, in the early stages of a creative project, to almost do the opposite of what we're taught growing up, which is to think before we act," Belsky says. "Startups have to recognize that their competitive advantage against the big guys is that they have the space to [experiment]."What they don't have is time. Today's startups build and release products in days rather than months. In that environment, action is a survival skill, Belsky says, especially if the original concept was right all along.Evan Saks, founder of build-to-order mattress maker Create-A-Mattress.com in Needham, Mass., learned this lesson the hard way. He says his team spent two months talking with suppliers about adding options before his design agency pushed him to focus on getting the company's website live. Feedback would dictate changes, the agency's owner said. It was just the wake-up call Saks needed."Following that meeting, I created a roadmap that let the other vendors see there was a place for them in the future. Then, I set the roadmap aside and put all energies into launching the core website the way it was originally conceived," Saks says.

Innovation and the Miners

If you’re like me, you were following the story of the miners in Chile. Watching their incredible rescue was wonderfully exhilarating as it was a story of faith, perseverance, leadership, determination, and many other things, including innovation. In today’s Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger writes a column on how Capitalism Saved the Miners. While the article was interesting, what I felt was particularly noteworthy was how some companies jumped in to help out. From the article:

Center Rock Inc. is a private company in Berlin, Pa. It has 74 employees. The drill's rig came from Schramm Inc. in West Chester, Pa. Seeing the disaster, Center Rock's president, Brandon Fisher, called the Chileans to offer his drill. Chile accepted. The miners are alive.
Longer answer: The Center Rock drill, heretofore not featured on websites like Engadget or Gizmodo, is in fact a piece of tough technology developed by a small company in it for the money, for profit. That's why they innovated down-the-hole hammer drilling. If they make money, they can do more innovation.

This profit = innovation dynamic was everywhere at that Chilean mine. The high-strength cable winding around the big wheel atop that simple rig is from Germany. Japan supplied the super-flexible, fiber-optic communications cable that linked the miners to the world above.
A remarkable Sept. 30 story (Innovations Ease the Plight of Trapped Miners) about all this by the Journal's Matt Moffett was a compendium of astonishing things that showed up in the Atacama Desert from the distant corners of capitalism.

Samsung of South Korea supplied a cellphone that has its own projector. Jeffrey Gabbay, the founder of Cupron Inc, Richmond, Va., supplied socks made with copper fiber that consumed foot bacteria, and minimized odor and infection.

Chile's health minister, Jaime Manalich, said, "I never realized that kind of thing actually existed."

Ideas and Innovation

Yesterday while hanging around the airport waiting for my flight to be ready to leave, I ran across in Wired magazine the short but interesting article on ideas and innovation, Kevin Kelly and Steven Johnson on Where Ideas Come From. I liked several things in the piece… the notion that ideas are like networks…that to create good stuff you have to create a lot of bad stuff first…and that ideas come through collaboration and standing on the shoulders of other ideas before you. A quick but very interesting read.

Using Geolocation Services to Drive Your Business

Last night I was speaking to the Syracuse University Alumni Club of New York City, and afterwards, one of our alum’s came up asked me a question about technology and the entrepreneur. He asked how an entrepreneur knows the difference between “real” technology that can truly advance the startup business, and the “pretenders.” I thought it was a particularly interesting question because as entrepreneurs we spend a lot of time thinking about how we can grow our businesses, and unless we happen to be techy’s, we don’t have the time to really consider and examine all the new stuff that’s coming out. But I did refer him to a good story in yesterday’s NY Times by Kermit Pattison, Geolocation Services: Find a Smart Phone; Find a Customer, that showed how real entrepreneurs are using geolocation services such as Four Square, which was started by SU’s own Dennis Crawley. Read the article and then imagine how you might be able to use these services to drive your own business.

Leadership and The Team

Just spotted the article, Does Your Team Have the Four Essential Types, by Adam Bryant at the New York Times website. While I normally hate any business piece that has a number in the title, I thought the part that described the personality types required on a team was interesting:

From the article:

At the risk of oversimplifying, I think that in any great leadership team, you find at least four personalities, and you never find all four of those personalities in a single person.

You need to have somebody who is a strategist or visionary, who sets the goals for where the organization needs to go.

You need to have somebody who is the classic manager — somebody who takes care of the organization, in terms of making sure that everybody knows what they need to do and making sure that tasks are broken up into manageable actions and how they’re going to be measured.

You need a champion for the customer, because you are trying to translate your product into something that customers are going to pay for. So it’s important to have somebody who empathizes and understands how customers will see it. I’ve seen many endeavors fail because people weren’t able to connect the strategy to the way the customers would see the issue.

Then, lastly, you need the enforcer. You need somebody who says: “We’ve stared at this issue long enough. We’re not going to stare at it anymore. We’re going to do something about it. We’re going to make a decision. We’re going to deal with whatever conflict we have.”

You very rarely find more than two of those personalities in one person. I’ve never seen it. And really great teams are where you have a group of people who provide those functions and who respect each other and, equally importantly, both know who they are and who they are not.

Often, I’ve seen people get into trouble when they think they’re the strategist and they’re not, or they think they’re the decision maker and they’re not. You need a degree of humility and self-awareness. Really great teams have team members who know who they are and who they’re not, and they know when to get out of the way and let the other team members make their contribution.

Bashing and the Millennials

I work with Millennials, and I have five of my own that I call children, so it thrilled me this weekend when I was reading the article below in Fast Company by Nancy Lublin, the CEO of Do Something, a really neat venture that you should check out. I also liked a couple of her comments on management, which I placed in bold below. Take a read…and then cut them some slack. Here is the link to the article: Why Bashing Millennials is Wrong.

Lazy. Entitled. Fickle. Freighted with their own inscrutable agendas. These are the kinds of things people say about cats -- and millennials. For today's managers, the generation born after 1980 is a favorite punching bag.

It's not hard to see why, given that they're the generation of Lindsay Lohan, Jersey Shore, and flip-flops as appropriate office footwear. While it's obviously silly to stereotype an entire generation, whether you're Tom Brokaw or me, so many people have spent so much time
criticizing the millennials that I think it's time an old lady stuck up for them.

I want to be clear: I'm not doing it because I'm a cougar. I am vouching for them because I see their strengths every day in the Do Something office; all but two of our 21 full-time staff are millennials. The very same characteristics that are frequently maligned are the very qualities that make millennials awesome employees. The trick, of course, is to know how to exploit them.

Let's start with the issue of how millennials multitask. While studies show that they think they're better at it than they actually are, the reality is they do it and they're not going to stop. A recent study found that millennials typically use up to seven devices, apps, and programs at once -- texting, G-chatting, tweeting, and listening to music while working on that memo.

Where I make a list and slowly cross things off one at a time, Aria Finger, Do Something's 27-year-old rock-star COO, will sit in front of three screens (two PC, one iPhone) and plow through three times as many tasks in the same amount of time. I see my role as defining a clear goal, giving her the resources to take the shot, and then getting out of the way while she dunks. Millennials don't have traditional boundaries or an old-fashioned sense of privacy.

