Andy Boyer

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Category: Business (Page 7 of 24)

A Quick Recap of Startup Riot Seattle

August 11, 2012 /

I took an afternoon this week to check out Startup Riot at the Sodo Showbox.  This was the second year the event was held in Seattle, and I’ll say both years I’ve had a great experience.  The event has some unique touches; sprinkled between the 30 3-minute pitches, are 2 keynotes, several networking opportunities, and a long lunch in which you can walk around and meet new people.

Rather than just recap the whole event, I took some notes on what start-up marketers could learn from some of the 30 presenters, both when pitching to customers, or investors.  Note, the majority of this post is also up at www.relaborate.com/blog.

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It’s gutsy to take the plunge into the entrepreneurial waters.  It’s even scarier to get up in front of 250 people, explain your entire company in 4 slides and 3 minutes, and take 3 more minutes of grilling from some judges.

But that’s what 30 brave entrepreneurs did Wednesday at Startup Riot in Seattle.  To reward their courage, Startup Riot judge and keynote speaker Andrew Hyde asked everyone in the audience to blog about at least one of the companies.  Blogging – well that’s something we can do. So here are a few things we learned about marketing your company, from both the judges and the start-up CEO’s who took the stage.

1) Show your excitement in everything you do: More than once, the judges asked the entrepreneur, “Are you excited about this project?  If yes, then show us.  Prove to us with your passion that this project will work.” This means in every powerpoint, blog post and meeting you attend, make sure that your excitement for your idea is contagious.

2) What is your 5 second 1-liner?  Can you explain what you do in 5 seconds?  Cindy Wu described her company, Microryza, as “Kickstarter for Science.”  That’s easier to remember than, “We built a platform where people can fund scientific research, in an online market and where scientists can go and present their projects to try to receive funding.” Can you describe what you do in 5 seconds?

3) Prove you are the team to do it: Parend Paresh may be tackling an unsexy problem with VendScreen.  But, it is so obvious that they know what they’re talking about, I would invest in a heartbeat.  VendScreen is a touchpad that will be attached to vending machines and enable customers to pay for sodas or snacks by phone or credit card.  Neat idea maybe, but why will it work?  Well Parend explains his domain expertise, illustrates his partners’ domain expertise, and then tells a fact that all vending machines are going to be required by Federal law to put nutritional information somewhere on the outside of the machine.  The fact that he knows this obscure legislation demonstrates that he knows the market for vending technology, and knows how to capitalize on emerging trends.

4) Talk about your wins: iHearNetwork, led by Paul Simonds, is a startup with 3000 users.  Not only that, they have a 125 Daily Active Users and 250 Weekly Active Users.  Taskk, has 7000 users already in a totally different market, adding 2000 in the last month. When you are a startup, find a number that you can trumpet.  I don’t know if 3000 or 7000 users is a lot for the spaces these companies are in, but I wrote the numbers down. They sure sound good. And as one judge said to Placeling’s CEO, “If you aren’t bragging, you sound small.”

5) Show your product: Personify makes it easy for people to find social good opportunities and volunteer events.  They already have 500 users.  And yet through their presentation, they never showed us the product – which is actually quite lovely. People want to see that the product is live and working.  Don’t make them imagine what it will be like.  It’s too much work.  Show your product everywhere you can.  Your product is your story.

6) Explain the problem: Tim Hermanson of Arch started his presentation with a shot of a traffic jam.  He asked that since we all have these digital devices in our pockets, why couldn’t anyone, anytime, see something that was happening in a different location so that we could avoid these traffic jams.  If I was stuck in that traffic jam, why couldn’t I anonymously upload a photo from my location so others could see my pain and take another route?  With the problem framed in a simple scenario, I can now understand the solution. The product becomes real when there’s something I can identify with.

