entrepreneur

Top 5 qualities the start-up CEO wants from team members

You have to be a certain sort of person to get on well in a start-up and there’s no doubt it isn’t a suitable career choice for everyone. I thought a quick “top 5 qualities” may be useful for any of you out there that are wondering if this sort of adventure is for you.

My original list was much longer but I’ve whittled it down to the 5 that matter most to me – I realise that this is personal to me and many of you will have some of your own that you wish to add in the comments section.

Read on if you’ve been bitten by the start-up bug or are thinking you might jump in to the technology bubble that’s rapidly exploding right now.

1. POSITIVITY No-one wants to listen to or work alongside a whinger or sniper. Yeah – things generally aren’t even close to perfect in a start-up environment but get over it & get over yourself & you’ll make a far better team member.

2. HARD WORK No getting away from this one folks. You cannot cover off everything you need to by working 9-5 for 5 days a week. If that’s all you can give, stay well away from start-up land.

3. COMMITMENT I want to know you’re gonna stick around long enough for me to recoup my investment in you – and there will be one. The flip side to that is the minute you’re gone, you’re gone – don’t expect a leaving party & sad farewells in a start-up; no-one has time for that.

4. ENTHUSIASM AND ENERGY Enthusiasm for what we’re all trying to achieve, hunger for success and energy which manifests itself as urgency in all that you do. Don’t come sloping in to work at 9am telling me you are tired. I don’t want to hear it.

5. A SOLUTIONS FOCUSED OUTLOOK Don’t bring me problems. We have millions of those already. Push yourself a bit, work it out & bring me a solution. I like that a lot better.

You’ll note nothing on the list has anything to do with your skills. I guess they’re a given & a secondary consideration.

As always your comments are welcome – keep them coming & I look forward to reading them.

Entrepreneur tips from the uber Rich Felix Dennis Part 2

This is the second part of a two part blog reviewing extracts of Felix Dennis’s book “How to Get Rich”. In Part 1 we went over Felix’s view on the 5 most common start up errors. Now the bad news is out of the way we can move onto the Cardinal Virtues of the Entrepreneur. Anyone who is a long time reader of my blog will recognise many of these “virtues” as themes I’ve touched on before – let’s face it there can only be so many virtues. First up is:

· Persistence. Felix has a different view on this from most writers of business books. Basically his view is that you need to be terrier-like in persistence when it matters but with an ability to stop being stubborn when all the evidence shows that you’re on a mission to nothing. So – you should try harder than you think you can for something that’s worthwhile but you should also remember that quitting is not dishonourable. The skill comes in recognising when you’ve crossed the line from being persistent to flogging a dead horse – and that’s the difficult bit.

· Self-belief. This is the big one. Without it you probably won’t start on the journey to become an entrepreneur anyway. As Felix says, “self-belief is a priceless asset” and he’s right. One of my very earliest blogs was about a lecture I’d attended given by Dr Dennis Kimbro. Dr Kimbro researched 150 very successful African Americans as to why they were successful & self-belief was one of his 4 pillars. The example Felix uses in his book is a wartime Winston Churchill but every successful entrepreneur has self-belief. If you don’t believe in yourself it’s unlikely that you’ll convince anyone else to believe in you so get used to trampling on doubt (after you’ve confronted it in a sensible way – not at 3am in the morning!). Dr Kimbro also talks about this at length – especially the doubt caused by your family and other friends and well wishers who seek to “advise” you.

· Trust your instinct. This one is necessary but tricky as it’s about knowing which horses to back in terms of all the opportunities that you encounter. There is no easy way to get into a place where you’re able to trust your instincts. You have to put in the long yards, kiss a lot of frogs and make a lot of mistakes along the way. Eventually you find it becomes easier and your hit rate has improved. Entrepreneurs aren’t managers – they go with their gut feelings and often make decisions on the spur of the moment with inadequate information. It’s impossible to trust your instinct in a deliberate, considered manner.

· Diversify. It’s worked for Dennis & other legendary entrepreneurs like Richard Branson. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Launch products that compete with each other so that you own the whole market – think about it for a minute – strangling your baby in order to grow your business is more common than you might at first realise. This virtue is tricky. Other business gurus tell you that laser like focus is key to success. Which of them is right? What I can tell you is that things change (terrifyingly quickly) all the time and in business you need to be ahead of that curve and ready to adapt. When your business is in start up phase you need to focus with all your heart and soul but when things start to get easier and money is flowing in, start a few new baskets. Felix claims it was his 20^th basket that made him super rich…see number 1 above – persistence!

