Motivation 2.0: Think Bigger
Jul1
Entrepreneurs often tell me that the #1 thing they have going for them is ambition. They understand that there is always going to be a better programmer (he works for Microsoft) or a better graphic designer (he works for MTV) or a better manager (he works for Target).
But the Microsoft, MTV and Target folks - the ones that love it there, and want nothing else - just aren’t as ambitious as you are. It’s not that they aren’t brilliant or hard-working. It’s just that their world begins and ends with the work they have in front of them. The code update, the new ad campaign (or shitty reality show), the next time the supervisor comes around. Whatever. It’s always a race to the finish line (5pm?) and a beer back home.
Entrepreneurs - true entrepreneurs - don’t think that way.
[As an aside - while I'm at it - let's correct one more misconception: An entrepreneur is a person with a certain state of mind. It's not a Founder or CXO].
An entrepreneur has no finish line. An IPO or any other liquidity event represents a point in time for the entrepreneur. The broader goal is always world-changing, industry shattering change throughout the entire course of your career. Thus, your current project is an extension of YOU. Getting to 5pm means nothing. Getting in at 9am means nothing. I know I’ll catch shit from our COO for saying this: but I don’t care if you’re in at 10am and out at 11am, as long as that one hour you were in the office resulted in the aforementioned game-changing performance. I’m dead serious. Similarly - if you’re like most of us and need some more time (I need a LOT of time) to change the game. Then you better stay until you do.
As a corollary, don’t ever tell me your “Done.” Done doing what?
So what helps me get motivated? Thinking big. Thinking ambitious. Sitting in my chair and finding a way to make a big impact.
Sometimes that’s by doing the small things. Sometimes it’s creating opportunity.
Cheers,
Boris
More about motivation (and not), here: http://www.borisrevsin.com/?p=15
CampusLIVE Series: Ask The Users
Apr12
Hello CampusLIVE users and guests:
We’re in the early stages of brainstorming for our new release in September of 2010. Starting today, I will be writing a series of posts aimed at facilitating feedback and thoughts from our most loyal and knowledgeable users. As our company grows - over 250,000 students access a school in our network every month - it becomes necessary for us to start building features and interface based on the people actually using our service.
Many of you may be entrepreneurs yourselves, with great ideas and concepts that you’re working on. Some of you might just see something missing from CampusLIVE. Maybe you don’t like the page for some reason or another. We welcome feedback from everyone.
I’m also going to highlight announcements on this blog. Many will also be re-posted onto the official CampusLIVE blog.
Announcement #1: Beta-tester sign-up. I’m not sure when I’m going to initiate a cut-off, but it’s likely going to be at approximately 3,000 students. Sign up and tell your friends, as this will be a fun, easy opportunity to get involved with CampusLIVE. Sign up here [top of the page].
So, here is my first question for the users:
Question #1: To obtain a great deal (10% off, $5 off ,etc) from a brand you enjoy purchasing from (XBox, Victoria Secret, etc), would you be willing to join their Facebook Group and Follow them on Twitter? Is the value there for you? Would you tell your friends about the deal if we needed a certain amount for it to activate? Post your answer in comments below.
If you’re interested in hearing what your friends think about this program, or want them to join the BETA program with you (there are benefits to this, I promise!). Share this post on FB/Twitter using the tool beneath this post.
Cheers,
Boris Revsin
Chief Executive Officer
CampusLIVE, Inc
boris@campuslive.com
Ignite on “Bootstrapping CampusLIVE”
Oct0
I did an “Ignite” talk last week, and it was recorded by local TV Station ACTV. The topic was “Bootstrapping CampusLIVE“, and was my first ever Ignite format presentation.
ACTV Amherst posted it on Facebook, here is the link: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/video/video.php?v=738599518572
Learn more about this unique speaking format here.
Excerpt:
If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world geeks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers.
A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.
Jun5
A man convinced against his will
is of the same opinion still.
I was re-reading (for the 10th time) Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People when I ran into this un-attributed quote. It struck me as pertinent, though, because of the serious activity going on at CampusLIVE regarding the new release we have planned for July 1st (dubbed “Raptor”).
Raptor is a complete overhaul of the look of the site, with a STRONG focus on usability and search. Our focus groups confirmed our beliefs that users are looking to get to places quickly, with as little clicking and scrolling as possible. This seems obvious, but this was not reflected in our current release (dubbed “Viper”). So, in order to get things right this time around, we hired two developers (Mike, our all-star programmer/product mgr and Sean, our illustrator and designer) to help make it a reality.
