Complexity Killed the Cat

This time it wasn’t curiosity that did it. Complexity is a challenge, especially in business and product development. Take Apple, a company that prides itself on making things as simple and lacking complexity as possible. The iPhone has one button on the front. Customizations and “hacks” are minimally available in iOS. All of the devices look similar (iPad, iPod, iPhone) and they all sync effortlessly. People love this and pay a ridiculous premium for it. Customers want something sleek and simple. 

Now on the other end of the spectrum was the product that Kirill Klimuk and I built last summer. It had a gazillion bells and whistles, months worth of coding features and oh man was it confusing and complex. The inner workings were indeed brilliant (props to Kirill there), but the average user looked at it and said, “HUH???” That’s bad, because they didn’t end up being our user for very long.

When I was working on that product, I overlooked an important piece of advice from my friend and mentor Maria Cirino, the Managing Director of .406 Ventures. She told me something along the lines of “every feature or complexity represents a failure point in your product. You want to eliminate as many of those failure points as possible. If one point fails, the whole product can go down.” Successful products need to be built minimally: less features, less functionality, less complexity. There should be one button that does the same thing every time, and every user understands what the button does.

The same should be applied to service delivery. The less materials, less people and less time that we can tweak the service down to, the better. When we are crafting a marketing campaign at influencers@, the creative team always seeks things that are exciting, effective and yet brilliantly simple to execute. Consider ways to reduce complexity in your business… your customers and bottom line will be a lot happier.

The Danger of Big Words

Back when I had the honor of working with Kirill Klimuk (Duke ‘14) on a start-up project during Spring/Summer 2011, I learned something very important: big words are dangerous. Kirill is incredibly smart, with intellectual capabilities far exceeding my own (though he doesn’t like to admit it). He reads philosophy books for for fun, enjoys crafting essays by the sentence and has a vast vocabulary. So when he speaks, it isn’t suprising that he is a fan of “big words”… words that are not commonly used and many folks might not even be familiar with. It drove both of us nuts when I made him stop an explanation to define the wacky word he just said. 

The problem is that Kirill is the minority. Most people do not talk like him, do not understand his words and have zero desire to learn them. In the business world, using big words is a problem because it can lose people. Business to me is about brevity, clarity and simplicity. I want to do something as quickly, cheaply and as simply as possible while maximizing the amount of money I make (if I did otherwise, I should expect to be kicked to the curb as a COO). Big words make the listener stop thinking about the big idea of the discussion and instead get lost in considering “wait, what does that word mean and what are its implications?” The bigger problem is that while they were thinking about that, they zoned out for the next 2 sentences I told them, which might have been my business’ value proposition.

Buzz words have the same problem. A pitch or explanation that is drowning in buzz words is just harder to understand. Particularly in an executive role, I want to hear things in the simplest, clearest language possible without any fluff. Give it to me in a bulleted list and bold what is important. Don’t clutter anything with tricky language or buzz words. Remember, people are lazy. Many times they simply won’t exert the effort to understand complex language, they’ll just walk away. If that was a customer, potential A+ employee, etc… well then we just lost. 

Don’t get me wrong – I have an immense respect for Kirill’s command for the English language. But when it comes to business, I like the term “dumb it down.” Keep it so simply that it is nearly impossible to misunderstand. Eliminate as much verbage and complexities as possible from explanations, pitches and emails. Big words are great for linguists, writers and academics. However, they have no place in business.

Why You Have to Hire People

My first business was fixing computers. Jeremy Blum and I founded the company when we were 14 years old and worked on it all throughout high school. For the most part, it was always just the two of us fixing computers. We repaired as many as we could while balancing school and were pleased with the profit we were pulling in. As I am getting exposed to larger and growing organizations like influencers@, it’s becoming clear why the CEO can’t fix computers.

If we break down a business, it is essentially made up of:

  • Getting customers: selling, engaging with people and keeping them happy.
  • Servicing customers: building or providing a product or service that customers are willing to pay for. 
  • Operations: making the business run smoothly, accounting, people, logistics, office space, internal stuff, culture.

Each of these responsibilities is pretty intense and requires somebody’s focus. One of the reasons why a startup is so challenging is because usually everyone focuses on everything. In the early days, that’s ok. From being a part of a 9 month old profitable business, I am beginning to realize that this system starts to break down for more mature ventures. The executive and founding team has to start moving away from the “computer fixing” and more towards a focus on growing the business. That might mean overseeing sales that bring in more computers to fix, recruiting awesome new computer technicians and providing an environment that makes fixing computers as efficient and profitable as possible. This is when we begin hiring people.

