Clarity:

Had a great call today with a prominent Venture Capitalist (have several more scheduled next week). He confirmed an opinion that we had been floating around the office for some time. We need to focus on our climber.com product. Like most entrepreneurs, we are thinking ahead to climber version 3.82 and in reality we are still completing our beta version.

Sometimes, it takes someone from the outside to gently nudge you in the correct direction. This does not mean changing the destination just the road. So we are working with godspeed to complete our user interface for Climber.com (by the way we are hiring talented User Interface people, send resumes to info@mingle.com). The new look and feel should be completed in the coming weeks and we should have a news set of features!

Cheers,
Mike

Clearing the Mind:

I just got back from a great vacation with my wife. It was a nice break from the hectic pattern of life. It was the equivalent of my mind letting out a big sigh and I realized that I really needed to take time to decompress.

Laying on a beach with nothing but blue water and the sun is the best medicine for clearing the brain. I think everyone will agree that once you do decompress it allows your mind to attack your problems from a new perspective. It frees you from some of the biases that could cloud your judgment. This allows you to create a new solution with true insight. Your mind sorts out what it needs and flushes everything else out. For me this happens in the background, without really thinking about it.

Many people talk about similar experiences when they do yoga or meditate. I often sit quite for a few minutes and try to let go of the world.

Cheers,
Mike

Burning Desire to Succeed:

One of the traits that I admire most in other people is a burning desire to succeed. When I hear the success of other people it inspires me. I recently was able to hear William Taylor speak, he is the founding director of Business 2.0 and author a book to be released later in the year, "Mavericks at Work". He provided many stories about success and the desire to succeed. It seemed that against all odds people succeed. He pointed to the example of the airline business where collectively it has lost billions of dollars since inception save one company, Southwest Airlines. He went on to say that Southwest was the best performing stock in the market since 1985 (I could be wrong on the year). The arguable worst industry in the world you find the most successful company. I take inspiration from this, Southwest understands itself and they can communicate their message effectively to their customers and shareholders.

I see this as a war of will and likewise I believe in any role you need a burning desire to succeed to stand out.. This passion for success is easy to identify in people. They are often high energy positive people who love a challenge. They are competitive and can see the value of a team of people with like mind. When many of these people get together with a single focus their chances of hitting that goal is increased exponentially.

Cheers,
Mike

Tough Weeks:

These last few weeks have been very trying. Anyone who has put together a software product know that this is a difficult process. Creating something that is unique online and creates true value for its users is even more difficult.

We have had to make some employee changes as well. This is very difficult in a young business, but the bottom line in the bottom line. A product that is delayed even a month or two means missing some critical numbers and also increases the burn rate. In order to stay on track sometimes it means making the tough decisions. This week was no exception. It is compounded by the fact that the changes we had to make were with truly great people, who will succeed elsewhere. They just were not the right people for the right job. In the book, "Good to Great", this is covered very well. The author explains that if you have someone in the wrong seat on the bus you are doing them a disservice and that you as the manager have to be the adult and make the tough decision.

Cheers to a better week,
Mike

Taking Employees Home With You:

I was visiting a friend who has a very successful design company. He was very frustrated with one of his managers. He had spoken to a lot of his friends and colleagues about this person. He had been thinking about it this person for some time and how she did not fit the company any more. She had become complacent and had some issues dealing with customers.

The bottom line is that she was stealing time from him. When he went home he was frustrated and consumed with her ineptness. Sometimes the toughest thing to do is to cut the cord. Today he is still struggling with this employee and time that he should be enjoying after work is being stolen by this employee.

He knows what he should do, but he has failed to act. As soon as he realized that this was happening, he became culpable. Once he solves this issue he will be free to work on items that will allow the business to continue to succeed.

Cheers,
Mike

Beware of Partners:

Sometimes lessons that you learn leave you jaded and hard. It is the difficult paths that we have walked before that we are careful to choose again. I hope that those who read this can learn from this lesson that I learned first hand. This is a very important lesson.

Choosing partners to start a new business happens everyday. Sometimes, people become so excited about the idea of the new business that they overlook attributes in their partners. They overlook many things in order to get the baby born. I have learned this lesson first hard. I had a partner who did not live up to her promises. It was only after the hard work of other that she wanted to become involved, after the business was profitable (she also had other non-business related motives). Keep in mind that a problem partner will always be a problem partner. If they are tough to take in the beginning, they will be unbearable later on.

