by Chip Griffin on May 21, 2011
I’m an early morning person. I generally rise around 5:30 AM. In fact, even on vacation I’m hard-pressed to sleep in beyond 6:30 or 7:00.
One of the reasons I like getting up early is that it is quiet. At home, the wife and kids are still asleep. It gives me a chance to knock out some reading before another hectic day begins, full of unplanned distractions. I can head down to my study, put the news on the TV or some classical music on the stereo, and plow through newspapers, magazines, feeds, and email on my iPad.
On the road, there’s not much better than going for a walk around whatever city I’m in as the sun comes up. In Washington, DC, I love walking along the National Mall before the tourists are out in force. You can hear the crisp footfalls along the gravel paths that run along the perimeter. When I arrive at the World War II Memorial near the Washington Monument, I often take a seat near the fountain and enjoy the solitude of the environment.
Even cities that one may not associate with peace and quiet have it in those early morning hours. Walking the streets of Manhattan on a weekend morning at sunrise would make you forget that you’re in a city of millions of people. It almost feels abandoned. Even on weekday mornings, the traffic tends to be light before 6 AM, making it a great time for a walk. Read the full article →
by Chip Griffin on May 20, 2011
Most successful startups have a sense of urgency about them. It is something that individuals can exhibit and can be manifested across an entire team or company. Urgency can help breed success. Misplaced or misunderstood urgency can be extremely damaging, however.
In my experience the sense of urgency in business is often not well comprehended. It is something that comes instinctively to most entrepreneurs, but to make urgency scalable across an enterprise, it is important to recognize what urgency is — and what it is not. Read the full article →
by Chip Griffin on May 19, 2011
Anyone who has ever worked for me knows that I love data to help me make decisions. Sure, I use my gut feelings a lot, too, just like any entrepreneur, but when I have access to good data and it makes sense, I want to use it as an aid.
Often, data conflicts with anecdotal evidence. It’s not uncommon to find that what you thought to be true based on casual observation and second-hand information may not hold up when confronted with quantitative evidence. Consider customer satisfaction, for example. In some businesses, customers may only interact with the business when there’s a problem. But a customer survey might show that the vast majority of purchasers are happy — contrary to what one might glean from listening in on support conversations. Similarly, we all remember the big deals that we closed or that got away, but that may be neglecting the broader picture that comes from looking at all deals of all sizes. Read the full article →
by Chip Griffin on May 18, 2011
Like most entrepreneurs, I negotiate and sign a lot of contracts. And while I’m not a lawyer, I sometimes feel like one after as much time as I have spent with — and as much money I have paid to — attorneys over the past 15 years of running businesses.
But what interests me more than the legal mumbo jumbo (that’s a technical term, by the way) is how other entrepreneurs, business executives, and others approach the contract process. Very often I see a fixation on business terms in the contract negotiation process. This has the exercise backwards, however. The business terms should be hashed out before the lawyers get involved with legal language. Things that can be agreed upon easily in a conversation between two business people often becomes more complicated once the discussion takes place over what often seems like harsh legal language. Lawyers don’t get paid for eloquence or diplomacy (most of the time). Their role is to zealously protect the interests of their clients. Read the full article →
by Chip Griffin on May 17, 2011
As I get back into the swing of things at the helm of CustomScoop after a multi-year absence from the day-to-day operations, it makes sense to undertake a review and planning process. Sure it goes against my desire as an entrepreneur to jump in and start trying new ideas right away, but this is a mature, profitable 11 year business. Much is right with the company, but there’s always room for improvement.
One of my favorite ways to begin a planning process like this is to use SWOT analysis. For those not familiar with the acronym, it stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It creates a pretty effective baseline for conversation about where a company is and where it is (and should be) headed. It accounts for the internal characteristics and external forces that impact current and future success. Read the full article →
by Chip Griffin on April 20, 2011
Spring represents a time of change. Not content with simply watching the return of grass and flowers as temperatures warm and the snow melts, I decided that I needed bigger change.
Or perhaps more accurately, change decided to find me. Sometimes the right path is so obvious that one must simply follow it.
Here’s the story.
Read the full article →
by Chip Griffin on March 8, 2011
David Cohen and Brad Feld assembled a nice collection of anecdotes and advice for entrepreneurs with Do More Faster. Based on learnings from their TechStars program and the experience of a large collection of entrepreneurs, investors, lawyers, and others, this book offers up plenty of nuggets that anyone in the startup community will relate to and learn from.
The book consists of a series of essays, organized thematically and augmented by additional commentary from David and Brad. The upside of this format is that it brings a variety of experiences to the table. Unfortunately, the downside to this approach is that it leads to a bit of redundancy and sometimes conflicting advice.
Nevertheless, Do More Faster makes for great reading for anyone starting or running young businesses, especially in the online marketplace. Even with more than a half dozen companies under my belt, I found plenty of food for thought here.
by Chip Griffin on March 1, 2011
Names don’t matter. Except when they do.
I have spent too much of my life helping to name things. Companies. Products. Articles. Blog posts. Books. Features. Proposals. Presentations. Oh, and my kids, of course.
Here’s what I have learned: Read the full article →
by Chip Griffin on February 21, 2011
Much electronic ink has already been spilled over Apple’s decision to make in-app subscription purchasing available — at a 30% fee. I’m about to spill some more.
Today’s open letter from Readability re-stokes the controversy as it claims that Software-as-a-Service providers are now ensnared in the new policy, not just media publishers and content providers. MG Siegler at TechCrunch raises the prospect of Salesforce and other major SaaS companies getting caught by the 30% fee.
There’s a lot getting overlooked here.
The 30% applies only to new sales, not to all users of iOS apps — at least as I understand it. If someone has already paid outside of the app, Apple gets nothing. So Apple is effectively looking not for a “processing fee” as some allege, but effectively a “commission.” By that standard, 30% isn’t quite as outlandish.
Read the full article →
by Chip Griffin on February 21, 2011
While listening to the latest episode of FIR Live over the weekend, the concept of “energy efficiency” of marketing and communications campaigns came to mind. No, I’m not talking about how “green” the effort is. This isn’t about recycled paper or carbon emissions.
I’m thinking more like the energy efficiency of a furnace. Is 95% of the energy your’e putting into your marcomm efforts turning into “heat” (leads, sales, supporters, etc.)? Or is a lot of the effort being wasted?
What got me to thinking about this was the discussion by Paul Gillin (co-author of Social Marketing to the Business Customer) about the IBM Watson/Jeopardy campaign. He noted that IBM had done a masterful job of integrating the online component with the traditional media exposure. And I don’t doubt that it is true.
But there’s also no question that a significant amount of energy in the form of time and resources as spent reaching people who are never likely to make a purchase with IBM because of their exposure. In a massive branding campaign like that one, that’s pretty common and there’s little way around it.
Read the full article →
