Starting small

If I had SportsLizard to do all over again, the main thing I would have done differently was start small. When I "launched" I advertised on eBay and in magazines, I attended large collectibles shows, I spent money on PPC ads, and I spent time learning and applying SEO. All of that taught me a lot, but I was wrongly trying to dominate the industry right from the start.

In hindsight, I should have started with a few local collectibles dealers and show promoters. I should have helped them bring their stores and products to the web. I should have listened to what they really didn't like about eBay and tried to better it instead of guessing or acting like I knew it all because I read a few studies or because I was a collector all my life.

Had I gained a small and loyal local following, I could have slowly grown nationally. Instead I tried to grow nationally and, from a buying and selling collectibles standpoint, I failed. Also, had I focused more on the quality content that DID gain a large following, I could have grown a larger following around that. About the only thing I think I did real well was the customs section, which now dominates the search rankings and makes me some good $.

Now, I may go back and do it right down the road, but I think it's a lesson well learned by all young entrepreneurs. We all want to take the world over, but we need to remember to do it one step at a time. It's almost like the fight against hunger and poverty in America, it can't be fixed all at once - the solution is to solve it person by person, neighborhood by neighborhood. It might not be the sexy answer, but it will work.

Earlier today I was talking with my good friend Paul, who has built one of the most technically amazing websites I've ever seen called PayMyRent.net (along with his partner Bilal, hands down the most brilliant programmer I've ever known). It enables tenants to pay rent to their communities, landlords to manage their communities, and about 50 other amazingly sweet features, most of which can't be seen on that link I sent because they are in the back-end of the system. They have a great pricing structure too: .25% of every transaction and everything else is free. The complex gets a ton of amazing web-software for free, and they get a lot of $ if people use it.

They have yet to land a client, but the complex they are in serious talks with has over 150,000 units and could net them millions each year if the deal closes. But the deal keeps getting delayed because the client wants more features. They don't know whether to look for more clients or continue after this one. I don't know what I'd do - it's great to start small, but if you have the opportunity to earn that kind of money it's tough to avoid. In my gut though, I think it's best to grow slowly, learn from your customers and adjust accordingly. I don't think they should turn down that job if it's offered, but they may be better off in the end if they get a few small complexes and go from there.

Skype rocks

I've always used Skype for my business phone calls because it's inexpensive, the call quality is great, and I don't need to worry about any extra equipment other than my speakers and a microphone. It's nice to be able to answer a phone call by clicking a window on your computer and then just pretend like the person is sitting across the room from you.

But since Mike, George and I have been working together, Pure Adapt has found Skype invaluable. Every day we have a chat window open all day long with the three of us in it. Anytime we want to have a team meeting, we just click the call button and the three of us our having a conference...all for free. Even though we all live within a mile radius, it's awesome to be able to communicate like we are in the same room all day long.

Getting visibility

One of the things that always ticked me off about the corporate world was "visibility." As a business owner you want your company and your product to get "visibility" and any visibility you personally get is inherently helping the business. That's not how it is in the corporate world.

People in the same company are competing for INDIVIDUAL "visibility" so that they can look better to their superiors and get a promotion and make more money. It's like a big kiss-ass competition to see who can kiss the most ass. Enemies form where partnerships should be forming, and the adversary becomes Bob in the cubicle down the hall and not the competitors product. Your goal becomes playing golf with the VP and not busting your stones to increase sales...mostly because that has a better chance at increasing YOUR bottom line.

This all popped into my head a few minutes ago when I was thinking back to a meeting with my boss who "sold" me on a new project because it would give me greater "visibility" within the company. It seemed stupid then and it really seems stupid now.

My social deterioration

Sometimes I wonder how I came to be an entrepreneur. Unlike other business owners I know, it wasn't something I dreamed about or even really had a desire to do. Up until about the age of 19, all I wanted to do was graduate, get a job like the one I had, and then spend my free nights and weekends working out, playing basketball, playing Madden, partying, and chasing girls.

I can't pinpoint the moment where I changed, but it was a slow process of me coming to a realization about the truth's of the working world and a realization that I had the potential to do so much more than my previous expectations allowed for. And then it was on.