They live out loud, sharing details of their lives with thousands of other people. Of course there are the obvious risks to this -- say, that unflattering, reputation-damaging photo that should have been deleted from Facebook -- but while you shake your cane at them for indulging in TMI, I see their openness as a great opportunity. For instance, when our summer intern @jimmyaungchen tweets and Facebooks about something he achieved at work, that's free marketing for Do Something to the 1,500 people in his immediate network. I now ask job applicants how many Facebook friends and Twitter followers they have.

We all know that one of the key traits of millennials is that they feel and act entitled. For their whole lives, they've been told that they're the best, that they can be anything they want to be, whether that's the next Mark Zuckerberg or the next American Idol. You say self-indulgent and self-obsessed, I say optimistic and self-confident. They are hungry for responsibility, and I give it to them. Earlier this year, Melanie Stevenson, who does business development at Do Something and is all of 26, walked up to me and said, "I'd like to expand us to five international markets by the end of this year." Awesome. Bold. Audacious. Every employer should want a dozen Melanies working for them. (We launched in Portugal in June, and expect to add three more countries this month.)

An entitled person tends to be high maintenance -- millennials may well be the poodles of humanity, demanding constant grooming and incessant praise. But celebrating small victories shouldn't be seen as just a way to kowtow to this generation's oversized egos; at a recent conference, Jack Welch said that it's a great -- and underused -- management tactic. We should learn to recognize the contributions of each team member more explicitly. We should give feedback more than once a year in a stilted annual performance review. If your people aren't worthy of praise, get rid of them. If they deserve praise, then be generous with it. Praise is one of the most affordable tools out there: It's free!

Some of you will have read each of the four points above and come up with some quiet (or maybe not-so-quiet) rebuttals. You know what? You're right. Each thing I've said about millennials can be read as a problem. But each one can also be viewed as an opportunity.
Maybe the real problem isn't this generation -- maybe it's that the rest of us don't manage them for greatness, for maximum effect. What we often forget is that this generational clash is a timeworn tale. Whatever side of the divide you're on, it feels new. Yet it happens over and over -- say, once a generation. And in the end, the kids will always win. They're sort of like cats.

Don't Know the First Step...Start Learning

We have a guest post today from our friends at Teach Street.

As any entrepreneur knows, getting a great idea is easy, it’s execution of that idea that’s really, really hard. You may have a beautiful business concept in your head but how do you make it happen? How do you begin?

Many entrepreneurs can spend months trying to answer this one question. Should you write a business plan? Make contacts in the industry? Look for funding? Start building a prototype of the product? There are so many options and when you’re new to the game none of them seem to be better or more effective than the other. Many entrepreneurs get hung up on all the options and succumb to “Analysis Paralysis.” They spend forever thinking about the best way of doing something without actually doing anything at all.

One of the main causes of this paralysis is lack of knowledge. Entrepreneurs don’t know anything about business plans or what they are good for so they don’t know if they should write one now or in the future when they get more funding. They don’t know anything about pitching venture capitalists and angel investors so they waste time wondering how to approach them. They don’t know this and they don’t know that, and because they don’t know, they wonder...and they waste time.

The obvious solution to this problem is to learn more. If the next step is unclear, spend more time learning about your industry (and entrepreneurship in general) until you have a pretty good idea of the next step to make. It’s true that you might take a step in the wrong direction, but once you take that step you’ll be able to understand exactly where you went wrong and be able to come up with a better approach.

One of the best ways to learn is to ask experts to provide you advice when you hit a wall. If you really want to get ahead of the crowd take some Entrepreneurship Classes and get some valuable one-on-one time with seasoned entrepreneurs who have “been there, done that” and want to help you get there as well.

Lessons in Lots of Things...Especially Humility

Dave Berg shared this with me today. There is nothing I can add to this wonderful story that was written by Colonel James E Moschgat for the Wharton Leadership Digest.

William “Bill” Crawford certainly was an unimpressive figure, one you could easily overlook during a hectic day at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Mr. Crawford, as most of us referred to him back in the late 1970s, was our squadron
janitor.

While we cadets busied ourselves preparing for academic exams, athletic events, Saturday morning parades and room inspections, or never-ending leadership classes, Bill quietly moved about the squadron mopping and buffing floors, emptying trash cans, cleaning toilets, or just tidying up the mess 100 college-age kids can leave in a dormitory. Sadly, and for many years, few of us gave him much notice, rendering little more than a passing nod or throwing a curt, “G’morning!” in his direction as we hurried off to our daily duties.

Why? Perhaps it was because of the way he did his job-he always kept the
squadron area spotlessly clean, even the toilets and showers gleamed. Frankly,
he did his job so well, none of us had to notice or get involved. After all, cleaning
toilets was his job, not ours. Maybe it was is physical appearance that made him
disappear into the background. Bill didn’t move very quickly and, in fact, you
could say he even shuffled a bit, as if he suffered from some sort of injury. His
gray hair and wrinkled face made him appear ancient to a group of young cadets.
And his crooked smile, well, it looked a little funny. Face it, Bill was an old man
working in a young person’s world. What did he have to offer us on a personal
level?

Finally, maybe it was Mr. Crawford’s personality that rendered him almost
invisible to the young people around him. Bill was shy, almost painfully so. He
seldom spoke to a cadet unless they addressed him first, and that didn’t happen
very often. Our janitor always buried himself in his work, moving about with
stooped shoulders, a quiet gait, and an averted gaze. If he noticed the hustle
and bustle of cadet life around him, it was hard to tell. So, for whatever reason,
Bill blended into the woodwork and became just another fixture around the
squadron. The Academy, one of our nation’s premier leadership laboratories,
kept us busy from dawn till dusk. And Mr. Crawford...well, he was just a janitor.
That changed one fall Saturday afternoon in 1976. I was reading a book about
World War II and the tough Allied ground campaign in Italy, when I stumbled
across an incredible story. On September 13, 1943, a Private William Crawford
from Colorado, assigned to the 36th Infantry Division, had been involved in some
bloody fighting on Hill 424 near Altavilla, Italy. The words on the page leapt out at
me: “in the face of intense and overwhelming hostile fire ... with no regard for
personal safety ... on his own initiative, Private Crawford single-handedly
attacked fortified enemy positions.” It continued, “for conspicuous gallantry and
intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty, the President of the
United States ...”

“Holy cow,” I said to my roommate, “you’re not going to believe this, but I think
our janitor is a Medal of Honor winner.” We all knew Mr. Crawford was a WWII
Army vet, but that didn’t keep my friend from looking at me as if I was some sort
of alien being. Nonetheless, we couldn’t wait to ask Bill about the story on
Monday. We met Mr. Crawford bright and early Monday and showed him the
page in question from the book, anticipation and doubt in our faces. He starred
at it for a few silent moments and then quietly uttered something like, “Yep, that’s
me.”

Mouths agape, my roommate and I looked at one another, then at the book, and quickly back at our janitor. Almost at once we both stuttered, “Why didn’t you ever tell us about it?”

He slowly replied after some thought, “That was one day in my life and it happened a long time ago.”

