HP ebook entrepreneur

See What They Had to Say: Entrepreneurship blogs that ring the most true John Wyckoff Small Business Trends Anita Campbell Small Business Trends Michael Arrington TechCrunch We gave members of our Small & Medium Business Printing Wiki the opportunity to vote on the best business blogs from a selection written by some of the best business bloggers on the web. The top three blogs in the Entrepreneurship category have been published in this HP eBook for you to download, print and reference as you need inspiration. Table of Contents Entrepreneurship, Working On, Not In, The Business Posted by Small Business Trends, John Wykcoff on October 16, 2005 ................................................................................. 4 Entrepreneurship, The On-Again, Off-Again Entrepreneur Posted by Small Business Trends, Anita Campbell on April 6, 2006 ...................................................................................... 7 Entrepreneurship, Don’t Blow Your Beta Posted by TechCrunch, Michael Arrington on January 9, 2006 .............................................................................. 9 Entrepreneurship Working On, Not In, The Business Posted by Small Business Trends, John Wykcoff on October 16, 2005 Entrepreneurship Working On, Not In, the Business by John Wyckoff How often have you heard a trainer or consultant say that as the owner of the business you should be working “on it” rather than “in it?” I’ve said it often myself. Fortunately, no one has ever asked me exactly what that meant. It appears to be a cliche or phrase that has become accepted although not clearly defined or understood. So, what’s the difference between working on or in your business? Employees work in the business. Most have specific duties or tasks to accomplish on a regular basis. Most know what’s expected of them. The “boss” however, doesn’t have such a clear path and few were trained to be bosses. Their tasks are self appointed and, based on my observations, quite varied from owner to owner. The result is that many work in the business sometimes and on it at other times. It appears to be a matter of priorities and fires. All too often the boss spends much of his or her time fighting fires. Rather than an owner working on the business they have become crisis managers. Many sit in their offices and wait for someone to come through the door with a problem that needs attention or resolution—now. Most owners seem to be pretty good at handling crisis problems. Some even call them “opportunities. ” to be pretty good at handling crisis problems. Some even call them “opportunities.” The reality is that the owner has trained his employees to bring all problems that need immediate attention to them. “ The reality is that the owner has trained his employees to bring all problems that need immediate attention to them. This, of course, takes the responsibility away from the staff and puts it squarely on the owner’s shoulders. I see extreme examples when a store is being remodeled or expanded. The owner then becomes the construction foreman, the architect, the designer and the one who knows where all the materials can be found. Through it all, the store keeps on running. Sales continue to be made, orders for inventory are placed; each department does its tasks. The employees know what to do on a day-to-day basis. So far there seems to be no reason to change the situation. However, there is also no leverage, no long term planning, no continuing education and the owner is getting little input other than from staff members. And most of that is negative. Okay, so what would change if the owner started working on the business? First, he or she would not be the first one in and the last one out. He wouldn’t necessarily come to the store every day. She would be circulating in the community making contacts with other owners of small businesses getting ideas. He would seek out organizations made up of like-minded business people in his community. She would be joining associations like the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club, and the Lion’s Club. Once a member the owner would be attending regular meetings to become an integral part of the community. Most owners seem ” 5 Entrepreneurship The owner would be expanding his or her circle of associates and yes, even friends, outside the industry. He or she would be spending “think time, that quiet time spent thinking about the future and ” how to use all that knowledge bottled up inside but not exercised because of day-to-day pressures. As I travel and talk to owners I often hear them complain that they don’t get as much time to do the things they like anymore; that they are working longer hours than ever and they are beginning to suffer from burnout. Well, Bunky, burnout is not uncommon. It’s not something only a few suffer. If you’ve been in the business for a decade or more you’ve probably suffered some level of burnout, distress, angst that seems to be almost impossible to resolve. You’ve been spending the majority of your time solving other people’s problems. You’ve come to accept it as just part of the business. It doesn’t have to be that way. Only you can change you. Your quality of life has to be a high priority. Some dealers have discovered that once they give their subordinates more latitude to make critical decisions those