· Listen and Learn. The last of our virtues. Felix says that listening comes in at number 3 after self-belief and persistence for the entrepreneur. If you’re not listening you’re not learning and if you’re not learning it’s time to get out of the kitchen & let someone else do the cooking. I’m fortunate enough in my position to meet a lot of people. Not as many as Felix Dennis of course but as many as I can keep up with. I love to meet people and listen to their stories and help them kick around opportunities they may be considering. I enjoy it and I also get business benefit as sometimes it keeps me in touch with what’s going on in obscure corners of my industry. Time is a precious resource but spend some of it listening to others who present themselves to you – you’ll be amazed at the things you find out.

I’d like to add another quick virtue of my own – be as generous as you can be with your time and with your advice to others – make sure you put something back – karma is important too. That’s the end of the book review. As I said at the start of blog No 1 – it’s not your usual business book & indeed it annoyed me immensely the first time I read it a couple of years ago. It’s worth a read if you’re interested in becoming rich as there are a few nuggets of advice in there. Having said that – I predict that most people will find Felix’s advice distinctly unpalatable and they will decide their comfortable existence rules ok for now!

As always – interested in your comments and thoughts. I’m in southern California on holiday this week so expect a few blogs in the next week or so on far more frivolous subjects…

Entrepreneur tips from the uber Rich Felix Dennis

For today’s blog I’m straying from my usual format & embarking on a 2 part partial book review of Felix Dennis’s “How to Get Rich” which I’ve recently been reading again – more for the entertainment of Felix’s unique way of writing and his mad bits of homespun advice that really do make a lot of sense. Also for his poems & the quotations from others he sprinkles throughout his writing which always make me smile. Whatever you might think of Felix Dennis, you can’t argue with the fact that he’s made a helluva lot of money through his own hard graft & through doing things his own way. Many of his enterprises he owns outright so he hasn’t had to accommodate the views of investors or VCs – he’s made a lot of his own calls.

I’ve enjoyed the book more second time round 2 years later – it annoyed me a bit the first time I read it. I think the main reason I’ve enjoyed it more is because it’s written in a much more refreshing style than the hundreds of other “business” books I’ve read in the interim.

Before I start let me tell you about my own rather tenuous connection to Felix. One of my friends, Catherine Bishop, used to be my partner’s accountant when he was just starting out & when she was just starting out – about 20 years ago. She (wisely) moved from Alan to Felix & in that way she has been personal accountant to one of the richest British entrepreneurs and also one of the poorest!

The chapter I’m reviewing today is Felix’s opinion of the 5 most common start-up errors – Blog no 2 will be on the Cardinal Virtues of the entrepreneur – both themes I’ve touched on in previous blogs. I’m going to give you what Felix says & augment that with a few real life stories of my own. So – let’s get on with the errors – bad news before good:

1. Mistaking Desire for Compulsion – we’ve talked about this before folks. To be a start up entrepreneur you’ve got to be driven to succeed in a way that most people just aren’t. Most people just aren’t prepared to make the sacrifices needed, have no social life, neglect their families, risk everything they own and work every waking hour – not just for a month or two but for years. If anyone had told me 5 years ago how much work & personal sacrifice was going to be needed to get Learning Pool up & operating like the beautiful machine you see before you today I’d have run a mile – or cried a lot. It creeps up on you incrementally – each week you just do a bit more and a bit more until you seriously do start considering if you can manage on less sleep. Other people will tell you about successful entrepreneurs who don’t work very hard – they’re either lying or they’ve set the bar very low. If you know in your heart of hearts that you lack this compulsion walk away now – don’t put yourself through it. Felix talks about how an invisible sliver of ice exists in everyone’s heart but people keep it small & hidden away. Being a successful entrepreneur requires that sliver to grow over the years – I’ve seen it in myself – we need it to slay demons, beat off competition, harden ourselves against loss and disappointment. If you don’t want to become like that – walk away.

2. Over optimism Concerning Cash Flow – something else we’ve talked about before. Competent cash flow management seems to me to be such a vital requirement in any enterprise that it always horrifies me when other entrepreneurs seem to disregard it. There’s at least one person in the Learning Pool team who’s experienced over optimism in a start up’s cash flow before & more importantly had to deal with the consequences of poor cash management. I’m sure you’ve all witnessed it. As an entrepreneur you can leave balance sheets to your accountant but you must grasp the concept and importance of cash flow – it’s your organisation’s life blood. This is one of Felix’s pet topics and his views on how companies waste money is well worth reading in full. With cash flow forecasts, plan for the worst and hope for the best but don’t bury your head in the sand.