From around the beginning of 2004 until now, my entrepreneurial endeavors have been my primary focus. People have always warned me that I worked too much, but I never felt like I was losing the balance necessary to be happy. In reality, I was wrong. I've spent the better part of 2 years blowing off everything else in my life (except my health...I still eat well and exercise) for entrepreneurial happiness.

My friendships are all either from high school and college, or formed from business. I don't get out very often, and when I do it's usually to have drinks or lunch with my new business partners. I used to date a lot. I used to play a lot of basketball. I used to have a few hobbies. I used to read a lot of books (non biz related). Not so much anymore.

This all kind of came to a head recently when I found out that BOTH of my most serious ex-girlfriends are now engaged...presumably each to the guys that followed me. Now don't get me wrong, I am happy for them, and I played a large part in initiating both breakups so no one should feel sorry for me, BUT it does leave one in my position feeling a bit inadequate. Since then I've been letting really stupid things piss me off, things I usually let roll off my back.

In reality, that feeling had more to do with the culmination of my social negligence and very little to do with me being bothered by two people I care about doing something that will make them happy. I've been neglecting too many things for too long in the name of SportsLizard/iPrioritize/SEO Playbook/Pure Adapt. Not any more. I'm going to take a page from my past and attack those things with the same passion and energy that I attack my work.

I'm confident in my ability to do my work and maintain a social life. What I'm not so confident in is my desire to do both. Too often my desires to succeed in business get in the way of my other desires, but after several years of placing work ahead of everything else, I'm making a commitment to making the rest of my life just as important as work. This doesn't mean that I won't work long hours or work on weekends, it just means that when I see an opportunity to do something fun with the people I care about or an opportunity to meet some new people, I won't pass it up in the name of work.

If you've taken the plunge like I have, you either have gone through or will go through what is hitting me right now. I'm pretty sure ANYONE who truly has a passion for what they do, has a tendency to neglect other things, and while their work ethic is part of what makes them great, it can also crumble them if they don't watch out. It's been an age old problem that may not have an answer, but I think you are one step closer to a solution if you acknowledge it...which I have failed to do until recently.

Christmas Day - perfect for email marketing?

From around last Thursday until yesterday my email was at an all-time high. SportsLizard is at it's busiest around the holidays, iPrioritize picked up a little more than usual, I'm jam packed with SEO jobs, and on top of that we're trying to complete the Pure Adapt transition before Jan 1.

In the middle of this chaotic spree of emails, I noticed that many of the newsletters that I normally take the time to read I was deleting without even so much as skimming through. The obvious reason why is because I was so damn busy. However, today, especially by mid-afternoon all email seized and I thought to myself "man, if one of those newsletters came in right now, I'd read the whole thing before deleting it."

I think the same would go for advertising - if you send an email out over the next few days, particularly on Christmas, you are facing very little competition. People are going to be more likely to read it because that's all that anyone is sending them. Yes, I am ignoring the fact that people travel and actually don't check their email. A large part of the population doesn't travel very far for the holidays, and many have nothing to do after family gatherings because everything is closed so they turn to their computers.

Just food for thought...maybe I'll try it next year. Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas everyone!

New Year, new change in direction for me....sort of

As 2007 approaches, my entrepreneurial journey is taking another interesting twist. No, I'm not getting a job. I guess you can say I'm "consolidating" my work and adjusting my long term focus. When I quit my job, I thought SportsLizard was all I needed to spend time on. Then I started iPrioritize, and shifted focus there. As I struggled to make ends meet with two successful sites and two not so profitable businesses, I started doing SEO consulting because it's something I enjoy, am good at, and can fund my businesses as they grow.

A funny thing happened along the way, as it always does. I was presented with a new opportunity that I couldn't pass up. In doing SEO work, I started doing a few local jobs with people who heard about me through word of mouth. Some of the jobs involved other things in addition to SEO (design, adding forums/blogs, database stuff, etc) and I took on "partners" for each project. One project I worked with a close friend, Mike Li, who owns Chinese Food America. Another project I am working with another longtime friend, George Dushensky, the owner of the insanely successful Detailed Image.

