Pick up the phone

I wrote a few blog posts about my experience working in Business Development at Kiip and what I had learned along the way. I spent a lot of time doing outreach to developers via email, but it wasn’t until the end that I finally manned up and got on the phone and talked to people. Was it nerve-racking? Sure, especially given that the first call was to a thirteen year-old super-genius developer =P. I’m naturally a pretty shy person, but I realized that although phone calls can be intimidating, they are so much more efficient–and personal–than endless email threads. Lesson learned.

Set measurable goals for yourself

When I started working Biz Dev at Kiip, I kind of just attacked it without any real, set game plan. I think that doing it this way helped me to learn a lot by having the freedom to explore a number of different approaches, but keeping track of my progress wasn’t as productive or useful as it could have been. Were I to have set goals (e.g., sign X amount of developers over X weeks) I could have looked at my accomplishments at the end of the set time period and said “Awesome! Maybe I set the bar too low?” or “Well, hmm. Either the goals were too lofty, or I’m not doing something right. How can I change and improve this? Who knows this stuff and how might they be able to help out?” Which brings me to my next point:

Ask for help whether you need it or you don’t

I worked with some really incredible and talented people during my time at Kiip, and while I learned a lot by asking questions, I almost wish that I had bugged them even more. I can’t speak for the rest of the TECsters, but it was great to work with a small company that had such a diverse skill set. If you ever find yourself in such a situation, take advantage of it. I was able to get the lowdown on analytics, operating softwares, languages, operations and a ton more this summer, simply by asking. Feed your curiosity. You might not understand exactly what the other person is saying (admittedly, operations still kind of baffles me.. our ops guru Mitchell is just on another level than I am and I’m slowly learning to accept that) but you’ll at least be able to get your feet wet in the subject matter and be more capable to understand opportunities or constraints when they arise in the company.

Play dumb and learn

This was something that Brian mentioned during his visit to NYU and again reiterated during a TEC curriculum day. It’s so simple it’s genius. If you’re always trying to act like you know everything, you’re never going to learn anything new. By asking lots of question and sounding like a n00b, you’re bound to pick up something you didn’t know when you’re talking to an expert on the matter at hand. Plus, people love to talk–especially about themselves. Win-win situation all around.

The answer to every unasked question is always no

It was incredible having Shervin Pishevar drop by True and share his experiences in life and the tech industry. He has a fascinating story that was built on a lot of guts and gut instinct. Even though the lesson might be obvious, he let us know by example that every opportunity not taken in life could close an endless amount of doors, and that there’s really nothing to fear out of failure if things turn out for the worse.

The best for last

I certainly learned a ton over the past few weeks, but by far the best part of the experience was getting to meet and work with some really incredible people–both at Kiip and at True Ventures. It was through them that I was able to learn and grow as an entrepreneur and all-around human being, and I definitely won’t be forgetting them anytime soon =)

Be Persistent

Unlike that awkward phase in dating when you try to act cool and hold off from texting the other person back for as long as possible, you have to remember that this is business. Following up shows the other person that you’re taking the time and effort and are serious about them. I’ve been trying to followup as much as possible with developers that I’ve reached out to, especially ones that have “gone cold.” Never once has a developer complained about this or been bothered by it. On the contrary, they typically thank me for reminding them about getting back and checking in.

While being persistent is important, it’s very crucial to not step over the very fine line to the point where you are being annoying. I’ve found that the easiest way to followup is to simply say something to the effect of  ”Hey, I haven’t heard from you guys in a while! Just want to check in and see how things are going and if there’s any questions I can answer for you.” On that note, making yourself available and preempting any request for help is also important.

Be Human

I mentioned this briefly in my last post, but if you’re doing Biz Dev at a startup, you should take advantage of the fact that you have that super-cool, entrepreneurial image. Be humorous, outgoing, and most importantly let the passion you have about your company shine through.