As you can probably guess, 9 guys in one 1,400 sqft. office will have PLENTY of disagreements about the product they’ve been building, re-building, marketing and selling for over 2 years. Now, there is no way to stop people from having disagreements. It’s natural, and healthy debate is KEY to building a successful product.
Look at it this way:
Ryan - has been LIVING with our demographic for the last year. Literally, he lived in a dorm room. He knows what the students want, and he did all of our focus studies.
Jared - designed the first 3 versions of CampusLIVE. He knows what he’s doing and has seen the site go from old-school to new-school to web 2.0.
Mike - Mike is an excellent front-end guy. He can build anything, and make it look appealing. He’s also in charge of adding functionality to our designs. Fade-ins? Scrolling? Stylesheets? All on him.
Sean - He’s our artist. We depend on him to make things look professional. He has to “see” the light.
The key is to ensuring all of these players can play together. The title of this blog post seems to me a perfect fit for this situation. Even though all of us are debating the merits of each feature and each stroke on the site, we ALL have to keep in mind that at the end of the day the final product will be a MIX of all of our thoughts.
If you are a founder of a company, and can’t accept the fact that your vision will change, you are making a huge mistake. Remember, a start-up SUCCEEDS because the people are (allegedly) more PASSIONATE about their product. If you stifle creativity, and force your own way, your stifling passion.
I think we’re doing a good job letting people input their own advice. Let’s see how it turns out in July…
Cheers,
Boris
Startup IV: Advising
Jun0
I just had my first meeting with an Advisory Board that I am a member of for a company based near Boston, MA. I can’t discuss any details of the project I am advising on, but I do want to go a little bit into detail about advisory boards and the general giving of advice.
First: WHAT is an Advisory Board? Google says:
An advisory board is a body that advises the board of directors and management of a corporation but does not have authority to vote on corporate matters, nor a legal fiduciary responsibility.
That’s not a bad definition for an established company. However - I’m far more used to advising companies between the prototype and beta stage, and that is where I think an advisory board can be most useful. In this particular company, my main task is to be a technical advisor - to advise the founding team on how to actually get the product built. Now, here’s the catch: Advisory Boards DON’T get paid. Sometimes they will get minor stock compensation for helping out, but that is not a necessity and should not be expected.
So WHY do people do it? Well, Keith Ferrazzi put it best in his new book (and I’m just paraphrasing here):
People LOVE to think that their input is valuable.
Seriously. I drove to Framingham, MA (a 1.5 hour commute) and spent an ENTIRE business day helping out another start-up. It wasn’t just me, though. Joining me were two very bright business executives with their own companies, time commitments and MIT Biz School degrees (seriously, Sloan, not bad huh?). These are potentially $1000/day guys who will give you input for free.
The advantages of an Advisory Board:
-A ton of helpful advice on development, business, scale, sales, marketing and strategy from PEOPLE IN BUSINESS (and maybe the industry).
-Names to drop. I’m working with so and so on this project. If you tell me you’ve got some experience on your board - you get the benefit of the doubt. If it’s just you and a couple kids in a basement - people are skeptical.
-Similar to above: a MUCH stronger pitch to VC’s. Advisory Boards provide you with credibility. They provide you with business diversity. You can’t hire me, but you can still use my expertise. Catch my drift?
Too many aspiring entrepreneurs don’t know this.
A lot of you guys and girls are thinking about dropping everything and rifling off invitations to your advisory boards. DON’T DO THIS. Not yet. It is critically important that you meet EVERY single potential member of your board in person ABOUT YOUR PROJECT before you invite them onto the board. Furthermore, not everyone will just jump on the bandwagon. Develop them like you would a client. You need to make sure that when you ask them to join the board, there is no way they will say no. Get them invested (time-wise) in your project before you ask them to do anything official.
Speaking of official. Any entrepreneur who spends money for a lawyer to put together an Advisory Board is a fool. The MOST you need to do is have them sign an NDA (1000’s of versions available online). If you’re giving them stock, you will want to talk to a lawyer. My advice: don’t give them anything until their advice works.
So, cheers to all of your new advisors!
-Boris Revsin
Startup III: Getting Started… from the VERY beginning
Jun1
This is a follow-up to my previous post about asking for help. Check it out first.
