Hot Koehl

Today is something of a landmark for me. Just a few minutes ago, I launched my first full-time commercial venture when I flipped the switches and took Fwd:Vault out of beta. There’s an announcement over at the official blog if you’re interested in the details. Here I’d rather talk about what’s going through my mind, lest any of you are proceeding down a similar path.

First off, this has been 14 months in the making. I started working on this shortly after the startup I was working for went belly-up in November 2008. Like so many people these days, I found myself facing a lean job market. Starting a business has been a lifelong dream of mine, so after talking it over with my wife — a world-class vet with double my brain power — we agreed that the timing was right for me to pursue my dream.

So many startup publications talk about “taking the plunge,” of overcoming the fear that holds people back from getting started. This was not the case for me, and I’m not sure why it has to be the case for anybody. If you think and plan ahead, you can avoid the worst of the action-paralyzing fear. I wanted to run my own business since I was a kid, which instantly diffused fear around the general concept. I kept trying to come up with viable business ideas until I had one that stood up to scrutiny, decreasing some of the fears of failure. I worked on it in my free time until the opportunity to go full-time presented itself, removing the fear of having no income. Knowledge and understanding are they key. If you fear the unknown, know more.

Other people on the entrepreneurial road falter when they look at the work involved. Admittedly, looking back on the last year ‘n change, I’m astounded at how much I’ve done. My subversion repository had 700 commits when I launched. The site and service cover 1200 files in 175 folders (that doesn’t include framework stuff, I wrote every one of those). I taught myself a library’s worth of new tech, including automated recurring billing, search engines, email syntax, Amazon S3, daemonizing, undocumented PHP functionality, and even more HTML/CSS/JS techniques. On the business side, I registered an LLC, got a business address and phone number, bought servers and domains, began proper bookkeeping practices, won a competition, dealt with consultants, performed basic market research, investigated advertising venues, taught myself basic SEO/SEM, and learned to analyze traffic.

That’s simply a staggering amount of work to think about at once, and I never would’ve gotten any of it done if I tried. You simply cannot look at it as a whole all at once and keep your sanity. Every day was just one or two tasks: get a page working: fix an email processing bug, and so on. You know where you and where you want to go. In between is simply a mountain of very tiny to-do’s. As long as you keep an eye on the prize — launching a business — the task list sorts itself.

Finally, I put the most important exercise in the title of this post. Every time you complete a page, add a feature, piece together another part of your business structure, celebrate it! Relay your latest conquest to your wife, family, friends, whoever will listen. Write a blog post about it (you’ll find tons of posts on this site inspired by my startup efforts).

Even if they don’t care — my wife glazes over every time I get into technical stuff — or nobody listens — this blog averages less than 100 hits/day — you’ll feel energized knowing that you were able to proclaim “I finished something, I took a step.” That’s so crucial, because of all the naysayers you will meet, the worst one is your own self-doubt.

Then, when you finally reach your big goal, mark the calendar, and celebrate that day every year. Savor it when facing your next mountain. And write a blog post, leave a mile marker for the next guy.

My next hill starts tomorrow. For now…

Came across this BusinessWeek article (published on Yahoo!) today discussing companies that “embody the creativity and resiliency common among today’s entrepreneurs.” They do make it clear that it’s a new recurring segment, so maybe they’re still getting their feet under them. That’s what I’m hoping anyway, because I see nothing but a bunch of me-toos and also-rans in this list.

