The beauty of iPhones makes Steve Job's Calligraphy classes evident

The answer is probably.  I’m pretty sure that I missed out this year, especially given the panels by such Thought Leaders as Gary V and Ramit Sethi, not to mention missing any opportunity of carousing with Jonas and Kevin.

Why am I not at SXSW this weekend?  What’s the real reason?

The real reason is that I don’t own an iPhone, and everybody knows that you have to have an iPhone to attend SXSW.    I’m only partly kidding.

There are two SXSW parties that I’m a factor at.  Both are Piryx parties, and since Jonas is the COO of Piryx in addition to Tech Ranch Founder, I get to show up and be counted.

But in actuality, my lack of an iPhone is causing problems.  Keeping me out of South By is just one of them.  As much loyalty as I have to my Sony Walkman phone (I know, right), I’ve begun to realize that working with a bunch of techie entrepreneurs makes not having a smart phone a liability.  I owe my phone some loyalty.  The camera broke, it doesn’t record video clips anymore, and it hasn’t worked as a walkman since it survived being run over by my Silverado.  I’m blown away the thing hasn’t left me by this point.

This isn’t the 1980s, but status symbols are alive and well.  If your gadgets don’t show how geeky you are, you’re out.  From the CTAN investor who publicly mocked my phone at a Door 64 meetup, to the girl who asked me to text her my phone number only to stop and ask if I, “could text on my phone,” I’ve gotten the hint.  I hear you world.  It’s time for the iPhone.

Now the question is how practical I should be about getting the dang thing.  Fortunately, my last 2 year phone contract just expired, so when I’m ready to go buy the phone, AT&T (or Verizon) will take the brunt of the iPhone’s cost.  At this point, I have 2 questions that will determine when I pick up the phone.

1. What new features will Apple inevitably roll out in June for the next generation of the phone?
2. Will the iPhone finally loose its bonds to AT&T and will I have the option to join the far superior Verizon network when I upgrade to the iPhone?

The first question is kinda geeky, I understand.  But if the new version of the iPhone upgrades to 4g speed, that’s surely worth waiting for.  Apple tends to roll out new and necessary features with each iteration, so it’s something to always consider when buying their stuff.

The second question is pretty important.  The AT&T network can really suck wind at times, and the biggest complaint I hear from iPhone users is the spotty data coverage.  Even Steve Jobs gripes about it.   If I’m going to take the plunge, sell out, and buy into the tech hype, I’d better have a decent wireless network so next year at South by Southwest, I can judge all the people who show up with cell phones that look like this one:

Phone: Post Chevy Silverado run-in

I told Yoko that I can't text her my number from my "rotary" phone

I only sorta hope this helps…

When Cristi Jakubic writes something, everyone around the Ranch pays attention. This goes double for me. Few others have the experience she does in the trenches of marketing. Cristi speaks from this experience, having earned her stripes on the Silicon Valley Battlefields.

Y'all come on by, ya hear?

She is one of the people that I try to get as much free advice from as possible when she has a moment between consulting entrepreneurs. That’s why I was blown away that she wrote a blog about reasons not to blog (please suspend your sense of irony for the moment). I was surprised because I had never questioned blogging as integral to a good marketing campaign in the 21st century. But since Cristi raised the question, you all should take note.

I’m going to attempt to address Cristi’s argument, and offer my own flipside to many of her arguments. I’m doing this because (spoiler alert) I think blogging is hugely important in the long term for each of your start-ups.

To Cristi’s first point, “Blogging may not be my calling.”

Yes. I agree. I have no doubt that most people aren’t called to blog in the same way that Che was called to run around in the jungles of Cuba, or the way that Henry Ford was called to revolutionize the world’s understanding of manufacturing. Some people are called to share ideas, and blogging is a great tool to facilitate that. And I also think that blogging is mostly a great tool to create a relationship with your customer. It’s a means to your ends of successful entrepreneurship (your calling). If you write engaging content that people come back to regularly, they will ultimately feel like they know you. Just like a celebrity, as a blogger, you earn fans who read your blog and “know” you well enough to trust you at your word, whether they’ve ever met you or not. This trust means sales for your company.