3. Reinforcing Failure – this is about making a call to cancel a project which isn’t going to work. It’s one of the hardest things anyone involved in a project ever has to do because they have personal buy in and also because they fool themselves into believing that things are better than they really are and in this way justify continuance. Felix talks about the millions of dollars he’s lost carrying on publishing magazines that no-one was buying; we’ve done it with pet projects that seem like a great idea – but which at the end of the day no one will pay for – even though they may want it. Remember that you are running a business and without sales it’s not a business but a hobby.

4. Thinking Small and Acting Big – oh dear! I love this one because I’m 100% positive that neither myself or my business partner does this. I used to work for a start up CEO who wasted money on stupid things whilst the rest of us scrabbled around trying to get enough cash together to meet payroll and pay our creditors. He travelled business class but even worse used to pretend to the people that worked for him that he was lucky and got upgraded a lot – he said that a number of times to colleagues that met him by accident at the airport and wondered why he wasn’t also flying economy to the West Coast. He rented an apartment instead of staying in hotels, even though he was hardly ever there. He insisted that Hertz had his hire car ready & running with the keys in the ignition when his plane landed & he didn’t care how much extra that cost. Not for him the modest lifestyle of IKEA’s (very wealthy) CEO, taking the bus or using a 20 year old car to run around. He was the BIG ME. At least once a day we would hear him shout “How dare you – I’m the CEO” – that used to really make us chuckle. It’s not nice to strut around like some obnoxious mini-mogul – that’s what Felix says and he’s right. We need to think big & always act small. Be a nice person & set a good example to everyone else.

5. Skimping on Talent. This is so easy to do and for so many reasons. Hire great people that are more talented than you are. Seek them out & offer them whatever you need to in order to bring them into your organisation – it isn’t always money – it might be something else. Don’t hire people that you believe to be lesser people than you. It’s easy to do because it stops you from feeling threatened – but remember in all likelihood they will do the same and in this way your start up will become a den of mediocrity. Look for great people. For a long time at Learning Pool we used to struggle to attract great people but in the last little while we’ve been living with the motto – Better a Hole than an Asshole – and it seems to be working because our team is stronger than ever before. Remember this when you’re recruiting.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this chapter review & I’d love to hear your views on common Start Up errors – so please share.

Entrepreneurs and Criminals…maybe it is quite a fine line…

I was delighted to meet the very interesting Sheena Leaf in Exeter on Friday. That’s Sheena in the photo. Sheena was originally a psychiatric nurse and these days is working on a project in Devon called “The Entrepreneur Inside”. It’s a project that aims to deliver entrepreneurial education to prisoners and Sheena’s part way through a prison pilot that will connect offenders with business professionals and a regional university business school to uncover legitimate entrepreneurial potential.

This is something that’s never occurred to me before – although a cursory Google search identifies a couple of serious academic research studies comparing especially drug barons & gang lords with entrepreneurs.

I find this a fascinating idea – as it’s all to do with circumstance and life chances as well as morals. On the flight back to Belfast on Friday evening I jotted down a few thoughts of my own about what some of the similarities are. This is what I came up with:

· We all like ducking & dealing – although perhaps we call that negotiation

· We all like to make money – sometimes even just for thrills

· Both sets lean towards being manipulative and control freaks – again we probably call that negotiation

· We all resent being told what to do & like to be our own boss and make our own independent decisions

· Everyone has a healthy disdain for the competition (there’s a famous story from a non-Disney theme park who used the objective “Kill Mickey” internally)

· We all work hard to make ourselves indispensable to our customer base and we all want “addictive” products to sell

· Both of us like spotting opportunity & backing “horses”

· We all monitor and respond quickly to market trends

· We both have a strikingly different risk profile than other groups of people

· We all like to break the rules although we tend to do that by using armies of professional advisers to look for legal loopholes.

Interesting eh? I’d welcome your thoughts on this & I wish Sheena every success with her ground breaking pilot.

So you want to network?

The Business Link website defines business networking as being about connecting with other people in order to share information, resources and leads. It adds that the emphasis is on relationship building – getting to know people, finding out how you can help them and what they can do for you. Not a bad definition to be honest. The Americans do this so much better than we Brits & Irish – they just aren’t as shy as we are & they’re blessed with oodles of self confidence from an early age that we just don’t seem to have. The picture above is the Learning Pool team welcoming guests to our conference last year. I love this picture because everyone’s engaged in animated conversations and there’s a tangible air of busyness.

