No rants, no raving, just the facts. LaunchUp brought the entrepreneur out in me.

I attended LaunchUp #1 in March of 2009. I learned that guys like me could pull off startups. I learned that because I’m a coder, I’ve got an advantage over a lot of the guys in the LaunchUp audience. I could take my ideas, prototype them, launch them and become the entrepreneur I wanted to be. I also learned that a lot of the folks in attendance had the sales, marketing and biz dev experience I needed to get my ideas in front of others. I needed to meet all these people. At that first meeting I met Blaine Nielsen, CEO of Doba. Here I was, an engineer by day, rubbing shoulders with guys I looked up to in the valley. LaunchUp is billed as a barn raising for the presenting companies, and this is spot on. However, LaunchUp is also therapy for entrepreneurs that are stuck in mundane corporate jobs too. That was me.

The next 6 months of work were abysmal. Sure I had previous plans to do my own thing. LaunchUp gave me a new found clarity though. Dave and I were full-time with Protoven the first week of September 2009.
Now my job was to be that guy, the “Goto Guy” for our company. I had to find clients. I had to build the foundation that would support our growth plans, and put us on a trajectory to meet our lofty goals.

Oh no! The engineer had to network! I started attending LaunchUp more regularly. My network was growing. Then the opportunity to present our new company, upLynk, was offered while I was at lunch with Jeremy Hanks, the LaunchUp Guy! Of course I wanted to present. I wanted others to kick the tires on this idea. Then I realized I’m an engineer. 2 seconds later I told myself I was a COO and that this was part of the job description. I started out fairly nervous presenting at LaunchUp #15, but then settled down as I started talking about the portion I was really passionate about. How was the response? Absolutely exceeded every expectation I had. I talked to folks from technology to finance. While our seed capital did not end up coming from LaunchUp, I felt very confident during our negotiations knowing we had great options if terms couldn’t be reached. If you’re starting a business anywhere along the Wasatch Front, you should present at LaunchUp.

A few months later I was invited to present the “In the Weeds” talk at LaunchUp #20. I presented along side Dr. Phil Windley, one of my local tech entrepreneur idols. I think he made me the most nervous of anyone in the room. I talked about a quick experience I had while working with a large customer, and how I’m heading off these tangential efforts this time around with upLynk. It was another great opportunity to get up in front of a lot of folks and speak. I was quicker to jump into the “passionate portion” which I’ve learned helps me to calm the nerves and connect with the audience better. For me, it’s about getting in front of a crowd one more time. The more I do that, the more comfortable I feel doing it. I hate doing it, but it is a necessary exercise in order reach my own personal goals.

I still have a lot of hard work and perseverance in front of me, but upLynk is really catching on with everyone we share the story with. We’re focused on lighting up some huge customers this fall. I look forward to the day when I can call upLynk, and myself, a LaunchUp success story.

As of this writing, LaunchUp #21 is scheduled for Thursday, August 4th at Neumont University. I encourage everyone to attend. You never know what it may do for you and your career.

It’s not uncommon for me to pick up “what to dos” and “what not to dos” from other industries as I push forward with my own projects.  Here’s 2 examples I learned from while at lunch at one of my favorite spots here south of Salt Lake City.

Groupon is the rage, and there is a “me too” website run locally that offers a typical e-commerce approach to the Groupon model.  You go to their site, plug in your zip and you’re presented with a catalog of local deals.  I’m often taking clients and co-workers to lunch, so when I see a favorite restaurant listed in the daily deal email they send me, I’ll usually give the deal a look.  If the deal includes a 50% discount, the $20 for $10 deal, etc., I almost always buy the maximum amount available to me.  Less than double my money, I will almost always pass.

Just such a deal came through for a local burger joint.  I bought my max of 3 and they arrived a few days later.  Feeling hunger pangs and some burger craving I piled the crew in the car and headed over to the restaurant for some lunch.  Upon arriving I saw a sign in the window that read, “Lunch Special $5.99 for double combo!”  I decided I’d take that deal and headed to the register.

We all ordered.  Of course the total was slightly more than the value of my coupon so I also handed over my debit card.  The cashier, who for all appearances acted like the manager of the place, took my coupon and then told me, “You can’t use this with the lunch special.”

“I can’t?” I replied.

“No, you’ll have to pay full-price for the double combo to use this.”

Sticking out my hand I responded, “Just put the whole thing on the card.”  As he gave me back the coupon I asked, “… so what can I use this on?” fighting back the stomach-turning feeling of knowing I’d bought 3 coupons, not just one.

“You can use it on a double combo, just not the lunch special double combo price.”