Hiring people is scary because you are suddenly entrusting someone else with what you believe you do best. You need cash or equity to pay them with and you suddenly have to think about a slew of challenges that were non existant in my high school business: payroll, human resources, people liability, complex scheduling and other people’s human emotions in your business. That stuff is tough!

To scratch the surface on hiring, here are a few guidelines to consider when you are making the first hires in your organization:

1. Hire slowly

Spend a reasonable amount of time interviewing, testing and hanging out with a person before you give them an offer. Some hires are easier than others, but this person is going to be a part of the company culture and responsibile for some aspect of your business. That means that he or she is pretty darn important! 

2. Look for people you know

Start with the lowest barrier to entry when looking for hires: people you know. I’ve hired a ton of folks that were involved in the Entrepreneurs Club for influencers@. I already knew them and their capabilities.

3. Seek passion, not skills

I’m a big believer in hiring people that are passionate about the job and the business over someone who is a so-called “expert” in a specific skillset. You can read more about that here. 

4. Be a mentor to them

The stronger your hires become, the stronger your business becomes. That means you should invest considerable time, esspecially in the early days, mentoring and staying close with these people. I take every opportunity I can to show Dave Fields better ways to phrase emails and organize schedules.

Hiring is a big and exciting move in any start-up business. Sometimes it works out, other times it might not. Either way, the founders and leaders will eventually have to move away from service delivery and towards even greater company challenges, and hiring smart people is the first step in making that possible.

Being One Brained

Have you ever went into a meeting with your business partner and he started to say something that was totally different from what you were thinking? Maybe even something you didn’t agree with? It would be pretty awkward, esspecially if you are sitting in front of a customer or new recruit. Luckily, there is a great way to avoid this: we call it “being one brained.”

My CEO Spencer Bramson coined the term at our company, and what it means for us is that before we go into a meeting, make a decision, talk to an employee about something important, etc we first sit down, say it outloud to each other and confirm “are we one brained on this?” It means that we are thinking the same thing and are in agreement. It’s an extra safety mechanism to ensure that one of us doesn’t accidently do something that the other isn’t on the same page with.

This is so important because, obviously, multiple people are not one brained. On the contrary, everyone has their own thought process, opinions, agendas, etc. But just like making sure your laptop calendar is synced with your smartphone, people working together need to sync their thoughts, quickly debate and get to a place where they are on the same page and thinking in agreement. If not, hard feelings, mistakes and troubles will likely occur.

Being one brained is actually pretty simple. Consider the following:

1. Have a word

We like the word “one brained” and feel free to use it as well. However, any word/phrase that immediately identifies that you and your colleagues are syncing up on ideas is important to let people know what’s going on and let them get in the zone for it.

2. Make it quick

Being one brained can’t be a 2 hour process each time you are reviewing a decision, meeting or agenda. Get to the point and keep it simple. Remember, people are inherently lazy and busy, so adding lots of time to anything is a failure point. Keep it quick.

3. Get it on paper

Making agendas or “logistics schedules” as I call them for events is a great way to make everyone brained. When it’s written out on paper it becomes more clear and easy to understand. It eliminates the failure point of an oral miscommunication.

Dynamite Delegation

Delegation is a wonderful thing. For my first few weeks as COO of influeners@, I didn’t do any of it. Instead, I did everything personally. From cleaning the office to passing out free products on college campuses to developing company wide KPIs, my responsibilities stacked up as high as the Eiffel tower.

Last week, I made a new hire and Dave Fields, a rising junior at BU, joined our team to focus on operations with me. During his first few days he was timid, and I was constantly worried I was giving him too much to figure out. Sure enough though, Dave began taking the responsibilities I delegated to him and absolutely kicking ass with them. He re-engineered our hourly payroll tracking form, quadrupled the amount of successful executions of a daily client marketing campaign, interviewed and hired a new brand ambassador… and this was all in his first 7 days! As a manager, it felt so incredible to delegate to someone I have true confidence in that will get the job done. 

The big lessons to learn from succesfully delegating to an awesome teammate are:

1. You cannot do it all

It’s important to start with a lot so you can learn the ins and outs of your business. But once you have the hang of it, you have to delegate in order to focus and take on other more critical responsibilities.