To her second point, “I like to create value for my customers and let them speak to my record.”

Nobody can argue with the person who lets their results speak for themselves. And this makes blogging less attractive because it’s such a long-term investment and the value it creates is very hard to quantify. I’m pretty sure even The Google hasn’t come up with analytics for blog posts => sales closed. I still believe that effective blogging drives traffic to your site, and makes you more credible. A good blog actually gives your customers one more way to tell other people about you. I love sending the tweet that says, “Hey, check out this awesome blog I found!”

To Cristi’s final point, “Although I have passion and energy about launching my venture, blogging seems like bragging.”

I think Cristi makes another good point here that blogging isn’t about bragging. Blogging is about providing value for free to your customers. Blogs that brag are blogs that aren’t read. Blogs that give it away for free get people coming back over and over, developing that long-term relationship and trust that I mentioned in the previous paragraph. I was doing a bit of social media work with a local start-up in the wireless industry, Movero, and I remember telling them that their blog needs to provide lots of free content for their readers about wireless devices. Apple releases a new iPhone, Android stops sucking, anything in that area, they need to talk about it. People love coming to one place for the latest info, and that’s not bragging, that’s sharing.

That said, let me share with you that Tech Ranch RULES. You should come start your venture with us. Cristi will make your marketing sing.

Ok, that’s out of my system.

—Bottom Line—

Blogging is writing. Writing is painful. Hemingway once said, “Writing is easy…You just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.” Cristi is right again. If you find blogging painful, you’re just like the rest of us. And I take that one step further and say that if something is painful, and you find yourself resisting on Facebook, or Twitter, or TechRanchAustin.com, you’re not alone, and consider how the more painful something is the more necessary it is to pursuing your calling. I think writing is absolutely necessary, and I would encourage you to deny the pain any power, and simply do it in spite of the pain. We are entrepreneurs, after all.

In conclusion, I’m challenging Cristi to come up with a blog explaining 3 ways that blogging is absolutely crucial to the marketing of a start-up by next week. If she write this, I’ll write a blog post of her choosing.

I hope this helps.

There is a business book making the rounds at the Tech Ranch that, similar to the last  paragraph, seems like it’s about military strategy.  But it’s not. The book, Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business
, does  talk a whole lot about military strategy.   The first half of the book finally explains how the Nazis used the Blitzkrieg and tore into the French lines.  Turns out, that was a two-week campaign that made all the difference for the Third Reich, and made the war last as long as it did.  The Nazis were far outnumbered, had obsolete technology, and lacked the resources of the Allied troops. Let’s replace the Third Reich and the Allies with small start-up vs. Microsoft, David vs. Goliath.

It’s been said that Bill Gate’s Biggest Fear is, “that some kid will brew up the next killer app in his garage in Kenosha and Microsoft won’t own it.”  What’s the difference between your startup and a behemoth like Microsoft?  The answer should be a cultural.  Since a small start-up lacks the sheer resources of a Microsoft, they have to have a culture of quick decisions, made with an emphasis on agility, not brute strength.  The difference is between a Business Plan and a Business Strategy.

Before I explain this, I want to make sure everyone understands that, just like the rest of you, I’m glad that Good triumphed over Evil in World War II.  I’m not advocating the sickness of Nazi ideology.

What I AM saying, what Certain to Win says, is that the Nazis achieved success against a more powerful opponent because they made decisions faster than their bigger, bureaucratic opponent.  This structure meant that agility won out over far superior numbers AND technology.