staff members rise to the occasion and become better managers themselves. Will they make mistakes? Count on it. People don’t learn by doing repetitive work. They learn by making judgment calls that are not always right. They learn by being given the authority and responsibility to do a better job. As an owner it is your responsibility to mentor and coach your managers and have them do the same for those who report to them. There is an adage that says: “If it can be measured it can be managed. If it is measured it can be improved. Working on your business should mean that you have the tools to measure and manage and ” more importantly, your managers have the training to measure and manager those who report to them. We are truly in the digital age. Computers, cameras, even phones have moved from analog to digital. Your business must do the same. You have the hardware. Now, as the owner must learn what those digital reports mean and what you need to do to implement and monitor them. On the analog side you do need to hone your mentoring and coaching skills. Fact is your staff is closer to an extended family than a working team. Like it or not you are the Daddy or the Mommy as well as the Chief of Police and coach. However, you shouldn’t be the sole fireman. Working On, Not In, the Business by John Wyckoff “ Only you can change you. Your quality of life has to be a high priority. ” 6 Entrepreneurship The On-Again Off-Again Entrepeneur Posted by Small Business Trends, Anita Campbell on April 6, 2006 Entrepreneurship The On-Again Off-Again Entrepeneur by Anita Campbell A trend I am seeing increasingly is what I dub the “on-again off-again entrepreneur. The on-again off” again entrepreneur is someone who moves back and forth between being employed and owning his or her own business—multiple times. It’s not an either/or question: either being an entrepreneur your whole life, or being employed your whole life. More frequently these days, people are doing both at various times, moving in and out of entrepreneurship as the exigencies of earning a living force their hands. Jory Des Jardins, a lovely person who I met at the New Communications Forum in January, writes frequently about this phenomenon. In a well-written piece from February, she talks about entering selfemployment again for the third time. She then meets up with an old friend who has left his own startup business to return to the corporate world again. His comments give insight into why some people become on-again off-again entrepreneurs: He parked in front of my place wearing jeans and a button-down silk shirt–a dead giveaway that he was working a corporate job again. He was almost sheepish when he came inside, explaining why he was in my neck of the woods. “We had a training out here for my new job. Don’t worry, it’s only temporary. ” We walked to a coffee shop and shared a cookie, like we used to. He seemed happy, if not cautious. He liked being married, he said, though he wasn’t sure about the new job. “What’s wrong with it?” I said. “Nothing, except that it’s a job. A regular old job. I’m back in a cubicle, making phone calls and enduring a commute. I said I would never do that again. But I’m married now, and she’s just out of grad school works out I’ll be back working at home and running a business from my laptop. “ and not working yet. He pulled out a business card. “What’s this?” “It’s the company I’m starting on the ” side. If everything works out I’ll be back working at home and running a business from my laptop. “That ” sounds nice. “I can’t do this nine-to-five thing knowing that’s it. That this is how I’m going to be living ” my life. ” This describes one type of on-again off-again entrepreneur: the entrepreneur at heart who takes a corporate job because of needing the money. But he doesn’t like it…not one bit. He’s just biding his time until he can sustain himself in his own startup business and get back to working from a laptop at home. It may take several tries, and several bouts of corporate employment, before he gets it right. But the onagain off-again entrepreneur will keep trying. There are other reasons for being an on-again off-again entrepreneur. I’ll talk about some of those reasons in future posts. If everything ” 8 Entrepreneurship Don’t Blow Your Beta Posted by TechCrunch, Michael Arrington on January 9, 2006 Entrepreneurship I’ve seen hundreds of new products launch over the last six months, and I think I have some pretty good advice for companies that want to improve their beta release. In addition to my personal experiences with companies, I recently wrote “What Annoys You Most About Betas?Don’t Blow Your Beta - dirtylaundry” on Crunchnotes to help me prepare for this post. The comments to that post give a lot of direct feedback from early adopters and much of that information is reflected here as well. Every company does things a little differently. Some rush the product out, features-be-damned. Others wait, and wait, and wait, until its “perfect” Some companies are secretive. Others open. And so on. . Certainly there is no set recipe for success (or failure). But there are a number of easy-to-avoid traps when building and presenting a product. Likewise, there are a number of “crowd pleaser” features that always get positive comments. First Impressions: the main thing to remember is that you generally only get