Berberian's Blog

Selling Stuff I Don't Have - and Failing

I keep doing this because it feels good. I sell stuff I don’t have. I just sold a very very large company some technology we didn’t have.

While it’s technically correct we didn’t have the goods - I had the reasonable belief that we could develop and ship it in a short amount of time.

Engineers hate sales guys who sell stuff they don’t have. We had that all the time at Raindance - Todd Vernon would complain, “Why don’t they just sell the shit we have” and I’d reply, “Dude you’re gonna go there - build it.” I’m certain he is experiencing that right now as CEO of Lijit.

As a CEO I love selling stuff I don’t have - it does 3 things for the company:

1 - Drives momentum - nothing like a waiting customer to get your team cranking
2 - Focuses your efforts - you quickly have a tool to help you prioritize your work
3 - Creates a definable win for the company - getting something new into a customer’s hand is a great, concrete milestone that the company can celebrate

When you sell beyond your capabilities it stretches your company and hopefully makes it grow. If it goes wrong it is usually from over estimating your team's ability to deliver or over estimating the value of the customer.

Over estimating your team is risky business. If you put them in a position to deliver and they fail, you demoralize them and send the company backwards. I just did that - but I'm OK with it. Sometimes you need to show your team what it takes to win. Taking a high-school football team and pitting them against an NFL team will certainly give them a few bruises but teach them the lesson of what it takes to play at the professional level. In business there is no minor leagues - you either are able to play with the big boys or you will forever limit your growth. You can’t push your team to failure that often - but sometimes it happens. And frankly you should never give them a task you simply know they can’t do. In this recent case I knew the folks have more than enough talent to get the job done and I didn’t expect them to fail, but I did know I was asking for a level of performance that they haven’t demonstrated in the past.

In the case of over estimating the value of the customer, that can also negatively impact your team. Nothing upsets an engineer more than developing something that no one uses. While they initially feel good they built the product they can quickly get the sense that their work was of no value. This happens all the time and it is helpful to be able to iterate quickly on products and features so the team doesn’t focus on the last thing no one used. By keeping a fast pace in the business and building a culture of delivery no one will put too much stock in their past accomplishments - it will always be about the future. Also giving the team the broader picture of the business will help them understand that some things will be hits and others flops - but in the end the breadth of the offering will grow. And customers do lie - they may say something is important but it’s not - they may be doing a feature comparison and you just need to check a box.

As a CEO you need to make sure that when you sell stuff not on the product sheet you are using a tool to advance the business into a new market or attract a new class of customers. If you get too schizoid or allow everyone to sell stuff you don’t have, it will most likely backfire and defocus the company. In fact this is probably the most common way to defocus a business - someone sells something he doesn’t have.

What is a Partnership?

Over the last few weeks I had several meetings with three companies from the current and past “classes” at TechStars - as I observed the team dynamics playing out it got me thinking about what does it mean to have a partner in business from a startup perspective.

I’ve had numerous partners over the years - all of them had moments of joy and stress and they all came to a natural end. Partnerships tend to end with certain events - the obvious ones like a sale of the company, or the not obvious ones like a change in attitude where one partner just wants something different or a realization that your partner isn’t as talented as you hoped. Some partners will start several businesses together - some won’t. There is no rule like marriage - so don’t try to squeeze the notion into a similar box.

An ideal partner for me is a catalyst. He helps me start turning the massive flywheel that gets a company founded. He often works harder than me, forces me to put in long hours by putting in longer hours himself. He is living the business 24x7 - often will send me emails late at night or on the weekends. He is critical of my work product and holds me to the highest standard. He is a constant source of energy and motivates me and others to stay positive in the face of challenges. He instills a sense that everything is possible and doesn’t tolerate negative attitudes. Early on, he participates in every new hire making sure they not only have the required skill but also fit in our culture. He focuses me, motivates me when I’m down, and is always thinking of the business before himself. My partner makes me better at everything I do for the business. And I strive to be the same for him.

A partnership for me starts as a commitment - but it isn’t irrational, emotional or even natural (best buds shouldn’t be business partners just because they are best buds). The commitment isn’t simply just to “work together” - like marriage isn’t simply a commitment to live together. The commitment is really more of a promise you make to each other that goes something like this, “I promise I can do this - I promise I can help build this business and I am the best person for you to work with on this opportunity. I promise I will work as hard if not harder than you, I promise...” And I can go on like some wedding vow promise but I think it really just boils down to three key elements: skills, behavior and attitude.