I guess we were all at a loss for words after that. We had to hurry off to class and Bill, well, he had chores to attend to. However, after that brief exchange, things were never again the same around our squadron. Word spread like wildfire among the cadets that we had a hero in our midst-Mr. Crawford, our janitor, had won the Medal! Cadets who had once passed by Bill with hardly a glance, now greeted him with a smile and a respectful, “Good morning, Mr. Crawford.”

Those who had before left a mess for the “janitor” to clean up started taking it
upon themselves to put things in order. Most cadets routinely stopped to talk to
Bill throughout the day and we even began inviting him to our formal squadron
functions. He’d show up dressed in a conservative dark suit and quietly talk to
those who approached him, the only sign of his heroics being a simple blue, starspangled lapel pin.

Almost overnight, Bill went from being a simple fixture in our squadron to one of
our teammates. Mr. Crawford changed too, but you had to look closely to notice
the difference. After that fall day in 1976, he seemed to move with more
purpose, his shoulders didn’t seem to be as stooped, he met our greetings with a
direct gaze and a stronger “good morning” in return, and he flashed his crooked
smile more often. The squadron gleamed as always, but everyone now seemed
to notice it more. Bill even got to know most of us by our first names, something
that didn’t happen often at the Academy. While no one ever formally
acknowledged the change, I think we became Bill’s cadets and his squadron.
As often happens in life, events sweep us away from those in our past. The last time I saw Bill was on graduation day in June 1977. As I walked out of the squadron for the last time, he shook my hand and simply said, “Good luck, young man.”
With that, I embarked on a career that has been truly lucky and blessed. Mr. Crawford continued to work at the Academy and eventually retired in his native Colorado. (Note: William Crawford passed away in 2000. He is the only U.S. Army veteran and
sole Medal of Honor winner to be buried in the cemetery of the U.S. Air Force
Academy.)
A wise person once said, “It’s not life that’s important, but
those you meet along the way that make the difference.” Bill was one who made
a difference for me. While I haven’t seen Mr. Crawford in over twenty years,
he’d probably be surprised to know I think of him often. Bill Crawford, our janitor,
taught me many valuable, unforgettable leadership lessons. Here are ten I’d like
to share with you.

1. Be Cautious of Labels. Labels you place on people may define your
relationship to them and bound their potential. Sadly, and for a long time, we
labeled Bill as just a janitor, but he was so much more. Therefore, be cautious of
a leader who callously says, “Hey, he’s just an Airman.” Likewise, don’t tolerate
the O-1, who says, “I can’t do that, I’m just a lieutenant.”

2. Everyone Deserves Respect. Because we hung the “janitor” label on Mr.
Crawford, we often wrongly treated him with less respect than others around us.
He deserved much more, and not just because he was a Medal of Honor winner.
Bill deserved respect because he was a janitor, walked among us, and was a
part of our team.

3. Courtesy Makes a Difference. Be courteous to all around you, regardless of
rank or position. Military customs, as well as common courtesies, help bond a
team. When our daily words to Mr. Crawford turned from perfunctory “hellos” to
heartfelt greetings, his demeanor and personality outwardly changed. It made a
difference for all of us.

4. Take Time to Know Your People. Life in the military is hectic, but that’s no
excuse for not knowing the people you work for and with. For years a hero
walked among us at the Academy and we never knew it. Who are the heroes
that walk in your midst?

5. Anyone Can Be a Hero. Mr. Crawford certainly didn’t fit anyone’s standard
definition of a hero. Moreover, he was just a private on the day he won his
Medal. Don’t sell your people short, for any one of them may be the hero who
rises to the occasion when duty calls. On the other hand, it’s easy to turn to your
proven performers when the chips are down, but don’t ignore the rest of the
team. Today’s rookie could and should be tomorrow’s superstar.

6. Leaders Should Be Humble. Most modern day heroes and some leaders are
anything but humble, especially if you calibrate your “hero meter” on today’s
athletic fields. End zone celebrations and self-aggrandizement are what we’ve
come to expect from sports greats. Not Mr. Crawford-he was too busy working to
celebrate his past heroics. Leaders would be well-served to do the same.

7. Life Won’t Always Hand You What You Think You Deserve. We in the military
work hard and, dang it, we deserve recognition, right? However, sometimes you
just have to persevere, even when accolades don’t come your way. Perhaps you
weren’t nominated for junior officer or airman of the quarter as you thought you
should - don’t let that stop you.

8. Don’t pursue glory; pursue excellence. Private Bill Crawford didn’t pursue
glory; he did his duty and then swept floors for a living. No job is beneath a
Leader. If Bill Crawford, a Medal of Honor winner, could clean latrines and smile,
is there a job beneath your dignity? Think about it.

9. Pursue Excellence. No matter what task life hands you, do it well. Dr. Martin
Luther King said, “If life makes you a street sweeper, be the best street sweeper
you can be.” Mr. Crawford modeled that philosophy and helped make our
dormitory area a home.

10. Life is a Leadership Laboratory. All too often we look to some school or PME
class to teach us about leadership when, in fact, life is a leadership laboratory.
Those you meet everyday will teach you enduring lessons if you just take time to
stop, look and listen. I spent four years at the Air Force Academy, took dozens
of classes, read hundreds of books, and met thousands of great people. I
gleaned leadership skills from all of them, but one of the people I remember most
is Mr. Bill Crawford and the lessons he unknowingly taught. Don’t miss your
opportunity to learn.

Bill Crawford was a janitor. However, he was also a teacher, friend, role model
and one great American hero. Thanks, Mr. Crawford, for some valuable
leadership lessons.

Entrepreneurship at Syracuse University Improves in the Rankings

The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine have released their annual listing of the top 25 undergraduate and 25 graduate programs in entrepreneurship and I’m pleased to announce that the Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises Program at the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University is now ranked as the seventh best program in the United States. This ranking is up from number thirteen last year. Our graduate program in entrepreneurship is now ranked number 21.

From today’s USA Today:

The Princeton Review selected these 50 programs from about 2,000 surveyed, saying they satisfy multiple criteria within three main categories: students and faculty, academics and requirements, and enriching experiences outside the classroom.

The top schools stand out because they have a high number of experienced faculty, students launching businesses after graduation, and experiences outside of the class room, says Princeton Review senior vice president and publisher Rob Franek.

"Students are working with successful entrepreneurs who are working with the primary source and then bringing that experience back down to the classroom for that student," says Franek.
He adds that these schools often offer entrepreneurship competitions and classes to students of any major, creating a "culture of entrepreneurship."

Over the past few years, the number of entrepreneurial programs has grown tremendously, especially as universities recognize the value of interdisciplinary studies, says Franek.

My thanks to all of our students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends of the program who have helped to create this fantastic program at Syracuse University!

Don't Be an Enabler

Dwain DeVille of the Bikers Guide to Business sent over this which comes from Bob Whipple , the chief executive officer of Leadergrow Inc., a Rochester, N.Y.-based leadership consultancy. As entrepreneurs, the subject of leadership is always on our minds. Take a look at this post on being an “enabler.”