2. Start slowly and progressively delegate more

There’s no need to share all of your work at once. Start with less important tasks, see how the people you delegate them to handle them, tweak and train them and then add more.

3. Have clear, measurable goals and metrics for delegated work

You need a way to measure how well a task is being done and how the result compares to what you would have produced yourself. That means you must define metrics for what a “successful” completion of a task is. For example, if I delegate scheduling responsibilities for brand promoters at influencers@, I’d measure it’s success by having all schedule slots filled 3 days in advance of a marketing campaign.

4. Give lots of constructively critical feedback

The teammates that take on a delegated responsibility will want to know how they are performing and more importantly how they can improve. Regular and clear feedback complimented by action items is essential for a successful delegation. This can be as simple as keeping the manager cc-ed on early emails or doing a weekly check in meeting.

In the mean time, I sure am grateful to have people like Dave on the team that I can rely on, delegate a task to and sleep soundly knowing it will get done as well or better than if I did it myself. Business bliss right there.

The Need to Network

Rewind to sophomore year of college, and I am a networking fanatic. I spent a ton of time hopping from event to event in Boston, piling up business cards in stacks across my desk. Looking back, this wasn’t the most effective strategy. Meetings lots of people and adding them on LinkedIn is a good first step but it needs to be solidified by building relationships. Instead of endless networking, consider the following approach I have since embraced:

1. Be specific

Going to networking events takes time and energy. If you are going to put off serving your customers or building your product to network, you better have a darn good strategy for who you want to meet and how you want to help each other. More specifically:

  • Who can teach you something and compliment your skillset?
  • What are you looking for… designer, developer, salesman, friends?
  • Do you want to find customers, mentors, partners? They might be in different places.

2. Be picky with events

Especially if you are in the entrepreneurship world, you will have your pick of many fantastic events to attend. Here in Boston, Paul Hlatky at GreenhornConnect.com makes that incredibly easy with the schedule and calendar that he manages online. Sort through the options and find what you believe to be the very best events for what you are looking for. If you try one and it isn’t what you thought, leave early.

3. Follow up meaningfully

Sending a quick email saying “it was nice to meet you” is a start but does not go nearly far enough. You must research each person you want to follow up with and share with them something meaningful – like feedback on their business or a recommendation of someone else to connect with. This is the start of building a relationship with them.

4. Build the relationship

Find reasons to talk to a person more. Maybe it is to ask their advice or opinion and offer your own for whatever they are working on. You don’t have to become best friends, but you should make an effort to keep up to date on what they are doing.

5. Be clear and abrupt

If you are courting a client through networking, don’t beat around the bush. Say, “It was awesome meeting you, I think your product is awesome, here is how I can help.” Now list precisely what value you would add.  

Remember, it should be fun and exciting to be meeting all of these new people. Enjoy it!

More Than a Haircut

I don’t care how much technology exists nor how advanced our society gets – real people interaction and exceptional customer service will always be key in creating feelings. Feelings impact my buying decisions much more than a 10% off daily deal coupon, and here is why:

Last week I wandered through Allston, MA near the influencers@ HQ in search of a haircut. I peeked my head into a few shops along Harvard Avenue, all busy, high priced or both. As I turned onto Commonwealth Avenue, I walked by a small shop called Volmmer’s Hair Salon. As I walked in, a man came out from behind a desk to greet me and ask if I’d like a haircut. I enthusiastically responded yes. I quickly learned that this man’s name was Volmmer, the owner and operator of the business.

While Volmmer ended up giving me a great haircut (he claimed that it made me look several years younger, which I’ll always take as a compliment), that is not why I was so impressed. Instead, it was Volmmer’s exceptional customer service.

1. He asked for my name

As soon as I sat down, he asked what my name is. Not how I wanted my hair, but what my name is. He then told me his name, and proceeded to address me by name for the rest of the hair cut. This made it personal, and it was gold. 

2. He understood time

Volmmer new I was at lunch while at work, and did not waste any time in getting me back to the office as soon as possible. Interestingly, we were still able to have an enjoyable conversation that fit right in.

3. He priced reasonably

I wanted to pay $15 for a haircut – that is the value I placed on it as a customer. So when other salons offered $18, despite being such a small difference, I wasn’t enthused. Sure enough Volmmer charged $15. I paid him $18.

