You’ve survived the interview, got your call back, you start on Monday. Great! But now you don’t know what to expect, what you will be doing, who you will be working with, or what will be needed of you. Congratulations, you’re an intern.
The first day is a nightmare. All of those new names to attach to new faces, unfamiliarity with the various systems you have to connect to in order to get started, and, most importantly, needing to figure out the nearest and best places to get lunch.
Fortunately, it gets better. You slowly learn names, you find out which systems need to be logged in to regularly and which ones you can usually ignore, and you become comfortable in the environment.
As the weeks go by, you find yourself looking back on those first days and thinking, “That was me. This is me now.” You look at what you were doing and note that your bosses have been guiding your experience from that first day to where you are now: acclimated and ready to handle something important. Tasks that seemed mostly trivial have taken on a new level of importance. That batch script you wrote last week only needs a couple of changes to be used for daily stress testing. Those C programs you tinkered with are actually being dropped into the product.
Then, the realization hits: your internship is already half-over. It’s been so long and yet so short, and you’ve found a place at the company that you fill. You reflect on what you have done, consider your current task, and wonder what will be sent your way in the next half of your term. The pieces fall into place, and you know that, whatever happens, you’ve done the right thing in interning.
So, what can you do to ensure that your internship is rewarding? I suggest the following:
1. Ask questions. Quite obviously, if you have trouble with a task, ask for more information. However, it doesn’t end there. Try to figure out how what you are doing affects the company. If the answer isn’t obvious, ask. You weren’t hired to simply spend three or four months of your year sitting at a desk, so finding out what your overarching task is meant to do – how it will affect the company – is a good way to get a handle on your situation.
2. Take the initiative. Leading from the first point, if you are working on a tool that accomplishes a particular task and you know of a tool that already does it, recommend that pre-existing product. If you are given a directive that you can accomplish in a simpler way, suggest that instead. By speaking up, making meaningful suggestions, and taking the initiative when offered, you will find your time in your placement that much more enjoyable.
3. Don’t fight to fit in. You aren’t a corporate drone. You are an individual with your own personality, abilities and background. Chances are, you were hired because you have some skills that overlap with other team members, and some that are exclusive. By adding your own personality to the corporate mix — within reason, of course – you’ll feel more like a co-worker and less like a temp, which will net you more interesting opportunities during your stay.
The relationships you make during your internships are crucial. It’s been said time and time again that placements lead to jobs. Companies are more likely to hire someone they have invested time in. This is true of large corporations and small businesses alike. People prefer to work with people they know, and by getting your foot in the metaphorical door, you have a leg up on everyone else that comes looking for a job in a year or two.
Equally important, the things that you do and the skills that you gain during your placement will prove useful time and time again when you return to academia. Understanding which tradeoffs are accepted in business may not help you directly in the classroom setting, but recognizing where the two worlds intersect will give relevance and credence to the lessons on the blackboard.
I’ve written a great deal in past blogs on the need for tech start-ups to build strong management teams made up of members whose skills complement each other. But what about when that start-up needs to hire junior-level staff tasked with doing some of the grunt work such as programming or providing marketing support?
For whoever’s doing the hiring (in a small company, that’s likely to be the CEO), it’s important to remember that the skills needed in the junior ranks are very different from those required at the management level. Up at the top you’ll need managers with a great deal of past experience, a keen eye for spotting industry trends and a great deal of vision. An ability to create industry-changing products is also a plus!
Junior employees, on the other hand, need to display different skills. Do they need to be technically competent? Absolutely, but I would argue that hiring a person based on their ability to work in your tight-knit culture and for the passion they exude, is just as important as their ability to write great code—maybe even more so.
Why? In a tech start-up, things can and do go wrong. Problems can range from technical glitches—yes, even absolute software meltdowns—to hiccups with financing. In the case of the latter, for example, ensuring there’s enough money in the bank to make payroll is a CEO’s job, but concerns over things like cash flow definitely trickle down and create anxiety among workers. It’s all part of the start-up roller coaster.
