JC’s View

Earlier this week, I came across this great article by Roger Ehrenberg:

• Monitor110: A Post Mortem

It is definitely one of the most objective and well-written startup post mortems I have read by a member of the actual team.  His list of Seven Deadly Sins, which in my opinion is not complete but a great list nonetheless, consists of:

1. The lack of a single, “the buck stops here” leader until too late in the game
2. No separation between the technology organization and the product organization
3. Too much PR, too early
4. Too much money
5. Not close enough to the customer
6. Slow to adapt to market reality
7. Disagreement on strategy both within the Company and with the Board

Now, depending upon the situation, some of those may or may not hold true for all startups, but I would like to highlight the first one “the buck stops here” along with “not close enough to the customer”.  You need a strong leader who can come to final decisions and be responsible for them (but be ready to change as the market or situation requires) and you also need to truly get in bed with your customers.  Now, by that, I don’t mean you need to cowtail to each and every whim (especially on the features side) but you do need to truly  understand their pain and come up with a solution that directly addresses it.

I want to send out my thanks to Roger for sharing his insight into the problems and struggles at Monitor110.  It is great to see others willing share their real-life experiences building startups and doing it without placing blame all around.  That’s a hard thing for most people to do and I applaud those that are able to successfully accomplish it.

The recent post by Dharmesh Shah (Startup Hiring: An Entrepreneur Disagrees With Entrepreneur Magazine) reminded me of a few simple rules I follow regarding hiring and firing people:

• Find great people who excel at learning new things as they will almost always be of the greatest value to your organization.  This is expecially true for startups as you need people able to quickly adapt as your company grows and changes. 
• Put an emphasis on finding people who are able to execute.  In a startup, whether it is a sales guy, a programmer, or a customer support specialist, your employees need to accomplish the task and move on.  Some people get caught up with the process or by trying to do it perfectly. However,  when you are trying to launch and grow a new company on a shoe-string, you need people who can really get it done with as little fanfare and struggle as possible.
• The moment you realize that someone is not working out, fire them.  Dragging it out (and that is what you are doing) makes it worse for everyone.  When it comes to employee management, this was one of the hardest lessons I have ever learned but one of the most critical in keeping the company productive and the morale high.  As soon as it starts going sour for you (or them), cut the ties, find a replacement, and move on. 

So, when hiring at a startup, find those people who love to learn and execute.  And, don’t let the difficulties of firing someone prevent you from doing the right thing for your company.

This is the story of my experience with Comcast, their support teams, and how Twitter saved the day. Now, unlike many of the people I see complaining online, I have, for the most part, found Comcast to provide very good service.  I did, however, try their new Comcast TiVo DVR box and that was a complete failure…but except for that, for the most part, they have met my expectations in regards to service and support.

So, yesterday, July 1, was the day we launched VendorCity to the public.  So, it was going to be a crazy and stressful day no matter what.  However, it got off to a VERY BAD START when I awoke early to get a jump on my email. I went to send email through my ”old” company’s email server which uses port 25 and does security via IP address.  (I know…I know…it should be over secure connections..let’s just ignore that issue for now and chastise me later).

I started up Outlook and my email arrived without a hitch but I was unable to send out (but had no trouble with my VendorCity account which is hosted by Google Apps).  After a quick investigation, I was able to definitively determine that port 25 was blocked.  Well, you can imagine my surprise and frustration of having to deal with this on the day we are launching VendorCity. 

I called Comcast support and get connected with a standard first-level support person.  I made it very clear that I needed to speak with a networking expert because it appeared that Comcast was blocking port 25 (the smtp port). She asked me what email program I was using (MS Outlook) and she said that Comcast does not support Outlook (only Outlook Express) but that she would work hard to help me anyways. 

Well, that was nice of her but then she proceeded to try and walk me through lots of Outlook and Control Panel settings.  After my, oh, 10th time trying to explain to her that it had NOTHING TO DO WITH APPLICATIONS but it was a problem with my network and specifically sending SMTP email over port 25, she told me that the only way to get someone else to help me would be to hang-up and call in again. Well, you can imagine my surprise and anger when I was told that. 

Continue reading ‘Comcast Support: How Twitter Saved the Day!’

If you are thinking about starting your own company, be prepared for the highs, lows, and completely exhausted moments.  It is nothing like a traditional 9-5 job and if you are not prepared for the rigors and frustrations of building a company, they can take you by surprise.