Skills. In a partnership each person needs to bring to the table skills that are germane to the business and complimentary to the other partner. I believe they must be good at all tasks and great at the few which are critical for the business. Ideally there should not be overlap with the other partner’s core skills but sometimes there is a little. Skills, however, are not the most important thing a partner can bring to the table. Skills can be developed and learned - the others can’t.

Behavior. Behavior is how you act in the office, your work ethic, and how you treat your partner and other employees. It is how you look at your own performance and the efforts you take to learn more about your job and industry. In the most basic sense it is how hard and how smart you work.

Someone with just average skills can behave in a manner to improve over time by taking classes, working extra long hours, seeking advise from mentors, etc... Having great skills but being unpredictable in your behavior really goes against the promise you make as a partner. Behaving in a predictable, reliable and respectful manner and producing high quality work in a timely manner is the promise partners make to each other.

Attitude. Attitude is the energy and enthusiasm a partner brings into the business. It is not about being “happy” it more about believing in the business and the team. Someone who is wicked smart, works really hard but is always a downer in the office can be an emotional drain and really hurt a partnership. On the flip side, a partner with B level skills and somewhat unpredictable schedule is tolerable if they have just an electrifying attitude when they come in the door. A positive attitude can make up for a lot of other deficiencies but a negative one can accentuate them as well.

Commitment, loyalty, respect, trust, friendship - all important elements of a partnership but in my mind are really just byproducts of getting stuff done well with a great attitude. These byproducts give the partnership staying power and patience when one person isn’t performing. It allows for course corrections and adjustments to the relationship. It also serves as the force multiplier when everyone is working at peak levels. There is nothing more satisfying in business in just knowing your partner will get some critical task done - ahead of time, without your involvement and better than you could ever achieve.

So as I coach folks on their partnership and reflect on my past - I can actually distill the frustrations down to a mismatch between expectations and performance in one or more of those three areas. It’s never easy to talk about your partner’s performance to him/her or to listen to feedback - it feels a little judgmental and emotional - but it needs to be done. Without talking about how you are each performing on the promises made there can be no improvement.

My advise (which I need to do myself) is to schedule a regular time when you give your partner feedback on their performance and listen to what they have to say. For me, my success has been and will always be linked to my partners. Partner wisely.

Rhythm of Communication

Over the last seven years I have made several angel investments - all of them at a seed stage. A couple I have been intimately involved with as a board member but most of them I’m just a passive investor that from time to time will meet with the CEO/founder and offer some advice.

Two things are clear for me as I reflect on my experience: 1) 2 in 10 will probably pay out - the rest will just go away and 2) the two that will pay out have great communicators as CEOs.

Being a great communicator doesn’t make you a good CEO - but good CEOs know how to communicate. They not only know what to say but also know the rhythm of communications.

A good rhythm of communications in my world has three key ingredients - frequency, data and analysis.

Frequency: Be a clock - predictable. As an investor I want to be kept up to date on what’s happening with the company. As a CEO the last thing I want is someone to ask my investor, “How’s ACME doing?” and they reply with “I don’t know I haven’t heard from them in a while.” Investors are some of your best spokespeople - you should update them frequently - once a month is a good rhythm plus any special events. A simple email will work - maybe a face to face every few to six months. As the company matures once a quarter or twice a year is fine especially if they have a formal board. Bottom line - be consistent - don’t provide info one month then skip three - then it just feels like something is wrong. Set a reminder on your calendar. If not much has changed - then the email is short and sweet - but it isn’t absent.

Data: Just the facts. Investors want the key info on the business. As a CEO I want my investors to have the info to understand the current dynamics of the business. Regardless of stage - state the cash position, burn rate / profit, status of fund raising activities (if any), sales, key metrics etc... Bullet points and tables work great. Don’t make folks hunt for the pulse of the business, it should be front and center. Use attachments for details if that is necessary.