Having ridden it several times, I’ve learned that it takes a very specific type of worker who can go on that ride, hold onto his or her lunch and not ask to get off at the midway point.
We recently hired three fantastic interns from the University of Toronto and it reminded me just how important these lessons really are. Here are my recommendations for hiring workers that will help take your start-up to the next level:
Hire young: No, not because they tend to command lesser salaries, but because younger workers are usually on the leading edge of new technologies, display a passion for their work that for a CEO in his early forties (namely me) is truly astounding to see play out on a daily basis, and possess an entrepreneurial enthusiasm that leads them to take ownership of projects and focus on the company’s growth as if it was their own.
Hire slowly: Making sure that employees, especially younger ones, fit into your company’s culture is crucial, as I mentioned above. While it’s tough to make that sort of decision in just a couple of interviews, I’ve learned that taking ample time to find the right hire is a good way to make business-building HR decisions. Although it’s a time-consuming, potentially painful process as you weed through what could be dozens (maybe even hundreds) of resumes, remember that it’s much easier to hire than it is to fire—and a lot less stressful. Let’s face it, as the CEO of a tech start-up, you have stress to spare, so adding more simply isn’t an option.
Hire smart: To find our interns, I contacted some old friends at the University of Toronto and asked to speak to students in the computer science department’s operating systems course. I took a few minutes at the end of one of their classes to explain how that particular course helped me develop technologies that led to the founding of my first and latest tech start-up. I then outlined how we were looking for top talent to work with us on an internship basis to take NEVEX to the next level. Within a few days, I was contacted by several students who had planned to take the summer off, but were intrigued by the challenge we were offering. Turns out these students weren’t only enthusiastic, they were brilliant, embracing their new roles in our small firm and helping us overcome several programming obstacles. By going straight to one of Canada’s top schools, I was able to find the type of innovative thinkers I needed to help us make our software an industry leader.
When I ask friends and business peers about how they use Twitter in the workplace, I’m always astounded when I get a blank stare followed by the answer: “Our company blocks Twitter.” #somecompaniesarerunbymonkeys
Seriously? I have no words…
Obviously that’s not true, or I wouldn’t have written this blog. In fact, I have LOTS of words. #mostcannotbeprinted
Although Facebook now has business applications, many use it solely to keep in touch with friends and family. So sure, a corporate culture-killing company could make a defensible argument in favour of blocking that site— #psst…justuseyouriphone—but Twitter? No ma’am.
Twitter is an effective business tool and should be used at work. Exactly how depends on your role, and that’s what I like to discuss with peers—except for those whose companies block the site. #aka:managementdoesntgetit
As a product manager, I use Twitter in three ways: for product feedback, building brand awareness and gaining competitive intelligence.
Our company, NEVEX Virtual Technologies, and our software have very distinct names. I can search for them without even using hash tags such as #nevex. #yesthosewereserioushashtagsthistime. I use Tweet Deck, which allows users to set up permanent search columns. So, if anyone in the world (or twitterverse, for those buzzword-compliant readers) posts a tweet that includes the word ‘nevex,’ for example, I see them immediately. More importantly, I can also see what people are saying about NEVEX. I can then re-tweet positive comments or respond to the negative ones.
Because our product is currently in beta, most of my search column is filled up with people who misspelled ‘never,’ #turnonautocorrect but that will change after our official launch.
You can probably extrapolate how I use Twitter to glean competitive intelligence. I have a search column for all my competitors and can analyze who’s working with them, how they’re working with them, and what they like and don’t like about the product. #twitter=genius
There are other applications, of course. I follow market analysts and industry experts on Twitter, as well as other areas of related interest. And I use Flipboard on my iPad to keep up-to-date on market intel in a nice magazine-style layout. #flipboardisessential
So, if you’re not using Twitter at work, you should. And if you’re one of the ones blocking Twitter at your company, consider changing your mind. #insultsheldback
When Apple introduced the iPhone, they seemed to be leaving the business market to RIM. The lack of advanced email capability, priority messaging, in-house secure Blackberry-style server, and keyboard left many an article asking “when will the iPhone be ready for business?”