Confrontation is part of being a manager. However, too often a manager’s aversion to confronting a problem employee results in accommodation of bad behaviors. In a typical scenario, the problem festers for months, even years—until escalation of the issue reaches a tipping point. By this time, the problem is horrendous and more difficult to tackle.
I once worked with an employee who suffered from acute alcoholism. His abusive behavior was enabled because his supervisor did not dare confront him. Finally, the situation became intolerable. When the behavior was finally addressed, the employee had been out of control for 15 years. His reaction to the manager was, "What took you guys so long?" Following months of treatment, he became sober and went on to be a positive contributor.

Every manager deals with situations such as this one. While they may not be as blatantly offensive as the behavior in this example, behaviors such as tardiness, taking excessive smoke breaks or bullying are destructive nonetheless.

A common example: When workers stretch break times from the standard 20 minutes to more than 30 minutes actually sitting in the break room. The total duration is more like 45 minutes from the time work stops until it resumes. The supervisor does not want to appear to be a "by the book" manager, so ignores the problem every day. When the situation gets too far out of control, the unfortunate supervisor is forced to play the bad guy, and everyone suffers a loss in morale.

Taking action requires courage that many leaders do not have. They rationalize their inaction with logic like:
Maybe the problem will correct itself if I just leave it alone.
Perhaps I will be relocated or promoted soon, and the next person can deal with this.
Confronting the issue would be so traumatic that it would do more harm than good.
We have found viable workaround measures.
We have bigger problems. Exposing this situation would be a distraction from critical work.
Managing these dilemmas requires knowing the exact moment to intervene and doing so in a way that preserves trust with the individual and the group. Once you let an employee get away with bad behavior, it becomes harder to address the next time, and so on.
For that reason, intervene when the issue first arises. As a supervisor, you need to make the rules known and follow them yourself with few and well-justified exceptions. It is not possible to treat everyone the same at all times, but you must enforce the rules consistently in a way that people recognize as appropriate and disciplined.

Are You Enabling?

You may be enabling a problem employee if:
You are working around a "problem."
Employees accuse you of "playing favorites."
Employees comment that they do not understand documented policies.
You have discussions on how to handle an out-of-control person.
A well-known issue is denied or downplayed.
You fear retaliation or sabotage will result if you enforce rules.
Cliques form to protect certain individuals.
Some individuals are victims of pranks or horseplay.
Dis-Enabling

If you recognize one or more of the above situations happening in your department, you can get back on track. In addition to dealing with the problem employee one on one, address all employees in a meeting to signal that the enabling will stop. In this meeting, review policies, ascertain understanding and solicit questions for clarification of the rules.
Ask the group how policies could be misunderstood or abused and for suggestions to close those loopholes for consistency. When people have a hand in creating the rules, they tend to remember and follow them better.

As a leader, taking responsible action can help you regain control, credibility and respect.
You will handle problems early when they are easier to correct, and employees will no longer constantly push the boundaries of acceptable business behavior.

The Triumphs, Trip-Ups and Future Trajectory of Online Education

Over the past few years, I’ve been following the state of for-profit and online colleges and universities. It’s been interesting to note the wide range of schooling that is available today…with some of it being very high quality and others not so. While I was living in Florida, one of my friends was the co-CEO of an outstanding for-profit school that I would have been proud to have one of my kids graduate from. In addition, there has been a significant amount written in recent weeks on loan repayment percentages from the for-profit schools. As a result, I thought it would be interesting to have a post contributed by someone who follows the world of online colleges and universities very closely. So today, we have a guest post provided by Tim Handorf, who writes on the topics of online colleges and universities. He welcomes your comments at his email: tim.handorf.20@googlemail.com .

Over the past few years, online education programs have grown dramatically. Online, for-profit schools showed a modest enrollment during its initial stages--365,000 students according to a recent article published in The Hill--but now boasts a massive student body of nearly two million. These figures represent a five hundred percent growth.

What, then, is the reason behind these staggering numbers? For one, online schooling is seen as a viable alternative to traditional universities in that they offer what "brick-and-mortar" institutions do not--convenience, ease of access, and a lessened time commitment.

During tough economic times, for many people, a traditional four-year university is a luxury. While one could argue that there is inherent value in pursuing an education with a more intellectual bent, those who are keen on working while they pursue a degree are looking for a more basic education that's specifically focused on career outcomes.

Another advantage of online schooling is implied in its name--online. Now, virtually every aspect of our lives finds its appropriate counterpart online, and an education shouldn't be any different. Traditional universities have been slow on the uptake of leveraging the power of the Internet to enhance the learning experience, while online schools have picked up the slack. Although traditional universities have come a long way in terms of online technological innovation, online schools still have the upper hand in this arena.

Recently, however, online, for-profit schools have come under fire from the government. The situation is complicated, but essentially many online schools have been accused of engaging in illegal recruitment practices, embezzling government funds, and making false claims about the value of their degrees. These recent scandals have caused stock in for-profit education to drop pretty dramatically, and even though many predict that these instabilities are only temporary, and investors would do well to pick up these stocks now that they are cheap and could bounce back relatively soon, investors remain wary.

Still, these recent scandals are perhaps only a tiny hiccup in the recent business success of online education. While reform is certainly needed, as pointed out in a recent Washington Times op-ed, there remains pretty clear room for growth.

Why? This is because online schools serve a population that simply does not benefit as much from traditional higher education. Some on the online school bandwagon decry traditional education and prophecy its eventual demise. This, to me, is an extreme opinion. It's not that either traditional schools are "bad" or online schools are "worthless". They simply serve to educate two different types of people.

And the group of people that online schooling targets and seeks to educate is a growing population. Not everyone wants to or is cut out for strictly academic teaching and learning. Health professionals are desperately needed in this country, and online schools are more compatible to these careers, which require certified employees with very specific training. As such, if online schools can fix their internal problems, then they represent an entrepreneurial force that will take both the Internet and the education sector as a whole by storm.

Congress and the Entrepreneur

If you’re like me and wondering what the impact on entrepreneurs will be of the new legislation that just cleared Congress, here is a perspective from Jeff Cornwall at Belmont University. Jeff’s blog, The Entrepreneurial Mind is always good reading, as is yesterday’s post, Small Business Bill Won’t Help What Ails Small Business. I’m still trying to catch up on my reading on this bill, so my mind isn’t made up yet…what do you think?

Someone is Listening

As we continue to move further into the brave new world of social media, an interesting and a bit disturbing article on how one company is handling the effort. Take a look at Gatorade’s Mission: Sell More Drinks in today’s Wall Street Journal. As you can see from the article, be careful what you say…Gatorade is listening!