7) Understand your competitors: Shawn Burke of Crowd Picsell wasn’t just asked to name some competitors, judges wanted to understand what he did better then them.  If you are a customer, you want to know exactly what the benefits are of one company over the other.  Don’t make the customer guess. Be the best at something, and explain exactly what it is that makes you the best over all others.  It’s hard to lose when you are the best.

8) Tell a good, humanizing story: Jon Poland created Crowdegy, joining an already crowded survey space. But, he explained why his product would succeed by telling a story about his 5 year old. In his story, he shows his 5 year old how to use his product, and then the next day his 5 year old asks, “Daddy, can I play the dot game again today?” Jon got the point across: His product brings visualization to surveys, is fun enough to do over and over, and is so easy a 5 year old can do it.

There were a number of other startups to keep an eye on.  Check out the whole list at StartupRiot.com.  And if you were there, did you see any companies that stood out?

 

My Report From the Seattle Arena Town Hall Meeting

July 10, 2012 /

I couldn’t resist.  I needed to check out the Town Hall meeting to discuss the SODO Arena Proposal.  I had no idea what to expect.

The Town Hall was hosted by King County Councilmember Bob Ferguson, and Seattle City Councilmember Mike O’Brien. I don’t have any previous knowledge of these two gentlemen, so I was able to enter this with an open mind.

  

In a word, the event was fascinating.  I now understand why so many dumb decisions get made in City Council.  You see, there are a lot of very old, very opinionated, very uninformed people who attend these meetings as a hobby.  They have the ear of the Councilmembers.  They ask questions  that are irrelevant, obtuse, confusing and just plain non-sensical. But they show up, and their voice gets heard over silent oppositon and common sense.

However, this Town Hall was filled with 150-200 Pro-Arena supporters (to go along with maybe 50-75 against).  And thanks to Sports Radio KJR, 710Sports.com, and SportsPressNW.com informing their listeners and readers with intelligent facts and data over the last few months, the Pro-Arena members of the crowd came across way more informed, way more intelligent and way more reasonable than those against it.  In some circumstances you expected the Anti-Arena person with the microphone to follow up with, “And how do we know they REALLY landed on the moon? Were you there to see it?”

That being said, it’s clear that while the arguments against the proposal aren’t 100% sound, they are loud enough to potentially kill the deal.  And with the Seattle Mariners, Seattle Times, and Port of Seattle working as hard as they can to stop it, you can’t just assume the deal will get passed because it makes sense.  There are clearly a lot of politics in the way. If you care at all, I urge you to attend the important meeting on July 19.

But I’m not an opinion writer and I’m not an expert on this subject. so I tried as best I could to transcribe the 26 questions that the crowd was able to ask Councilmembers Ferguson and O’Brien.  And I will say I was quite impressed with the two of them.  I thought they were reasonable, well informed and bright.

I captured the main points and tried to stay unbiased in my transcription.  I couldn’t keep track of which questions Ferguson was answering and which ones O’Brien was handling, so their replies are just mashed together.  Here are all the questions and answers they went thru in about 70 minutes, in order:

1. What is wrong with the Key Arena? Why would we build a new arena in an industrial area?
The Key Arena doesn’t work for NBA basketball.  It also doesn’t work for concerts. The proposal is to build a new arena in the stadium district. We do have to look at what effect that will have on our industrial area.

2. So is this deal for a stadium in SoDo or nothing?
For this proposal, yes. Chris Hansen has made it clear he’s not interested in building anywhere else.

3. Have the football and baseball stadiums worked out?
Yes (applause). However, we will have to ask, “Does the stadium reach a tipping point?”

4. Is 18,000 people at night a real traffic issue?
We’re analyzing. Independent reviews are being done to make decision based on data.

5. I’m not a sports fan, but why can’t you use the same footprint of the KeyArena?  We could bore straight down and dig out the ground and go as deep as you wanted to. (Crowd: murmurs and disbelief)
People at city have looked at this.  Not viable according to experts. I’m not an expert so I will have to rely on what the experts say.