Turns out that was the wrong question.
When the iPhone 3G went wild, the right question became clear. It was never, “Is the iPhone ready for the business community?” but, “Is the business community ready for the iPhone?” And the same is true of the iPad.
Let me mention that, at first, I resisted the pull of the iPad. I already had an Apple iPhone and laptop. Why did I need some sort of hybrid that didn’t replace either device? Or so I thought…
Then a die-hard, Blackberry-loving friend of mine, who had been teasing me about my “toy” iPhone for ages, bought an iPad. My reaction was basically, “Sorry, WHAT?” But in two days he was so in love with the thing that he went native, adding an Apple TV and (gasp!) an iPhone to his repertoire.
So, I saw the infectious appeal of the device. Still, I resisted.
At the time I was working at Infobright (they make a great high-performance analytic database, by the way – www.infobright.com). Plug aside, Don DeLoach—the CEO at Infobright—was based in Chicago, but working every other week in Toronto, bringing only his iPad. He managed email, Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations all on the little black slate of glass (you can read more at http://trav-lessons.blogspot.com/).
So, I did see the ability to get business value, and yet still, I resisted.
But then two things happened. One, a new version of the iPhone OS added the ability to tether a Wi-Fi only iPad through the iPhone’s data plan. And two, iPad 2!
I surrendered, and picked up the lowest-end 16GB Wi-Fi only iPad. I. Love. It!
The email client is based on the iPhone app, but the extra screen space allows for a clean, simple and effective email tool. Taking a cue from Don, I immediately bought Pages, Numbers, and Keynote through the App Store. These are pared down versions of Apple’s iWork suite, allowing you to create, edit, and do basic layout work in Microsoft Office document format. Not to mention the ability to open all your important files (and keep them synced) using Dropbox (http://db.tt/fa7sMfy).
Does it replace my laptop? No, but I can get 80% of the job done at 20% of the weight and size. The result? My laptop has become my office machine, essentially anchored to the desk. As for evenings, weekends, and my hour-long commute each way to work—now it’s all done on the iPad. My briefcase-lugging shoulder is forever grateful.
Email, iWork (or alternately Documents To Go), and Dropbox are the essential business tools, but I did want to call out a couple more killer apps: Flipboard (www.flipboard.com) and Instapaper (www.instapaper.com).
Flipboard is a personalized news and social site aggregator – taking content from news sites, magazines, Facebook, and Twitter and formatting it all in a nice magazine-style, tap-for-more-info layout. Instapaper allows you to send articles from any of your browsers to your iPad, where they are formatted newspaper style and available offline – creating the perfect reading to-do list.
It’s not all wine and roses, though. For the counter-argument, I give you (bleep)ing Skype (www.skype.com). Skype has become a core business tool, but they not only continue to release less friendly client interfaces, but were way late to the game with a bare-bones iPhone app. And they systematically stopped other, better implemented apps, from hooking into the Skype protocol … and now for the iPad? Bupkis. The best you can do is use the iPhone app, but it looks and feels completely Mickey Mouse. Perhaps with the Microsoft acquisition this will change, though I’m not holding my breath.
Quibbles aside, the iPad is a great business tool. Or at least it is when I can successfully pry it from my children’s hands…
In a recent New York Times piece, columnist Adam Bryant outlined an excerpt from his new book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons From CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, in which he interviews more than 70 chief executives and business leaders to come up with a list of the five key traits necessary for leading an organization.
In his assessment, passionate curiosity, battle-hardened confidence, team smarts, a simple mindset and fearlessness are the keys to climbing the corporate ladder and staying at the top.
While I agree with each of Bryant’s points, the column got me thinking about the additional traits necessary to run a successful start-up. Some might argue that the ability to take wild—sometimes even seemingly irrational—risks and embrace uncertainty are critical traits that allow CEOs to manage the inevitably wild entrepreneurial ride. Others would say that start-up CEOs even need to be a bit crazy to tackle the often insurmountable odds they face in starting and growing their companies. There’s truth in all of this.