Mistakes that Startups Make

If you want to engage an entrepreneur in conversation, just ask them if about the mistakes they made. For most of us, mistakes are the currency of the trade; we make mistakes…we learn from them…we go back and make more, different mistakes. So, I found the article by Rosalind Resnick in today’s Wall Street Journal Ten Mistakes That Startup Entrepreneurs Make interesting reading. While I don’t necessarily agree with all of them, certainly numbers 1,2,4 and 9 are in my top listing of mistakes that startups make. The other two that should definitely be on the list…not having a clear understanding of who is your customer and not doing some(enough) primary research.
Here is Rosalind’s top ten…definitely worth considering
Here, in my experience, are the top 10 mistakes that entrepreneurs make when starting a company:
1. Going it alone. It's difficult to build a scalable business if you're the only person involved. True, a solo public relations, web design or consulting firm may require little capital to start, and the price of hiring even one administrative assistant, sales representative or entry-level employee can eat up a big chunk of your profits. The solution: Make sure there's enough margin in your pricing to enable you to bring in other people. Clients generally don't mind outsourcing as long as they can still get face time with you, the skilled professional who's managing the project.
2. Asking too many people for advice. It's always good to get input from experts, especially experienced entrepreneurs who've built and sold successful companies in your industry. But getting too many people's opinions can delay your decision so long that your company never gets out of the starting gate. The answer: Assemble a solid advisory board that you can tap on a regular basis but run the day-to-day yourself. Says Elyissia Wassung, chief executive of 2 Chicks With Chocolate Inc., a Matawan, N.J., chocolate company, "Pull in your [advisory] team for bi-weekly or, at the very least, monthly conference calls. You'll wish you did it sooner!"
3. Spending too much time on product development, not enough on sales. While it's hard to build a great company without a great product, entrepreneurs who spend too much time tinkering may lose customers to a competitor with a stronger sales organization. "I call [this misstep] the 'Field of Dreams' of entrepreneurship. If you build it, they will buy it," says Sanjyot Dunung, CEO of Atma Global, Inc., a New York software publisher, who has made this mistake in her own business. "If you don't keep one eye firmly focused on sales, you'll likely run out of money and energy before you can successfully get your product to market."
4. Targeting too small a market. It's tempting to try to corner a niche, but your company's growth will quickly hit a wall if the market you're targeting is too tiny. Think about all the high school basketball stars who dream of playing in the NBA. Because there are only 30 teams and each team employs only a handful of players, the chances that your son will become the next Michael Jordan are pretty slim. The solution: Pick a bigger market that gives you the chance to grab a slice of the pie even if your company remains a smaller player.
5. Entering a market with no distribution partner. It's easier to break into a market if there's already a network of agents, brokers, manufacturers' reps and other third-party resellers ready, willing and able to sell your product into existing distribution channels. Fashion, food, media and other major industries work this way; others are not so lucky. That's why service businesses like public relations firms, yoga studios and pet-grooming companies often struggle to survive, alternating between feast and famine. The solution: Make a list of potential referral sources before you start your business and ask them if they'd be willing to send business your way.
6. Overpaying for customers. Spending big on advertising may bring in lots of customers, but it's a money-losing strategy if your company can't turn those dollars into life-time customer value. A magazine or web site that spends $500 worth of advertising to acquire a customer who pays $20 a month and cancels his or her subscription at the end of the year is simply pouring money down the drain. The solution: Test, measure, then test again. Once you've done enough testing to figure out how to make more money selling products and services to your customers than you spend acquiring those customers in the first place, roll out a major marketing campaign. (See related article, "On a Tight Budget? How to Land a Client.")
7. Raising too little capital. Many start-ups assume that all they need is enough money to rent space, buy equipment, stock inventory and drive customers through the door. What they often forget is that they also need capital to pay for salaries, utilities, insurance and other overhead expenses until their company starts turning a profit. Unless you're running the kind of business where everybody's working for sweat equity and deferring compensation, you'll need to raise enough money to tide you over until your revenues can cover your expenses and generate positive cash flow. The solution: Calculate your start-up costs before you open your doors, not afterwards.
8. Raising too much capital. Believe it or not, raising too much money can be a problem, too. Over-funded companies tend to get big and bloated, hiring too many people too soon and wasting valuable resources on trade show booths, parties, image ads and other frills. When the money runs out and investors lose patience (which is what happened 10 years ago when the dot-com market melted down), start-ups that frittered away their cash will have to close their doors. No matter how much money you raise at the outset, remember to bank some for a rainy day.
9. Not having a business plan. While not every company needs a formal business plan, a start-up that requires significant capital to grow and more than a year to turn a profit should map out how much time and money it's going to take to get to its destination. This means thinking through the key metrics that make your business tick and building a model to spin off three years of sales, profits and cash-flow projections. "I wasted 10 years [fooling around] thinking like an artist and not a business person," says Louis Piscione, president of Avanti Media Group, a New Jersey company that produces videos for corporate and private events. "I learned that you have to put some of your creative genius toward a business plan that forecasts and sets goals for growth and success." (See related article, "Are Business Plans a Waste of Time?")
10. Over-thinking your business plan. While many entrepreneurs I've met engage in seat-of-the-pants decision-making and fail to do their homework, other entrepreneurs are afraid to pull the trigger until they're 100% certain that their plan will succeed. One lawyer I worked with several years ago was so skittish about leaving his six-figure job to launch his business that he never met with a single bank or investor who might have funded his company. The truth is that a business plan is not a crystal ball that can predict the future. At a certain point, you have to close your eyes and take the leap of faith.
Despite the many books and articles that have been written about entrepreneurship, it's just not possible to start a company without making a few mistakes along the way. Just try to avoid making any mistake so large that your company can't get back on its feet to fight another day.

Boosting Creativity

How many times have you heard someone…usually a boss say, “We have to be more creative!” (of course the other thing we hear now is that “we have to be entrepreneurial” but we’ll ignore that for now)? In a conversation with Mike Duda this morning, he pointed me to a great article in Newsweek The Creativity Crisis. In reading that piece, I also ran across Forget Brainstorming. Here are some suggestions by the authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman on some techniques that boost the creative process:

Don’t tell someone to ‘be creative.’
Such an instruction may just cause people to freeze up. However, according to the University of Georgia’s Mark Runco, there is a suggestion that works: “Do something only you would come up with—that none of your friends or family would think of.” When Runco gives this advice in experiments, he sees the number of creative responses double.
Get moving.
Almost every dimension of cognition improves from 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, and creativity is no exception. The type of exercise doesn’t matter, and the boost lasts for at least two hours afterward. However, there’s a catch: this is the case only for the physically fit. For those who rarely exercise, the fatigue from aerobic activity counteracts the short-term benefits.
Take a break.
Those who study multi-tasking report that you can’t work on two projects simultaneously, but the dynamic is different when you have more than one creative project to complete. In that situation, more projects get completed on time when you allow yourself to switch between them if solutions don’t come immediately. This corroborates surveys showing that professors who set papers aside to incubate ultimately publish more papers. Similarly, preeminent mathematicians usually work on more than one proof at a time.
Reduce screen time.
According to University of Texas professor Elizabeth Vandewater, for every hour a kid regularly watches television, his overall time in creative activities—from fantasy play to arts projects—drops as much as 11 percent. With kids spending about three hours in front of televisions each day, that could be a one-third reduction in creative time—less time to develop a sense of creative self-efficacy through play.
Explore other cultures.
Five experiments by Northwestern’s Adam Galinsky showed that those who have lived abroad outperform others on creativity tasks. Creativity is also higher on average for first- or second-generation immigrants and bilinguals. The theory is that cross-cultural experiences force people to adapt and be more flexible. Just studying another culture can help. In Galinsky’s lab, people were more creative after watching a slide show about China: a 45-minute session increased creativity scores for a week.
Follow a passion.
Rena Subotnik, a researcher with the American Psychological Association, has studied children’s progression into adult creative careers. Kids do best when they are allowed to develop deep passions and pursue them wholeheartedly—at the expense of well-roundedness. “Kids who have deep identification with a field have better discipline and handle setbacks better,” she noted. By contrast, kids given superficial exposure to many activities don’t have the same centeredness to overcome periods of difficulty.
Ditch the suggestion box.
If you want to increase innovation within an organization, one of the first things to do is tear out the suggestion box, advises Isaac Getz, professor at ESCP Europe Business School in Paris. Formalized suggestion protocols, whether a box on the wall, an e-mailed form, or an internal Web site, actually stifle innovation because employees feel that their ideas go into a black hole of bureaucracy. Instead, employees need to be able to put their own ideas into practice. One of the reasons that Toyota’s manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Ky., is so successful is that it implements up to 99 percent of employees’ ideas.