6. Initiative I-91 passed to make sure we have no new taxes on sports arenas.  Also, how will you backfill the lack of events at Key Arena if a new arena is built?
The City operates Key Arena at break even.  We already wonder how long we will be able to continue to do so without giant improvements.  We don’t have a plan to support those kind of improvements.  This arena plan is also to support Key Arena.  If Seattle is awarded an NBA team, it would need to play for 3 years in an improved Key Arena while new arena is being built.  Mr. Hansen has committed to making improvements to Key Arena in this case, and those improvements would remain after the team moved to the new arena.

7. How can you submit to this kind of blackmail from a private property owner when the Port of Seattle is so important to us? (Crowd venomously boos this older woman.)
I hear your point on port.  This is not blackmail, its a choice.  Reasonable minds can disagree.  The Port’s point is important.  Reviews will be done, traffic and economic impacts. This isn’t an either/ or situation.  We are hoping to get data to figure out how to make it additive.

8. I am a Building trades member. I’ve heard that port will stay quiet if they get their overpass built. It’s them doing the blackmailing.  (applause)
We are all working on the (Lander St.) overpass issue.  It would cost $200m to build.  Mr. Hansen understandably doesn’t want to pay for it. If the Lander St overpass is most important issue, we will look at it. Impact of construction jobs can’t be understated.

9. Can you walk us thru the legal process of the MOU because it suddenly appeared without the knowledge of the public.
2 execs worked with Mr. Hansen and the Council was aware of what was going on. This wasn’t a backroom deal.  The Mayor and the County Exec have the authority to work on this without a committee.  That’s why we elect Execs.

10. A) Can we stop talking about Key Arena? (applause).  B) As someone who lost a job, I understand why the port complained. But traffic studies show there’s no traffic after 4pm.  Why isn’t the port on board with this?
There can be collaboration.  Disagreements now can be healthy and there may be chance to make changes.  Collaboration is taking place.

11. Has anyone seen any data from anywhere that backs up the Port’s claim that jobs would be lost?
(Raucous applause from crowd) No answer. (Note: Every time this question was asked, the Councilmembers tippy-toed around the obvious answer they didn’t want to say out loud.  That answer is – No, there is no data.  The Port is currently scrambling to pull together a report.  According to a source I trust, the port is not exactly nimble, so getting a study together at this kind of pace is causing them all kinds of hassle.)

12. In economic terms the Key Arena is sunk cost.  Key arena can make $1, new arena can make $2 .  Key arena is an asset now.  That property can be made into anything now. But this issue should go away. (No question asked)

13.  The Martin report says east side of port will be rendered useless. (No question asked)

14. How will you protect jobs of current Key Arena employees?
We have to look at how the deal will be set up.  We will look into ways that this is not something that would hurt Key Arena employees.  It makes sense to give Key Arena employees first shot at jobs at new arena.

15. A Sports palace should fund itself.  When the UW wanted us to build them a Sports Palace we voted it down and they got it built with tax dollars anyway. (Note: That statement was incorrect. The UW raised the money themselves.) We shouldn’t raise taxes to build a new sports palace.  When the Panama Canal is expanded, 1/2 the Port’s traffic will disappear.
There should be no absolutes on these issues.  This isn’t a tax it’s a bonding issue. (Note: No one seemed to understand the Panama Canal reference.)

16. Where does the NHL fit in? What are the safeguards if we don’t get an NHL team?
It’s not accurate to say that the arena deal needs the NHL.  Mr. Hansen is focused on NBA. Potential comes down road for NHL. Likely that in the 3 years of arena being built they would pursue a NHL team.

17. Please raise hands because our elderly friends are raising theirs better than us…..  It seems clear that the port is blackmailing us.  They say the arena will cost 100,000 jobs.  Where are they getting these facts?
We shouldn’t speak negatively about port, by insinuating they are blackmailing anyone.  The decision should be grounded in real data. We’re asking for this analysis and won’t consider a deal without seeing this data.