Analysis: Under promise and over deliver. This is the narrative section. This is where I as a CEO tell the story of the business through my eyes. I try to communicate the good and the bad but really try to avoid extreme happy or sad. I want to be perceived as an optimistic realist that is in control of the key issues of the day. As an investor I like to see CEO reflect on the goals of the business and the steps he/she is taking to get there.

In the end establishing a rhythm of communications forces you to pause and account for your activity back to your investors. It is a time to reflect and perhaps self assess your progress. If you are writing the update and say to yourself, “Geez I haven’t done much these last 30 days” then its time to kick it into high gear. If you never update your investors (blogs don’t count they lack lots of vital info) - you’re losing an opportunity to get more champions to sing your praise and you are holding yourself accountable to no one. If you rely on simply responding to inbound requests for info - you’re making the job 10x harder than it should be and you are letting the investor plan your day. Get in rhythm.

Partner Dynamics and Nuclear Warheads

MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction - not only is it a Cold War strategy - it is my method of dealing with partner dynamics.

For example, three of you start a business. One founder takes the role of CEO (highly recommended, otherwise it confuses the investors - co-CEOs seldom work). In the typical organization, the CEO gets the final say when there is a disagreement - unless his/her co-founders decides to go nuclear.

The principle is simple: you and your partner(s) each possess one nuclear warhead for the life of your business - just one (you can’t buy or build more). In all matters the CEO has the final word - except if one of the partners launches his/her warhead. At which point - for that one decision - the matter sides with the one that partner. If multiple parties launch, then the CEO must launch to set the matter right.

In practice it has worked well for me. When it comes to warheads everyone is equal which keeps the dynamics of a true partnership. Everyone can win a huge decision - once. As such, the warhead becomes so precious that it never gets used - the mere threat of a launch sets off a series of diplomatic discussions. Using the warhead is a signal that the partnership has broken down - the ultimate wake-up call that something is wrong. It is designed as a measure of last resort - everyone fears being in a company post detonation. If a warhead is detonated, it will be the beginning of the end.

Here is a real life story. I was the CEO of Raindance - Todd my partner/co-founder had the only warhead left in the company other than me (the hired senior management do not get warheads only partners/founders). We had a member on the senior management team that was very disruptive (a relatively new hire). I wanted to give the dude some time to work things out, Todd wanted him gone. We talked and argued about the matter but I stuck to my position. One day Todd had enough and said he was ready to push the button and launch his warhead. In the past 6 years Todd never even threatened to launch until this day.

I was shocked. I went home that night and thought about how I misread his willingness to go along with my decision - I was losing his trust and confidence. The next day I came in and negotiated a deal with Todd. I decided to fire the guy but I needed 6 weeks to stabilize the leadership team - Todd agreed with my time-line as a compromise. Todd was happy, he backed down and all was right with the world - the missile was still in the silo. Getting rid of the guy was absolutely the right decision.

If you respect your partners - MAD works - at least in my world.

How the Pie is Sliced – My Simple View of Startup Economics

Many years ago, I was discussing with my father the appropriate chunk of equity to give some new partners in my first startup – they were negotiating for equal ownership. He offered this observation: Only man distributes things evenly – God doesn't give everyone the same slice of pie, why should you – if you put in all the money, you should have the largest ownership stake.

That makes since – but as I interact with many new entrepreneurs, I still encounter those that think/hope they can hold on to their precious equity. It is a rare situation where a founder owns the largest piece of pie by the time the company is sold (if they use outside financing).

Look at this very simple table:

Entity	Founding	Angel	Series A	Series B	Series C
Founder 1	50%	35%	21.4%	11.9%	5.3%
Founder 2	50%	35%	21.4%	11.9%	5.3%
Option Pool		10%	10%	10%	10%
Angels		20%	12.2%	6.8%	3.0%
Series A Group			35%	19.4%	8.6%
Series B Group				40%	17.8%
Series C Group					50%

 

There are numerous assumptions with this basic model. I assume that with each round more options are placed into the pool to attract employees. The amount of dilution is not set in stone (green box) – but from where I sit, it's about right +/- a few points either direction. If you need to bring in a CEO expect to give up 5% if it is later in the company life – more if it is earlier (up to 10%) – this may come from the option pool if there are enough shares to accommodate the hire (btw COO 2%-3%, CFO 1% -2%). The investors from one group will usually participate in subsequent rounds to maintain their ownership stake. It is common to get some options from round to round as a reward for a job well done – but usually they do not make up for the dilution from the fundraising.

