Create. Connect. Care.

Or, why I do what I do.

Every now and then I run into someone who wants to know how I made the choice to go after the 'startup with a social impact' gig that I'm now on. After all, someone like me is not a fresh young grad just starting a career, but is usually 'leveraging' many years of experience and skills into the next level of one. With my background as an IT exec and an entrepreneur in enterprise software, 'enterprise' should have loomed large in any future plans.

And it did. While checking out options of joining larger companies or startups, I was (and still am) providing strategic IT consulting. I've always had a yen to have my work be more socially relevant (instead of just doing it on my spare time), but I thought that's what I'd do after a few more years of padding the financial cushion. But something didn't feel right and the whole cushion approach was getting uncomfortable (kind of like the old fable about the princess still feeling the pea under her many fluffy mattresses?). When I was talking to a career counselor friend, she mentioned that the discomfort was probably due to me making a choice based on what's expedient instead of what's important to me. It was a good point, I had just gone along with what everyone expected would be the next thing for me.

So, I took some time to step back and get to know myself better. Didn't need a retreat in the mountains or on the beach (though coming to think of it, I should have taken the chance), just a couple of hours of quiet, a couch, and my laptop to write my thoughts. This time around I thought about not only what I enjoyed about work, but also what kinds of things give me a kick outside of it, and voila! I noticed a pattern. There are things that give pleasure, things that give joy, and then the things I find most fulfilling. Fulfillment for me came from things that have three common elements. Create. Connect. Care.

Creating something myself, or experiencing what someone else has created, is exhilarating to me. Creative solutions to problems are a big kick, and so is watching a play. Connecting. I truly enjoy connecting the dots (i.e., understanding patterns and links) as well as connecting with people (and understanding what makes them tick), and even connecting people to each other - fun for me almost always involves some connecting. Caring. This is at many levels. It's not only caring about the big stuff like the climate, or the future of education or elder care, but caring about the individuals and outcomes (on occasion, a little too much). And, most of all, caring is being engaged and involved, not just phoning it in. I'm not good at working just for a paycheck - I can't hold myself back from getting involved, which could be problematic in some situations.

So, this self-awareness got me deciding to not wait for a few years, but to go out and find something now that will help me create, connect and care. And I'm happy to say I did. A chance to create a solution, connect with great people to build a team, and build a company that cares to both help people and make money - create, connect, care at so many levels. And, I get to leverage a lot of what I've already learned.

I made a new friend recently. A smart, successful, aware woman who'd heard me speak at a panel on how individuals can help the education cause and wanted to know more, particularly as she's currently considering bringing more meaning to her career. She asked me about what's driving me and I shared my 'create, connect, care' mantra with her. She very sweetly asked if she could 'borrow' it - and I was amused. I don't own this. No trademarks, copyrights, or any other instrument of ownership. This is not a grand mission statement, or some lofty positioning, and there are no claims to greatness. Just what's driving my choices, with a nice and fortuitous bit of alliteration. Create. Connect. Care.

Which comes first?

I recently met with an entrepreneur at a networking event (yes, I seem to do that a lot). He is an intense engineer who immediately started talking to me about his idea. Without going into too much detail, he's considering a programmable consumer device addressing a variety of possible uses.

Variety. Therein lies the entrepreneur's problem. He didn't know which particular consumer need he should fill, especially since he personally had about a dozen ideas on how the product could be used.

So I jumped in with what I thought to be winning advice. Go to a bunch of potential customers and - here's a novel idea - ask them what is their most important problem (in that particular space of course). Especially since his product was aimed at Joe Ordinary and his family, I thought the entrepreneur could do the checking among his own friends and family without much effort. Heck, I said, ask the would-be customers what would be their top three problems and you'd have a head start on your product roadmap.

Suffice to say, I was surprised that the suggestion met with the tepid reception of an hour-old latte. The entrepreneur was confident that he knew what the customer wanted, he just needed to figure out what he could built first and the rest would follow. And, he felt, it was too early to talk to the customers.

Hmmm. I can see why entrepreneurs, especially engineers, want to start building without spending too much time on 'focus groups' and 'market research'. You could be mired in the dreaded analysis paralysis or spend way too much money (if you have it) on fancy research techniques. And it is so much fun to build! But, on the other hand, you've got to know why anyone would want your product - not just why you'd want your product (see Customer Focus about tripping up on that particular path). And if you're aiming for the consumer market, you really have to know how your customer/user is likely to use your product.

Though I personally get attracted by a product idea, I'm learning to focus on understanding the customer first. I'm on my way to making it a fanatical focus even, because I've learned that without customers the product is nothing but a 'project'. And there's no substitute to spending a lot of time talking to, and observing, your potential users. I'm of the school of thought that believes engineers, architects, designers have to spend time in direct contact with their customers, not just let 'product marketing' tell them what to build. And this is all the more important in the early stages when your product is nothing more than mockups and PowerPoint slides about the mockups.

Prototypes are awesome, and often, necessary. But to build the prototype you first have to talk to your customers and figure out what you should put into it. And then, once you have your proto-widget, you have to go back to the customers (including the same ones you talked to earlier) and see what they have to say now. Most likely, you'll take your fine little proto back to your garage or the server in your bedroom and do it all over again. But the key point is, you can't build without talking to the customer. This is what should be emblazoned on every entrepreneur's garage, bathroom mirror, bedroom wall and screen saver: the customer comes first, not the product.

The Social Scene

No, sorry, this is not about the symphony opening night or the partying of the rich and famous, just some musings on 'social' entrepreneurship prompted by some recent happenings.