18. Note: Jason Rubenstein then brought the house down with a fantastic monologue filled with facts, figures and emotion that came so fast an furious I couldn’t keep up.  Well done, Jason.  Well done indeed.

19.  I’m hoping the council will consider what jobs will look like in the future arena. I don’t want to lose my family wage job in Key Arena.
The MOU states that jobs in new arena will be family wage jobs. No one is looking to outsource low wage contractors to replace current Key Arena employees.

20. The seawall repair will go to vote in November.  The Kingdome was a perfectly good building  (Crowd laughs in hysterics).  If the seawall needs to go to a public vote, why can the council make the decision on the arena?  After all, a seawall is a necessity, and a stadium is not. (Note: this man was 85 years old, so I don’t want to bash him too hard on the Kingdome comment.)
The Council can issue bonds, which are funds we need to pay back in some way. There’s no revenue model to pay back seawall bonds, so we have to raise taxes to pay it back.  Thus, it has to go to vote. Arena bonds are not reliant on taxes. Now, we do need to make sure we have the security to cover the bonds, but we don’t need tax dollars to pay them back.

21. Is the city evaluating the revenue the right way? The I-91 issue.
Onsite revenues and land value issues are hard to forecast. (I’ll admit I got a little confused at the response.)

22. Port of Seattle is responsible for 194k jobs. They are the widening Panama Canal.  I’m concerned about traffic.
(Note: Both the Councilmembers were perplexed by the non-question / unclear point the person was trying to make here, so they ignored it and moved on. It appears people against the arena are really concerned about this Panama Canal issue.)

23. The Stadium district is in the most transit rich area in the Pacific NW, and the perfect place to move people in and out of a stadium WITHOUT THEIR CARS. What’s the hangup here? (applause)
Relatively few people take mass transit to sporting events. While there is good transit, there will be 6000 cars going to games.  We need to examine the issue carefully.

24. The NBA didn’t treat us well.  How much money does the NBA have and why can’t they put the money up for a new arena?
If you are asking why the NBA won’t build an arena for us, well, that issue really isn’t on the table.  I opposed the last arena deal because all residents of King County would be paying taxes.  This deal is different.  We have plenty of private-public projects. I don’t take absolutes.  I don’t believe there can’t be public involvement in an arena.  There is a significant investment from private citizens in this deal. I am sympathetic to public investment, but there is city by city competition across the country and public investment in stadiums is part of that.  There are things to work on.

25. I live in West Seattle. There is so much construction these days. I can’t get home when I want to. Is a stadium the only thing that can go into the stadium district? Why can’t the stadium go in the Rainier Valley?
This deal is for an arena in the stadium district.  That’s the only place being considered in this proposal.

26. Why is deal different for one team (NBA only) than two teams (NBA and NHL)?
The ownership group is shooting for 2 teams. If they only get one team, then the city and council are only willing to put $125MM in bonds up, not $200MM. We’re hoping to get a win-win here.

 

Was anyone else there to check it out? Would love to get your slant.

If I Was The NFL Pro Bowl Director

May 17, 2012 /

It’s been a long time since I wrote anything here.   If only there was a tool that helped people write coherent blog posts…

Well no one asked me, but here’s what I would do if I had to make something out of the NFL Pro Bowl.  Keep in mind the following items:

  • The game is atrocious
  • The NFL needs it as a way to spiff their advertisers
  • Players dig the Pro Bowl because they get bonuses for making the team
  • The game now happens on that dead Sunday between the Championship games and Super Bowl.

So here’s my dumb idea.

High Level: Make the Pro Bowl a week long television extravaganza featuring all the TV shows on the network hosting the game.  Send the producers of all that network’s shows (that make sense) over to Hawaii to film programs that feature Pro Bowl players.  Heck, you can even create shows.