Be Honest

You should absolutely highlight the features of your product or service, but in no case should you ever resort to lying. You run the risk of getting yourself into legal trouble, but almost just as detrimental (if not more so) you can destroy your reputation by promising the moon and delivering shit. This is where Tony Hsieh and Zappos excel.. They give their customers industry-standard expectations and totally blow them out of the water.

Practice Makes Perfect

No one starts off closing deals with just one five minute phone call like it ain’t no thang. Like anything else, learning how to foster a business relationship comes with hard work, effort, and time. I’ve certainly gotten the hang of gauging a potential partner and communicating via email. Phone calls are another story, though, and that’s for the next update! Luckily I’ve got the rest of the BD team here to help out on that front. We’ll see how it goes.

Last Friday, I had the great pleasure of visiting SchematicLabs to do some beta testing on their Soundtracking app (thanks for the invite, Vishal!). I was able to play around with the app, and afterwards the entire testing group met up so that we could throw some ideas out there and see what stuck. A pretty common theme revolved around the idea of creating a playlist that would be generated out of songs that were trending. When asked if we would be okay if these songs only played for thirty seconds each, I gave a very firm “no” as an answer. I figured that when you are discovering a new song, you need to listen to it in its entirety to get a better sense of it.

And then  Fast Forward–The Hype Machine’s latest way to discover new music–was launched yesterday. Fast Forward takes all of Hype Machine’s most popular songs at the moment, creates a playlist, and plays about 15 seconds of each song before “fast forwarding” on to the next one. It’s. Awesome. Granted, there are still a few features that I would like have  added here and there, but the main point is that I was wrong. I thought I would never like something like this, but now that I have the product in my hand, I can see myself using it each and every morning.

This (finally) leads me to the point of this blog post. In TEC, we recently read Do More Faster–lessons learned from some of the TechStars companies. A very common theme of the book revolved around this Lean Startup methodology in which you market test and iterate like crazy until you find the perfect product-market fit. The benefit of doing so is that you save a lot of time and effort by not creating something that’s going to fall flat on its face when it hits the market. But what if customers don’t really know what they want when you ask them in your market testing? This is something that the eHarmony CTO, Joseph Essas, highlighted during a guest lecture at NYU last year. The company had done extensive surveying, asking users what were the most important things that they would like to see on another person’s profile. eHarmony  compiled the data and implemented the changes. The feedback from users was overwhelmingly negative, and eHarmony reversed the changes they had made.

This is why I admire entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Jack Dorsey so much–they have a vision and they stick with it. When Twitter was first released, everyone thought that it would be useless: “Why use Twitter when I can just post updates to Facebook?” and when people actually started using it: “Why am I restricted to 140 characters?” And it was the same with Square: “Why would anyone be stupid enough to swipe their credit card in this plastic thing on top of some random person’s phone?” and yet it’s quickly on its way to becoming one of the leaders in the mobile payments sphere. And it’s the same with Apple. There are hundreds of products that the company could easily manufacture, and yet it keeps its product line small enough to the point where it could sit comfortably on a boardroom for Steve’s exhaustive inspections.

Making efficient use of my time makes sense to me, as does listening to customers and finding a good product-market fit. But in my humble opinion, it seems as if a company would never truly be able to reach its full potential if it constantly follows the whims of its customers. After all, customers are incredibly fickle, and where they spend their time (and money) probably does not have a direct correlation with how much you implement their feedback. I’m sure I’m rustling quite a bit of feathers here (especially amongst many of the techies over at NYU!) so any discussion is very much welcome.

I joke a lot with the fellow TEC-lings that I spend most of the day playing iPhone and Andriod games (or as I like to call it, “market research”) while at work. This is only partly true. My job is to either find awesome game developers out there or begin speaking with the ones that have already reached out to us. The ultimate goal is to sign them on and integrate the Kiip reward network so they can make their uber-fun games even better. Below are a few tips that I’ve picked up from work and that have already helped me in this endeavor.