But there are other critical traits they need, as well, such as:
Mental toughness: It’s one thing to take risks. It’s another to be able to sleep at night when you’ve taken them. As I’ve found from my current and past businesses, staying mentally tough and keeping your team calm in the face of huge obstacles is one of a CEO’s most effective management tools.
The ability to encourage and energize: Because start-ups rarely pay their top staff market salaries, a CEO needs to be able to inspire his/her people to achieve business results. Having a well-focused plan and achieving small, incremental victories is one way to rally the troops—not to mention the ability to make a highly-inspiring speech or two.
Successful entrepreneurs are constantly asked a very simple question by people who want to make their own mark in the business world: what’s your secret to success?
Trouble is, you could ask 100 entrepreneurs for their insight into that age-old question and you’d likely wind up with 100 different answers. I know because I’ve not only been asked the question dozens of times, but I’ve been on the other end, prodding other successful entrepreneurs to share their secrets when I first started building technology companies back in the mid-1990s.
So, what’s the right answer? Simple—there isn’t one. Every entrepreneur succeeds or fails for a very wide variety of reasons. The variables at play in the development and growth—or fizzling—of a business are far too numerous to list here.
What I can tell you is that from my experience, there are three issues that need careful managing if a start-up is going to realize its true potential (and keep its founder out of bankruptcy!):
Choosing the right team—I’ve written about this topic before in this space, but I can’t reiterate enough times just how important it is to choose the right people to work with in each new venture you embark on. I’m very lucky that I’ve been able to work with the same team for years and in multiple ventures, but the reason we’ve found success is because we complement each other’s skill sets. I don’t need clones of myself, nor do I need yes-people who will agree with my every decision. I need people who have skills that I don’t, and who are willing to share their opinion to push me and make the company better. And as I always say, it’s crucial to work with people you can get along with. It sounds like a secondary concern when millions of dollars are on the table in a new venture, but believe me, the start-up environment is very much like a marriage. It’s based on a huge amount of mutual respect and compromise. And as I always say, it’s a lot easier to get a divorce than to get out of a business partnership.
Knowing your competitive advantage—This is a big one and it took us more than a year of tinkering and second-guessing before we came up with the answer. Ultimately, it was feedback from the market that pointed us in the right direction. In fact, the feedback we received highlighted value propositions and a competitive advantage that we hadn’t even considered. Such is life in a start-up: product positioning changes on the fly, market research is one of your lifelines and flexibility is what can turn successful companies into industry leaders.
Managing cash flow—It’s been said a thousand times and written about in countless business books, but the message never gets old. Nothing will destroy your start-up faster or more decisively than a major cash flow crunch. If watching the books isn’t your strength, then ensure that your team includes a CFO or senior-level management member whose is. Avoiding frivolous or ill-timed expenditures is one way to help mitigate just such a financial crisis, but ultimately, it comes down to watching your monthly burn rate and ensuring product development proceeds on time and as planned. Nothing helps maintain strong cash flow more than strong sales.
I was recently asked at what point in a start up’s life-cycle product management becomes a necessity—an odd question, since from my perspective, the answer is obvious: day one. Perhaps that person was actually wondering when a start-up needs a dedicated product manager.
That’s a slightly different question, but the answer is the same.
Whether you have a dedicated product manager or not, companies are wise to conduct several management functions before rolling out their product. Since our focus is software, I’ll use that as an example. At the very least, some market analysis is needed to ensure the software solves a customer problem, market research to determine your competitors, and some sort of face-to-face customer research to ensure someone, somewhere is willing to pay for what you’re thinking about building.
Employing a professional product manager at a start–up’s inception will focus development efforts, reduce direction changes and maximize cycles by constantly representing, verifying, and thinking like your target customer. Doing so ensures your products aren’t merely innovative technical solutions to problems that nobody knows they have. A lot of companies live or die on that point alone.