We tossed around the idea of merging our businesses, including our consulting gigs. It wasn't until last week that we got serious about it though. Together we spontaneously purchased a large site that has steady revenue (larger than my sites, but I don't want to say the name until the deal is 100% done). We called a series of midnight meetings to figure out how we were going to legally structure this, and we came to the conclusion that we should create and umbrella corporation to buy out all of our sites, own this new site, and provide web design/application development/SEO. And so Pure Adapt, Inc was born last Thursday (thanks to our fast working lawyer).

We are fighting to finish the transition before '07, and we are all swamped with work. I've got enough SEO work lined up to cover me through the first quarter of '07, which is exciting and also a bit stressful. However, when you take a step back and look at Pure Adapt as a whole, I can't help but think the company we just formed is somewhat brilliant. Yes - we are providing web design and all of that stuff, like a million other companies out there, but we are different because we all own web businesses. I think that's a big selling point with clients - we have the same problems they do.

And all of that's nice, but the thing that really excites me is that we have a different plan for growth. We don't plan on taking on as many jobs as we can, and hiring more employees accordingly (as I think most firms do). We plan on reinvesting a large portion of our revenue into purchasing sites (as we did last week). We look to buy sites that already generate steady revenue, aren't "fad" sites, and that we can get a ROI within 6 months. Anyone whose shopped around for sites knows that there are sites out there for any budget and most of them are not maximizing their potential. We buy them proven (as opposed to making lots of them) and then grow them. At that point we either sit on them or flip them for a profit.

We will continue to always do SEO and web design, but we won't take on clients infinitely. Ultimately the more we make working for clients, the more sites we will buy and the less clients we will take on. Honestly, I couldn't be more excited about this interesting "twist" we put on our biz!

My role in all of this is somewhat obvious - primarily SEO work, the occasional database driven site, look for and buy new sites, and manage my existing sites. I've already outsourced the majority of work for SportsLizard, and I plan on doing the same for iPrioritize (I'm mostly talking about marketing, I'll probably continue to code the sites). Both Mike and George bring unique things to the company, and as a whole we compliment each other very well.

Opportunity is the key in all of this. To some people on the outside, each move I've made since I was about 18 hasn't added up. But I have always been able to recognize opportunity, and act accordingly. If I see something that presents me an opportunity to learn or grow or make money or whatever I want at the time, I pretty much always take it. I tend not to let fear get in the way, as I think many people do, and I feel like I'm better off for it.

2007 should be an exciting year for myself as an entrepreneur and Pure Adapt as a company. I also think it will be interesting to see the dynamic of this blog change as I write "for three" as opposed to one. My business problems are now Mike's and George's and vice-versa, so they will now become key "characters" in my entrepreneurial story. They support this blog and it's mission and what it's done for me and others, so hopefully I can still stay as transparent as I've been in the past with things. As usual, I'll continue to ask for forgiveness rather than permission :)

Spying on your workers sucks

In this months Business 2.0 Magazine (on page 68, sorry couldn't find a link on their site) there is an interesting article about trusting your employees. It cites the following statistics from a 2005 American Management Association Survey:

• 76% of employers monitor workers website connections
• 55% retain and review email messages
• 51% track the amount of time spent on the phone as well as the numbers you call

In short, they monitor everything you do. When I worked for a company that did these things, here's what I did:

• Used a proxy to screw with their web monitoring software (although I did get in trouble one time for going to dicks.com...I was looking for the sporting goods store...I was wrong)
• Used my cell phone for calls (also could be used for internet browsing)
• Brought in Sports Illustrated to read when I was bored instead of browsing the web
• Spoke face-to-face with people about everything, to avoid a paper trail (many times this meant me taking really long walks for things that could have been done by phone or email)
  
• Socialized with people at the water cooler for hours because I was blocked from my fantasy football team - it would have taken me five minutes to set my lineup and get back to work...but since you deprived me of that like I'm a five year old I'm going to waste more of your time just to prove a point...like a five year old
  

Did any of that make me a better worker? Um, no. It made me want to circumvent the system because, while well intentioned, was absolutely stupid and counterproductive. If you don't trust me to manage my time, why should I bend over backwards for you? In fact, why should I trust you if you don't trust me?