There’s no doubt that a sizeable and varied network is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. The act of building your own network is a lot of fun, good (and sometimes quirky) things can happen along the way and you get to meet loads of great new people. But it’s an investment that takes a lot of time & effort, especially in the early days when you’re just starting out and don’t know many people. The end result however is valuable and well worthwhile and should result in you having a variety of people you can go to for:

· business advice, maybe specialist advice about new product development or a new market, or just a general sounding board;

· career advice, perhaps you feel as if you’re losing your way with your progress or just need a one off discussion with someone about a specific job offer;

· introductions to all manner of people and organisations;

· sales introductions and potential leads.

So – how should you get started with networking. The first thing to note is how much easier this is with the arrival of Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook. Gone are the days of showing up at a conference or event with a delegate list & praying you may catch sight of the name badge on a person you want to talk to. Social networking is a great leveller as well – I treat everyone the same on Twitter as I usually have no idea of their status – and it’s also good news for people that are very shy. Other ways to get started are to comment on other people’s blogs, volunteer in your local community, use your professional body if you have one, use work related groups that you may be part of, join your local chamber of commerce or junior chamber, get involved in a political party if that’s your bag. You should also have a long, hard think about everyone you already know and you should remember that building a network is something that is additional to being at work – a lot of this needs to happen in your own free time.

Like most things in life there are a few cardinal sins – these are the main ones in my book:

· not following up on an introduction that someone has made for you;

· collecting people for the sake of it and not really having any interest in them or what they do (those serial networkers with hundreds of LinkedIn contacts with people they’ve never met);

· only collecting people that are “useful” to you right now – this is shortsighted (you never know what’s around the next corner) and it’s also mean;

· mixing up networking & selling – never, ever pitch to a new introduction unless you’ve been specifically invited to.

Some people are phenomenal networkers and if you know someone like this & treat them well, with a bit of luck and a lot of grace they may one day gradually introduce you to their own networks and accelerate your progress. These are people I know who are legendary networkers – Twitter names in brackets – Ellie Stoneley (@E11ie5) Matt Johnston (@cimota) Dave Briggs (@davebriggs) Bill McCluggage (@BillMcCluggage) Michelle Gallen (@michellegallen) Shirley Ayres (@ShirleyAyres) Lyra McKee (@lyramckee) Bill Liao (@liaonet).

Some hints and tips – there are more of these on Dave Briggs’ excellent & related blog “The networked public servant” which you can read at this link http://davepress.net/

· Remember karma – what goes around does come around – this is a two way street where you have to be as generous with your time and introductions as others have been for you;

· Be brave – what’s the worst that can happen – someone doesn’t want to speak to you or connect with you;

· Make a conscious effort to speak to people you don’t know – don’t take the easy option and hang out with your friends the whole time at events;

· Be courteous and a little bit persistent when making contact with new people; don’t be afraid to approach people speaking at conferences for a quick chat – most people are approachable and it’s part of human nature to want to help others;

· Take time to get to know people and talk to them properly when you meet them, chat until you find commonality, don’t be rushing on to the next person on your list, remember why you have two ears and one mouth.

As always I’ll leave you with a story. We were at an awards dinner a couple of years ago with our own senior team. It was one of those occasions where none of us really knew anyone – but the room was full of investors, politicians and general big wigs – people whose radar we wanted to get onto. Ok guys – we said – network! – let’s go. My business partner’s wife, who was also there, tells how fear passed fleetingly across their faces but when I looked around the room 5 minutes later – every one of them was chatting away to someone different and my heart swelled with pride – again!

Welcome your comments, stories and tips for others on this important topic.

Photograph courtesy of Anna Karas – thanks Anna!

10 reasons to work in someone else’s startup

If you’ve never worked in a startup business you don’t know what you’re missing. It really is the most fun you could ever have at work – even when they don’t become the next Groupon (let’s face it – any of us that have been around for a while have all got drawers full of old share option certificates from the companies we believed to be “dead certs”). However, if you’re not yet quite ready or equipped to start your own business, working in someone else’s startup can be a marvellous stopgap solution and one that brings all sorts of opportunity. These are my top 10 reasons why:

1. Whatever you do, your startup job will have more scope simply because there are fewer people in the company and everyone is required to work beyond their comfort zones – that adds more strings to your bow & improves your confidence;

2. Your working day will be far more varied than if you worked in a bigger or more established company and there’s bags more opportunity to move sideways into something else if you find you fancy it;