Read the article, and see if my summary (and accompanying snarky comments) jive with what you read:

• Name: Batter Blaster
  No-BS Summary: Late-night infomercial
  I can see the demonstration of the “old alternative” now, where they make some doofus have a spasm while pouring Bisquik on a skillet.
• Name: InterShelter
  No-BS Summary: Portable dome housing
  This never-ending dome idea needs to be dragged out back and shot.
• Name: ParkingCarma
  No-BS Summary: Website for parking spots
  I see “Website for [insert handy information].” Handy, but nothing special here.
• Name: Mota Motors
  No-BS Summary: Sell cars online.
  Another “Website for [insert handy information].” A competitor to cars.com, eBay motors, and Edmunds, touting extra middleman-ness. Who doesn’t want more middleman in their lives?
• Name: Greenmaker Supply
  No-BS Summary: A “green” Home Depot
  Similar to the last two, I see “Sustainable/green [insert physical product].” The green movement in general drives me nuts. There’s no proof any of it makes a difference on the planet (for or against), and some products actually create more waste and cost more to make than their “ungreen” counterparts.
• Name: Wedding Payment Plan
  No-BS Summary: Financing Service
  They specialize in weddings, but how is this loan any different from any other loan? If you’re looking to finance a wedding, the economist in me says you need to dial the event back a bit.
• Name: ExpoTV
  No-BS Summary: Video consumer reviews
  Yet another “Website for [insert handy information].” I would imagine that video-based reviews presents something of a hurdle for most consumers. I’ve known many a non-techie who could barely manage email, and you want them to shoot, possibly edit, and upload a review to the web?
• Name: Freeline Skates
  No-BS Summary: New way to break your neck
  Come on, the guy isn’t even wearing a helmet! The clincher for me is this line: Farrelly says he has turned down Wal-Mart Stores as a retail outlet. Why? Bad for Freeline’s street cred. Yeah, and saying “no” is horrendous for your bottom line. Or do you like bumming on your friends’ couches at, what, 30?
• Name: HomeMade Pizza
  No-BS Summary: Bake at home pizza
  At this point I’m convinced the researchers were just looking to round out the list at an even…umm…nine. Good choice too, because where else can we go for make-at-home pizza besides Little Ceasars, DiGiorno, Red Baron, my grocer’s entire frozen food section and a limitless number of fundraiser catalogs?

Don’t get me wrong, these aren’t bad ideas — except for the sneaker wheels, how much more hazardous can we make our free time? — but I certainly wouldn’t put them in the “most promising” category. They’ve all been done before, and/or being done right now!

Where are the game changers, the ones doing things that improve daily lives on a fundamental level? I don’t think Fwd:Vault is going to shatter our world-foundation, but at least it’s a fresh approach for tackling a known problem. Who finds pancake batter to be a real blight on their lives?

I don’t watch professional sports, but I was really glad that I decided to watch NLCS game 4 last night. The Dodgers maintained a lead through the second half of the game, and got the Phillies down to their last out in the bottom of the 9th, with runners on first and second. Jimmy Rollins was the final at bat, and hadn’t been spectacular at the plate. To make matters worse, the umpire’s strike zone seemed to be a moving target, with pitchers and batters having a say on the matter throughout the night. Needless to say, hopes were dim.

Then Jimmy does this.

It certainly wasn’t the 11-0 routing we saw on Monday, but the ending was far sweeter.

We see this situation in our businesses all the time, don’t we, startups? I’m sure more than a few of you would say you feel like Jimmy on a consistent basis, perhaps even further down in the count.

At some point you’ve got to quit analyzing the route you’ve taken. Some of it was you’re doing (Jimmy didn’t jack any homers that night), some of it wasn’t (there are eight other players). That’s alright, It doesn’t matter what happened to get you into this situation.

Own and live the moment. Accept that you’re here — now — and do everything you can to work the situation to your favor. If you’re still at the plate, you still have a chance.

[Update: Embedded video was removed due to dumbass MLB copyright complaint. Only one is a link on their site, and they won't allow remote embedding. I want to share your product, your story, on my site, and you whine about copyright? Are these companies really this dumb? I feel another post coming on...]

After eight months of development, Fwd:Vault — the secure data backup service that operates entirely through email — is ready and waiting for you.

This is a free beta release, so anyone can sign up and use the service totally free of charge. Hit the site to get started:

http://fwdvault.com

If the description “Secure data backups through email” isn’t obvious enough, you’ll find more information on the About page.