Getting in the Trenches

If you’re looking to make partnerships in a particular industry, I think a great way to do so is to simply dive in and learn as much as you can. To be honest, I didn’t know a whole lot about the gaming industry (especially within mobile) before I started at Kiip, but delving into the scene has already helped a lot. This means reading up on the trade news, seeing which developers and apps are hot today and gone tomorrow, and even attending local meetups (this last one is especially important).

Know Thy (Potential) Partner

I think one of the greatest benefits that all startups have is that the teams are small and there is a great amount of flexibility to work with. When we reach out to developers, we aren’t restricted to using monotonous corporate languag–we can alter our tone on a case-by-case basis when talking with developers. To make the most of this advantage, it helps to get to know the individual or company before you even begin the initial discussion. “How can I help you?” is something that you should always be asking when researching potential partners. In my case, if I’m’ looking at an indie developer that has a large amount of passion for his or her games, then I would take the approach of mentioning that Kiip could really help to improve the gaming environment. If it’s a more established company, then I would probably lean towards the fact that Kiip could help supplement their revenues. The company’s value proposition should always be placed in the context of the other party’s needs. This is something that Jack, a fellow BDer at Kiip, has helped me to learn, and it’s already been paying off.

ABC: Always Be Closing

I’m still learning as much as I can in this area, and am still trying to figure out the best way to close deals. My current approach is to let the developers test out the reward system themselves and only offer help if they ask for it or they have been inactive for a certain amount of time. I’m going to start playing playing a more active role in this step, and see if this proves to have any better results when it comes to moving conversations on to the next phases. So stay tuned until next time!

“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.”

That being said, I wanted to blog about an interesting subject of conversation that’s been going on amongst the TEC crew (Richard actually just alluded to this in his most recent blog post). It’s the notion that entrepreneurs should take action now and apologize for any legal ramifications that may occur later.

I wouldn’t think of entrepreneurs as outlaws in the traditional sense, and yet I think that a rebellious attitude is something that is inherent in startup culture. Almost every startup out there is aiming to shake up one or many sluggish industries, industries that have incumbents with deep pockets and vice-like grips on their market shares. Doing business in this arena is bound to cause a stir and a lawsuit to boot.

It seems as if there are four distinct options a startup can take when navigating through this legal gray area. They can either be nonresponsive, be compliant, be proactive, or play by the rules.

The Entertainment Industry: The Perfect Storm Case Study

One of the most dramatic shake-ups that have occurred in recent years is that of the entertainment and media industries–particularly in the music sector and increasingly in film, television and publishing. And this has all been thanks to–you guessed it–some pretty incredible startups. I’ll give a few examples of some of these companies and the routes they have taken in dealing with the law.

Non-Responsive Napster may not have been the first p2p sharing application around, but it was certainly one of the most successful (successful in that it was able to build a massive network of highly engaged users in a short amount of time.. of course leading it to its eventual downfall). From its onset, the company (and similar ones, like Limewire and eDonkey) faced a number of lawsuits from artists and record labels alike. Instead of actively pursuing partnerships with these parties, Napster kept these conflicts at bay until it was too late for negotiation.

Compliant YouTube also faced a number of lawsuits from the get-go. What separates it from the Napsters, though, is that it was usually compliant with the studios and labels when it was requested to have copyrighted material removed. This went a long way in warding off serious litigation (of course, this is before it was acquired by Google).

Proactive Netflix is also a company that has seriously helped in altering the way media companies do business. Unlike these other examples, Netflix began working with the major studios from its onset–eventually leading to some very rewarding relationships.

Play by the rules You probably haven’t heard of any of the companies that play by the rules, because they: one, either don’t exist, or two, they exist but haven’t gotten anywhere substantial.

The fact of the matter is that when you’re working in the startup world, you are carving out  new territory where a lot laws either don’t exist, or are vague and murky and are therefore hard to be compliant with. This doesn’t mean that you should pull a Napster and throw caution out the window and to the wind. But it’s important to take note that there are a number of other options out there that you can take, including being compliant and being proactive. Something that was noted at the GigaOM Structure conference is that the US justice system is rather forgiving when it comes to dealing with startups. While this applies to some industries more than others, it is important to note that there is always an option to take.