Let’s say that CBS was televising the Super Bowl.  Without doing too much thinking you could have some sort of episode of:

  • Amazing Race, where a bunch of sets of teammates are competing or players get teamed with a regular person.
  • A Survivor spin off
  • A live “taping” of one or two of their sitcoms
  • Plus Pro Bowl specific hows such as a Jeopardy like game show with Linemen vs Quarterbacks. a “teammate” version of the Newlywed game,  skills competitions, etc…

All of these shows could involve Joe Fan, and reach a cross over audience.  But here’s the kicker: You get to charge new advertising dollars for NFL related shows.  Super Bowl sponsors would have more ways to extend their Super Bowl buy into earlier in the week, and companies who can’t afford Super Bowl ads would have a way to invest marketing money into the game.

And really, I don’t really care what they do with the game.  You could still play it, but instead of 3 straight hours of dreadful football, you’d have mini-bites of content from some of the shows that just aired, and some that are going to air that week.

This is a kernel of an idea, not a well thought out plan.  Would love to get your thoughts.

The Reach of a Tweet

May 1, 2012 /

So I work in social media.  I teach some social media.  I play around in some social media channels.  I own a blog with my own name as its url simply so I show up in Google searches.  Through all these years playing around in social media as a profession, I’ve never really made it a huge focus of my personal life.  Maybe I’ll make a connection here or there.  But nothing substantial.

And yet today, a simple tweet seemed to strike a chord with people.

All day long Occupy Seattle mayhem shut down streets downtown.  People couldn’t get home from work.  Rogue anarchists broke windows.  Children couldn’t be picked up from school.  Store clerks feared for their safety.  Middle class parents – and their bosses – had to figure out what was best for their kids, their businesses and their co-workers.

I was unaffected by the chaos despite being right around the corner from it.  I took my wife home from her surgery but thought to myself, “Thank God this mayhem didn’t affect us getting to the hospital, or home from it.” I tried to rid my mind of thoughts of how angry I would be if I was stuck in traffic due to a protest, while my wife sat groggily in pain in the passenger seat of our car.

I scanned the Twitter stream and noticed that people who supported OWS had lost patience with OccupySeattle.  OccupySeattle wasn’t about a revolution anymore.  What started with good intentions but no real purpose, had transformed into an incubator for people with negative intentions and directed purpose. The movement had created a dark side, or at least allowed the dark side to breed.

And so I said:

Dear #OccupySeattle. The 99% has gotten together & decided we need better representation. Thx for the effort.  Good luck w/ future endeavors.”

It was exactly 140 characters.  My point was pretty clear.  Whatever goodwill the original Occupy movement had generated had been pretty much decimated here in Seattle.  The most liberal town in America was saying, “WTF are you guys doing? You are totally destroying this.”

Meanwhile,  my most nagging thought as I hit “Tweet this” was whether I should be using “has” or “have” for the verb.  I was out of characters, so I went with the former. It was a quick line, and after I sent it, I had all but forgotten about it.

A few hours later, it’s become the most retweeted thing I’ve ever sent out. For the first time ever, I started trending in Seattle.  People we retweeting this because they agreed with the sentiment.  And yet two tweets back at me stand out:

To the 1st repsonse I counter, “I agree. To the normal everyday 99%, the rogue hooligans have nothing to do with OWS.  However, Occupy Seattle has little to do with OWS as well.  Somehow OccupySeattle has developed an identity of its own, and not in a good way.”

The 2nd response made me realize I had struck a nerve with some folks.  I run a small business, invest in a startup and teach at a University.  I enjoy creating commerce and inspiring others to do the same.  More commerce means more transactions.  More transactions means more jobs.  More jobs means more wealth for everyone.  But to this person, I was simply “snarky.”  Trying to build small businesses and encouraging entrepreneurship isn’t enough. I’m evil because I don’t want to join or represent a revolution with no goal or purpose.

It will be interesting to see if this tweet fades away into the night as May Day passes.  Maybe more and more people will agree with the sentiment and retweet it.  Or, will we see more of the negative side of #OccupySeattle come out tomorrow.   Either way, it’s a great social media lesson in progress.