So here is a list off must do's before entertaining the idea of a partner. This by no means is a catch all. Please feel free to send me some additions. These focus on their histories being an indicator of their future promise.

• Spell it out: Define the role and commitment level of each partner, down to the hours of the week that they are going to work on this project. Sign this document!
• Understand Outside Activity: Find out where their heart are. Are they working on outside projects? Are they 100% committed to your project?
• Talk to old partners/business associates: This is where I failed. People build a reputation over a period of time. What is the partners reputation like? DO NOT TAKE THEIR WORD FOR IT! Ask around, take your time. Talk to co-workers, business associates, employees and anyone else who knows this person. Failures are ok and expected, but what is their success ratio. Who invested in these ventures, how do those people feel about them when things went south.
• Google them: But don't trust the press releases, websites and any other media which they might control. You can use this to validate history, but, take it with a grain of salt.
• Background check: This is a must. This will tell a lot about a person and their credit/legal history. Someone with bad credit will have a negative impact if you need to borrow or raise money in the future.
• Trust your Gut: You know what the right decision is already. If you have any hesitation you already know what you should do.
  
• Trust Someone Else's Gut: Chances are you know someone who can pick people out. Get them to spend some time around this potential partner. Their bull-shit sensor will be better tuned than yours.
  
• Ask a mentor: To this day, I have people who teach me lessons all the time. These mentors help act as a unbiased sounding board. If you do not have a mentor, there are places such as SCORE that will introduce you to older business people.

Bottom line is that starting a business is a long term commitment and the more successful it becomes the more that is on the line. Bad partners will sink their teeth into you and bleed you as long as they can.

Great partners are the complete opposite. They are people who compliment your skill set and who from the beginning are committed 100%. They are also very difficult to find. Here are some ideas of places to look.

• Family & Friends: This is a double edged sword. These are the people that you trust the most, but sometimes these feelings get in the way. Be careful, but that said I have always done very well with family. You can't beat their commitment
• Co-Workers: This is great because you get to see how they work. Are they committed to task? Do they get their work done? Are they a dreamer but not a doer?
• Business Associates: Since they are in business, they have a reputation and history. Do you have friends or associates in common? Ask their opinion! This is a good group if you can find many good opinions about the potential partner.
  
• Church/Community Groups/Universities: All these areas have many people who know the potential partner. The more positive opinions you can get the better.

Thats it!

Cheers,
Mike

Spilling the Beans:

Ok here it is... today you guys will get a better idea of the team magic mingle is working on. Over the next few weeks, I will outline some products of the products that we are working on. Today it is about Climber.

Climber is a brand new spin on the whole work world. It is for people who are currently happy in their job, but, would be open to receiving job offers at a salary level they choose. Suppose you are just happy as a clam in your daily grind. What would you do if someone offered you a similar job at 30% more pay? How about doubling your salary? What if you only wanted to receive job offer from a specific company (Disney, Yahoo, Google, Apple etc...)? And, no one knows who you are... it's a blind system. Once a company finds you, you choose whether or not you want to share your contact/resume information with them. You are passively searching for your dream job. All completely anonymous!

This is beauty of Climber While you are involved in your daily life our proprietary search algorithm is working for you. Seeking to match you with a company which could offer you your dream job! Additionally, companies are using the product from the other side. They are using the same search algorithm to find new employees. If the salary is to low or its out of the area... you don't show up!

Sign up today as an alpha member and let us find your perfect job... Climber.com

On the Cusp of Greatness:

The gut feeling is so important in business. Many times you feel a nervous excitement about what is to come. This is one of the greatest times in business. All of your hard work is about to pay off, now it's all about execution.

Today, I feel that we are the cusp of greatness. The idea to make the Internet a safer place to start of relationship of any kind is a very simple idea. Staying true to that is tougher. But ultimately, your relationship with the customer is what will drive the business into the future. Our promise to our userbase is that they will always come first and they can trust that what we do will be in their best interest and not always in our best financial interest short term. But long term those two needs are firmly aligned.

The nervous excitement stems from having all the pieces to the puzzle and an idea of what the finished project looks like, but not knowing yet how to put it together. We figure it out as we go. We get feedback from what we have done and clues from the puzzle pieces placed properly.

Cheers,
Mike

Coming together:

Sometimes it takes mass amounts of thoughts to come to a single simple conclusion. Simple solutions are often the reduction a complex starting point. This takes time and energy to get everyone on the same page, and to buy in.