My last post got quite a few people emailing/FB messaging me to ask just WHEN is a good time to ask someone more experienced for help. Many of these people had legitimately good (I.E: they have a chance) ideas, but had NOTHING at all to show yet. Just a simple thought they wanted to share.
This post will serve two purposes:
1) I want to clarify my previous post. In it, I asked people to have some serious prototype or information before they asked for help. What I didn’t mention was that if all you want to do is see if I like the idea (in a vacuum - without knowledge of the industry, competitors or logistics), than please by all means: SHARE! It’s only when you request my HELP or serious advice that I ask you come to me with something more solid.
This takes me to point…
2) You have a good idea and you don’t know what to do with it. You’ve never started a business before and you just have no idea how to even take Step 1. Cool - I’m going to try to help you below.
Boris Revsin’s “First 3-Step program to stop talking and start DOING”
1) Do a FRIEND TEST. The idea of a friend test has been all over business advice books for a while now. All you have to do is put together a list of 20 of your friends. Track them down and give them the pitch. Ask them to rate the idea from 0-5. Get an average you’re happy with, and you’ve got a solid idea. Get a 0, 1 or 2 and go back to the drawing board. Pretty simple. If 20 of your friends don’t like your idea, chances are neither will anyone else. Disclaimer: If your idea is some sort of funky invention only you would understand (and be able to build), better to ask those with experience. This should be obvious.
2) Put something down on paper (and by that I mean a word document or an excel sheet - don’t be the dumbass who loses his “journal” because mom cleaned out your desk drawer).
Documents to construct:
-An excel sheet of everyone who can help you with this idea. With contact information.
-A 1-page document explaining the product and why it will win. Attach visuals if necessary. This document MUST include evidence as to why YOU are the right person for the job.
-An excel sheet detailing start-up costs. If you don’t know exactly - guess. If you don’t know at all - pick a new idea.
-A timeline. NO: this is NOT financial projections. I don’t care that VC’s want to see a 5-year plan for sales goals. Seriously, if you are a student in college and you’re showing me a 5-year financial plan: I will slap you for wasting time. Nobody, not even VC’s, actually buy these things. Save your typing hand for when you’re in the (un)lucky position of actually NEEDING to bullshit an investor. The timeline I am looking for is a SIMPLE document that shows your 1 month goals for the idea. When will you have the documents above finished? When do you want to build a prototype? When will you be reaching out to people for help? When do you want to talk to a lawyer about incorporating your business (HIGHLY recommended you DON’T do this yourself)? Anything and everything should be simply defined.
Remember: only you hold yourself accountable for this timeline. Don’t make shit up.
3) Start contacting the people on the list you made. You now have a good amount of documentation to show that you are serious. If you do all the work I just asked for and then ask me for help, there is NO way I will say no.
Good luck!
Startup II: Incubators
Jun2
A common theme in the start-up world is the inability to get “seed capital” to get your prototype off the ground. This is especially common in higher-ed, where many students haven’t held “real” jobs because they are still in school. This means that they are, generally speaking, broke. But these students aren’t broke in ideas, time or advice - they just don’t have the cash on hand to start their business venture.
There are a TONS of ways to get financing for your business. You can take funding from Friends, Family, Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists, Loans, etc etc. Those all have their benefits and drawbacks and I’ll make sure to go over my experience with them at some point in the future.
In this post, I want to go over an often-overlooked option for “seed capital”: Incubators.
First off, what is an incubator?
Incubators…
are programs designed to accelerate the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through an array of business support resources and services, developed and orchestrated by incubator management and offered both in the incubator and through its network of contacts. (Wikipedia)
Basically, an incubator is a group of people and connections that will help you grow you’re business from the ground up. Sometimes they will take a piece of your company, and sometimes they won’t. Simple as that.
If you’re interested in learning more, check out some of these articles on Incubators.
BizWeek Article
Entrepreneur Magazine Article
Still interested? Check out some of the more recent (and my personal favorite) student-friendly incubators:
Short-List of Incubators:
My personal favorite, and a great track record: Y Combinator
Founder’s Institute
TechStars
Facebook Apps Incubator: fbFund
Twitter Apps Incubator: 140 Labs
Has anyone had any experience with incubators? Let me know!
Connecting III: Business Development
Jun0
See: Connecting 101 & Connecting 201.
OK, so: You’ve got a product that you want to sell and an idea that is ready to go to market. If you’re smart, you’re looking for strategic partners to help jump-start you in the game.
Example:
CampusLIVE has a partnership or licensing agreement with TV-GUIDE, Weather.com, CampusFood, Chegg and many others.
