Friday, December 17, 2010

Successful Leadership – Fear or Inspiration?

I have recently been chatting with some friends who are at an about 5 year old start up whose management just makes you wonder how the heck they ever made it into a leadership position.

These recent conversations have also made me better understand how some people are really not fit for leadership and simply fall into these positions based on who they know, resumes they have built up, and perhaps people they have stepped on to get there. That said, it’s also made me appreciate the leaders who have lead by inspiration and truly believe in others, and by default others end up following them.

In my opinion, there are two ways of leading: 1) Leadership by Inspiration and Empowerment and, 2) Leadership by Fear and Arrogance.
What’s ironic is that I know leadership at this start up very well and have seen the leadership shift over time. I have seen it lead by a group of people who were inspired and thus inspired others, and have seen it now being led by management that leads by fear and arrogance.

What’s interesting is how bad moral and innovation is affected when fear is the main driver. When employees are simply “going through the motions” and all they care about is not losing their jobs. I am totally against this tactic. Think about this for a second. What happens when countries are plagued by fear? You see mass exoduses or defection, and the inevitable revolution. Sure, fear keeps the proverbial “assembly line” going yet isn’t it a matter of time until the people revolt? - And in the world of business revolting means not caring or looking for other opportunities. How can fear be an effective tactic? Especially in today’s world where there are opportunities everywhere, of course relative to the days of the baby boomers and before and ESPECIALLY in technology and the world of start ups. I personally have walked from opportunities a few times based on awful leadership.

As you can tell I am very much affected by this topic simply because leadership is something that I take very seriously and understand the impact that it has on people’s lives – both short and long term.
For me it boils down to what your motivation to lead is all about. You are either leading for the greater good or your selfish/arrogant needs. People forget that companies consist of human beings. Human beings that have families and friends and in the web world, often times are young trying to figure out their own path in life. Bad leadership can and will affect its employees. Trust me, it’s happened to me.

So I pose the question: What is it - Fear or Inspiration? What motivates you to succeed?

Friday, December 3, 2010

Realizing Your Passion, Leading To Your Success - 1

This post is inspired by a fellow yogi friend of mine. The dynamics of being a part of a yoga studio are quite interesting. To many, it’s a place where people seek answers to life’s questions by tapping into their mind and body via this meditative state. I’ve actually been doing yoga for nearly 2 years and am still trying to completely surrender into meditation and not think about all life’s nonsense, thoughts, during my practice. Regarding my yogi friend, I don’t know her much outside of the studio yet could tell that she was a smart young lady and a go-getting. And during a recent SMS chat with her we were talking about achieving great things in life and how I felt that her future was bright beyond her currently day job; which mind you is not too bad. She works for probably the most prestigious investment banking firm in the world. Yet, I have become increasingly aware of how many of these organizations operate and that at times employees are overworked and under-appreciated. In my opinion, I believe that people either get burned out and become jaded or turn into the seemingly heartless monsters they once saw in others; both very sad outcomes.

Why is this? Why do we stick around at jobs that make us sad or we dislike? Are we scared of change? Are we afraid of the unknown? – I think the answer is yes for many of us. We use the excuse of having to put food on the table for ourselves or our family; which is obviously important. Yet does this mean that we have to live in misery in order to accomplish this? I am serious! Is this really living life to the fullest?

I believe that the answer is having faith in life. When you were a baby in your mothers whom you had zero idea what would happen next. Yet you surrender to the natural course of events and things worked out as they were meant to. Now, I’m not saying quit your job and sit on the couch and wait for something to happen, yet I am saying to take a deep breath and confront the fear of the unknown. The fear that is keeping you unsatisfied at work and break your belief barriers. For me personally, breaking my belief barriers meant, realizing that I was capable of achieving as much success as I wanted to in life. And for me, part of how I quantified success was building businesses and inspiring as many people as possible along the way. That belief barrier was broken nearly 8 years ago during my junior year in college. Part of that process was understanding that it was a commitment in itself to continue to believe and motivate myself. I had to also understand that there was a journey involved and that it would not come overnight. And well, here I am 8 years later, still pursuing my goals and loving the journey. My blog is unique in that it is not a story of someone who has already achieved immense success, yet is the diary of my journey and when possible the journeys of the people who are growing along with me towards achieving our personal successes.

I decided to add a few steps that I have identified that might help others realize their passions and begin their journey towards personal success.