4. He produced a great product

Being personal and having great customer service is awesome, but it won’t be good enough if your business doesn’t provide a quality product. Volmmer gave me an excellent haircut and provided excellent customer service simultaneously.

Ultimately, Volmmer impressed a customer because he took something simple (going and getting a haircut) and made it an incredibly pleasant experience. It didn’t take much: he just treated customers with respect, produced a high quality product and priced it appropriately. His small shop should be the model for every business a customer interacts with. Volmmer didn’t just provide a haircut – he made me feel appreciated as a customer. And that is why for as long as I am in Allston, I will be a customer of Volmmer’s Hair Salon.

Weekly Team Check-in

When 3pm rolled around around this past Friday, I climbed up through the pile of papers on my desk at influencers@ and headed to the conference room, where every 20 minutes I met with a member of the team and checked in. I asked them how their week was going, what challenges they were facing and how I could assist. 

This weekly check in is simple, easy and so important. Per the recommendation of my go-to COO expert, Ryan Durkin, a team leader needs to check in regularly with everyone at the company (while size allows for it) and get a pulse on how the team is doing. Let’s face it – the business week is busy. At a start-up, it is borderline insane. As a result, personal issues and work-related challenges can get pushed aside while everyone scrambles to meet deadlines. The Friday afternoon check-in ensures that those issues don’t get missed and can get resolved going into the next week.

The check-in is super casual. Consider the following questions to ask your team:

  • How was your week?
  • What challenges did you run into?
  • Are you stuck on anything?
  • How is everyone else on your team – are you getting along?
  • How can I  help?

In addition to these questions, the key is to let each team member know what they did well and opportunities for improvement for the next week. These should be clear and actionable, ie “The design work on that flyer was fantastic! For next week lets work together on reducing the amount of verbiage that is used in copy for our marketing collateral.”

Super easy questions. 15-20 minutes for each person. Every week. Get it done.

Entrepreneurs Club Semester Finale

Just a few years ago I wandered into the Entrepreneurs Club as a freshmen. There were about 10 people in the room. Fast forward several years, and the Entrepreneurs Club is now one of the largest student organizations at Northeastern University and in July 2011 was ranked the #6 collegiate entrepreneurship club in the world, sitting near titans like Yale, Oxford and Harvard Business School. Each week, 75-100 students come out to the club’s exciting get togethers and our email newsletter is sent to a whopping 2,000 recipients in the University community every Monday. A team of 24 passionate student leaders run the organization, and do so with a $34,000 budget, all fund raised by the students themselves.

This semester, we’ve attracted incredible speakers like the founder of Newbury Comics, COO of CampusLive, President of Strong Women Strong Girls and many more. The Husky Startup Challenge graduated 18 new student ventures, awarded $5,500 in prizes and even had 300+ attendees, including President Aoun. Our members landed great co-op jobs at startups like Perkstreet and Zeo. We expanded into the College of Engineering with EGG weekend, where 9 new physical products were created and $2,000 in prizes awarded. On top of that, together with IDEA and CRI, we helped to launch the Prototype Fund and awarded over $15,000 in grants to students to build prototypes for their ventures.

The Entrepreneurs Club has been the defining factor of my college experience. Every co-op job and internship I earned as an undergrad was a direct result of meeting awesome people at the club. The E-Club was my first major management experience, and the learning opportunities were plentiful. More specifically, I learned:

1. How to manage people

From motivation to delegation, I gained exposure to many different management techniques and found a passion for team building and coordinating a large group of people.

2. When you have to be bureaucratic

I gained an understanding for why larger organizations start to add bureaucracy and learned that some bureaucracy is necessary while too much can stifle creativity and innovation.

3. The value of brand and design

The Entrepreneurs Club was so successful in part because of excellent branding and design work by our Creative Director, Wells Riley.

4.  How to motivate students 

Student engagement is a powerful tool. I learned about what motivates college students and how to get them excited and passionate about something in order to produce quality.

5. Event planning and logistics

The Entrepreneurs Club is an event planning power house. I learned how to properly execute high profile events and all of the little details that go into them

6. Coordinating with “the man” (administration)

Being in a leadership role in a student organization provides an opportunity to deal with upper-level administration. I leaned how to ask the right questions, get the right resources and gain significant exposure.

7. The importance of aritculating a mission and vision

I figured this out half way through the year: it is important to have a clear mission and vision that everyone in the organization understands. I worked with senior leaders in the group like Cory Bolotsky to craft a great one for the E-Club.