The Bully in the Workplace

As entrepreneurs, we have to be aware of what’s going on in our organization. As we caught up in the day to day of running the business, it’s easy to sometimes miss cues of bullying in the workplace. I had not been following this story, but the article Did Depression or an Alleged Bully Boss Prompt Editor's Suicide? by Ray Sanchez certainly tells this story in vivid detail. Most of us, as we grow our companies, don’t have the luxury of a full-time HR staff, so we have to be particularly aware of what’s going on around us and do all that we can to stop bullying in our workplace. Unfortunately, I’ve seen too many cases where the entrepreneurial owner is the bully. If that’s the case, it’s up to the Board’s or top executives of the venture to rein the offending boss in. This is one of those things that just can’t be a part of the entrepreneurial experience.

Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us

Yesterday, flying back from Washington DC on US Airways, I read in the in-flight magazine the story by Emily Yellin, Your Call is (Not That) Important to Us. Take the time to read this…great story and a fun read that should remind all of us entrepreneurs that providing great customer service is one of the keys to beating the big guys!

From the story:

Trouble for the nation’s largest cable television and broadband provider started in earnest with the story of LaChania Govan, a mother of two in her mid-twenties who inadvertently became a public symbol of mistreated customers everywhere. Govan lives in suburban Chicago. She goes to work all week and attends church every Sunday. She has a pleasant and welcoming voice. She also has a strong sense of fairness.
In July 2005, Govan’s digital video recorder wouldn’t work. She called Comcast’s customer service line in Chicago but couldn’t get through. During the course of four weeks, she called more than forty times. She was repeatedly disconnected, put on hold, or transferred to inept or inert representatives and technicians. One customer service representative transferred her to the Spanish-speaking line. Govan knows only English. She just wanted someone to resolve her seemingly simple case.
She says she never raised her voice, but she was resolute. “Calling Comcast became my second job,” Govan said. “I had to ensure the cordless phone was fully charged and the kids were content. And I sat and called. I cooked and called. I cleaned and called, and just called.” Almost every day, Govan prodded the big company’s customer service department as best she could. Finally, she found a rep who heard her out and took her case in hand. A technician was sent to replace her cable box at no charge, and she was credited with a free month of service. Govan’s perseverance paid off. Her headaches seemed to be over.
Then Govan’s August cable bill arrived. Her name did not appear on the bill. Instead it was addressed to “Bitch Dog.” Someone at Comcast had changed her account name. Govan said, “I was so mad I couldn’t even cuss.”
Instead of becoming just another unnoticed casualty in the adversarial relationship between many companies and their customers, Govan went public. The Chicago Tribune ran her story. Within days, the mainstream news media, bloggers, and consumer advocates from everywhere were spreading her tale of woe. She appeared as the number-one story on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann. A Comcast executive left an apology on Govan’s home voice mail. The company claimed it identified and fired two employees responsible for changing the name on Govan’s bill. She was offered all sorts of free service, which she refused. She wanted nothing more to do with Comcast.
Govan, who also happens to be a customer service representative for a major credit card company, is studying criminal justice with plans to go to law school one day. Eventually, she says, she hopes to become a judge. Her inherent sense of justice is what drove her to persevere. So she was speaking with conviction when she told the Washington Post that she believes customer service means “being friendly, helpful, and respectful. I know how it feels to be a customer service rep and a consumer on the other end. You do not have to settle for less, and you do not have to be mistreated.”
In 2006, Comcast was dealing with another public display of customer service missteps. A subscriber in the Washington, D.C., area found the technician that Comcast sent to fix his cable system had fallen asleep on his couch. The worker was kept on hold for so long by his own company when he called for help that he dozed off. The customer shot video of the napping technician and posted it on the Internet, where it went viral. Comcast issued another apology and again said the worker in question had been fired.
Then in August 2007, Comcast suffered what was perhaps its worst embarrassment to date when seventy-six-year-old Mona Shaw took her outrage with its customer service a few steps further than any disgruntled customer had done before. As she has told the story, it started when a technician scheduled to come out to her suburban Washington, D.C., home on a Monday didn’t show up. Comcast was supposed to install what it calls its triple-play service, which included the company’s new telephone service, along with its traditional Internet and cable television connection, all for under $100 per month. Shaw, a retired military nurse and secretary of her local AARP, as well as a square dancer who fosters stray dogs until they can be adopted, waited all day Monday. When Comcast finally arrived two days later, the technician left the job half done and never came back. On Friday, the company cut off what service Mona and her husband, Don, still had.
Without phone service, the Shaws couldn’t call to get help, so they drove over to their local Comcast office in Manassas, Virginia. They asked for a manager and were told to wait outside in the August heat.
They say they sat on a bench for two hours, until the same woman who had asked them to wait leaned out the door, told them the manager had gone home for the day, and thanked them for coming. Shaw told the Washington Post, “They thought just because we’re old enough to get Social Security that we lack both brains and backbone.”
By Monday, after a weekend with no phone, TV, or Internet, Shaw was so angry that she took matters into her own hands, literally. She got her husband’s hammer, and they went back to the local Comcast office. This is how Washington Post reporter Neely Tucker described Shaw’s account of what happened next:Hammer time: Shaw storms into the company’s office. BAM! She whacks the keyboard of the customer service rep. BAM! Down goes the monitor. BAM! She totals the telephone. People scatter, scream, cops show up and what does she do? POW! A parting shot to the phone!

Keep an Eye on Consigliere

Take a look at a story that brings together sports and entrepreneurship…can there be anything better? The story is called Steve Nash Drives in Venture Capital…but focus in on the mention of Consigliere, a New York-based group that plans to “invest in seed-stage, consumer-oriented companies with scalable, large-growth brand potential. It also will do select Series A and Series B deals, and occasionally sign on as a strategic partner (i.e., the consulting piece) for larger transactions. Those latter deals are designed, in part, to help forge partnerships with large brands that can help out Consigliere’s younger investments.” Mike Duda formerly one of the top folks at Deutsche, Inc. is the driving force behind this very interesting company.