Dilution and amount raised aren't necessarily linked. Money raised is more a function of the opportunity and investor. A huge opportunity requires an investor that can fund the company to success – a smaller opportunity requires a smaller investor. Each investor, however, needs a piece of the pie that makes sense for their fund. It is unlikely a VC with a large fund will put in a little bit of money early on for a small stake – they need to invest proportionate to their fund size and anticipate future rounds of financing.

So how do you protect your equity? Grow as fast as possible with the least amount of money. If you think you'll need lots of cash – resign yourself to dilution – and raise money when you can. The lowest a founder/CEO will be diluted is around 5% - that is no investor will dilute you to 1% (unless they don't like you) – they will grant options to make your ownership stake interesting to keep you engaged in the business. Other positions will likely fall below the CEO. When I was at Raindance, by the time we went public I had about 4.6%. If you can get to profitability very quickly – do so – it will help with future fundraising, maybe even eliminate the need altogether.

So how do some companies raise gobs of cash with less dilution – it's simple they are having huge success. If you are dominant in your field and you are growing like crazy, you'll be able to give up less equity with each round. If, however, you are doing well but your victory isn't certain –then expect dilution. If you are doing just OK – then it gets harder.

Other ways to protect your ownership: grow slow and use profits to fund expansion, use debt if possible (think credit line, home equity or rich uncle), fewer founders means fewer slices of the pie, go further with less and of course there is always the chance to sell early if the right deal is on the table.

I know there are numerous examples of companies that don't have this type of dilution (those are the ones everyone talks about)– but the bottom line if you aren't on fire – dilution will happen – and from there you'll just have to sell for more to make your piece interesting for you.

 

My Creative Walkabout

For the last three months I've been in a hole thinking about new businesses to start. I've set the bar is pretty high – I want this next business to have the potential to become really big (think several hundred Ms or a B). Many of my ideas tap out at certain revenue levels which make the ideas not that exciting. To spur my creative process, on Brad Feld's recommendation, I scheduled a trip to So. Cal. My purpose: meet some cool folks, hear their stories and become inspired. All the companies had one thing in common – the founders saw the beginnings of a trend in the market, realized it wouldn't hit mainstream for a couple of years and started their company so that when it hit they were ready. Below are the companies I visited:

Mir 3 – Amir Moussavian, CEO/Founder: Out of the five companies I visited - Mir 3 is the most mature. They have real revenue and thousands of paying customers. The trend: When stuff goes wrong people need to know quickly. Notifying them is getting harder as people become more mobile and use multiple devices. Companies and organizations (like schools) will most likely outsource that to a service provider. That was Amir's view eight years ago. It took longer than he hoped – but perseverance is paying off.

Memeo – Hong Bui, CEO/Founder: In 2003 Hong realized that with all these digital cameras, mp3 players, and digitization of videos folks are going to need a way to manage large amounts of data. It seemed obvious to him that people were going to need to backup their stuff on something other than their main machine – like an external drive or a second computer. At the time, external drives were not really being purchased by consumers – but it seemed obvious that eventually folks are going to run out of disk and external drive sales to consumer would pick up. So he did a deal with a hard drive company and now Memeo is well on it's way to becoming a great success.

Net Seer – Dork Alahydoyian, VP Product Management: Net Seer is still in stealth mode but the trend they are focusing on is trying to make advertising within search more relevant by identifying related terms to a search query. Say you search for "scuba" they will be able to associate that term with "vacations, snorkeling, swimming apparel, Grand Cayman, nitrogen narcosis, etc…" They believe advertisers will pay more for ads that can be directed to the user in a contextually relevant manner. Accordingly, search companies will need to meet the demand by using tools that give more meaning to the average one or two-word search.

Topspin – Ian Rogers, CEO: Topspin was started in 2007 when two music-technology visionaries saw something happening in the industry that was odd – major record labels, faced with decreasing sales, are dropping their talent and focusing on just the top acts (they are trying to save their way to success – bad sign – always need to focus on top line growth). Many of these bands have nowhere to go and have to manage their careers by themselves. Topspin is building tools to help bands manage their business. The beauty of Topspin, unlike other music startups, their customers are the bands – not the fans. They don't need to "first get a million users" to succeed – each band already has a fan base that needs somewhere to go.