Each and every single one of those partnerships required us to interact with the marketing, sales or business development teams at those companies. An official agreement (as opposed to some sort of automatic “form”) with those corporations serve a few different purposes:
1) Barrier to entry - a competitor, to duplicate those features, would have to form a similar agreement with these companies. That takes time and effort (assuming they even want more partners who do the same thing!)
2) Open line of communication - We can talk to these people anytime we want. They’ve got full development teams, SMART executives and a WORKING product. They will help build out our network in the future. If we need to delve into a deeper partnership, we’ve already got a running start.
3) Custom love - Our Weather.com partnership gives us a 5-day full forecast. You know who else has that partnership? CNN. Not too many others. It’s because we talked to the guys in charge. CampusFood? We now have plug and play online ordering - a service that would have taken my developers a year to build. Chegg? Instead of 8% on each book sale through our site, we make 10%. You get the idea.
The point is this: Don’t be afraid to reach out to the people you want to work with, no matter WHO they work for. Chances are, there will always be someone at SOME level within the organization that is willing to talk to you. A little bit of extra effort and research (don’t just call or email ANYONE) will get you a long way. Just show them they have something to gain (use a powerpoint, a sketch or an example) and that you are damn serious about it, and they will be happy to have a chat with you.
Don’t reinvent the wheel.
And here is an example of what started our Weather.com partnership. Silly how easy and simple that email is, isn’t it? (And NO, you don’t need to be in BusinessWeek - use ANY references you have to your advantage).
Hi Pat,
I’d like to introduce myself and discuss a potential partnership with your organization for our “Weather” widget on CampusLIVE. My name is Ryan Durkin and I am the Director of Business Development of CampusLIVE. Could you please direct me to someone who can facilitate a partnership?
CampusLIVE is “The Homepage for College Students,” providing single-click access to the most widely used college resources. From university email, athletics, news and Facebook to local restaurants and entertainment, our campus specific homepages serve as the one-stop-shop for college students. It’s everything a college student needs, all in one place.
Our company ranked third in BusinessWeek’s annual “Best Young Entrepreneurs in America” this past fall. The announcement only reiterated our dedication to the service we provide to college students across the United States.
I think that we will be able to help your company in the future. I look forward to hearing back from you. And remember, when you think “College,” think “CampusLIVE.”
Regards,
Ryan Durkin
Startup I: “I’ve got an idea for a website!”
Jun5
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that line. This generation of college students is the “Facebook Era.” They have all been part of the wild success of a college-dropouts successful vision turned multi-billion dollar venture. I know that when I started using Facebook in 2004, I’d always see that one line on the bottom of the site:
“A Mark Zuckerberg Production.”
But hey, most of these students are thinking, the idea of Facebook isn’t THAT crazy. I’ve had that idea. Or another idea just as cool. I’m going to be rich. I don’t even need to drop out of school.
But you’re not. Every single time I’m told about an “idea” for the next Facebook (and seriously, it’s probably like 15 times last week if you count emails from random people), I always ask 2 questions:
1) Have you Googled competitors?
2) Are you an amazing web developer?
Think about this:
Mark Zuckerberg is not just a random kid with an idea to make a social network. When he was in high-school, he made a program for Winamp (remember that thing?) that had Microsoft and AOL offering him jobs before his 18th birthday. He’s been building websites for much longer than that, and he had an entire crew of like-minded kids around him.
Now, I’m not married to Mark. The point I am trying to make is simple: it wasn’t his first rodeo. Facebook doesn’t jump out of thin air. He had practice creating applications and Facebook happened to be the one that took off like crazy.
I enjoy helping young entrepreneurs. I do it all the time, and have regular meetings or conversation with dozens of them every week. I get a LOT of requests for help. I’ll do my best to help almost everyone who asks, but here is a little secret:
The more initiative you show me with your project, the more I will get excited to help you win.
Now listen. I have connections you need. I have experience in building and managing scalable applications. I have an office. I have amazing employees who know what they are doing. I’ve tried tons of marketing techniques. Even more sales techniques. I know TONS of school administrators that can help you get interns, focus groups and general advice.
If you want me to open the doors to you, don’t just “have an idea.” Give me more than that.
So to all of those who have and will tell me about the next Facebook: Answer my two questions first. If you can’t - find someone who can.
Oh, and here is a bonus because I want discussion on the blog. If you post a little something about your idea down below, you’ll get all the help you need. Cheers.