EBV on CNN

Here is a link to a wonderful story today on our Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities program that has appeared on CNN and HLN(Headline News): http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2010/08/12/n_veterans_ebv.cnnmoney/

The Cost of Starting Up

One more item...On August 1 I was quoted in the Wall Street Journal. During the week previous I had the chance to have a very nice conversation with Sarah Needleman from the WSJ on the topic of start-up costs. Here is the link to the entire story: Becoming the Boss Can Cost Plenty.

Trademarks and the Entrepreneur

Students and entrepreneurs usually have questions on trademarks, IP, etc. as it relates to their start-up venture. Because this area is a place where a specialist is required, I always refer those questions to an attorney. However, two days ago one of my favorite blogs had a great piece on the proper use of trademarks, so I thought it would made sense to mention it here. IP Law for Startups by Jill Hubbard Bowman is a great blog post for entrepreneurs to read…here is the post on trademarks Protect Your Brand: The Proper Use of Trademarks:

I know that proper use of trademarks and service marks gets confusing for many entrepreneurs. The following is a simple and handy guide on the proper use of the marks in your business. It’s important to review your website and marketing material and make sure that you are preserving potential legal protection for your marks.
Trademarks and service marks are essentially brand names. A mark identifies and distinguishes products or services of one company from the products or services of others.
Trademarks identify goods. Service marks identify services. In contrast, a trade name is a name that identifies a business.
Confusingly, sometimes the same name may be a trade name, a trademark and a service mark. GOOGLE is a trade name, a registered trademark for mugs, bags and t-shirts, and a registered service mark for search engine services.
A critical issue is that improper use of a mark may cause the loss of legal protection.
A federal registration may be denied because the owner used the mark in a generic way to describe its goods or services. Moreover, a court or the PTO may determine that even a registered mark has become generic and therefore free for all to use. Once upon a time, aspirin, escalator, and cellophane were all trademarks. Eventually, the names began to represent the goods rather than the source of the goods and trademark protection was lost.
Improper descriptive use by the trademark owner in advertising or other materials is a factor in deciding whether the name will get legal protection. Widespread use of the mark as the common name for similar goods or services may ultimately allow free use of the mark, even by competitors.
A key issue is whether the public understands whether the name is a common name or a brand name.
If the public thinks the name is the common name—like aspirin—then the law will not protect the mark from competitive use. But if the public thinks the name is a brand name, trademark status may be preserved.
Proper Use of a Trademark or Service Mark
1. Use the mark with a generic term
To preserve legal protection for a brand name, the mark should be used in conjunction with a generic term, like using the mark Kleenex with tissue. Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc. is very careful to write: Kleenex tissue or Kleenex brand tissue. If you use the common name in conjunction with your brand name it is far less likely that your brand will become the common name. Your brand will be seen as separate and distinct from the common name.
Remember, generic or descriptive names do not have trademark protection upon initial use. Generic names may never be a trademark. Descriptive names may only receive trademark protection after they become famous for identifying the goods as coming from a single source.
2. Use the mark as an Adjective NOT a noun or verb
Use the mark to modify the generic term for the goods instead of describing the goods. This point is similar to the previous one. An example is Google search services. Google needs to be careful that google doesn’t cross the line into becoming the common noun and verb for using any search engine.
Also, don’t use the mark as a possessive or plural.
3. Make the mark look distinctive
To preserve protection, it is good practice to make the mark look distinctive.
Good ways to distinguish a mark include:
Capitalizing the mark;
using color; or
using stylized lettering or a special font.
4. Use the TM or SM symbols
When you initially claim use of a mark as a brand name, after the mark you can use the TM symbol for goods and SM for services. You don’t need to wait until you have filed a registration.
After receiving a federal registration, you can use the ® symbol.
With a little bit of care, you can preserve the value of your trademarks and service marks.
For related posts on Trademark Law:
How to Avoid Trademark Infringement When Selecting Business or Product Names
Consider Whether You Can or Want to File a Federal Trademark Registration

Restitching a Firm

I was talking last week with Neale Godfrey, the chairman of the Children’s Financial Network at our Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities program. Neale was a guest speaker, and she asked me a great question right before she went into the classroom to talk to the vet’s. She asked, “Do you tell the vet’s the whole story about entrepreneurship”…meaning are we sharing with them stories of success, as well as failure. As it turns out, we do tell the vet’s as well as our undergrad and graduate students the whole story, but an article in the Wall Street Journal today Restitching a Firm That Nearly Unraveled, brings home Neale’s point…that entrepreneurship is more than just success, but it can also be filled with road bumps(and more) along the way. Read the article by Julie Jargon about, J.W. Hulme Co., a Minnesota luggage maker that almost went bankrupt but is now on the way back.

Tesla and Digital Media...Two Entrepreneurship Stories from the NY Times

Today’s business section in the NY Times carried several interesting articles on entrepreneurship. Two in particular that caught my eye were All Revved Up, but So Far to Go written by Claire Cain Miller about Elon Musk and his efforts at Tesla Motors. I also liked the article by Brooks Barnes, In Hollywood, Everyone’s a Digital Revolutionary. While the article was focused on the digital entertainment space, it was clear that the lessons learned in digital entertainment really can be applicable to other areas of entrepreneurship as well. For example, take this sentence: “But an awful lot of the companies angling for a piece of the action are long on goals and short on specifics.” That could certainly apply to any start-up business. Or how about this: “Remember SulSet.com, the behind-the-scenes subscription movie site? Oops: it quickly ran into problems with the Screen Actors Guild, which objected that the cast was not getting a cut of the proceeds. To resolve that, it had to start giving free access to the site, upending its business plan.” Business plan’s upended? Can happen anywhere. Or take the last sentence in the article: “Where the market stands today there are more digital opportunities than ever,” he (Brent Weinstein, head of digital media for United Talent Agency) said. “Those that will be successful are the ones who understand the unique aspects of the platform and the audience.” That could be re-written (with apologies to Mr. Weinstein for borrowing his quote) to say that based on where the business world is today, there will be more opportunities than ever. Those entrepreneurs that will be successful are the ones who see the need in the marketplace and can create a unique product/service to fill that need, mindful that it is all about serving the eventual customer.

Four Trends in Social Entrepreneurship

Because I work in the academic world but because I came out of the business one, I like to think in terms of customers....or who is my primary customer? For me, our students are the primary customers for the Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship…and currently our students are thinking about social entrepreneurship in a big way. We see that in the business plans that get submitted for our Capstone Business Plan Class and Competition, and in the ideas that students come into my office to talk about. So it is with great interest that I read on Just Means, Marcia Stepanek’s summary of the report. Echoing Green is a New York-based social enterprise investment nonprofit.

* Many social entrepreneurs want to tackle the world's most difficult problems early in their career. About 55 percent, or slightly more than half, of some 1,200 semifinalists for Echoing Green fellowships in social entrepreneurship since 2007 have identified themselves as being younger than 35.