Oblong – Kwindla Hultman Kramer, co-founder: Since they are in stealth mode I'll refer you to Brad's post. Basically the trend they are seeing is one of inevitability. Like a seismologist that claims a major earthquake will happen in CA in the very near future (1 day to 100 years) – these guys believe that it is high time for a major innovation in how humans interact with computers. It's been 20+ years since the mouse came around. This innovation is going to take some serious brainpower and time – but it will happen and these guys are fired up to make that change happen. Visiting Oblong's facilities and seeing the demo simply blows you away – it's just bitchen. But unlike the others their trend is one that will play out over a longer time and will require both computing power to increase and people to embrace the new way of using a computer. It is a huge idea – they are truly a company of the future.

The net: All companies are focusing on a trend they firmly believe will become reality in the future. They all have incredible passion for their business. They all know exactly what they need to do in the next 12 months. They all have surrounded themselves with really smart people. OK I'm inspired, my turn.

Trip Door

Today I had my first meeting with the founders of Trip Door, they are a TechStars company and I am their assigned mentor (not sure how happy they are about that). Their idea is to create a web service that allows frequent flyers to manage their award miles from all carriers, view available award travel seats and book award tickets all online. I think this is a brilliant idea since my wife, Renee, hates to deal with airline call centers (I, however, love talking to people on the phone for hours on end getting nowhere). They have some challenges, as do all startups, like convincing the airlines to open up their databases to such a service but they also have some interesting angles to get them to the promise land.

I'm really looking forward to working with Krista, Austin, Elliot and Nathan on their cool new business. Go get 'em!

What, Why, Can and How – Picking the Next Business Idea

So now that the Zenie Bottle business experience is behind us – the three of us (Steve, Jim and myself) are spending all our time coming up and evaluating new business ideas. Our evaluation process is pretty basic – we just ask the same four questions over and over again.

What is the business?

We try to describe the business as clearly as possible. Often times we draw stick figures on whiteboards articulating the flow of goods or services identifying who is doing what and when. A common answer to this question starts with, "A dude comes to this web site and clicks…" While this may not embody the big idea or vision, it helps us understand what we need to create to get the business going. Often when I meet with folks and listen to their business, I have to stop them and ask, "OK so describe the process – specifically, step by step…" Many times people get stuck at this question. If this is too hard to answer – move on or keep refining the concept. For some ideas it is OK to be a little vague so long as the cloudy area surrounds something that can be defined later like the UI or interconnecting with a 3^rd party. If there are huge chunks to the flow where there isn't clarity or the process seems utterly implausible, we drop the idea and move on.

Why do people care about this business?

Once we get comfortable with the business concept we ask ourselves, "Why does it matter?" Do people really want this widget or service? This is generally, where we spend a meaningful amount of time hunting down people in similar industries and asking their opinion about the idea. We try to test the concept with friendlies or potential customers. If the idea is great but people are unsure of the value – then it's time to move on to another idea. If we get positive feedback on a concept then we do a gut check – people like to tell you what you want to hear – is their feedback simply them stroking our entrepreneurial egos or is the idea genuinely valuable? With Zenie Bottle we had numerous focus groups and they all said great things – but in our gut we always felt like we had a demographic issue – everyone liked the idea for different reasons. All positive feedback – but different – is a bad sign. It shows that the value proposition isn't clear or universal. If we don't get almost universal, consistent feedback – we refine the concept or move on.

Can we actually build this business?

I can dream up some great business ideas – but for most of them, I'm not the guy to run them. Know your limitations in terms of funding, experience, ability to attract talent, geography, etc… For example, some of my ideas require a tremendous amount of capital – while I have raised money in the past – I probably can't raise $1B for some mega buyout. The other part of the "Can" question is around the technical and/or social feasibility. A couple of our ideas are fantastic but only after they have 15 million active daily users. While building huge social network ideas are possible, we feel that success in those businesses is largely due to luck or extreme skill in social networking – two things we most likely don't have. Other ideas may be wonderful but are on the cutting edge of science and/or require very specialized talent. I'm not patient enough to build a business that requires a ton of research. Still other ideas while not particularly technical or require getting the whole world to visit our web site, require large organizations to change their behavior in fundamental ways – like asking retailers to change the checkout process at the point of sale. Ideas like that the "Can" question refers to the likelihood of convincing someone to change – possible but the value proposition has to be huge. The "Can" question really is about looking inside yourself and knowing what you are good at and what you are willing to tackle.