Quite embarassed, I took my receipt and retreated to my table to await the preparation of my order that I was now wishing had been the single combo, or just a drink, as the whole awkward situation caused me to lose my appetite… for 3 minutes.

I looked up at their menu and saw the regular, non lunch special price of the double combo.

$6.50…

$6.50…

Whether this manager was the owner, or just a hired hand (I suspect the latter), the policy of this restaurant, which is a very common policy, was to not allow a customer to combine discount offers.  I get that.

What I don’t get is this.  You are a brand new restaurant in the area.  You’ve blown big bucks to build out the location and furnish it.  It’s clear you don’t have a marketing budget.  (Sorry, the black tape pricing adjustments on your menu give your budget numbers away.)  Yet, you’re willing to embarrass a customer who is already in your store over 51 cents, risking the loss of my business?  Sure the place is new, but it’s also empty everytime I go in there.  Folks, eat the bloody $0.51 in favor of the repeat business.  It’s loss leader marketing 101.

All was not lost for them that trip.  The food was great.  As we were eating, an older gentlemen wearing the logo of the restaurant stopped by our table and asked how the food was.  We told him it was great.  I’d regained my appetite by now.  He then handed us coupons offering some great promotions for our return trip.  That short conversation repaired the client relationship enough for me to plan on a follow up experience with them.  I had 2 more coupons afterall.

Yet, the damage had been done.  I wondered to myself, 2 visits later as I came back with coupon #2 whether I would be confronted at the register by the same manager about my ability to take advantage of the offer a second time, or if there was a one coupon per customer rule.

Is it worth a few cents to add strife to a client relationship?  I argue that will cost you incalculable multiples of repeat business.  Add in costs of acquiring customers… you see how the numbers can add up quickly.  Patience, understanding, and working with people will build more than customer loyalty, it leads to a trust that will have your customers calling you and only you as their need for your services increases.  It leads to customers that share your name whenever their contacts, clients, friends and family mention they’re in need of services you provide.  It adds up to more than the 10% the burger guy just can’t bear to give up.

I don’t have enough people.  We are turning away dozens of projects a month right now.  The clients we are working with are begging us to expand our team and take on more projects for them.

The other end of that problem also makes it very tempting to grow.  I have a list of former colleagues as well as past and present collaborators that I know would make great contributions to the team.

So why not pull the trigger and bring these folks on?

First, the current core team has been battle tested.  We aren’t talking about a strategic series of chess matches either.  We’re talking about an all out blitz that requires specific skills and knowledge while also forcing the individual to step, willingly, outside their comfort zone in order to meet the expectations of a would be customer.  These battles were subsets and supersets of the Protoven crew.  Frequently and consistently, however, I would be instant messaging with one of the current at all hours of the night.  We didn’t want to be there, but dedication won out over sleep.  It’s one thing to finish up your tasks and sign off to the others.  It’s quite another thing to tip the clock down on its face and broadcast to the group, “Who needs help?”

Second, I don’t like to fire folks.  I don’t like to hold layoffs or reductions in force.  I had one of core ask me recently, “Am I going to be the first to be laid off?”  It’s times like that where I love my job.  I told them that they were going to be the last to be laid off.  The problem with the scenario is a function of numbers though.  Being the last of 5 when 5 are being laid off, and really that’s the only scenario I can imagine at this point, is not a heart-warming consolation.  What I conveyed to him is our dedication to this company.  This is not a flash in the pan operation.  We have a plan and an execution strategy that seems to gain momentum everyday.  I have smart people.  I need every one of them.  They are so necessary to this company’s fundamentals that concessions in time as needed are never questioned.  Ask any of the guys how many vacation days they have.  They should tell you,  ”All of them.”

The last reason I’ll mention speaks to a fundamental belief that Protoven was founded on, less is more.  Dave and I realized early in our careers that we both felt the sweet spot for our talents was early in a startup’s evolution.  We’re self-motivated guys who don’t need a lot of direction.  We think we’ve surrounded ourselves with 3 additional Protoven idealists that fit perfectly in the plan.  When you have 5 guys that work hard you get a “Hacker in a Garage” mentality that is focused on getting releases out the door as fast as possible.  Iteration on a project shows life in a project.  When clients see feature after feature rolling into their project, they accept the hiccup risks, which become fewer and further between in our experience.  When we’re working on a large project inevitably the task list grows.  When I look at that list I realize a couple of things.  Everyone of the other 4 of us is working on something on that list, so I should be working on something in that list.  Also, it doesn’t matter which task it is, it all needs to get done.  Even the toilets need cleaning.  Roll up your sleeves, Ty, and write some code, setup that virtual server, write that documentation, send those code examples, etc., etc.