Yesterday I attended a SiliconForum event on MicroFinancing. It was a topic that many of the 80 or so people - entrepreneurs, investors and entrepreneurs who're now investors - got engaged in, though many were not directly involved with MFI. This is an awesome way to help people help themselves and it is very encouraging that is trend is growing rapidly, though it is still a long ways from satisfying demand.

We had a follow-up discussion at our table that covered many issues, but what struck home was a thread on entrepreneurs. We have to remember that all the people who get tiny $50~ loans to buy a cow, or a pump or a sewing machine, are essentially entrepreneurs seeking 'funding' to get the resources to build a business. They have to face risks, sign up for hard work, and polish their sales skills just like any other entrepreneur, but with 'hunger' being a literal, not metaphorical, experience. Which brought up the point that, like all other entrepreneurs, they could really use mentors and the shortage of mentors is one of the bigger challenges to scaling the program.

Microfinancing itself is a blazing beacon of social entrepreneurship, started about 30 years ago by a young economist, Dr. Mohammend Yunus, using the money in his pocket to launch micro-loans to the poorest of the poor in Bangladesh who otherwise couldn't get out of their cycle of poverty, and today Grameen Bank is the grand-daddy of the many MFIs out there. Dr. Yunus also has his own views of 'social entrepreneurship' and how it can really change the world, definitely worth a read.

It is not far-fetched to say that entrepreneurship is what drives progress, and the social kind is what will save the human race.

Customer Focus

The Facebook fracas of last week is a cautionary tale on customer relations. On the surface, Facebook is successful with a loyal user base, with many millions of users, primarily students, preferring its network to other options. And, it had the ostensibly unbeatable benefit of a founder CEO who is a user too - he built something that he knew he and his friends could use when in college.

A sketchy recap on the issue. On the face of it (sorry!), it seems likely and logical that a user would want to know about updates to profiles of friends on his network automatically without having to seek them, and that the said friends wouldn't mind. But vast numbers of users got agitated, they didn't like their updates triggering auto feeds and felt it was a violation of privacy, much to Facebook's surprise. Techcrunch had a post supporting the usefulness of the new feature, noting all that people had to do if they didn't want the updates distributed was to set the privacy controls appropriately. That didn't soften the user response. The CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, put out a plea for calm, the users' concerns were being heard, but that didn't lessen the noise - nothing made a difference until the message went out that privacy controls will be enhanced and the feature tweaked to let the user determine what should be shared or not. Facebook received many kudos for having listened to the users, and being a role model for startups.

It is not surprising that Facebook listened to its users - in this kind of business, there is no alternative (though that could arguably be true for all businesses). The cautionary part is how easy it is to think you know your customer/user and be totally wrong. This is particularly true when you think you know how a user will react because hey, you're one yourself. The reality is that you (and your design staff) are not typical users. You are informed (ok, tainted) by the business you're building and the roles you're playing in building it, and will not have the same perspective or experiences of 'real' users. And somehow 'logical' assumptions on user behavior seem singularly fragile.

In the early stages of a startup, extrapolating user behavior is standard ops as there's not enough bandwidth to run every feature by a focus group. Making assumptions is unavoidable, but they must be acted upon with caution. Internal tests are good for bug testing, not for gauging customer response. Embrace the beta release instead and actively solicit feedback. And if something slips past your vigilance and kindles user outrage, don't try to explain your position - publish a fast mea culpa and retreat. You are not the customer, and the customer is always right.

Dot-com 2.0?

Is it me who's confused or is the tech world partying like it is 1999 all over again? I am amazed at the number of startups calling themselves 'Web 2.0 companies' - and there's a term that needs to be squashed, ungently if need be, and quickly interred (not withstanding O'Reilly's definition). There's nothing inherently wrong with the term and what it was intended to define, and I initially found it very interesting and inspiring even (thinking of all the possibilities out there), but with so many startups jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon, it is getting hard to see the substance beyond the hype-storm.

The deja-vu is so thick and strong you could bottle and market it ('Redux', the perfume that will haunt you - again). It reminds me of the time when everyone was clambering onto the 'e-commerce' bandwagon, and then the 'marketplace' bandwagon, to be closely followed by 'b2b' and 'ASP', not to mention 'P2P' - I remember more than one person seriously advising me to pitch my venture as the hot-trend du jour. And here we go again - everyone want to start a Google, MySpace or YouTube even if they don't all have their business models figured out yet.

And yes, this rant does have something to do with the startup ethos. (By the way, this post has a tech-biz focus, but most likely faddism exists in other markets too - though they may not experience the same pandemic effects). I'm confident that the market will take care of itself sooner or later, and only the worthy will be standing and recognizable a couple of years down the road. But in the near term, the Web 2.0 frenzy seems to be bamboozling a whole bunch of new entrepreneurs and would-be members of the founding teams into thinking that's where they should be. It is sorely tempting to see if there's anyway to turn your idea into something resembling a community if you believe that's where the money is. And all the folks looking to join a startup believe that if the company doesn't have a Web 2.0 tag it is not worth their consideration.

It helps to remember the fundamentals. Instead of shlepping around a solution searching for a problem, start with a real, immediate need that is pervasive and (preferably) painful, something people will pay to get fixed and go figure out how to fix it for them. Alternately, take something people love to do (like connect with their friends or share baby pictures with family) and make it easier for them to do more of it in new and fun ways. Starting a company with 'can I make this look like MySpace?' seems like taking the entrepreneurial risk to a whole new level - one that most likely will end in a bust.