* Social entrepreneurs are blurring the lines between the nonprofit and for-profit experience and are often "serial entrepreneurs." There was a 15 percent decrease over 2008 in the number of Echoing Green semifinalists who have worked in the nonprofit and government sectors. Thirty-seven percent of the 300 semifinalists this year have founded another organization and 71 percent of those organizations are still in existence.

* Social entrepreneurs are on the forefront of the trend to build for-profit/nonprofit social enterprises. This year, more than 37 percent of the 300 Echoing Green semifinalists structured their new ventures as hybrid organizations -- nonprofit/for-profit enterprises aimed at simultaneously fulfilling public duties and developing commercial markets for their activities. That's up 20 percent over 2007. Meanwhile, also since 2007, the total number of semifinalists structuring their organizations as nonprofits decreased by nearly 20 percent.

* Many social entrepreneurs are compelled to create social enterprises because of their personal experiences. Almost 40 percent of Echoing Green semifinalists since 2007 identify themselves as members of the communities they plan to serve.

Business Schools Reach Out to Military Veterans

As we get ready to kick-off the Syracuse University Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities program this Saturday, it was great to see Geoff Gloeckler’s article in Business Week, B-Schools Reach Out to Veterans. I particularly liked the paragraph that wrapped up the article because it was absolutely right on target:

The business schools say they benefit from the programs as much as the veterans. “It’s a privilege to work with disabled American veterans for the third year,” says Judy Olian, dean of UCLA Anderson, according to a press release from the Anderson School. “UCLA Anderson’s expertise in entrepreneurship is a way for us to provide resources to veterans who have sacrificed so much on behalf of the nation and who want to realize their own business dreams and desires to support their families and communities.

As Dean Olian said…it is our privilege to work with these fantastic vets in this outstanding program.

Sports and Entrepreneurship

The Orlando Sentinel yesterday ran a very nice story on a neat entrepreneurial company…XOS Digital. If you’re not familiar with the company, that’s probably OK but rest assured that all of your favorite college and NFL football teams, along with teams in the NBA and NHL know this organization very well. For those teams, XOS can be the difference between winning and losing. XOS was founded by Dan Aton in 1999 after he did some work for the Orlando Magic. Today, XOS is the dominant player in the digital sports space serving “more than 480 partners representing more than 900 teams in the NCAA, NFL, NBA, and NHL.” Dan is a great entrepreneur who took an interest and passion, and matched it up with a problem in the marketplace and in the process created a successful enterprise. For entrepreneurs and sports fans, the article is an interesting one to read: Lake Mary Company XOS Digital provides data for many college, pro sports teams.

Entrepreneurship in Fortune Magazine

While I understand that Fortune magazine is a (the?) magazine of corporate America, it’s nice to see that they are now starting to give a bit more notice to entrepreneurship. While I enjoy reading the publication, in recent years I was getting disgusted with their lack of coverage of non-tech entrepreneurship. In the current issue, there is a nice corporate entrepreneurship piece on one of my favorite companies, Williams-Sonoma. The article, Secret Sauce, discusses its growth from a struggling catalogue retailer to the position they now occupy in both the on-line as well as brick and mortar space.

There is also a short but fun piece showcasing three small entrepreneurial companies that are going head-to-head with some of the big guys in the publishing, hospitality and food space. The article by Jessica Shambora , is called, David and Goliath.

Entrepreneurship as a Road Forward for the Disabled

Wonderful story in today’s Wall Street Journal about the role that entrepreneurship can play for disabled individuals. The story, written by Sarah Needleman is entitled For Disabled, a Job Hunt Alternative and it highlights our Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities program. Thorugh our Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship, we also work with disabled entrepreneurs through our StartUp New York program and we seen amazing results. As our faculty like to say, entrepreneurship truly is a road forward for those who are disabled.

From the article:

Founded by the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, the boot camp starts with a 40-day distance-learning course, followed by 10 days of on-campus classes. Participants are also paired with mentors and have access to free resources such as legal and accounting services from corporate partners and the schools' alumni.

After graduating from the program in 2008, former Marine Brian Iglesias co-launched New York film-production company Veterans Inc. with a fellow veteran. Mr. Iglesias's neck and shoulder were injured during combat, causing permanent nerve damage to his right arm and requiring a metal plate in his neck. He says he previously spent five months searching unsuccessfully for a job in the entertainment industry—even failing to land unpaid internships. "I was begging people to work for free," he says.

The 33-year-old Mr. Iglesias, who has a bachelor's degree in film production from Temple University, suspects that some employers were uncomfortable hiring him because of his war experience. "Out of all the people who are candidates, they think, a year ago this guy was being shot at," he says.

With the poor economy further restricting employment options for the disabled, some organizations are seeing increased interest in programs designed to assist this group in starting businesses.

Comments from a Speech by Karen Mills of the SBA

From the Biz Box by Steve Viuker

On July 12, a forum called “Strengthening the Lending Environmentfor America’s Small Businesses”, was held in Washington, D.C.

It was sponsored by the Federal Reserve Board and featured comments by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. The Chairman urged banks and regulators to help the nation’s small businesses get the loans they needed to create jobs. Federal data indicate that lending to such companies fell to below $670 billion in the first quarter of this year from more than $710 billion in the second quarter of 2008.

Also speaking was SBA Administrator Karen Mills. Below are her comments to BizBox about small business issues and a link to her speech in Washington.

http://www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/mills-fedspeech-7-12-10.pdf

Overview
Small business is at the heart of the economy; so it needs to be at the heart of the recovery. They were most affected by the credit freeze. Big businesses have other options. The SBA has been able to make a difference at the end of the credit spectrum. The Recovery Act has allowed us to provide $30 billion worth of credit access.
Initiatives
SBLF- The mainstay of the Recovery Act program was to increase our guarantees to 90% and to reduce and/or eliminate our fees. One aspect of the Small Business Jobs bill is the Small Business Lending Fund. Why aren't banks lending? There are two reasons. One is that they don't want to take the risk. That is why the 90% guarantee is important. The other reason is lack of capital. The SBLF is $30 billion into hands of Main Street community banks. The access to this capital to these institutions will be as low as one percent. That is providing they increase lending to small businesses. And it won't cost $30 billion because the banks will pay the money back and also invest these funds and have multiples returns.

Regulation
The job of the SBA's Office of Advocacy is to point out when the needs of small businesses have to be taken into account in terms of the cost that regulations would impose on them. We look at Sarbanes/Oxley and all other compliance regulations.
Green jobs
The SBA looks at small business from traditional dry cleaners and restaurants to the high-growth entrepreneurs. One aspect that has picked up momentum is the green sector. There are innovations and opportunities that are creating new jobs. We want to make sure that these businesses have access to capital and to programs such as the SBIR program. (innovation research grants)

BP Oil
We have 28 disaster assistance locations in the affected states. We offer advice and economic injury loans to businesses that have been affected by the spill and the ban on fishing. In addition, if a business has an SBA loan from a Katrina-related loss, that business can defer payments on that loan.

Political SupportSupport for Small Business jobs bill in front of Congress is coming from both sides of the aisle. Small business creates the jobs in this country; government is there to see they are aided in that process.