It’s true that if you have enough money, you don’t need product management. You can just let the technical folks innovate and throw products into the market, then see if they happen to meet a customer need. Yes, Google, I’m looking at you. Buzz? Wave? Er, why?
With my sincerest apologies, I feel I must contradict poor Kevin Costner—it is definitely not true that if you build it, they will come.
Having a product manager out of the gate is ideal, but we all know start-ups are cash strapped. So, the product manager, like everyone else, is expected to wear multiple hats. Even in large enterprises, the product manager’s role is one of the most cross-functional ones in an organization, but in a start-up he or she does a lot more hands-on work to support each department. Perhaps in a future blog I’ll outline these duties, along with their required skills, in detail (in the meantime, take a look at this post for some insights: http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/publications/topics/05/0502jm2).
For now, I’ll leave you with one more key reason you should consider hiring a product manager from the get-go. A start-up, by its very nature, is a hive of chaos. Product management brings process and organization, with an eye firmly on the long term success of the product. In doing that alone, development can focus on near-term deliverables, sales and marketing is kept aware of what’s on the product horizon in terms of features, and senior management is alerted to any repercussions of changes in product direction and resultant messaging churn.
It’s never easy. But then… if it was simple, the company wouldn’t need a product manager at all.
Last week I offered some guidance on marketing must-haves—logo design, stationery, website—and how to limit spend without hurtling your tech start-up towards bankruptcy. Here are another three big-ticket items and some tactics to minimize their impact on the bottom line:
Collateral—Needs vary drastically on the collateral front—some sales teams require everything from one-page product sheets to elaborately-designed brochures—so it’s difficult to estimate what a firm should budget. Spending can still be spread out with careful planning:
Like stationery, collateral doesn’t need to be produced until your sales process begins. Have the necessary copy and layout established but delay execution until it’s required.
Pick a supplier that satisfies your needs on multiple fronts. Ensure their expertise and portfolio is in line with your brand requirements. If you’re looking for fun, funky designs, don’t settle on a firm that caters to corporations that prefer a more conservative tone.
Understand your target market. If a simple one-page leaflet will suffice, don’t go overboard with a four-panel brochure.
Public Relations—PR is often overlooked by start-ups. Third-party endorsements—the ultimate end result—is a savvy way to tap your market:
Size matters. I’ve seen small companies sign with large PR agencies that boast huge multinational clients, only to be overlooked over monthly deliverables. Smaller agencies deliver results but only when their client list is small. Research the accounts your prospective PR provider is serving. Ensure you are assigned a senior member.
Billing flexibility. You may not need to sign a monthly retainer at first—a project-focused menu of services may be all you need.
Define your PR goals. Tell the agency exactly what you want to accomplish over the course of your service agreement. If that means being on the nightly news once a month, set those expectations early. But also be realistic—start-ups are rarely profiled on the cover of major news or trade publications. By setting coverage targets early, the agency is accountable and you can track your return on investment.
Trade Shows—although considered necessary for tech start-ups to be noticed by resellers and prospective customers, trade shows can be oppressively expensive. Booth design, exhibitor apparel, hotel and travel, entertaining prospective clients, set-up and tear-down, all take careful planning. Whatever you’ve estimated to spend, add 25-30% for unexpected incidentals. For those with sufficient budget, some pointers:
Begin preparation four to six months in advance. Ensure your production schedule is sufficiently detailed, with extra time built-in for unexpected delays. A dedicated staffer handling logistics from the outset will be invaluable.
Outsource the booth design if you don’t have the skill set to do it. Why? Frankly, there’s nothing worse than a poorly designed/organized booth. My advice is to do it right or re-think the necessity to exhibit. Perhaps a targeted email campaign might achieve similar results.
Understand your competitors. Going big might be a waste of money if your competition opts for a more modest approach.
In last week’s blog, our CEO Steve Lamb argued that—despite CFO misgivings—marketing is a must-have for tech start-ups. The only questions that remain are how and when to spend.