The Magic of Saying Nothing

January 13, 2012 /

Sometimes, you generate interest by simply not saying anything.  All it takes is one person to be excited about the unknown, and that excitement can spread.

I don’t know anything about Wendr.  In fact, here’s everything I know:

That’s my old friend from New Orleans, Marc Calamia, seeming to be excited about Wendr.  I clicked through and landed here:

 

They’ve told me nothing.  No reason for me to join.  But also, no reason for me not to.  So naturally, I signed up.

Sometimes we just want there to be more cool things, and we’re willing to give up an email address to hear about them.  Moral: Don’t underestimate the fact that people want to like things.

 

Mark Cuban’s 12 Secrets for Startups

January 11, 2012 /

Mark Cuban is one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, starting Audionet at the beginning of the streaming media generation, turning it into Broadcast.com and then flipping it to Yahoo for a fortune. In this article,  he shares his 12 secrets for startup success.

I think Mark’s most debatable comment is a combination of his first 2 points:

  1. Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love.
  2. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.

Mark’s basically implying that if you go into a business idea with an exit in mind, you won’t have the passion to see the company through to that exit.

Whether you agree with Mark or not, it is important to understand what people like him believe are the keys to building a successful startup. In most cases, entrepreneurs will be approaching people like Mark for venture capital. Understanding what they are looking for saves everyone a lot of time and improves the probability of raising those funds.

If I had the chance, I’d ask Mark when he thinks it’s necessary to think about the exit. After all, at some point the Broadcast.com team had to consider how to turn their nice little business into the $6B exit it became. Who made the company make that pivot, and when did it happen?

I’d suggest anyone considering a startup should read all of Mark’s 12 points. It’s a great summary on entrepreneurial Do’s and Dont’s.

Occupy Seattle Described as a Poker Game

December 26, 2011 /

You won’t see this analysis written anywhere else – this content comes from part of an email chain where a bunch of people were discussing the differences between the original Occupy Wall Street and the local spin-off versions such as Occupy LA and Occupy Seattle.  It all stemmed from an LA Times article that explained it would cost Los Angeles $2.3 Million to clean up the park which had been Occupied.  I’ll keep the whole email from this anonymous person for context, but the paragraph with the poker analogy is the one I found most compelling.

Note: At this point the discussion had moved to talk about whether the movement, or the offshoots of the movement, would be successful on getting student-debts absolved.  (And no offense to puppetry and history majors.)

People take risks and develop new and improved goods and services because they believe that they will profit from it. That is at the root of our free market economic system. That is exactly what Adam Smith wrote about all those years ago. Plus, where do you think all that money comes from to pay off people’s debts (whether student loans or mortgages or bank bail outs or whatever)? Government takes in revenue through taxes. The inhabitants of a country pay the taxes. So, if one group of people want money from the government (and that is exactly what asking to have your debts payed off is- getting money from the government), in essence those people are asking other people to pay for their choices. Why should I have to pay for the choices that another person made (that is the root of the whole social contract and the obligations of citizenship)?

For example, I am OK with helping to pay for education in general- most people are. That is why we have free public K-12 education. It is an investment in the future. I am also OK with student grants for college kids who can not afford college. That also helps society and is an investment in the future. But if some guy takes out a massive loan from a private business (i.e. a bank) to fund his two years in college to get a masters degree in literature or history or puppetry or what have you, and then the guy can’t get a job with his worthless degree, why should I have to pay to get his loan written off? That guy is in essence begging money from me. He better be able to explain why and persuade me to pay off his loan, or I will not want to pay it off for him. And if his first attempt to persuade me to pay off his loan is to “occupy” the park down the street from my house and threaten to stay there until I pay for his loan, then frankly he has failed at making his case from the get go.