How do we plan to make money?

The fashion today seems that you really don't need to know this answer at the start, especially if you are a web company. I'm too old school to dismiss this as unnecessary at the founding of a company. If you have the idea that brings value to some group of people, you should have a solid sense of how you are going to make money. Now I'm not saying you need a specific rate card established, but you should be able to identify the points of value in your business. This will necessitate that you understand the fundamental economics of the business and broadly identify how much scale you will need to become profitable. I have to know the numbers before we say yes – fully understanding that early financial models are not accurate – they at least help us identify the key operational and economic metrics. "How you make money" also concerns personal economics. Business ideas that require a lot of capital always mean less equity for the founders. So if my goal is to make $X I need to factor in how big a business we need to build so that when we exit my Y% gets me what I want. Some smaller ideas may actually net us founders more money.

We tend to revisit our answers to these questions for every idea several times (and perhaps even after we commit). Some idea that we tossed to the sidelines a week ago may come back to center stage as we get more information. Anyone going through this process knows that coming up with ideas is the easy part – picking the right one takes a little more time.

Push the Button a Million Times

We're searching for the little magic button that delivers a deluge of food pellets to our cage.  We've been pushing a blue button for six weeks and have only gotten a few pellets.  We think there might be a red button – but we haven't found it.  Or perhaps we simply need to push the blue button harder and longer.  Maybe we need to pull the green lever.  So now starts the Zenie Bottle period of rapid experimentation where no idea is too wacky. Here's what is happening in the next seven to 14 days:

• Opening a retail kiosk in the local mall
• Experimenting with different lists and zip codes to seed the market
• Reaching out to all our contacts to make some connections with celebrities
• Opening up the web site so anyone can buy a bottle or create an account
• Launching our facebook application
• Enabling our text messaging features
• Interviewing experts on our demo to perhaps engage as advisors
• Considering the possibility we are resonating with a different demo
• Start production on our web series
• Reaching out to local media to tell our story
• Brainstorming crazy bottle stunts – like leaving bottles all around a town in every Starbucks or shipping 100 bottles to a radio station

At this point, we are still just a concept.  Once we find out what works with the market and the best distribution mechanism – we'll push that button and become a business.  As a matter a fact we'll push it so fast we might drown in food pellets. Like a rat in a cage – just gimme some positive feedback.

Here is a bottle of our team:

View more Zenie Bottles

What the hell is this and who sent this to me?

Actual quote from a Zenie Bottle recipient. How you respond to these types of emails can make the customer love you or hate you. When we reached out to her – she was elated.

1100 bottles were shipped into the wild last week. About 700 have found homes (45%+ have converted to users so far) – the rest are still in transit. Unfortunately, Mother Nature took a bite out of us this past week and delivered a record cold spell across most of the nation. The Zenie's are designed to withstand temperatures of 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Below that, we have issues. Looks like some 200 arrived frozen. Now this isn't all bad. It turns out it's an opportunity to make these young adults really happy. Check this out:

From user Kristen:

I recieved a free bottle through the Zenie promotion along side a few of my friends. They arrived to us broken with all of contents soaking the box! This is simpl unacceptable. I would like to requesst another bottle free of charge. If you deny me of this I will write reviews about your company's terrible customer service and treatmet. I did surveys and feedback for your company so I hope you grant my request

Our reply:

Kristen,

Thank you for contacting Zenie Bottle, with record lows across the country we have had some of our bottles freeze and break. I'm sorry that your bottle was one of those that broke. Our bottles are designed for a freezing level of 15 degrees but not -10 degrees!

If you're in a cold weather location, we will re-send you a bottle as soon the weather warms up. If you're in a warm weather location we'll send you one immediately. In the meantime ….

Do you have a specific bottle color that you like? Checkout...

Jim and the Zenie Bottle team

Her final response after a few exchanges:

Thank You Jim. You are so great! Thank you for your kindness.

No substitute for great service.