Today we had a great session. A uniform epiphany which each member of the team has bought into. A simple solution to an overriding problem of providing to many solutions to an even larger universe. This new vision is clear, until today it had been hidden beneath the clouds of past ideas.

Letting old ideas or products influence tomorrows decisions is a weak point in the armor of our bigger competitors. Sometimes, we too, allow a prior decision to influence future ones even though it clearly should not. It reminds me of the classic example of red and black on roulette. The chance of either color coming remains the same regardless of past outcomes. This is a lesson that I learn over and over.

Cheers,
Mike

Core Statement

We had some great internal meetings today. We truly have a great set of people and that allows us the freedom have conversations where everyone gets it. As the company grows we may not have the luxury of a constructive all in meeting.

A company must remain fluid, but must also be true to its core beliefs. I believe this can be done creating a core statement. This core statement is the benchmark by which we make company decisions. Our core statement at mingle is the desire to create the safest, most secure place online to create relationships.

Once the core statement is created we can then test our decisions against it. We ask ourselves in the choice at hand is inline with our core company statement. Even though a decision may make financial business sense short term, are we doing the wrong thing for our customer long term? Are we selling out our customer?

The core statement forces consistency and reliability in a company. As times change it may be necessary to change and augment the core statement. It is important to note that most companies will change their products or services more than their core.

If executed correctly, customers will feel your core statement.

Cheers,
Mike

Sometimes things are just so wrong: (OT)

Having a background in financial aid, I keep up to date on many things. On Feb 1, congress passed some changes to the federal budget that will affect every person in the country holding Stafford loans. In addition to disallowing students to lock their interest rates while in school (while they are at historic lows), they have made it illegal to use a free federal product (student loan consolidation) with any lender other than those who currently have your student loans. This means that even if another lender has a better interest rate, you are beholden to your current lender. If they provide you with poor service, you can not change. (These changes go into effect on July 1st. In order to avoid them you should consolidate before the deadline.)

The most disturbing part of this is how it evolved. Please take a moment to read this article and you will get an idea of how John Boehner and Sallie Mae have single handedly changed increased the cost of college for every student in the country. It is truly gross.

Other Reading:
New Bill Hurts Student Loan Program
Worries Mount With Rising Student Loan Rates
New Federal Legislation Makes it Important to Consolidate Loans

Sadly,
Mike

The Friday 15:

Communication is a big deal in a growing company. Each person has the ability to contribute more ideas than they let on. Most of us would contribute more if we were asked in a non-threatening environment. With this in mind we have a meeting every Friday for 15 mins. This is an open ended meeting with the goal of talking about the prior week.

We focus on three main goals for the meeting. The first is to talk about any problems in the prior week. This enables people to talk about their problems and ask for help within the group. The second is to celebrate our accomplishments and failures of the prior week. The final goal is an open format where we talk about crazy off the wall ideas which could evolve into something meaningful.

As a manger of the company my goal is to talk as little as possible. I do enough of that during the week. I act as a facilitator and am not worried about the time too much.

Cheers,
Mike

Gypsy Programming:

Working with a new group of people always creates new ideas... I think one the best that this team is involving into is gypsies. This means that we follow the water. Whatever is generating the most interest both internally and externally we pour all our into. We realize that what we are passionate about today may turn be thrown away tomorrow. So we allocate our time to where the water is. If someone needs help we all pitch in.

This focus also forces us to think about single focused projects that are simple to use. You will see that each product drives to a single goal. They are all tied together but will have functionality that is unique to each. The goal is to keep expanding the total package of tools to engage and provide additional value to each user. If they can not add functionality to the suite for existing users we must justify the work.

Currently we are working on threhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.spell.gife main projects, climber.com/natch.com and edloan.com. Check them out if you time. Most of the work is still behind the scenes.

Cheers,
Mike

More Progress:

Part of the problem of being on the Internet is that we are looking for everything to be done yesterday. We are still making lots of progress and we have a target launch date for climber.com of Feb 14 (Yes I know is valentine's day.) I do not expect the initial site to be all that pretty, however, it will have the functionality that sets us apart.

I have heard the phrase Web 2.0. When they mention this they mean all the companies who have been able to weather the storm and are now profitable as dot coms. I call these companies dot brawns. They are legitimate companies who use the Internet to make our lives simpler. EBay, Amazon, and monster are a few who have made the transition and changed the way we do and think about business.

I started to spill the beans about climber.com, but changed my mind. About a week from now I will paint the entire picture.