1) Get Inspired – I know this is easier said than done and it may take a while to find, yet find that thing that fills you up with joy. Steve Jobs speaks about having to have an undying passion of your craft or business and how without it you will not be able to persevere through the difficult moments that will confront you during your journey. This is a VERY VERY important step. Once you have identified this passion think about how you can build a business around it. Think about the people you can help and the pieces that you will have to bring together to begin building.

2) Help Others From The Heart – I can’t stress this enough. It’s got to be about more than just the money. Sure I want to accumulate financial wealth via my businesses, yet aside of the personal fulfillment, it’s about building something that is greater than I am alone. It’s about building a company that will inspire its employees and their families, and empower them to be great. So whether you are starting a yoga studio or building the next Google, don’t forget that your company is only as special as the sum of its parts and the greater and happier those parts are the greater your business will be.

3) Do it Right – Doing it right can mean many things. Yet, when I say do it right, I mean working harder than you have ever worked, being honest, and maintain your integrity. Look, I get that we are not perfect. Trust me, I am far from perfect yet at the end of the day we represent our business and our business should represent who we are. Making sure that we strive to be the best people we can be will yield great dividends in life and business.

I will continue to think through the concept of "Realizing Your Passion, Leading To Your Success" and write as I learn, yet for now I want everyone who feels that they are not living life the way that they want to or feels that they are destined for greater things to take the FIRST STEP and GET INSPIRED.

I'd love to hear your stories of acquiring inspiration. Please post a comment below if you feel compelled to do so...

Sunday, November 28, 2010

The Owner Mentality

I received a call a few days ago from a good friend of mine in California who took over a business I started a few years back. By the way, she was really the person responsible for making the business a success; I simply provided a platform for her to display her talents. In any case, she had gotten pretty bored of the business which was an event promotions business operating within the nightlife scene. Upon discontinuing the business she ended up taking a day job with a company in her area and was explaining to me how it’s driving her nuts! How she was so used to being the one calling the shots and being the owner. I of course laughed and gave a her a resounding “It’s because you are a leader not a follower”. She went on to say how we think like owners not employees and how difficult it is for her. The ironic part is that they gave her a raise after only a few weeks on the job based on her ability to get things done and lead. To most people, this is more than enough to keep them excited about their job, yet for my pal Jennie she can only be a leader, an owner, the captain. It was not too long ago that I came to her with the gift of entrepreneurship and leadership; the knowledge that would change her forever. It’s awesome to see her growth and continued evolution in parallel to mine.
So in conclusion, it’s ok to have the owner mentality. Simply understand who you are and make sure that you are taking the steps towards achieving your goal. Don’t get frustrated and wonder why you are reacting negatively to being just an employee. Embrace it, learn from it, and think about how you can make the employee experience better for your future employees.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Burning the Midnight Oil…or better yet, its 4:59am; yikes.

So it’s interesting (thinking outloud as I prepare to write this post...), I have recently decided to return to the days of fully committing my entire life to building a start up. Now don’t misunderstand, I have been on this entrepreneurial journey for nearly 8 years now, yet many of those years I have had a day job to be able to support myself. Well, recently I decided to follow Paul Graham’s advice regarding half-hearted efforts and quit my day job, never to return again and go full throttle on my own biz. Now, I’ve done this before, and yes it sucks at times, cause you find yourself broke a lot of the time, you tend to see all the “rest of the world” getting up at 7am rushing to work, and every once in a while you have a moment of insanity and are tempted to jump back into the rat race, only to snap out of it cause you realize that you are not one of them; you’re an entrepreneur (whether it hurts or not). Sure those stable paychecks are nice, yet that’s about it. You end up spending most of your work day on your Blackberry working on your own stuff and lunch breaks at meetings with your own teams. You even sneak out for bathroom breaks to get on a call with a developer who you’re trying to motivate and manage. And again, nothing to do with your day job. This was my experience at my most recent attempt to work at a cushy corporate job. Yep it even sounds gross.

So here I am, I’m 29 going on 30 years old, have spent all my 20’s pursuing a dream, failing, yet loving just enough of my mini successes to have evolved into who I am today, a freaking entrepreneur. Love it or hate it, you are who you are, and this you cannot deny at the end of the day. I am a hard headed, risk-taking, crazy S.O.B, who is the captain of his own ship and will simply always be like this.

So here I am, its 5:15am, I have just finished a night of creating a business brief for a start up idea that I am increasingly excited about. I have nowhere to be in the AM, no boss but myself and guess what, I’ll be up in a few hours, rolling out of bed checking my Blackberry, warming up the PC, and going at it all over again…

This time it’s my way, and I’m loving every minute of it.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Sent to Me by a Mentor of Mine...M.M

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders.

Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

"As for the future, your task is not to forsee it, but to enable it."

from The Wisdom of the Sands by Antoine de Saint - Exupery

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

SkillSlate Raises $1.1 Million in Funding!!!

SkillSlate Raises $1.1 Million in Funding

Investment co-led by Canaan Partners and First Round Capital

New York, NY – October 20, 2010 – SkillSlate (http://www.skillslate.com), a website for easily finding individual service providers such as tutors, dog walkers, and personal trainers, today announced the closing of its first round of institutional capital, co-led by Canaan Partners and First Round Capital, along with participation from a number of prominentNY-angel investors, including Jason Finger (Founder &Former CEO of SeamlessWeb), John Caplan (Founder & CEO of The OpenSky Project), John Goldsmith (Board Member of Gerson Lehrman Group), Kal Vepuri, Josh Abramowitz, and Matthew Grodin.

SkillSlate helps consumers find individual service providers online, enabling users to search thousands of business profile pages complete with pictures, prices and reviews. These one-person businesses often provide great service at highly competitive prices, but, until SkillSlate, have been hard to find online. Many individual service providers lack a web presence – and are thus underrepresented in search engines,where 82% of people look for local services. SkillSlate’s technologyensures service providers’ pages surface highly in search engine queries, driving greater web visibility for their services and helping more potential customers find them.

“Fifteen percent of the US workforce is individually employed, yet they are underrepresented on the Internet. SkillSlate gives individual service providers a way tomore effectively market themselves to consumers. With the support and guidance of Canaan and First Round Capital, we can now move forward in executing our vision,” said Bartek Ringwelski, co-founder of SkillSlate.
SkillSlate allows consumers to easily filter through individual service providers to find the ones that exactly match the criteria they’re looking for. To build out these filtering tools, the company has taken a focused approach with regard to both service type and geography, ensuring there are a sufficient number of service providers for consumers to receive relevant search results in their area.SkillSlate is currently focused on the greater New York metropolitan region, but plans to expand nationally in the future.

“Although individual service providers tend to be less expensive than companies, finding them online isn’t easy. Search engines tend to favor larger, more established companies, while classified sites don’t give consumers any specific criteria about the people providing services,” saidDan Ciporin, Venture Partner at Canaan Partners. “SkillSlate makes it easy for consumers to find detailed information about service providers by emphasizing pictures, prices, and reviews. Equally important, SkillSlate gives these self-employed individuals the search engine visibility they need in order to be found where a vast number of consumers are looking.”

SkillSlate recently re-launched its site with 3,500 service providers in 10 service categories throughout the New York City area. The company will use this round of funding for technology development and to expand its service category breadth and depth.

“Skillslate will provide value to both buyers and sellers of local services by reducing friction in the discovery and quality assessment process. Their unique approach solves a real problem for both sides of this large and inefficient market,” said Phineas Barnes, Principal at First Round Capital.

About SkillSlate


SkillSlate allows consumers to easily find local individual service providers like tutors, dog walkers, and personal trainers. SkillSlate aims to empower the more than 16 million individual service providers in the US to more effectively market their services directly to consumers online. SkillSlate provides detailed professional and personal information including pictures, fees, and reviews within a searchable, sortable directory where consumers can find service providers that fit their specific needs.




About Canaan Partners

Canaan Partners invests in visionary entrepreneurs and provides them the networks, insights and operational guidance required to build high-performance technology and healthcare companies. Founded in 1987, the firm has raised eight funds and completed more than 78 acquisitions and 53 IPOs. With $3 billion under management and a worldwide footprint, the firm is committed to catalyzing the growth of innovative digital media, communications & mobility, enterprise and clean tech companies. Among its successes are Associated Content, the people’s media company; VOIP equipment supplier Acme Packet; CommerceOne, the company that pioneered B2B ecommerce; DoubleClick, the leading online advertising solution; Match.com, the most popular online dating site in the world; and SuccessFactors, the global leader in on-demand performance and talent management solutions. Other Canaan investments include 3Crowd, Active Networks, blip.tv, Blurb, Cardlytics, iYogi, KABAM, Lending Club, ON24, OpenSky, Prime Sense, SOASTA, Tremor Media and Zoosk. Canaan maintains a presence in California, Connecticut, India and Israel. For more information visit www.canaan.com.

About First Round Capital

First Round Capital is a seed stage fund dedicated to helping talented entrepreneurs build remarkable companies. Often providing a company’s first outside capital, the team at First Round likes to take an active role and work with the founders to launch a new product or service. First Round Capital invests nationally and has offices in San Francisco, New York and Philadelphia.