I am suggesting that we model aspects of this structure in our respective start-ups.  This structure will make us more agile and enable us to take down giant corporations (at this point, Microsoft is probably more Nazi-like than your start-up I’m sure).  By moving twice as fast as a bigger company, a start-up can release a beta in a few months, while the big guy is still sitting in meetings, waiting for approval.  Google is a notable exception of a billion-dollar company that structures itself like a thousand tiny start-ups.  Google is regularly releasing betas, some of them better than others.  By releasing the beta, Google invites the feedback of millions of users who ultimately decide if the product is hot or not.

This is how structural agility in a start-up should manifest.

Stop making Business Plans.

Business plans are like computer technology.  By the time you get all the figures and graphs printed, your financials, just like your microchips, are obsolete.  Your startup has changed, and your numbers are based on what used to be true.  Following a 20 page business plan inhibits making decisions based on what is true now.   In a start-up, sticking to your original plan is a very reliable way to become obsolete yourself because you are making decisions according to old information.

What do you do when your carefully made plans go astray?  Hint: the right answer isn’t panic.

Rely on Business Strategy.

Instead of making a step-by-step plan of how to drive from Los Angeles to New York, ask yourself a few questions and develop a strategy that will enable everyone in your company to make quick decisions.  Why are you making this trip?  If the goal is to arrive as quickly as possible, then fill the tank up and hit the gas.  Or if the goal is to get the most out of the trip itself, then you can spend time enjoying the scenery.  Either strategy will get you to your destination

The only way to make it as a startup is to create a culture that encourages innovation and independent thinking by your employees.  Let’s go back to the analogy of traveling from Los Angeles to New York.  If you’re the CEO and you’ve fallen asleep halfway through the Texas Panhandle, any of your employees that happen to be behind the wheel MUST be empowered to make a decision without rousing you from your slumber.  If they have to wait for your approval to change lanes, the opportunity will pass you by before you can take advantage of it.

How can you create a culture where strategy is more important than a plan?

I hope this helps.

Dan Pink and the Right Brainers will Rule the World

I’ll sum up Dan Pink’s talk as very useful and frankly encouraging overall.  Pink makes a solid case for autonomy in the workplace, citing Google as a great example of a company that is hugely successful because they allow their employees to spend 20% of their time working on lo que quieran.  This has meant a high level of billion-dollar innovation for Google.  Pink then contrasts work that is done for individual pleasure, with work done for financial incentives.  He cites comparisons that seem to indicate that only menial jobs are done better, or faster, with incentives attached.  He claims that high level work is impeded by financial incentives, or commissions, for example.

Essentially, Pink is saying, mostly accurately, that the more complicated, or creative a task is, the more unfamiliar the tools at hand are, the more likely incentives are to hinder the process.  This is because incentives externally increase the pressure, which in turn focuses our brains down to the bare essentials, almost like fight or flight.  A heightened state of awareness of only specific variables, ignoring what our brain deems inconsequential.  But the external pressure  may mean we focus only on getting our task done, as opposed to being focused on the joy of doing it.

Most people agree that intrinsic motivations are MUCH more powerful motivators than anything external, and if you let people drive their own excitement, they will produce much greater, more creative work.

I agree with the philosophy of this statement.  I want everyone to work in an open environment where they self-manage the work they do each day.  However, I disagree with his blanket statement that incentivizing work is harmful.  I don’t think it always is.

I think “creativity” is the crucial factor here.  Since the work that I get to do at the Ranch involves lots of creative processes, the question Kevin and I discussed was how to motivate my best work over the long term.  [If he asks any of you, just tell him that money enough to move into The Austonian and hire a personal tailor is sufficient creative motivation.]

At this point, I’m going to delve into semantics for a bit.  I’d like to define creativity as a skill that can be practiced, much like an Olympic athlete practices snowboarding, or even curling.  The Olympic athlete is a good example, because there is a spectrum of different ways in which individuals are naturally talented at being creative.  I also think it works because of the following principle: performance improves in high pressure situations assuming a high level of skill as a result of lots of practice.  Practice results in an internal feeling of control.