Here's an idea - actually trust your employees. Make them responsible for important things. Trust me, people want to be valued and want to take pride in their work. Let them manage their time and be responsible for the repercussions. If they suck and screw up, they will let the team down and possibly lose their job.

Handling Stress

Everyone has problems and everyone has stress. But I've noticed that the stress I feel running a business is different than the stress I felt as an employee or as a student. In both of those cases it came in waves - I had big project deadlines or big presentations or final exams, but once those were over there was some time to breathe. As an entrepreneur I feel like the stress never ends.

This week has been one of the most stressful weeks of my life. I'll spare you the details because they're really irrelevant for the purpose of this post, but lets just say it's been one of those weeks you'll look back on and think about how many cool things you accomplished, yet sucks while you are going through it.

The stresses never end. When you launch a new business, you stress about business structure and taxes and getting your site ready to launch. Once you go live, you realize you've worked yourself to the brink of insanity and you don't have a customer and you have no revenue. Once you start rolling, you worry about managing your growth - can you keep all of your clients happy? do you need to hire (more) employees? is your tech infrastructure going to crumble?

So what do you do? I think the first step is to realize that you will always have a certain level of stress. This isn't college where you have four tests in a week and then a month to breathe and relax. It's hard to realize that your business will always be stressful, but it's true - ask Bill Gates if he's ever had a stress free period at MicroSoft. Either he's running around from company to company trying to pitch his OS, or he's worrying about Google taking over the desktop with web applications.

The amazing thing is, once you recognize the stress you have two choices - let it crumble you or learn to live with it. If you are the type of person who puts your entire life on hold to get every little bit of work done, I think it will crumble you. You neglect your family, your health, and the other things that are important to you and eventually it catches up. I'm at the point where I'm learning to live with it. It's NOT the end of the world I tell a client that it will take 4 weeks to get something that I think I can do in 2 or 3. I want to make sure that I can still have a social life, work out, play video games (yes, that's important to me), and spend time with family. In the end I'll be a happier person which will ultimately result in a better entrepreneur (no one likes a bitter, stressed out business owner).

Worrying about things will get me nowhere. I try to look at all of the great things that are happening and really enjoy the journey. I don't want to be one of those guys who ends up being 80 years old and still running around worrying about their business. It can go on forever, and at some point you'll realize you pissed your life away.

Book Review: You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth About Starting and Growing Your Business by Barry Moltz

I often say how much I love unique blogs. Well, the same goes for books. Most entrepreneurial books paint pretty pictures of the fantasy land of running a business, which we all know is far from the truth. When I was handed a copy of You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth About Starting and Growing Your Business by Barry Moltz, I could tell that it wasn't going to be one of those “typical” rah-rah books.

In the past when I've done book reviews, I've written long, drawn out posts about the book. I realize the most people will never take the time to read those rambling posts, so I condensed my rambling to the pros and cons.

Pros:

• Extremely captivating – there have been only a handful of books in my life that I truly couldn't put down, and this was one of them. The sections are only about 500-1000 words each so the pace is fast, and Moltz makes his points without drawing them out, unlike many business books. He touches on nearly everything that you'd expect a book like this to discuss – the ups and downs of running a business, the impact on family life, working with partners, networking, finding customers, and more.

• True to the bone – Moltz didn't spare anything when it comes to telling his tale. Much like I hope I do on this blog, Moltz tells you the good and the bad, the ups and the downs. He doesn't cover it up and present entrepreneurship as this perfect thing. He presents the business world as the wholly imperfect world that it is. He talks about his successes at IBM and his successes in the entrepreneurial world, but also equally about when he was fired from a startup. Humility and transparency are two things that I admire in anyone.

• People focus – Moltz devotes a large portion of the book to networking. Not the cheesy exchange of business cards at a fake corporate function that most of us have come to associate networking with, but the process of building mutually beneficial long-term relationships with fellow business owners and customers. Relationships have been the foundation of business for hundreds of years and will continue to be for the indefinite future. Technology only gives us more improved ways of cultivating such associations, not an excuse not to develop them.