A Half-Hearted Effort by Paul Graham

This comes directly from Paul's http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html



18. A Half-Hearted Effort

The failed startups you hear most about are the spectactular flameouts. Those are actually the elite of failures. The most common type is not the one that makes spectacular mistakes, but the one that doesn't do much of anything—the one we never even hear about, because it was some project a couple guys started on the side while working on their day jobs, but which never got anywhere and was gradually abandoned.

Statistically, if you want to avoid failure, it would seem like the most important thing is to quit your day job. Most founders of failed startups don't quit their day jobs, and most founders of successful ones do. If startup failure were a disease, the CDC would be issuing bulletins warning people to avoid day jobs.

Does that mean you should quit your day job? Not necessarily. I'm guessing here, but I'd guess that many of these would-be founders may not have the kind of determination it takes to start a company, and that in the back of their minds, they know it. The reason they don't invest more time in their startup is that they know it's a bad investment. [12]


I'd also guess there's some band of people who could have succeeded if they'd taken the leap and done it full-time, but didn't. I have no idea how wide this band is, but if the winner/borderline/hopeless progression has the sort of distribution you'd expect, the number of people who could have made it, if they'd quit their day job, is probably an order of magnitude larger than the number who do make it. [13]

If that's true, most startups that could succeed fail because the founders don't devote their whole efforts to them. That certainly accords with what I see out in the world. Most startups fail because they don't make something people want, and the reason most don't is that they don't try hard enough.

In other words, starting startups is just like everything else. The biggest mistake you can make is not to try hard enough. To the extent there's a secret to success, it's not to be in denial about that.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Man in the Arena - Awesome Quote by Theodore Roosevelt

Man in the Arena

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Friday, September 24, 2010

Entrepreneurial Overdrive

Entrepreneurial Overdrive - This is a characteristic that I believe every successful entrepreneur must possess. It’s the ability to reach that extra inch when you are tired or feeling like giving up. Its that extra sales call or line of code that you write at the end of a long week or while you’re dying to keep your eyes open. Its waking up on a Saturday, opening your laptop and getting at it, even before you brush your teeth.


Its not caring about spending half of your paycheck on getting that new logo designed or spending a weekend shacked up in your basement writing PRDs, fueled by pizza and beer.

In my mind it’s the only way to get things done. Cause in business excuses don’t matter, nor does anyone really give a crap why it didn’t get done. It just must get done. And especially when launching a start up, the momentum generated by getting things done is so VERY, VERY, VERY important. I have found that once you are at a standstill its incredibly hard to keep going. Its why coaches preach momentum to their team all the time. As an avid sports fanatic I see the change in momentum in games all the time. Loosing momentum will loose you games.

This is Entrepreneurial Overdrive.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Its True about True Ventures...They're cool guys

So, I had a cup of coffee this morning with a guy from true ventures, and was definitely surprised at how cool this dude was. I mean, I have met and know a ton of VCs in the web space and many, not to generalize, are so full of themselves that its a breath of fresh air to meet some that are not so pretentious and full of sh%t. This guy was actually listening to what I had to say and provided some very relevant feedback; actually feedback that that actually solved some of the issues that I was currently tackling on my Incubator55 research platform. It was awesome. The interesting thing is that us young entrepreneurs tend to forget that getting funded is like getting married, and its not entirely only about the money. In our case, its a matter of time, and funding is a way to accelerate things drastically. Its like marrying a hot women who's a pain in the a#s to deal with. Once you tie the knot you are stuck and getting out is a messy ordeal.

Now that we are in the process of exploring funding its very important to us to partner with the RIGHT fund, who will be mentors and innovators, not just a pile of cash.

Check out

or Follow them :

Friday, August 13, 2010

KickApps Launches Social Media Strategy Division Led by Alan Wolk and Justin Chase

* Although I spent a few great years at KickApps, my opinion is as objective and un-bias as possible.

I have to say that this was another great move by Alex Blum and his team. KickApps already has solid technology which over the years has evolved and is going through a hyper-innovation period at the moment. They have a world-class services team; no really it’s awesome. I had the pleasure of working with EVP of Clients Services Tom Gaffney during my time at KickApps, and they don’t get any better than Tom and his team; period. And now with the addition of a Social Media Strategy Division, I believe that this will further enhance the KickApps business, offering their clients strategies that transcend on-domain social experiences to destinations such as Facebook and Twitter. Although, I don't know Alan, I do know Justin Chase and his work, and can say KickApps is lucky to have him. Justin spent several years working on social strategies with Digitas NYC.