8. How to innovate your way out of challenges

Our team got thrown challenge after challenge this year, from having a room that was 3 sizes too small for our events to keeping everyone dedicated while balancing full course loads. Time after time we had to be creative to work around these challenges and succeed as a group.

9. The value of a strong culture and team unity

The E-Club’s culture might be its most valuable asset. We created an entity that people feel truly passionate about. As a result, they pour their hearts into making it the best it can be.

10. How work and fun should blend together as one

Finally, I learned a lot about work-life balance, and how to deal with a lack of one. Ultimately, it is great to have work be fun and let it all blend together. That is certainly how it was with team E-Club.

It has been an honor to lead such an outstanding organization, and our entire team of dedicated members worked so hard to make all of it possible. 

To the Eboard of 2012-2013… have a blast, keep building and get us to #1 in the world. 


Becoming an Influencer

I am very excited to announce that I will be joining the team at influencers@ as COO after graduation!

Influencers@ is an influence marketing agency that hits the streets and interwebs to help brands and solutions become the most talked about, wanted, and shared among the 18 to 30 year old demographic. We generate and delivers influence marketing via word of mouth campaigns, product sampling, street team promotions, brand ambassador programs, event promotion, staffing and promo tours. We also just launched our first software product, ChatterMob, which is currently in private beta. 

I first met the Chief Imagination Officer (CEO), Spencer Bramson, at the beginning of the semester when I invited him to be a speaker at the NU Entrepreneurs Club. The room was packed with students wanting to hear the story of how a 7 month old startup run by a 22 year old CEO could be earning revenue, running marketing promotions for major events like CollegeFest and here is the kicker – they have a ball pit in the office. I am incredibly excited about this company, and here is why:

1. Spencer Bramson is an absolute maniac

When Spencer spoke at the E-Club, we named the event “Marketing Maniac” and it fit perfectly. Spencer is the kind of guy that gets stuff done, and in the business world that means he delivers value to customers and drives revenue. He previously co-founded BuzzU and grew the revenue to over 6 figures at the ripe age of 20. Put simply, Spencer is a business rockstar.

2. We are earning revenue and profit… cash!

There is something to be said in the startup world about actually making money. After immersing myself in the Northeastern and Boston entrepreneurial ecosystem, I found that I am most attracted to companies that have simple business models: we deliver value to a customer and that customer pays us. Turning a profit at 8 months old is impressive and it is a cornerstone of the influencers@ culture. We are a business and darn proud of it.

3. A culture of ball pits, nerf guns and feety pajamas

This company easily has the most unique culture I have ever seen. There is a ball pit in the office. There is a wall of nerf guns. My sign-on bonus included a pair of feety pajamas, which I am encouraged to wear at the office. There is a lot more to this culture than meets the eye… it is a fascinating exercise in creating an atmosphere that is super appealing to college students to work in. 

4. Mix of service and tech product

On one side, we offer our clients influence marketing services in the form of campaigns, events, product sample distribution, etc. At the same time, we have just launched our first product into private beta, ChatterMob, which is a web platform where all you have to do for free stuff is chat. This unique mix of both service and product offerings provides a ton of exposure for anyone involved to see how different models can work together.

5. Wicked cool customers

We ran the marketing campaigns for CollegeFest and other clients include CampusLive and Mr. Youth. For a tiny new start-up, influencers@ has attracted an impressive list of paying customers, and this is just the beginning.

6. Building a key core competency: customer acquisition

Every entrepreneur knows that one of the greatest challenges is customer acquisition. When it comes to acquiring users and building brand awareness in the 18-30 year old demographic, we kick ass. That is why we love to work with local start-ups like PXT Money, Jebbit and SplashScore to help them build their user-base.

7. Learning and mentor-ship opportunities

My philosophy is that you learn best by doing. influencers@ is giving me an opportunity to take on serious responsibility and learn the way every entrepreneur should: by being in the trenches and having pressure. On top of that, I have an excuse to engage with fantastic mentors like Ryan Durkin to learn the ins and outs of operations. 

8. A wide open path to grow

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this opportunity is the potential to grow. We have ideas, but there is no way to really know what influencers@ will be like 18 months from now. By being part of a start-up that has the flexibility to capitalize on new opportunities that come our way, the possibilities are endless. And wow is that exciting.