Dan Pink talks about pressure focusing our brains and reducing creativity.  I would suggest that the pressure focuses our brains down to what we know, and ignores the unknown. This is great if you know that running will save you from a sabertooth tiger, or going to the store will re-stock your bacon.  There are simple solutions to these problems.  However, knowledge jobs involve complicated problems that require creative solutions.  Creativity often involves changing the rules into something new that people don’t know and feel less control over.  Hence incentives, which lead to pressure, may mean a decrease in creativity in the workplace by narrowing focus.

Here’s the question I’d like to ask:

I’m wondering what it would take to practice creativity so well that one would become an Olympic caliber “Creative.”  What would it take to be so familiar with unfamiliarity that you could work on a commission-only basis for your innovation? Olympic athletes do their best under the bright lights of competition, with gold medals on the line.  The pressure to be the best in the world, coupled with a lifetime of practice equals broken records reliably.  You can count on the best, each time you turn on the Olympics.  How might this be applicable to creativity in the business world?  Can we cultivate an internal sense of control over the unfamiliar?  Can we practice creative and innovative thought?

For my part, consider me training every day to become the Shaun White of Entrepreneurship.  What are you training for?

Hope this helps.

The two answers to my question are:  “The scariest risk facing my idea is theft,” OR,  
“The scariest risk facing my idea is succeeding.”

Theft or Success?

Which are you most worried about? It’s important.  Whether you give answer or the other determines how much effort I will invest in nurturing your idea.

In my experience, people who are worried about having their ideas stolen are not serious about starting a business.  Sure, there may be some things that you need to keep to yourself, but being unwilling to share anything with people who can help is lethal.  Ideas require lots of input from a whole community to thrive.  Those of you who doubt this, remember how Sony’s Great Idea, BetaMax? There is no such thing as a Great Idea that will bring instant success.  Great ideas are beat out by Good Ideas all the time because of better execution.  I run into folks at the Tech Ranch on a regular basis who refuse to share their idea because they are afraid of theft, when all I want to know is what resources they need.  Not sharing your idea is equivalent to giving yourself an excuse to do nothing. If someone is too afraid to share their idea, it’s a safe bet they are looking for an excuse to continue doing exactly what they were the day before.  Doing nothing is always the easiest option, and it’s the biggest hurdle you have to get over in the beginning.

Moving on.

The other answer to the question, “Will my idea succeed?” makes me very likely to help.  It means that you know that Great Ideas are brought into reality via sustained hard work.  Simply put, if you have a good idea, I’m willing to bet that 100 other people have the exact same idea right now.  I’m also willing to bet that the person who executes the best on the idea is the one who succeeds, not the person who had the idea first.  Facebook vs. MySpace is a great example of the early bird losing the worm.  MySpace came first, but Facebook executed better, and is currently the second most visited website on the internet behind The Almighty Google.

How to execute on your idea is the crucial part, and those who are worried about success will  come to the Tech Ranch in their search for how to answer this question.  These are the people who  sign up for our Venture Forth Program, our Pioneer Program, and Renting an office at the Ranch.  The people worried about their idea being stolen are still going about their day-to-day lives, letting time slip away from them.

Success will change your life. It will bring about all sorts of unforeseen events.  The problem is that change around us is terrifying.  Change around us requires change within us, which is often the scariest thing in the world other than running out of bacon.  Yet, being willing to change ourselves helps us make it over the next hurdle, one step closer to reaching our goals.  I guarantee that you’re doing things exactly right to stay exactly where you are.  I also guarantee that if you do something “different,” or, “dangerous” it will change your life.

Are you willing to make the change success will demand of you?  Speak up, and success answers.

I hope this helps.

In this, the Age of Twitter, I propose a new category of attention spans.  Let’s call it the

“Twitter Attention Span.”

Wanna go ride bikes?