To put it in poker terms,  imagine if some guy at the table made big risky bets over and over, chasing long odds on flush draws hand after hand, borrowed money repeatedly from other players to buy in on more hands, and when he finally craps out and has no more money, he demands that everybody else pony up money to pay off his debts. How would you feel about that? How would you react to that? How would the other players react to that? Now imagine if that guy- rather than to try to logically explain why you should pay off his debt- decides to go sit in the bathroom and “occupy” it for several weeks. He messes the place up, refuses to clean it up, disturbs other people who are just trying to use the bathroom, refuses to leave even though he is on private property and the owners ask him nicely to leave, and becomes belligerent when the police to evict him. How would you react to that?

 

 

Guest Post: GoDaddy Domains Threatened Because of SOPA Support

December 23, 2011 /

Michael Neu posted this article on our company blog.  I think it’s a good summary and am re-posting it here.

>>

Techcrunch posted an article today called “Cheezburger’s Ben Huh: If GoDaddy Supports SOPA, We’re Taking Our 1000+ Domains Elsewhere”. The story is in reference to GoDaddy’s support of SOPA the (Stop-Online-Piracy-Act). Although the bill sounds like a good thing many people are worried that the bill goes WAY too far. If SOPA passes it would makes it really easy for copyright holders to censor content and shut sites down that they think are offensive. The censorship issues go far beyond that as well.

Ben Huh, The CEO of The Cheezburger Network, has decided to pull his names from GoDaddy because of their support of the bill. Many other big media companies support the passing of the bill as well.

This is very hot topic right now #SOPA and many sites have spoken out against the bill including Google, Yahoo and others.


I completely agree with Ben’s stance and think he is giving GoDaddy a chance to make it right before he moves his domains. However, as the article stated it GoDaddy is used to taking some heat, and it will probably take a lot more for them to change. There seems to be a push to transfer domains away from GoDaddy because of their support of this bill so we will how GoDaddy reacts if that trends gains any more momentum.

People need to familiarize themselves with what is happening with the SOPA bill, and how poorly it was written. It truly is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and needs to be stopped before it passes by a completely technologically uneducated group of political representatives.

I strongly urge you to familiarize yourself with what is going on and take action like Ben did.

What are you doing to stop this bill from passing?

Rich Barton Urges Seattle to Think Huge

October 27, 2011 /

(Note: Most of this is also reposted at the Social3i.com blog)

Working in an emerging industry like social media, and with clients from Microsoft down to small startups, we’re in a unique position to see a ton of entrepreneurial start-ups. We play with tools from Simply Measured and Visible Technologies, work with WordPress Plug-ins and developers, and see everything from new Facebook radio applications to sports energy drinks.

So, when a publisher like Geekwire sets up a Fireside chat with Rich Barton, it’s kind of a can’t miss event. I’ve seen Rich speak a number of times, and his mantra about online marketing carries with me whenever I see a new business plan. His line is simple to remember and generally dead on: “Whatever can be free will be free, whatever can be found will be found, and whatever can be rated will be rated.”

But last week at Spitfire, Rich added one more message to the Seattle VC and entrepreneurial community. He said (and I paraphrase here), “The problem with the Seattle Entrepreneurial community is that no enough people swing for the home run. It takes just as much energy to walk out of the dugout and bunt as it takes to walk out of the dugout and swing for the fences.”

It’s a fair and accurate comment, and something even more extraordinary when you consider that besides Barton, there are at least 4 or 5 other Seattle based entrepreneurs who went long a decade or more ago:
– Bill Gates, who put a PC on every desktop.
– Howard Schultz, who put a $4.00 cup of coffee in everyone on the planet’s hand.
– Jeff Bezos, who made it possible to buy anything from anyplace, anytime for a market price, and get it delivered almost overnight.
– Paul Allen, whose goals are so big and audacious he probably overshoots them by a few years (ie space travel.)

Barton’s message which every marketer should hear as well – “Pick a Big Hairy Audacious Goal and don’t surround yourself with any team members who don’t think that big. People have an amazing capacity to do huge things if a huge goal is set before them.”

It seems like a good lesson for all of us in either digital marketing or entrepreneurship.

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