We did an initial private BETA launch of VendorCity this past Friday and I spent much of the weekend (roughly 20 hours) preparing for our public launch this week.  I missed going to a birthday party, mowing the lawn, spending quality time with my two boys, and simply having a chance to relax after a very long and arduous week.  And, it is only going to get worse as we launch VendorCity over the next couple of days.

So, why go through all of this?  The reasons are many but they come down to the excitement of building something, the thrill of watching your work have an impact on others, the ability to dictate how and when you work (to a point), and the opportunity to make more than just a salary. And, of course, being your own boss and having the chance to make your own decisions and learn from them in ways that are nearly impossible when you work for others. 

So, what do you think it takes to be an entrepreneur?

As an entrepreneur, you must be a jack of all trades and must be ready to do just about anything.  If you feel certain things are not worthy of your time or are too beneath you, then starting businesses is not for you.  It really is that simple.  Here’s a short story that highlights what you, as an entrepreneur, should be ready to do.

This past week my two partners and I at VendorCity decided to change our plans and launch nationally instead of locally (we were going to start in just Boston and New Hampshire).  For the most part, technically, this was not a huge hurdle because we had “sorta” planned for it but we had not spent any significant effort thinking the issue through.  We knew eventually we would have to geocode this (put client’s in a region based upon their zipcode) but felt that we could do it quicker for now by manually by selecting cities in each state as the nearest “metro” area.

Continue reading ‘Be prepared to do just about anything’

Since VendorCity is a recommendation site, it is critical that we take into account best practices when building our own rating and reputation systems.  There’s some good ones and, well, some not so good ones.  Joshua Porter over at Bokardo.com shared some valuable insights on these issues based upon an article from Boxes and Arrows entitled On A Scale of 1 to 5. A close read of these two articles highlight some critical aspects that any site that provides ratings and recommendations should follow.

There’s some great stuff in both those articles and well worth your time if you are involved in any rating, reputation, or crowdsourcing effort.  Within the comments, I found a link to another good read called Collective Choice: Rating Systems.

These articles have made us re-evaluate our own rating methodology and especially the specific rating categories in place today.  Now’s the time to make changes before we launch!

It is nearly impossible to overstate how critical your personal and professional network is and yet most of us, myself included, don’t spend enough effort building and maintaining it.  Those that are most successful in business (and in life) almost always have an extensive network of people that know and trust.  Ask them and they will tell you that a direct introduction or word-of-mouth referral from a trusted friend or colleague is the single best way to build that network of people you know and work with. 

Over the past 10 years I can honestly say that I have done a bad job of building and maintaining my own network.  There’s always a reason, an excuse, but unless you actively work on it, that network won’t be there when you most need it.  I turned a small software company, WebEvent, into a venture-funded firm shortly after the first Internet bubble burst.  I had lots of opportunities to build my personal and professional network at that time (and ever since) but was always too busy; there always seemed to be too many other priorities.  I am now building my second startup, VendorCity, which is a business-to-business vendor recommendation site and am having to rebuild and expand my network.  What I am finding is that not only is it critical (and effective) but I am truly enjoying the experience of getting to meet and know all of these great people.   

So, I highly suggest that you find and cultivate personal and business relationships by going to networking events in your field (and related fields).  For me, I’ve recently joined:

• New Hampshire High Tech Council
• Software Assocation of New Hampshire

and have attended the following networking events:

• MIT Enterprise Forums of New Hampshire (we did a skydive presentation pitch)
• NH Entrepreneur of the Year
• WebNOB (Web North of Boston - meetup in Manchester)
• NSWG (North Shore Web Geeks - meetup in Newburyport)
• PopSignal (networking event in Boston)

Also looking at going to the WebInno group event in July, local meetups in NH and Mass, as well as the Boston Mashable event in August.  If you know of any others, please drop me a line or post a comment.

In the upcoming weeks and months, I will be using this blog to share my experiences as a technologist and entrepreneur launching VendorCity, my latest startup.  You’ll have an insider’s view on what makes a startup tick and the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur. Plus, I’ll share my thoughts on technology, social networking, crowdsourcing, and life in general.  Most importantly, I hope that my readers will become active partcipants and share their thoughts and stories as well.