There is hope for us all still

Interesting post from Fred, I have always recognised that running a start up can look for the outside a mess, but hey we are trying to do in 3 years what a normal company does in 20 years....so take heart and keep pushing onward, have a great weekend

From Messes To Successes

By fred wilson

I was emailing with a top technology blogger yesterday and he said about one of his competitors in tech blogging, "they are such a mess". To which I replied, "yes, but our biggest messes have often turned into our biggest successes." And then I realized that I had made a rhyme and that I would have to blog it.
When I look back at my 20+ year history of venture investing, it's certainly true that the biggest successes have been big messes at some point in their life. My most successful venture investment at Euclid, Multex, almost went bankrupt before the Internet came along and provided a cheap way to get it's service to its customers. Geocities, which was our most successful investment at Flatiron, was a total mess in mid/late 1997, about a year after we first invested. And our most successful investment to date at Union Square Ventures, TACODA, was a mess multiple times including when the first build of its software totally failed on them. Delicious also had plenty of messy moments in its brief period in our portfolio. And there are a number of other companies in the Union Square Ventures portfolio that will go nameless in this post that are currently in various states of mess but doing incredibly well just the same.
I am not advocating messmaking with your startup. There have been plenty of buttoned up startups that I've been involved in that have been great successes. Companies like Gamesville and ComScore in the Flatiron portfolio and FeedBurner and Indeed in the Union Square Ventures portfolio come to mind when I think of organizations that have had their act together from start to finish.
But there is something about messes that lead to great successes. I think it often has to do with teams that focus almost exclusively on the product and the market to the exclusion of everything else. They don't build the rest of the infrastructure that it takes to be a stable well executing business and they suffer a lot because of it. But in the process they get the one thing right that really matters. And the fact that they get the one thing right that really matters makes matters worse because the product takes off and they don't have the resources in place to deal with their success. And mess ensues.
The prescription for turning these messes into successes is really pretty straightforward. You need to build the team and bring in people who excel at the blocking and tackling and the PLANNING that most startups don't have the time or inclination to do. And you need to gradually change the culture of the business from one that is all about the product to one that is about the entire company. Sometimes, often times, that means changing the people around. And that's never easy. And it's even harder to change the people around when it was the initial team that made the product so popular in the first place. So you have to somehow find a way to add the "operational" people without drowning out the "product" people.
But I urge all of our companies not to overdo the "operational" thing too quickly. You need to get your act together for sure. But it can and should be a gradual process. You can't go from mess to success overnight and even when you are a success, your company should still always be just a little bit of a mess.

Slainte

Gordon

Running a successful business

Running a Successful Business

Running a business is a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces must fit together perfectly in order to complete the puzzle. If you are missing a piece, or if you have to pound the pieces together, you can't complete the puzzle.

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Create a Culture

The first piece of the puzzle is the corporate culture. It needs to be created and communicated throughout the entire operation. There are many tools available to help write a mission or vision statement, but I think it's often best to keep it simple -- one or two sentences -- and describe why the business exists. What is the core value or the daily purpose? Write it down and share it with everyone! Next, create an employee manual that reflects the culture. Again, there are many websites and consultants who can help with employee manuals. In this case, I do recommend getting outside council as the policies and procedures described in the manual should be legally sound and abide by your state's employment laws. Finally, reward behavior consistent with the culture and confront behavior inconsistent with the culture. This will insure that everyone is calibrated to the same standards.

Recruit the Best

The second piece of the puzzle is to recruit the best team to carry out your vision. What do the best college sports teams do? Recruit the best players all the time! When a business is short-staffed, that is the worst time to recruit because you are desperate. It is much better to recruit and network all the time, so the pipeline is full when you need it. Just like college sports teams, when you recruit the best you get a reputation for excellence and great players (employees) want to be on your team. Recruiting gets a whole lot easier when you have a reputation for being a great place to work.

Walk the Talk

The third piece of the puzzle is leadership at the customer level. If the business founder is not on-site 40 or more hours per week, there needs to be someone else charged with the role of business leader. In this case, it is also important that the founder writes a job description for him or herself. The founder needs to be consistent with the message the manager is presenting to the team. It is absolutely counterproductive for the founder to come into the business and start making management decisions if he or she is not the full-time manager. For example, if the founder stops in to drop off supplies and notices the bathrooms are dirty, he or she should speak with the manager and not reprimand the employees directly. Also, if the founder stops in to drop off supplies and decides to stay and help out with customers, he or she should be in proper dress code and have all the necessary supplies to do the job. In other words, the founder and manager need to "walk the talk".

Develop Your People

The fourth piece of the puzzle is to continue to educate and train your team and invest in their pursuit of excellence. Make continuing education an integral part of your operations. Ultimately, every business is about the people who serve the customers, so you need to commit to education at all levels, especially developing leadership and management skills. Set goals for each team member; review performance on a regular basis, and; reward success.

Marketing and Promotion

The fifth piece of the puzzle is making customers aware that your business is available to them. Create a plan and a budget, and execute. In my business, grass roots marketing and PR is the secret weapon to success. We encourage our franchisees to visit every daycare center, preschool, karate school, gymnastics center, dance school, etc. and spread the word . A business' first year goal should be client acquisition, so heavy discounting and couponing is critical to success. With a strong "call to action", your marketing message will drive traffic and client counts.

Business Analysis

The sixth and final piece of the puzzle is analysis. For every activity, there should be a way to measure its success. Remember, you're in business to make money, so while ROE (Return on Effort) may be personally rewarding, if it doesn't have a compelling ROI (Return on Investment), it's not an activity worth continuing. As you analyze your business, you should understand the financial benchmarks that lead to success. Find comparable businesses to which you can compare your financial statements. You should analyze your overall results (P&L), as well as individual activities such as recruiting, marketing, staffing, etc.

(From an article by Joanna Meiseles )

This article was targetted at people starting a franchise, but the key fundamentals are well captured, the only add I would give at this stage is that the first year of a buisness is all about securing and developing customers, if you don't have a strong customer base you have nothing for the future.

Slainte

Gordon