Cheers,
Mike

Replace yourself everyday:

Part of being a leader is delegation. Knowing what tasks to assign to someone else is difficult and letting go of important roles is even harder. Many new entrepreneurs have a tough time letting go period. You must let go to allow your business grow.

The best way to approach this is to get rid of any tasks that you repeat on a regular basis. This frees your time to focus on those things that make your business grow. Many people spend a lot of time writing checks and managing the day to day bookkeeping. In many cases those hours would be much more productive working with a new client or figuring out a new business strategy. Look deep into yourself and figure out how your business would do if you applied 100% of your time to what you do best.

Another benefit of this strategy is creating a business that runs itself, where no one person is its lifeblood. Everyone is replaceable including you. You may disagree but you will never get a larger company to acquire you if you can not convince them the business lives beyond your stewardship. In the book, Good to Great, one of the measure used in defining a great business is one that continues to succeed after the founder/leader has left. Thus, leaving behind a thriving business is a mark of your business acumen.

Cheers,
Mike

Props to my Team!

Sometimes you need to step outside yourself and look at what you have done in a short amount of time. In a very short amount of time we have been able to take a url and push it into the top 100,000 website online (according to Alexa.com). This is in great part due to the team that we have assembled here. Thanks guys!

Cheers,
Mike

Plan for Failure Deal with Success:

This may sound contrary to much of what is taught in business schools, but, in a startup failure is sometimes good for business.

Failure is close to absolute, success has many levels. It is thought to pick a direction when you are close to successful. Many close to successful companies spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure it out. Furthermore, additional changes in direction may lead down the path to failure, and more than money you have wasted time.

In my humble opinion, applying just enough grease($$$) to get the job done is what it takes to in a startup. If you fail, you know not to tread on those waters, if you are successfully you know where to apply more grease.

My strategy is to take several small shots in the dark that will either endear me to a customer or get me kicked out of the arena. Many times you will do both, with CampusDirt.com we angered some schools and endeared ourselves to students. But either way, you know you have something or not.

Dealing with success is its own slippery slope. Succeed to fast and every Tom, Dick and Harry will be on your coattails. Go to slow and never get critical mass to scale. I personally love to be on the edge of complete chaos. This is absolute startup 101, controlling the chaos of the daily changing wind. Success is fun to deal with, the problems that arise are not insurmountable because as long as you are successful there will be people to help.

Cheers,
Mike

Question of the day:

I received a question from a startup blog reader. They said that they had received a lot of value out of the blog and wanted to know how to help. After ruling out the fact that this might be a family member, I figured I would answer....

We need alpha members! Please follow this link and complete a profile. The more people that do this the better! Plus if you do, you will earn a nifty "badge" which says you are an Alpha member on your profile.

And that's not all, soon we will begin a contest for a Fully Loaded Ipod! that's right anyone who is an alpha member will get a chance for a brand new Ipod with 1,000 songs! Additionally, you can earn additional entries in the contest for referring other people who become members.

So there it is, help a brother out and get a chance to win a Fully Loaded Ipod!

Cheers,
Mike

Begin with the financial end in mind:

I was at dinner last night and was talking with a long time friend, who had an idea for a business in her home town. The town is missing this type of service and it would probably be a success if she put her heart into it! The problem is that she had not thought about the money aspect. How much would she want to make each year? Is it possible to make that out of her business? Would she have to have multiple locations to meet her financial goals?

One thing that handcuffs a lot of entrepreneurs to a business is a business that is successful but does not meet their personal financial goals. They choose an industry where even if they were the biggest dog in the area, they would not have the financial freedom a lot of entrepreneurs want.

I have a process, it starts with writing a business plan with financial projections. Now divide the financial top line numbers by two. How do these numbers make you feel, what is the chance of success. Sleep on it for a couple nights, ask some friends and decide how much passion you have for the particular business. I picture myself six months into the new business, what will I be doing? For me, I need to remain creative and fluid. Is this in line with what you feel the requirements are for the business at this point?

At some point, after all the excitement of starting the business is over you have to get to work. Is this the work that you want to do? Is it going to pay you enough to be happy? Can you get a job that will provide you with less responsibility and a more stable life? There are no sure things when starting a business. It's either in you or not. But you need to begin with the financial end in mind!

Cheers,
Mike

Here we go...

Here is a little taste of what we have to come. Please check out 68.107.47.194:3000. It is still very alpha, but you will get an idea of what we are doing.

Cheers,
Mike