Another week, another round of some awesome guest speakers at TEC and learning experiences at Kiip. The most important thing I’ve learned so far? It’s that while ideas are important, they are worthless without proper execution.

In TEC, we finished this book called Founders at Work – a collection of interviews with founders of well-known tech companies recounting their early days. Their backgrounds and stories certainly differed, but one common theme that tied them all together was the fact that they drove their ideas to fruition by hustling and executing their asses off. PayPal was a perfect example of this. The company was founded in 1998 and was acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. That’s $1.5 billion. In four years time. This was no accident. Sure, the founding team may have had a hard time finding with the right idea and business model along the way, but with due-diligence and hard work, they were well-prepared when the perfect one came along. It’s like the quote:

“Luck is fifty percent being in the right place at the right time and the other fifty percent is simply being ready for the opportunity when it presents itself – the marriage of opportunity and preparedness.”

And you can see this philosophy everywhere–in politics, in sports, in the arts… The people who show up and execute their ideas (their dreams, really) are the ones who are going to win. And as Chris Dixon has pointed out, I think this mentality holds especially true for entrepreneurs:

“Mark Twain famously quipped that ’80 percent of life is showing up.’ Running a startup, I’d say it’s more like 90 percent.. People who say it is impossible just aren’t showing up enough.”

Everyone always says that entrepreneurship is risky business, and that the odds (something like 10 to 1) are stacked against anyone who tries to start up a successful, lasting company. But think about it this way: with those odds, you are mathematically bound to succeed. You may have to try nine times, but eventually, you’ll make it. It’s simply a matter being at the right place at the right time, and being prepared for that winning opportunity.

Weekly schedule at Kiip

Where I’m Coming From

I first became interested in entrepreneurship at a fairly young age. My Dad had owned and operated his own construction company as I was growing up, so I was able to get a good taste of what it was like to be your own boss and be able to call the shots from the get-go. However, it wasn’t until I started reading a few books written by the rockstars, like Branson, for example, that I began to consider making entrepreneurship an actual occupation–opposed to simply working for another company. But I also started to look at business differently. Instead of using it as a way to make a living, I started to view business as a way to fundamentally make a positive difference in the world, and have a lot fun while doing so.

Since then, I began studying Management at NYU, though I only started taking the tech industry a lot more seriously when I took a class called “Ready, Fire, Aim.” My two professors in the class, Lawrence Lenihan and Hillary Gosher, brought in a ton of really fantastic guest speakers, all supporting the idea that, ultimately, tech is simply a vehicle that can bring about some very dramatic change to some sluggish industries at neck-breaking speeds. AWESOME. This class got me hooked. I picked up a CS minor, and have since started to teach myself programming.

Kiiping It Real

One of those awesome guest speakers in Ready, Fire, Aim turned out to be Brian Wong. THE Brian Wong. I have to admit that I was a bit jealous of this kid  (I can say “kid” without any rude intentions.. after all, he was only 19 at the time). Here he was, younger than me, and he was on his way to launching this really awesome company. But I have to give credit where credit is due, and he certainly deserved it. His enthusiasm was incredibly infectious during that guest lecture and I appreciated every bit of it. I learned a few weeks later that Brian was looking for a summer intern, so I gave the opportunity a shot as fast as I could. Brian told me to apply to TEC, and while I hadn’t heard of it before, I thought that it would be an awesome opportunity to continue learning the ins-and-outs startups before taking the plunge and starting a company of my own.

Goals For The Summer

My main responsibility at Kiip will be biz dev. The company is growing incredibly fast, and it’ll be one of my jobs to help maintain that momentum by adding more developer and advertiser accounts. On the flipside, I’ll also be making sure that the current clients are being taken care of and are talking to the right people, should there be a need for it. I’m also hoping to try my hand out at product design.

My main goal for the summer, though, is to simply learn. The team at Kiip is full of some incredibly bright people, and it’ll be a privilege to see how they work and come up with solutions when problems arise.