While there are literally dozens of areas where start-ups can spend their precious marketing dollars, there are some expenses that simply can’t be avoided. With that in mind, here are some common start-up must-haves and ways to manage their development that save both time and money:
Logo design—For those with limited budgets, online graphic design houses offer a variety of inexpensive logo-design packages. The upside: they’re cost-effective. The downside: the design shop requires a great deal of creative guidance. Keep these points in mind when placing your logo order:
Provide a detailed brief. They need to fully understand your product/service, market, value propositions and how you want the company wants to be perceived (savvy, creative, academic, innovative, etc)
Less is more. Make it known that you want a memorable logo with bold lines. If it can be easily sketched, chances are good it’ll make an impact with your target clientele
Request multiple file formats including png, tiff, jpg, Word, etc, to avoid extra costs down the road
Stationery—The good news is that because most communication today is carried out via email, you can defer the upfront expense to print letterhead, envelopes, folders, shipping labels, etc., until you’re ready to begin mailings. Have your designer prepare the files as part of the initial design phase so they are ready to print whenever you need them. Edge bleed adds drama but is more expensive to print so keep this in mind when you review the designs.
Business cards are the only immediate stationery necessity. Pick the best stock you can find and a quality print house. A company’s reputation rests on the image it projects through its business cards. Not sure which layout to select? A lot depends on the clientele you’re trying to attract. Ultimately, think of yourself as the recipient. Would you be impressed by your card?
Website—Custom website development is a big investment. There are thousands of inexpensive templates available online, for platforms such as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, which can be used as an interim measure. Once you are ready to launch, have it customized it to fit your needs.
For firms with sufficient funding to seek professional Web design help, here are a few recommendations:
Request several proposals. If you need specific skill sets, Flash for example, ask to see the designer’s Flash portfolio. I’m not going to lie, it’s a painstaking process. Here is where the mantra ‘Fast, Cheap, Good–Pick Two’ hits home, as all three will come at a high price
Have your vision in place before beginning the design process. Changing your mind about visual design, functionality or other aspects of the site’s look and feel mid-project will only lead to additional cost and deadline overruns
Ensure the site includes a content-management system and warranty. The ability to modify basic content on web pages is essential for any start-up. So, too, is the reassurance that if something should go wrong in the short-term once the site is built, the developer will stand by his/her work
Next week, part three of our focus on start-up marketing with a look at public relations, collateral and trade shows.
Just say the word ‘marketing’ and CFOs cringe. Their thoughts immediately turn to a financial black hole where endless amounts of money get sucked in, never to be seen again.
It’s true, beyond product development costs, marketing expenditures represent the greatest line-item costs a tech start-up faces. Even worse, marketing budgets have a tendency to expand rapidly and a true return on investment can be difficult to quantify.
Sound familiar? Well, now is the time to stop whingeing and embrace marketing. The reason—it’s the lifeblood of a tech start-up. How else will your target clientele, investors, media and other key stakeholders learn about your products or services?
I learned that lesson through several start-up experiences with past companies such as Border Network Technologies. Part of the reason we enjoyed major success was because people knew about us. How did they know? You guessed it—an effective marketing plan.
The advent of new technology has reduced the need for traditional marketing, meaning you can now do much more with less staff. Outsourcing essential marketing to agencies means you only spend when you need the services. Websites enable customers to read about products online, downloading a PDF only when required. Downloadable software alleviates the need for traditional packaging; emails can replace most snail-mail letters and social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook enable companies to reach out and interact with their customers.
And we are all saving thousands of dollars in the process.
So, when is marketing spend necessary? You will only find that out once you’ve analyzed your target clientele – selling into the B2B market requires a much different approach than selling into the consumer market where products need to sit on retailer shelves. By thinking smart, start-ups can minimize their marketing spend and still achieve key business goals—boosting their bottom line significantly in the process.
With that in mind, stay tuned for next week’s blog by Carol Mackay, our VP Marketing, who will discuss some must-haves for start-ups, along with recommendations on how to manage their development.