3. If you’re talented and hard working, you can move up fast & make yourself indispensable far easier than in a different sort of organisation; no-one cares about your age or gender or even experience – it’s what you can do today that matters;

4. Startup teams are really special – the bond between team members is unusually strong (probably because we all have so much at stake & let’s face it – there’s usually nothing else – no customers, no product, no money – so the team is EVERYTHING) and it’s a unique experience; when I think back to the startups I’ve worked in the teams have all been pure gold (Learning Pool’s Team Lovely pictured, snapped at our May 2010 conference by the rather wonderful Paul Clarke);

5. Visibility – you can have access to the CEO’s big picture vision if you want it (if you’re not interested in what that is, you probably shouldn’t be there);

6. You can learn so much so fast at someone else’s expense & with no financial risk to yourself – I remember the dizzy learning curve of my first startup dalliance – but even more I remember the exhilaration;

7. Potential long term risk-free financial upside in your share options – if you work in someone else’s startup & don’t have options ask them why;

8. The environment is extremely challenging & it helps you find out stuff about yourself as you become more resilient;

9. There’s a chance that this might just be THE ONE – the next Google or Amazon;

10. It’s serious fun – those roller coaster highs sure are high & we celebrate every success (sometimes even a little too much); you never know what’s around the corner.

Sounds good so far – sounds like you might enjoy this. If you’re going for it, it’s only fair for me to give you the other side of the coin – which I’m going to call:

5 team member behaviours that really p*** the startup CEO off – and in my book they are:

1. Whining – either to me or your colleagues about (delete as necessary) long working hours/not enough time to get stuff done properly/the spec is too loose/the working environment is too transparent/my salary is too low/the goalposts keep moving/etc);

2. Not being customer focused enough – unforgivable in a startup;

3. Wasting money – booking travel late, forgetting to cancel subscriptions, not parking in the cheapest car park at the airport, not asking for a discount on absolutely everything we buy as a matter of course, nor getting the most out of every minute of the day;

4. Not thinking about stuff – inexcusable & I don’t want to hear your excuses;

5. Not being a team player – peddling your own agenda, bitching about a colleague, not carrying your fair share – unacceptable – we’re all in this together & see above – the team is everything. If you don’t believe this you need to get out & let the rest of us get on.

As always – I hope you enjoyed this blog & I look forward to your comments or questions – some of you will no doubt have different views & stories from your own start-ups which the rest of us hope you will share.

So you wanna be a startup CEO…5 qualities you absolutely need

Being a startup CEO seems to be an attractive occupation right now and one that the press & certainly Hollywood makes look pretty easy as well as fairly glamorous. I thought I’d write a blog about my own views on the necessary qualities people need to make it through to the other side. Please note that being the CEO of a startup requires a different set of qualities to being CEO of a mature & established business and indeed, that sort of experience may well be a hindrance in a startup environment. Also it’s no accident that the photo of Paul & me above shows us in a casino setting – there’s a lot of luck at play as well – so don’t feel too bad if your startup is one of the 50% or so that fail in the first year.

I’ve seen other bloggers make great long lists of these but I’ve distilled mine down to 5 main qualities:

1. RESILIENCE – this is the big one. It’s also a quality you should look for in a business partner or in your team members as you recruit them. The official definition of resilience is an ability to bounce back into shape. In reality in a work setting it means being able to continue functioning & making sensible decisions in the face of adversity – which could be a one off event (like a disaster) or longer term (like always being tired from working 16 hour days consistently). As part of this quality I would include not bleating about how miserable you are & making your colleagues feel bad as well – there’s nothing worse than that. Resilience is what you need when the 10^th bank you’ve spoken to that week won’t lend you money & you don’t have enough to cover payroll right now, it’s the quality that makes you get up at 3am to go & catch a plane to London even though you only finished work at 10pm last night, it’s what makes you sit down & start working on another response to tender when you’ve just had a rejection letter in from something you thought was a dead cert. In summary, this is the quality that keeps you going & you either have it or you don’t – so be honest with yourself. At the end of the day, having the stamina & energy required to make a new company a success should not be overlooked. The amount of sheer hard graft is savage & impossible to communicate to anyone that hasn’t been there.

2. READING PEOPLE AND SITUATIONS – you need to be naturally good at this and it’s the quality that stops others from pulling the wool over your eyes. First up you need to have a gut feel about how things are going for the company – you should be able to just tell, a bit like second sight. You also need a natural ability to read your markets and know what products are right, when to launch them, etc. Other times you use this is in appraising ideas (which you do on an hourly basis in a startup) and rapidly sorting them into good & bad, negotiating, making decisions (most of the time with a serious lack of information), recruiting people, choosing partners and so on.