Although, the social software space is quite congested and highly competitive my instincts tell me that KickApps will continue to prove to be a real leader within the social media and online publishing spaces.

Also New: KickApps’s CMS Capabilities



Also New: KickApps AppStudio Allows you to create Facebook pages on-demand

Monday, August 9, 2010

Skillslate: Good Idea


So I spoke to Taylor VanAlle of Skillslate.com today and thought that the idea was pretty cool. She called it the "Match.com" for finding a handyman, dog walker,
tutor, or any other individual service provider focused on people as opposed to
companies.

They guys and gals are based in NYC, of course a startup at the moment, looking to change the way people find trusted, local individual business owners.

At First Glance:


The UI looks pretty good. Looks web 2.0'ish and is pretty easy to navigate. Its 1000 times nicer than Craigslist, which is always a plus. Also these guys seem focused unlike some of the other players. Also, its a Rails app so naturally being a fan of rails I like it already.

They are funded, just raised a seed round of venture capital. Of course, these folks are a bunch of young entrepreneurs so I'm definitely in their corner and would love to see them succeed.

Check it out at:

www.Skillslate.com

Thursday, July 29, 2010

I Actually Like Facebook Ads

Yep, I can’t believe that I am saying it but, yes, I actually really like Facebook ads.

And there are a few reasons why:
First off, they are relevant to me. Because they are so focused on me, I actually like on them and are quite interested in learning more. For example, I am a big yoga lover. I constantly see ads for yoga retreats and products; which is awesome. I almost click on them 100% of the time. Another topic is entrepreneurship; which duh, is something I really enjoy. Again, there are always awesome events and info that come via Facebook ads.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Wanna-Bes vs Doers

This is a topic is really gets under my skin.

Its like putting a team together to play a basketball game and everyone comes to try outs, and then first game; and then some come to the game but don't play. And before you know it your stuck playing the game alone.

The problem is that games are not won alone. Teams win games; not individuals. And as cliche as it is, yet logical, its the wanna-bes who just don't get it. You don't join a team and give up. Doers understand the importance of commitment and know their role within their team. They know that games are won by a balanced attack.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Mr and Mrs. Mediocrity

This is a concept that I learned selling books door-to-door with The Southwestern Company. Current President Dan Moore used to speak about the concept of Mr. Mediocrity and how it effects success.

I am using Mr and Mrs. Mediocrity :)

So who are these creatures? These are the little voices that say "I'll do it tomorrow" or "I've already had a good week in sales, let me just take the rest of the week off; I deserve it", or “it’s too cold/hot outside, I’ll go to the gym another day”. Etc etc etc.
The thing is that we are all familiar with Mr and Mrs. Mediocrity, yet so many of us are unaware of the impact that they have on our lives.

I believe that successful people, top sales people, for example are able to ignore Mr and Mrs. Mediocrity and even excel when they are pushing their hardest. People like Michael Jordan and Joe Montana are well known for their 4th quarter production and last minute heroics. Do you think it’s because they were tired or their body ached any less than the rest? They are just as human as the next player, yet there are 3 key components that I believe defined their greatness: first they prepared and worked harder and longer off the court/field, both mentally and physically, so that they were better during the game; secondly they knew to push their hardest when things were the most challenging.

I believe, that the first step of your advancement is being aware that Mr and Mrs Mediocrity exist, and are not impossible to defeat. I believe the next steps are mentally training yourself to anticipated scenarios in which laziness, procrastination, doubt, etc, all of Mr and Mrs Mediocrity’s methods, will strike. Once you are able to anticipate these attacks you can simply ignore them. Get it? If you are ready for them, then they become non-factors.

Think about this and try it out yourself…

Monday, January 11, 2010

Visualization of the Plan

I have been speaking a great deal about this lately. The idea that if you are able to visualize achieving a goal, then you are 100% capable to manifesting it in real life. Here’s the analogy that I use. We all know the steps of getting to work in the morning. We get up brush our teeth, take a shower etc etc. Many of us take the subway to work, some drive, others use alternative forms of transportation. My point is that we all can close our eyes and visualize this commute. And well, I believe that achieving success and building businesses are the same way. If you are able to visualize this you are able to achieve it .

So what does this mean exactly? Does this mean if I close my eyes and picture stacks of cash sitting on my bed that it will magically happen? Of course not! What it means is that if you take the time to plan and visualize the logical steps, many of these steps you may have already physical walked through, achieving this goal is now simply a matter of execution.

Take a moment to think through this concept and test it out for yourself. I believe that you will be surprised.