In a great article discussing how to demo a product to investors, Jason Calacanis says the following under the heading “The best products take less than five minutes to demo”…

Steve Jobs does take the demo details to a fairly detailed level, but you and I are not Steve Jobs. There is only one Steve Jobs and there is only one Apple. You’re never going to build something as cool as Steve, and as such there is no need for you to talk about your product for five or ten minutes.

In the comments, I found this response from user “COP”:

WTF????? WHY NOT?

My thoughts exactly. There’s exactly zero rules, official or unofficial, that say you can’t be as cool as Steve Jobs and build products with equivalent coolness.

This type of rhetoric happens a lot — presenting a major player in a given market as an insurmountable behemoth. We as entrepreneurs do it in our heads all the time. It’s never helpful, but more importantly it’s never true.

Take Calacanis’ example in this article. You don’t have to go back too far to find a time when Apple wasn’t the epitome of cool. In my opinion, Apple machines after the IIe were out-and-out crap until they hit another stride with OSX, which came out in 1999. I don’t recall seeing any Apple’s in school prior to that. I should know, I graduated high school in ’99! Did you know the first iPod was released in 2001, less than 10 years ago? That’s a helluva lotta time where we can’t account for any Steve Job coolness.

The correct attitude is that of our friend COP, “Why not?” In fact I’m willing to bet that ol’ Steve said that a few times along the way as well.

To think any less, to see your competition as insurmountable, is surely a road to failure.

P.S. Note: Jobs is one of the most epic geeks in history, no question. Apple has been a successful company since its founding, but definitely wandered the wilderness through the late 80′s and 90′s, which does not fit Calacanis’ rhetoric. My goal here is to topple Calacanis’ logic, not Jobs. Mac cultists, be at ease.

Last night I attended the first Entrepreneur Unplugged event sponsored by Philly Startup Leaders. I think it’s a great idea; people from the front lines sharing war stories. Insights and advice abounds. From their description of the event:

Entrepreneur Unplugged will extend the spirit of Founder Factory by bringing successful Entrepreneurs “on stage” to share their personal stories of risk taking and decision making. The format will be a 30 minute presentation followed by question and answer. The series will be streamed live, recorded and distributed online.

The first presenter was Boris Silver who, along with a partner, built a series of fantasy sports Facebook apps under the banner Sport Interactiva. Their apps grew to over 1 million users, had ad deals with big names like Adidas and Time Warner, and sold it off 9 months after quitting school to work on it full time. His blog title says it all: “20 year old, sold a company, and now an undergraduate student re-enrolled at The Wharton School.” Helluva resume for not even being old enough to have a Bachelor’s.

Boris provided a very insightful hour and a half, and was open to just about any question on his experience (he couldn’t comment on the financial details of the sale). Some of the key ideas I jotted down from his talk and Q&A time…

• Surround yourself with people who are “genuine, honest, and long-term.”
• Stay fanatically focused on your product, to the point of ignoring related opportunities. A startup demands all your attention, and it’s easy to over-leverage yourself.
• Really know your working partners. Boris didn’t do adequate upfront investigation into his partner. Later on, he realized how lucky he got, as the entire business could have tanked had their relationship gone sour.
• Avoid the all-star CEO, CTO, etc. You got into your business because you really understand it and see an opportunity. There’s no one out there who will know your business better or do a better job running it. Seek advice, but never release the reigns due to a perceived lack of ability.
• Contrary to the stories out of Silicon Valley, being an entrepreneur is not a glitzy job. It’s a huge amount of time and work. Your friends don’t get it, and you don’t have time to spend with them anyway, so it’s lonely. Startup ideas naturally go against accepted trends in an industry, so you are typically your only source of confidence, making for an emotional rollercoaster. To top it off, there’s absolutely no guarantee of financial success; you could be left with nothing to show for the effort.
• Commitment to starting a business must be a “binary decision:” success or failure. Take it all the way until one or the other manifests itself. Halfway isn’t good enough.
• When dealing with advertisers and the inevitable back-and-forth push, at the end of the day you get their money, making them the customer. All the usual rules for treating customers properly apply.