3. OPTIMISM & POSITIVITY – if you don’t have this alongside being the keeper of your original vision, don’t expect anyone else to believe in your company and that goes for both team members & people outside. I don’t mean blind belief but I do mean being confident and using a bit of spin when you need to. By that, I don’t mean lying to your team about stuff – it’s more about protecting them from many of the stresses that they don’t need to know about as they have no ability to influence the outcome & it will only distract everyone. You need to be able to absorb all of this burden and put a smile on your face and your best foot forward at all times.

4. RISK – I’m unsure if this is a quality or not but being a startup CEO and being risk-averse do not walk along hand in hand. You will borrow large sums of money, you will guarantee those loans against whatever tangible assets you own, you will take major decisions without any of the information you need never mind would like, you will fail at stuff over & over again. If you are unable to compartmentalise & shut these things away in a place where you don’t think about them – you aren’t cut out for this life. It will make you ill & paralyse you with fear.

5. LEADERSHIP & VISION – your team needs to look up to you & your customers & other stakeholders will hopefully admire you & what you’ve achieved. You need to keep the team on track, communicating the shared vision to them over & over again so that no-one ever loses sight of where you’re going, you need to be able to pull off what I call “Take my hand & walk with me into the abyss” when you only have half the story yourself and you need to be able to keep it real – no-one wants to work for a CEO that never does any work themselves.

I hope this helps any of you that are thinking about going down this route yourselves. It’s hard work & unrelenting being in or heading up a startup but it’s also deeply satisfying and a lot of fun. Always interested in hearing your views so post your comments up below.

Pitching for investment any time soon? – some dos and don’ts

Yesterday I was part of the IntertradeIreland Seedcorn judging panel chaired by Intertrade’s CEO Liam Nellis – that’s a photo of the two of us taken last week on the steps in Stormont. Also on the panel were Taxback.com’s Terry Clune, Xing’s Bill Liao & e-synergy’s Fergus McIlduff. Over the course of the day we watched 6 pitches as if we were an investment panel, then scored the companies & selected winners to go through to the next stage of the competition.

I thought whilst it was in my head – because I know a lot of my friends & associates are entrepreneurs who are no doubt entering these sorts of competitions or pitching for investment – I would scribble out a few dos & don’ts for anyone that’s interested:

· Work hard to distil your value proposition & get it out there early in your preso – remember that the investment or judging panel will be seeing loads of companies, often in a short space of time

· If you have a tangible product & have brought samples, pass them round early in your pitch

· If you turn up with a colleague, which is a good idea, only one of you pitch – it hardly ever works to try & share the pitch between you so let the person who’s best at presenting do it; also do try & behave as if you are a team

· Don’t ramble & do stick to your allotted time – it’s annoying when people go over time because they either haven’t rehearsed enough or because they spend too long telling you irrelevant stuff

· Use some pictures or graphics in your presentation to bring it to life

· Don’t use a video that’s longer than a minute

· If you’re very early stage, think about your sales and marketing plan – it isn’t enough to state the market opportunity – you need a go-to-market plan that hangs together

· Don’t argue with the panel – it just makes you look bad

· Be honest when answering questions

· Know your numbers back to front and the assumptions behind them – expect to get asked about anything that isn’t self explanatory

· If you’re referring to high level numbers in your presentation, make sure you have identified what they are – are they £s, people, units

· Include some innovation – you don’t have to be an inventor – it might just be something unusual about your business model or your presentation that makes you stand out

· Keep your pitch consistent with any business plan you’ve already submitted

· Finally – don’t use corny or gimmicky presentation techniques unless you are very certain of your delivery capabilities – they can be excruciating to watch (think Angelcot woman on Dragon’s Den insisting on singing…)

I know there’s a lot out there about this stuff for entrepreneurs but I thought I’d take 5 minutes out to share my take – interested in your comments so keep ‘em coming.