• Contribution to society – If I could, I would work 100 hours a week, spend 40 hours volunteering, hang out with my friends a few times a week, spend plenty of time with my family, work out almost every day, play a lot of basketball, play about two hours a day of Madden, and still have time to sleep 8 hours. Obviously I can't, and neither can you. One of the things that really hit me when reading this book is that entrepreneurship is your contribution to society. You can't do everything, and you shouldn't try to. Do what you do and do it well and it will better the society we live in. As an entrepreneur you can create companies and products that serve the greater good of society, you can create jobs for your community, you can give back by associating with local charities, and about a million other things. You don't have to feel guilty because you don't do everything for the world.

Cons

• A slightly pessimistic tilt – I got the feeling that Moltz didn't talk enough about the great parts of being an entrepreneur. As someone who already has thrown myself to the wolves, I nodded my head at what he said most of the time because I already know what I got myself into. But I don't think I'd recommend this to a first time entrepreneur. I am extremely happy and satisfied that I chose the path that I did, and I have no regrets, but if I read Mr. Moltz's book three years ago I would have been scared shitless about being an entrepreneur and I would have continued my path as an engineer. To me, there's something wrong if the book will turn off a perfectly good entrepreneur. Many of the comments by entrepreneurship experts on Moltz's site reflect this feeling also and probably say it much better than I could.
  

• Focus a bit too much on the dot-com's – this isn't really Moltz's fault, but the book does focus a bit too much on business in the 90's and the dot-com bubble burst. While an interesting topic, it really isn't that applicable to young entrepreneurs like myself who were in grade school while all of this was going on. The world is different now and I would have liked a bit more forward thinking about the state of entrepreneurship in the coming 5-10 years, and less about a world that I will never experience (and quite frankly consisted of insanely irrational behavior that is so atypical that I have trouble learning much from it).

Overall, I thought the book was great and I would recommend it to anyone has recently ventured into entrepreneurship. Moltz's brutal honesty results in a rare tale of what it's really like to run a business.

Providing value

I'm not sure where I heard this story, but it always stuck with me:

A guy's basement is completely flooded when he comes home from work. He immediately dials a plumber and by the time the plumber gets there water is spewing from the joints of several pipes because of the pressure. The plumber calmly finds a specific pipe, hits it hard with a hammer, and the problem immediately stops.

He then presents a bill to the man for $3,000. The man says "this is ridiculous, it only took you ten minutes to get here and you fixed the problem with that hammer in a few minutes. I'm not paying this bill." The plumber replies "I'm charging you $30 for labor and $2,700 for knowing where to hit." This is so true - the plumber saved the man thousands of dollars by stopping the problem, regardless of the fact that he only spent a few minutes at his house.

A couple of people I know have recently told me that I should raise my prices for my SEO packages because of the value I provide to the client. I had mistakenly been pricing based on time like a traditional consultant. "I feel like I'm worth $X/hour and I will spend $Y hours on the project, so I'll charge $X*Y ." The problem with this mentality is that I'm neglecting the true value of my services.

In many cases traffic and sales increase 5 times, 10 times, or even 100 times. I think my value to them is worth more than I recognize. I had one potential client that was knowledgeable in SEO and approached me about a very specific problem. Within an hour of prep work for our second phone call, I thought of a few possible solutions. He agreed to pay me an agreed upon price to dig deeper and do a more thorough SEO analysis, but he never paid. He probably never paid because he took the ideas I mentioned during the phone call and pursued them himself. They are a big company, and if the solution works it could increase sales by at least several thousand dollars a month.

I won't make that mistake again. I'm not saying that I won't throw out ideas in initial consultations, but I need to be careful that I don't give away TOO much of the value without getting paid. I'm beginning to realize that most of the time there is quite a bit of value in what I do and that I probably should take that more seriously and charge accordingly.

Urban Eola - something a little different

I like unique blogs. Most of what I read feels "the same" to me. Maybe it's because everything I read is Tech/Business related, or maybe it's because I'm just hard to please, but it's few and far between when I'm actually captivated by a blog. In my increasingly busy life, I've reduced the number of blogs I subscribe to from over 100 to about 30.