For my part, it was great to see concrete proof that age means absolutely nothing in business. Here I felt wary of my chances starting out at 27! If you know enough to get started, that’s good enough. It’s obvious from Boris’ extremely intelligent responses to detailed business questions that you can learn a lot as you go.

The only point of contention I had — if you can call it that — was in Boris’ evaluation of what happens if and when a business fails. He seemed to be of the opinion that you walk away completely empty-handed. Financially speaking that may be true, however the experiences gained are often worth their weight in gold. A failed business teaches a lot about what doesn’t work on a plethora of levels: expansion, hiring, capital, customer service, delivery, internal structure, the list goes on. And unless you were completely incompetent, you probably picked up a few things that worked really well too. You also cannot discount the new contacts and networking, which often lead directly to the next opportunity. Again I’m not sure Boris discounted these ideas entirely, I simply would have mentioned them.

So hats off to Boris for providing an example of success, we all need them to keep going. Overall it was a very informative evening, and I’m looking forward to the next one.

Voting ended a few days ago for StartupNation’s 2009 Elevator Pitch Competition, and Fwd:Vault had a pretty good showing! Here’s a final tally on the top 10…

1. CineCore – 1573
2. My Sales Finder – 1264
3. WorkingMomLifeline – 1225
4. PublicStuff.org – 1172
5. TBD – Michael Shipe – 879
6. Spider Climbing – 765
7. iSyndica USA Incorporated – 638
8. BidWilly – 628
9. Fwd:Vault – 525
10. EasyEvaluations – 505

That’s out of about 110 entries, so I’m very happy with Fwd:Vault’s showing! The outcome is a result of efforts made mostly by friends, family, and colleagues. So to everyone who voted for me: you have my sincerest thanks.

Now the professional voting begins: 6 expert investors representing over $1 billion in early stage investing. Not sure how I’ll do there, but honestly I don’t care. If this contest taught me anything, it’s the power of personal networks. My final standing is a result of simply reaching out. I used my email contact list, this blog, Facebook friends, and LinkedIn contacts to let people know I was entered, and asked them to vote. 27 years of friends, family, and professional contacts combined with the internet can go a very long way.

Make sure you focus enough attention on building your own personal networks. In today’s world they are invaluable for gaining help, support, and advice.

In case you haven’t looked at my sidebar in the last month or so, my new startup Fwd:Vault is entered in StartupNation’s 2009 Elevator Pitch Competition. Through endless harassment support of friends, family, and professional colleagues, we’ve been able to hold down a spot in the top 10 (6th as of this writing). That’s simply fantastic in and of itself.

Now we are down to the wire. The contest ends on March 20, just about 2 weeks away. If you like what you read here, you can have a direct and positive impact on the author by taking just 5 seconds and voting for Fwd:Vault. Just use the stars below the video player to rate and you’re done. No accounts to create, and it doesn’t cost a penny. I’ll be sure to post here again with the results of the contest.

Thanks for your votes!

If you follow the Fwd:Vault Developer Diary, you saw today that I was neck deep in upgrading the server that runs everything around here. While the server updated, I worked on Fwd:Vault code. The web designer for Fwd:Vault is also nearing completion on the project, and that required some attention. Tonight I was scheduled to attend an entrepreneur networking event tonight in the city. Needless to say I did NOT feel like going. But I did, and am so happy that I chose to do so.

The event shares its title with the name of this post, and was sponsored by Innovation Philadelphia, a local resource for young entrepreneurs and working professionals. They used a panel format, with 4 speakers and a moderator. Questions were focused around best business practices in a down economy, although I think the advice (which you’ll see below) is pretty universal.

Now, anyone who’s attended these types of seminars knows that they can be hit or miss sometimes, but I think they hit the bullseye on this one. The speakers represented young(er) companies, and the speakers themselves were involved with their companies deep, day-to-day level. No C-level bigwigs spouting esoteric business theory nonsense, they spoke in common sense language and provided advice and insight useful to any size business.