Entrepreneurs are story tellers…so says Doug Richard

I’m so glad that I took yesterday out to attend Doug Richard’s excellent “Starting & Growing a Successful Business” lecture in Letterkenny. Learning Pool’s now an established business (when do you stop being a startup I wonder?) but most entrepreneurs have one eye on the next opportunity – it’s part of our condition…

Doug’s a man I could listen to all day. He sounds exactly like the wonderful architect Frank Gehry (a Toronto man who’s also lived in LA for a long time) and he doesn’t mince his words. I knew a bit about Doug already & I expected him to be like his reputation – ferocious, blunt to the point of rudeness & flashes of vitriol. Instead – he’s a caring pussycat trying to impart his vast experience of being an entrepreneur to those folks that are just starting out. Impressively, as part of his School for Startups social enterprise, he’s spoken to 7,600 entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs in the last 2 ½ years. He says he does it to show it can be done & to prove the government wrong – he thinks the way UK government supports & starts new business stinks. I think most startup businesses we network with (and there are an awful lot of those) would wholeheartedly agree with him. So – he’s a sort of energetic entrepreneurial avenging angel.

What impressed me most was his ability over the course of the day to really add value & give advice completely on the spur of the moment to people in the audience with businesses as varied as stainless steel catering equipment, online bridal directories, health clubs, micro-breweries, logistic businesses & distributors of artwork – so it must be true – business really is just business and entrepreneurialism can be learned – you don’t have to be born to it.

Doug’s written plenty of stuff & there are loads of good & free resources on his School for Startups website including his excellent blog – so I’m not going to regurgitate all that stuff again here in my blog, Instead – I’m going to give you the quotes from Doug that I liked enough yesterday to write down – just to give you a flavour of the day and a flavour of Doug Richard. Here we go:

Entrepreneurs are not born; babies are born

Some businesses can simply not succeed; entire industries exist that do not make any money (example he gave was the airline industry with the exception of our friends at Ryanair)

Some industries are harder to make money in; you need to know what industry you are in

A brand is a residue of what’s left; it’s a promise – you need to have a promise that you’re offering

Simple businesses are the ones that are most likely to succeed; but everyone does too much in their business – it’s human nature

You should make your promise accurate & narrow – how narrow can you get?

The story you tell as a young business is the most important thing – often you have nothing else

Entrepreneurs are defined by the story they tell

Risk & reward walk up together in a perfect continuum

Look elsewhere for tomorrow’s today (advice to go & check out other countries when looking for a business idea)

Government makes the measurable important instead of the other way around

You must delight your customers & exceed expectations – even by just a little – this will create word of mouth

If you’re building product, think about how you can include whimsy (he used the example of Apple’s “bounce” when you scroll to the end of the menu – utterly unnecessary but Steve Jobs felt it should exist)

Your family & friends are there to support you when you’re wrong so don’t ask them to appraise your new business idea

There is no conversation with a prospective customer that is too long, they are all too short

Every company should write a short profile of who their customer is – write it as a story – give them names

Most business expenditure is not driven by need but by ego (e.g. company cars)

Adults should only be rewarded for accomplishments, not for trying hard

Entrepreneurs are on a journey of discovery not invention – all the answers are already out there

Don’t stop at Page 1 of Google when you’re doing market research – there’s value in the long tail

You make more money from having an innovative business model than you do from having a great product or service

Business models matter & you should think about yours

Don’t overlook affiliate marketing (if this is your bag, Doug runs an 8 hour class on this alone)

Take the first offer – it might be the last offer!

Product doesn’t have to be better, it just has to be different (example used was skype – although of course it is also free!)

Just ask your minority customers why they don’t buy more from you (what a blindingly obvious idea – thanks Doug – we’re doing it)

A patent is not protection, it’s a hunting licence to protect (talking about the costs of defending patent breach)

No-one has ever started a company in Silicon Valley & ended up with what they thought they would – they are all Plan B companies

In an entrepreneur, resilience is so important (as an aside – in the very first conversation I ever had with Paul McElvaney many years ago, I asked him how resilient he was. It’s something we as business partners return to from time to time to make sure we’re still resilient as – yes – you really need to be)

It’s a very, very rare business that succeeds with just one person – there needs to be a team

You have to be optimistic to be an entrepreneur

There were a few “funnies” as well that I noted – please be warned that there’s a small bit of bad language coming up:

I don’t speak “local” – when he couldn’t understand a few of the strong accents in our Donegal audience

I’ll take better, I’m good!