I recently discovered Urban Eola, the brainchild of fellow young entrepreneur Michael Tavani. The beauty of Urban Eola is it's diversity of topics. We always tell people to focus on a niche, but Urban Eola does a great job of covering Web2.0, business, pop culture, the environment, and more. The reason it works for me is that it covers all of the things I'm actually into as a 24-year-old-male-entrepreneur and not just as an entrepreneur. Sometimes I like reading about business, other times I feel like reading about Italian fashion trends or the return of the yuppies.

Check it out when you get a chance. Great job Michael, keep up the great work.

The blue screen of death

Friday morning I woke up, worked out, wrote my previous blog post on my laptop, and then proceeded to log onto my desktop to start working. Alas, it was not meant to be. I leave my PC on overnight to perform nightly backups, but I keep the monitor off to save energy. When I turned on my monitor Friday, I was greeted by my old friend, the Blue Screen of Death (or BSoD as the write of the Wikipedia article has deemed it).

See, back in college we were required to purchase top of the line laptops from IBM. The only problem with these "top of the line" laptops was that they were really next years models and we were their beta-testing guinea pigs (it must be nice to get someone to pay you $2,500 to test your products). Back then, I made what felt like weekly trips to the campus computer center - half of which to fix hardware problems (major ones like hard drive failure and the monitor not working) and the other half were to reinstall XP after receiving the BSoD.

But when I forked up $2,000 for my desktop exclusively to be used for my online ventures, I vowed to keep it in "perfect" condition so that I never would have to face my old nemesis again. And I regularly backed up everything just in case I did.

That day came Friday. Thanks to my backups everything is OK. Honestly, it's been 2 years since I purchased this computer and no matter how well you keep it, every once in a while a reinstall is necessary. It took me about 12 hours to get everything back. In the end, my computer runs faster and I was able to improve my backup process for the future.

I suppose this is one of those "unexpected" things in life that you just gotta deal with and I should be grateful that it's only my computer and not my health or something more serious. Then again, the BSoD drives me crazy and I want nothing more than for every engineer at Microsoft to have their cell phone magically stop working tonight and display a BSoD to them, so that those bastards know how I feel.

The first line of every email

I have mixed emotions about email. I love how it lets you think about your response and reply whenever you are ready, but I hate how many things that used to be done face-to-face or at least on the phone, are now deduced to email. Your perception of a person is reduced to a set of words on a screen and maybe a photo. It's not even close to the "bond" that you form by meeting in person or even talking on the phone.

One of my responsibilities as an engineer was to analyze consumer returns and drive corrective action projects to prevent the truly defective items from ever leaving the facility again. In doing this, I spent a lot of time with our customer service department (which was outsourced) that answered phone calls and emails from upset consumers. My purpose there was to work with them to ensure that they asked the types of questions to the consumer that would help me in my analysis. But in my time there, I learned the ins and outs of their entire process.

How did they start each and every phone call or email? With an apology. If a customer said "your crappy product wasted my time because it broke when I needed it most" they would reply "I'm certainly sorry sir and I can understand why that would be frustrating." That would help calm the customer down and make them feel as though we were on their side. We were there to help them solve a problem as opposed to get in an argument with them.

I apply the same thing directly to iPrioritize. Whenever someone complains that something didn't work or that it's lacking a feature that they thought it had, I start the email with "I apologize for the frustration and I can certainly understand how you would feel that way"...or something similar. It's amazing how much that helps.

But where I really find this "technique" valuable is in my everyday email communications with customers/clients/friends/family. I take the same philosophy and take it a step further. Whenever someone contacts me and asks me for something, or wants me to look at something they've done, I try to always start with a compliment. For example, if someone wants me to take on an SEO project for them, I always find something to compliment about their site or business concept before even mentioning anything about myself or SEO. Honestly, it works wonders.

Now, this is pretty much common sense, but I think most of us (myself included) have a tendency to think about ourselves and what we can get out of something, and don't take the time to recognize the work of others. This is something that I've made a conscious effort to improve the past few years - both online and offline - and it has really, really been helpful to me in every avenue of my social life.