After having forgotten countless good ideas because I didn’t have any paper handy, I’ve gotten in the habit of keeping a notebook with me. If you’re looking to do the same, I highly recommend the Moleskine line. I use the ruled soft notebook; sturdy but flexible, able to take a beating.

Anyway, it’s a good thing I brought it, because the panel had me scribbling notes furiously for the entire lecture. Here are the (slightly edited) highlights, from the speakers’ lips to my pen…

• According to an EDA report (PDF), “Business Incubators” (i.e. companies that sponsor and support new startup ideas) can create jobs at a cost of about $200 – $300, while bureaucratic-laden “community infrastructure” projects create jobs at a cost of anywhere between $3000 – $7000.  Pg. iii in the Executive Summary has specific numbers.
• Money helps you succeed or fail quicker. It can’t make a bad idea get any better.
• “Embrace sales” in a slump economy. Make as many sales calls as you possibly can.
• The money is still there, customers are just more discerning about how the spend it. That means the difference between sink or swim is usually that “little bit extra.”
• Focus on improving your business processes, then be militant about following them. Chances are there are areas in your business that are not performing as well as they could.  For example, how many overdue invoices do you have? If you scheduled time to call these clients each week, how many would come rolling in?
• It’s always easier to sell to existing clients than to gain a new one, but this takes on new meaning in a down economy. They are hurting too, so do whatever you can to show support, even if it doesn’t immediately gain revenue. The market always bounces back, and clients don’t forget those little things.
• Focus on maintaining/improving your image. Advertising costs money; responding to what’s already out there costs nothing (in fact, not responding to it can cost even more in the long run). Google yourself, your employees, your business. Seek out complaints and try to address them.
• Scrap for every dollar. Save used shipping boxes and packing peanuts. Buy furniture and supplies at liquidation. Get rid of the office space if you have a staff that can work remotely.
• The internet is a goldmine for free marketing. Create a presence for your business on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Post comments on sites relevant to your industry. These activites cost nothing but a few minutes of time, and contribute to your overall “link juice” (aka weight in search engine results). Additionally, big systems like Facebook and LinkedIn will internally share your profile with other users automatically (to an extent).
• Events with your local Chamber of Commerce can offer a mountain of free or cheap exposure. They also provide invaluable networking opportunities. Some companies only partner with businesses that belong to their CoC.
• You can fire a customer. Never forget that.
• Stay positive by not watching the news.
• Whenever there is change, there is opportunity. One woman in attendance explained how her company matches businesses for bartering relationships (exchange of services). Her business is booming in the down times.
• Layoffs are great news for consultants. In-house employees have insurance concerns, require time for payroll, training, etc.; a self-run consultant incurs only fixed costs for specific tasks. If you’ve been laid off, can you roll your skills into a consultancy?
• “Action without research equals instant death.”
• Anyone can look good during the high times, but the veneer comes off when things head south. Strive for excellence so that your business looks good no matter what the economy does.
• Get out of the office/garage/basement and spend time with fellow entrepreneurs. Share your story du jour. Interaction is a great way to kickstart new ideas and solve problems.

That last one rang true for me. Aside from a decent blog post, I finally got some concrete ways to spread the word about Fwd:Vault after talking with Amy from Seamless Events Inc. That’s a post in and of itself, but suffice it to say I am calling my local Chamber of Commerce tomorrow.

Fwd:Vault is participating in StartupNation’s 2009 Elevator Pitch Competition. The idea is to submit a 1-2 minute elevator pitch, and have the world review your pitch and idea, then rate it. The top 5 entries will get the chance to pitch their idea to a group of big-time investors, potentially landing major financial support.

You can vote once per day per entry until March 20, but I’d really appreciate even just a single view and vote. Mine’s just one minute long, and since it’s an audio clip you don’t have to endure my lousy filming skills.