The Twitter Attention Span resides between someone highly focused on one thing at a time, and a classic ADD case of someone who can hardly remember the last thing that came out of their mouth.  Someone with a Twitter Attention Span can focus intently and process basic information on about a dozen topics or people an hour.  I fit the Twitter Attention Span.  I skim a lot of information and retain the big picture for almost all of it.  I don’t become an expert on any of what I skim, but I am able to filter what may be a useful resource for me my network, whether it’s a business connection or simply a place selling something really cheap.

A recent example:

When my close buddy Ken set up his Hi-Def TV up for our Super Bowl Party this year, he used an HDTV antenna that he saved around $70 bucks on.  He saved the money because I randomly came across www.monoprice.com, (via @TechCrunch) which sells Home Theater accessories at wholesale, not the ~2400% mark-up that Best Buy typically adds.  Without MonoPrice, Ken would have spent over $100 on an antenna.

His girlfriend, Andrea, asked how I found the website, and I didn’t have a good answer on the spot because I find lots of useful things without thinking about it.  The real answer came to me this morning: I wouldn’t have seen that link and sent it to Ken without Twitter.  I spend about 20 minutes a few times a day reading my TwitStream and the things people link to.  I stumbled upon MonoPrice during one of my Twitter excursions.

I like learning new things, having new experiences, and especially meeting new people.  I have a ravenous appetite for things I’ve never done before.  At some point I realized that I was often “the guy who knows the guy.” I’m not the only person who does this, but I am really good at it.  With it’s constant stream of new information, Twitter is a great tool for a guy like me.  But most of the population hasn’t caught on to this yet.

For example:

One of the many blogs I stumbled upon today was titled “Is America Rooting for a Twitter Downfall?” I skimmed the article enough to come away with the following statistic: only about 17% of people with a Twitter account regularly use the service.  That means 83% of people who sign up for Twitter don’t stick around and use it.

I wondered why, and came up with my “Twitter Attention Span” theory.  Twitter delivers a TON of potentially information, unfiltered, in an entirely novel way.  Not everyone is cut out to filter all the information Twitter provides for usefulness.  They either get overwhelmed or get bored and quit using it.

On the surface, Twitter may appear to be a bunch of narcissists shouting their ordinary lives into the digital ether.  To a certain extent, it is just that.  However, it’s also the only place on the internet with a live feed of people’s reading lists, their sudden epiphanies, their fears and worries, and their suggestions for “life hacking.” All this information is being shared by folks just like me.  There is a lot of valuable information that gets tweeted out every hour if you have the ability to filter and sort it all for the gold nuggets in the Twit Stream.

That’s why I love Twitter.  I hop on my Twitter Stream, skim the posts 140 characters at a time, and click all the links that seem interesting, and then skim that content.  Sometimes it’s a rabbit hole.  Other times I save my friends money.  The other day someone at Tech Ranch Austin even told me that he met a future company executive through my BarnBuildr program.  I never know what I’m going to learn, or who is going to gain big because of a piece of information that I happen upon.

Helping someone get the one thing they need makes my day.  And Twitter is one of my favorite tools for doing just that.  You should use Twitter.  Here’s to everyone having a Twitter-Span.

I hope that helps.

I focused on body language for sales and investment pitches.  I targeted my messaging to engineers, saying, “If you have ever wanted to speak less yet have your ideas heard more clearly, join us on Thursday.”

SnapTweet :: Pioneer program today at @TechRanch being led by @austingunter. by kkoym.

Two Jobs in a Down Economy, Is that greedy?

One of the more challenging things about graduating college in 2009 was finding a job in a down economy.  Our economy’s outlook was so severe that even George Martin, St. Edward’s University President, spent most of his graduation address on some hard facts about the reality we faced once we walked the other side of our stage, diploma in hand.  He didn’t pull any punches.  By flipping our tassels to the “college graduate” side of our caps we were stepping into an uncertain future.  Our diplomas might be worth very little on today’s job market.  We looked around at each another, decked out in our robes and new clothes, each of us started thinking, “grad school looks more appealing” thoughts, and, “getting service-industry” thoughts, and, “living with mom and dad” thoughts.  None of us knew where our jobs were going to come from in the coming months.