We don’t use the phrase “poison chalice” in the USA (talking about being Chairman of the Tory task force to review SME support in the UK)

I’m saving you an entire MBA today

Thanks for the validation…I was a bit concerned. I know I’m obnoxious (to a member of the audience that told him he believed he was right about something)

On software development – Imagine selling a fridge where in v1 it just holds stuff

On Google rankings for your company – Do you know what we call the second page? – Siberia

On competitors – It’s not that you’re paranoid, they’re after you; they want to rip off your head & piss down the hole

On being an entrepreneur – Resilience, overcoming adversity, survival – they all pale into insignificance if you’re an asshole

In conclusion, a fab day where we learned a lot and Doug even made up a word – perfical (a perfect vertical). Don’t miss him – he’s brilliant, warm & very well informed – and he’s running one of these again in Dublin on 16 Feb & a Belfast date is to be announced. Come along with your questions & expect him to challenge you – he isn’t your mum & surely you’d rather know if your baby’s ugly. I guess you want to know what I asked him don’t you? I asked him how he decides on the one investment he chooses each year from the 3,000 business plans he receives. He was candid & admitted that there isn’t a “one” from the 3,000 – he decides what the next big thing is & goes hunting for a company to invest in. All I can say is I hope he has an urge to invest in a public sector online learning community – come talk to me if you do Doug!

Two Heads are Better than One – 10 pros of having a business partner

The photo above is me with my own business partner, Paul McElvaney. It was taken a couple of summers ago & we’re sitting on top of the world – ok – it’s the Giant’s Causeway but it feels like the top of the world when you’re there…it’s a much better photo of Paul than it is of me but I love it nevertheless because we’re both laughing and the sun’s out.

This week we were over at Belfast’s Start VI talking to some early stage entrepreneurs about their plans for their new businesses. This got me thinking about the whole business partner debate – to have or have not – so here are my thoughts on this subject:

1. If you’re dreaming big with your start-up you should think about finding a business partner – unless you already have proof that you’re superhuman. Our business, Learning Pool, has grown from nothing to 50 people and £3.5m turnover in 4 years. That’s a lot of work whichever way you look at it.

2. Partners should have complementary business skills – it’s the 2 + 2 = 5 effect. In our case, Paul’s far more technical than me & has a project management background whereas I come from an accountancy & legal background. Having said that – both of us are immersed in our chosen sector and we can both sell – that bit’s important.

3. Two people means you have more ideas for brainstorming and (at least) two views on opportunities and risks; you can also learn a lot from each other.

4. If there are two of you, chances are you have a much bigger network than one person and you just know more stuff and have more experience to draw on between you – so you can make better decisions than a person trying to figure it out on their own. There are many decisions that Paul & I make every day on our own but there’s also a lot that we decide upon jointly via a process of debate & brainstorming between us – it’s hard to understand unless you try it…and you have to be prepared to not always get your own way.

5. It makes the business more “formal” in those early days – if you were by yourself chances are you wouldn’t bother with monthly management accounts or you’d be more lax over expenses or you wouldn’t write so much down. This early discipline stands you in good stead when you start to scale.

6. Two people can cover a helluva lot more ground – business requires a lot of travel, pitching, attendance at events, socialising, networking. It also makes it easier to get away for a bit of a break.

7. Your partner’s there for the bad times – when you don’t win a contract you’ve pitched hard for or when the bank says No – but also for the good times – and it’s great to have someone to share with. A new business is like a rollercoaster ride and having a partner to bounce off & share stuff with & who picks you up when you’re down & vice versa flattens out some of those crazy peaks and troughs.

8. Most entrepreneurs are control freaks so it can be hard working so closely with another person, especially at first. They do say that you have to work at your business partnership like you would a marriage and that’s true. You have to be prepared to be completely open and honest in a way that you will not be used to – not even with your family or your spouse/partner. Your business partner will know more about your personal finances and even your personality traits than your close friends or family do. You will have seen each other make unpalatable decisions and behave ruthlessly and you will have exposed that darker side of your nature to each other. Once you’ve accepted this it is slightly comforting.

9. There’s some practical reasons when you’re starting out – like having more working capital as there are two of you or having more places to get hold of start-up capital.

10. Having a partner makes you more resilient and it makes you work harder – as you have someone else who’s opinion you care about to prove yourself to.

My own experience of this has been incredibly positive. Paul & I work well together. We both work hard and put an equal amount into our business in terms of effort and expertise – that’s important too – I don’t know how it would work if one partner felt short changed by the other but I guess it would be uncomfortable and unsustainable. We have a lot of laughs along the way and there’s a great deal of healthy competitiveness and “sport”. There have been some really bad days on the journey but there have also been some amazing highs and I wouldn’t change things for the world. I’ve ended up with a friend that I would trust with my life without any hesitation. And that’s a big deal.

I’ll leave you with a quote from John D Rockefeller “A friendship founded on business is a good deal better than a business founded on friendship”. Bit of food for thought in there. I look forward to your comments friends & readers.

Mary McKenna's Blog

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