one look from the early adopter crowd. There is just too much going on for them to give a flawed company multiple chances to get it right. You either grab their attention, or you lose their attention. If you grab ‘em, everything is easier from then on. If you bore them, you are facing an incredible uphill battle just to get them back to the site. So, basically, don’t blow your first impression. Once they’ve made the decision that you are not noteworthy, it is very hard to get them to pay attention again. Rolling Feature Release Somewhere along the line people got the idea that rolling out functionality in stages is a good thing. There are two arguments for this. First, it allows an earlier launch. Ok. That’s true. The second argument is that by releasing features in stages, you’ll have regular news that bloggers and other journalists can talk about. This is also true, but a lot of companies get a little too religious about this and start to pull features just so that they will have news down the road. I hear this all the time from companies - “please don’t write about this feature yet. we want to release it next month and get you to write about us again then. ” If your first impression is positive, people will want to hear about future news. If it isn’t, people won’t care. Focus on making that launch a memorable one. Don’t Blow Your Beta by Michael Arrington “ You either grab their attention, or you lose their attention. If you grab ‘em, everything is easier from then on. ” 10 Entrepreneurship Every new feature is not news. Don’t Blow Your Beta by Michael Arrington Incomplete Features Some people take the “rolling feature release” idea above to mean they can release half-baked stuff. This allows for a quicker launch, of course. Slap a label on it, like “developer release” , “alpha” or “beta” and the hope is that people will be understanding and kind, and give you good advice and suggestions for improvement and evolution. This is a bad idea. You will be crucified for wasting people’s time and they will leave brutal comments slamming your product. It is far better to delay launch, or remove the feature entirely, than show stuff that doesn’t work. This is a “fall on your sword” issue. If the team is pressing to do this, spend political capital in fighting it. Your equity will be worth more because of it. Pre-launch labels do not protect you from scorn. The Browser Issue Internet Explorer has dominant market share, and (at least today) you must work on IE to get mass consumer adoption. However, most of the early adopters use Firefox, and a lot of them use Macs. At one point, 70% of TechCrunch readers used the Firefox or Safari browsers. If you don’t support Firefox and, to a lesser extent, Safari, when you launch, you are going to be shunned by the early adopters. Landing Pages Many companies put up a basic landing page while they are in development. These landing pages usually ask for people’s email address, promising notification when the product launches. I personally like landing pages because it gives me something to point to when writing about a prerelease product. But many users don’t like them. A common complaint from people is that they sign up on a landing page and don’t hear anything for months (so they forget all about it). Another complaint is that the landing page doesn’t give clear information on what the product will do. If you are going to do it, make sure that launch is imminent and that you give fairly detailed information on the product vision. Bloggers and Blogging Most early adopters read blogs. A lot of them write blogs, too. Engage with bloggers. 11 Entrepreneurship Don’t Blow Your Beta by Michael Arrington never attack your critics on your blog or in comments on other blogs. “ They are a powerful way to spread your vision, and they are generally much more technically adept than the average big publication journalist. They don’t have to deal with editors and fact checkers (for better or worse), and so it is often easier to get your pure vision out there for the world to read. You should also publish a blog. Not only is it the best way to tell the world about what you are doing, it also gives you the opportunity to repay bloggersDon’t Blow Your Beta - dirtylaundry who write about you with a link back to them. Don’t underestimate the importance to a blogger of being linked to on your blog. Just like you, bloggers want mind share. Never, never, never attack your critics on your blog or in comments on other blogs. Engage with them and be constructive even if they are not. Even if they are dead wrong, thousands of other people probably have had the same thought and haven’t bothered to write about it. Don’t assume they are a jerk; rather, assume that your communications are flawed and need to be re-thought. You are going to have to develop a very thick skin. Obvious Trust Issues Don’t ask for more personal information from your users than you absolutely need. Yes, having good demographic information on your users, like zip code and birth date, is a valuable asset. But many people won’t sign up for services that are asking for more information than absolutely necessary, or will purposefully enter false information. Don’t break people’s trust during the registration process. Be like Netvibes, if you can and offer a nearcomplete service without registration at all. Never, never, ” 12