I’m six months out of college now.  Three of those months I spent in limbo.  But since the week before my birthday in August, I’ve been working two jobs at Austin-Area start-ups.  I’m in the minority of my classmates.  Even my valedictorian with the double major is working at a burger joint, I hear.  I consider it a blessing.  I’ve been getting paid (not much, but seriously) to work and LEARN how to start a business from people who are actually doing it.

I’m working as a part of a small sales team to do market research while we open the sales pipeline at company called Conformity.  Conformity has made huge leaps in Cloud-Computing security.  They have developed a platform for Identity and Access Management across multiple Software as a Service Applications, like Salesforce and Xactly.  This ability is a huge deal for a publicly traded company that must adhere to federal SOX compliance standards.

I also work for Tech Ranch Austin, the entrepreneurial accelerator that is going to network Central Texas Entrepreneurs and create value through education and bootstrap resources.  The Tech Ranch was started by serial Austin entrepreneurs, Kevin Koym and Jonas Lamis.  They started the Ranch as a way to involve themselves in as many local start-ups as possible by providing one-of-a-kind resources to accelerate ventures as a compliment to the Venture Capital model of start-ups.

How did this Writing and Rhetoric major get jobs at start-up companies?  I have no idea. I do know that my rhetoric classes have come in handy working with Don, my sales manager, as we constantly refine the sales and marketing pitch.  Surely my passion for communicating has made me an asset at Tech Ranch.  My writing degree has made me the go-to guy for certain kinds of content at both places.  What I do know is that the education I’m receiving at the hands of two sets of entrepreneurs is laying a foundation for future ventures that I may start.

I’m not sure where I will end up yet.  But I’m sure that my future will materialize shortly.  At the moment, I’m too busy to worry about it too much.  After all, I have two jobs to work.

Hope this helps.

Bridging the gap to network entrepreneurs

This blog is going to take shape according to my work with Tech Ranch Austin and the BarnBuilders.  People ask me pretty regularly what it is that I’m doing at the Tech Ranch that I’m always so excited about.  I have a hard time coming up with a static answer because the things that I do are constant only in their ability to change every day.  This is frustrating for my listener as well as for me because I often stumble around for catchphrases or conceptually rich words that will clearly illustrate that which I spend all my time and energy doing at the Tech Ranch.

The catchphrase that I have started using most often, Social Architect, has, thus far, not done much to clarify my nebulous rhetoric.  I’m going to fix that right now, and define Social Architect as I see it.  So for those of you looking to cross-reference at Urban Dictionary, don’t.  It won’t be there.  This is Austin defining Austin.  Who woulda thought, right?

When I use the catchphrase, Social Architect, I am referring to the process of building a social connection, a bridge, if you will, between formerly disparate individuals.  The goal is to create a connection that would otherwise not exist between two people.  This connection allows both parties to engage in what I call a dialogue of value where each party freely shares knowledge and resources with the other.  The dialogue of value, where each party shares their unique information, means that both parties are measurably better off by participating in the dialogue because they both received specialized information for free.  This free information may be put to use to take an entrepreneurial venture to the next level, or to create a new product.  Other times the information results in a partnership between the newly connected parties.  However, the inevitable result is a net gain for both parties as a result of their connection.

As a Social Architect, my job is to facilitate that connection and build bridges between people who will have a tangible benefit to one another.

This is the basic idea behind the Tech Ranch BarnBuilders. More information may be found at the link, and I’ll write about it in my next post.  The BarnBuilders is a group of Austin-Area entrepreneurs and local tech talent helping one another out.

Hope that helps.  Until next time.