Three-Legged Entrepreneur Stool

I had coffee one day last week with a friend who has been in the technology start up and education fields for several years. He has owned a company that was sold off and now spends his time creating technology leaders as a college professor. The question came up - what does it take to succeed as an entrepreneur?

Three things (not counting luck).

1. Communication

Entrepreneurs must be able to communicate their vision, their value proposition, and their opportunity to others. They must be persuasive and speak with clarity and confidence. Others must be inspired.

2. Competence

If all it is is an idea and you have no knowledge about how to execute it will fail. You must possess the background knowledge and associated problem solving skills in order to create a workable product or solution.

3. Motivation

You must be relentless in your pursuit. Motivated not only to do the big things necessary to succeed, but also motivated to mind the not-so-fun details. You must embrace the challenge and the opportunity every day and inspire you team the same way.

I'm sure there are twists on each of these, and success is not a guarantee, but if you are hitting all three of these consistently, your chances have improved dramatically.

What do you do here?

In the real world you really fall into one of four categories as an employee. You may change category from moment to moment, but you pretty much better fall into one of these if you are going to stay around.

1. Create billable hours or stuff your company can sell - you may be a programmer, a lawyer, or an assembly line worker, and thus you create stuff or service to sell.

2. The Rainmaker - you sell stuff. You get clients to say yes and you do this all by yourself or with minimal support. In addition you create partnerships that bring in revenue and growth.

3. You support the production or rainmaker folks with measurable outcomes.

4. You receive and track down money that is owed to your company.

If you don't fit into one of these four groups more than 7 hours a day - you're probably not going to be around long - or you should try owning the company. Even then - you get to do ALL FOUR ALL THE TIME.

Mobile Innovations

Thank goodness for iTunes, iPhone and iPad.

That's all I have to say...except for some questions.

1. Does anyone think we would have apps like the Chase remote deposit application or Instapaper, or Shazam without these devices?

2. How about Runkeeper or 100 pushups, or fitness tracking apps?

3. How about web checkin with paperless boarding passes from Alaska Airlines and others?

4. How about the comparison shopping applications and location based services?

5. Movies and music in your pocket, on an airplane? on your lunchbreak in a park?

These are game changing times - and the beginning is now. Time to stand on the shoulders of giants and be excellent.

Sure others have tried, but it took Apple to Think Different and show us what was possible - now the rest can copy - again.

Not in the Budget

So, I get a call from a design house that needs something done, for which they have no expertise. Additionally, they have already set a budget for the work (with no idea how much time it will take to complete) and they come to us.

Them: "Please code out this section of the site that connects to a third party vendor"

Me: "Based on reviewing your spec, the requirements, and your timeline, this is how much it will cost."

Them: "That's not in our budget, can you do it for less"

Me: "No, this is what it will take for us to build it and fully test it. If we do it in less time we will bill you for actual - If, however scope increases the cost will also increase".

So, why am I writing this? Because I have these questions...

1. How can you possibly offer a project budget for which you have a huge portion you have no idea how to complete?

2. Why are you asking me to bail you out?

3. How would you respond if I called you and said, "I need 5 web concepts, I told the customer you would do it as a donation, that's OK right?"

Apple = Disney, Droid=Universal

End the Holy War please.

There are many more things we should all be worrying about besides how much the latest iPhone or the latest Droid device rules or sucks.

My quick observation is Apple=Disney - the standard. An empire built on quality and control which is often emulated by others.

Droid is more like Universal - edgy, the anti-Disney, trying to establish itself not so much by what it is, but what it is not.

This is an age old "battle" and frankly tiring - neither are going away - let's just hope it motivates them both to create awesome products.

How Long is a Piece of String?

So, here's what happens.

I get contacted and I have a 3 minute conversation which usually includes phrases like:

"You've done this a lot so you should know...", "It's really not that hard to do", or "Give me a ballpark, I won't hold you to it..."

Actually all of these are lies. Anyone in our industry knows this to be so.

This post is not meant to be a rant, but it may end up sounding like one.

I actually think that those that are making the statements are not doing it to take advantage, they are more just in a position of either not knowing, or not appreciating what it takes to do what we do. So I hope this post will help educate - if nothing else.

For the record, I am done giving pricing without full specs. I am done with ballpark numbers, I am done with brainstorming after those numbers have been revealed. I am done with Ad agencies dictating design without ANY idea what matters and what actually works for the web, especially after pricing has been discussed.

Imagine that you are building a house, you tell the architect you want a house with walls and a roof. How much is that? He'd be crazy to answer, yet I am expected to give an answer without hesitation.

Go into Home Depot, ask them - "How much is a piece of string?"

Answer: IT DEPENDS

Depends on length, type, features, materials, craftsmanship, etc. etc.

The same is true for our "product". IT DEPENDS.

"By events calendar do you mean, I can see when events are happening ONLY - or I can register, create a custom t-shirt, invite friends, tweet, add it to my calendar, send myself reminders, blah blah blah?"

So I am done.

This IS a rant, more at myself for letting it happen then at others for asking.

We are not laying pipe in a 100' trench - we are dealing with emotion, marketing, expectations and the only way to make those expectations clear is to fully define them.

So, it ends, at least in as much as it's been done before.

Here's what I want...

I want you happy, not let down. Conversely, you should want me happy, because it is in your best interest for me to be here and not go bankrupt eating features and costs because you wanted a price up front.

Twitpics from Space

So just a few minutes ago I received this tweet from astronaut Soichi Noguchi @Astro_Soichi

http://twitpic.com/1dwswl - Space Shuttle Discovery arrived!

I was stunned by the image and the access - in real time - to relevant news. A quick retweet by by brought this response from @izenmania - ""Twitpics from space" really sums up a lot of what's cool about scientific progress."

Imagine the record we are collectively chronicling through our tweets, some mundane, but some granting access to events like never before.