Will Protoven hire more folks?  We’ll inevitably have to to staff some of the projects we’re working on, yes.  If you’re interested in working for us, find a way to work with us.  That is your best chance at becoming part of this team.  The current guys, as mentioned, survived 2 - 3 - 4 years dealing with our craziness.  We’re working hard, all of us, to make it all worthwhile.

I joined my first startup at 21.  I worked hard writing lots of code, but never passed up the opportunity to talk to folks who were on the front lines raising capital for the company.  I definitely took the ears open approach, which included keeping my mouth shut.  I learned a lot, at that startup and more at follow on startups.  One of the most important lessons I learned was, despite their sophistication, investors get spooked.  Getting $10 a share when others in our market were soaring to IPOs over $200 a share solidifies these lessons in your mind.  Even at the tender age of 23.

14 years and half a dozen startups later I’ve seen several repeats of this behavior resulting in everything from massive layoffs, upheaval of executive teams, to complete shuttering.  It’s seldom pretty when things reach that boiling point.

Now far be it from me to judge each circumstance as though I had all the information.  Frankly, I never had much information beyond what I could gather in hallway conversations and lunch time chats with trusted friends who would share insights and perspectives about the inner on-goings.  It was always tempting to side with those folks seemingly in conflict with the investors.  I never knew the other side.  That is until now.

While Protoven’s investments aren’t considered an “Angel” round, or a “Series X” round, they do include hard money, and plenty of internally funded sweat equity.  Dave and I, as the partners, hear pitches, scrutinize deals, and occasionally  accept terms and get to work as technology founding partners in some exciting projects.

With dreams of fame and fortune we’ve pooled our resources and created some great technology.  But not everything happens in timeframes that we’d like.  There is a plan, but it takes time to execute on this plan.  Both Dave and I have felt those pangs of knee-jerkiness.  The want to control the direction a bit more.  I called a meeting with the executive team of one of our projects with the intention of voicing concerns and laying down the law.  They said they had some ideas they wanted to run past me as well.  We found a conference room and sat down.  I looked around, and then began to listen.

Within seconds of hearing out the team, I realized we were on the same page.  They had their own concerns about deliverables, roadmap, paths to profitability.  They were asking themselves the hard questions I was looking for answers to.  We had a constructive meeting, planning and strategizing our next moves.  I realized that my fears and concerns were self-inflicted.  I had not taken the proper steps to communicate with the team.  Had I run off at the mouth at the beginning, it would have been destructive, putting all of us on the defensive.  Instead we were able to freely share ideas, which turned into also sharing concerns, all of which contributed to decisions, solutions and renewed efforts.  It also created some additional accountability, which put the investor in me at ease.

I actually apologized to the team afterward.  I let them know that I’d planned on voicing concerns.  I also let them know that we, Protoven, would communicate better as well.  That was what I needed as an investor to renew my belief in this idea… in this team.

Transparency is key to communication.  I run all the systems for this project so “the books” are wide open to me.  They’re going to work harder at sharing the marketing and biz dev efforts as well to increase that transparency and foster even more communication.  I’ll still have to remind myself that there’s a roadmap and we all need time to execute, but I owe it to all of us to rise to the next level of investor maturity and communicate concerns first.

“I’m done.”

2 words that sparked the real beginning of this company.  No, I didn’t speak them, though I should’ve numerous times in the months leading up to September of 2009.  Nonetheless, we did jump ship and haven’t looked back.

While modest, our success of the past year far surpasses anything we could’ve anticipated.  There were several company milestones, both anticipated goals as well as non-anticipated that make for a wild, enjoyable ride.  Here’s my short list.

• We jumped!
• We found a customer.
• We hired Nate.
• Ryan sent us a resume.
• We found some additional customers.
• Ken brought us a resume.
• We found another customer.
• We hired Ken.
• We found 3 more customers and had 2 ask for more hours.
• We dug up Ryan’s resume he sent us.
• We hired Ryan.
• More customers, more returning customers!
• Great referrals start coming in.
• We took an investment opportunity.
• We told a customer “No”.
• We parted ways with 2 customers.
• We found a customer that changed our business.
• We self-funded another investment opportunity.
• We had a customer blow our minds!

Was it all fun and games?  Far from, but the challenges are not what sticks out in my mind.  We transformed the stress and anxiety of starting from scratch into aggressive negotiation and smart effort.  We had to make some tough decisions.  We stuck to our guns though.  We had to make very hard decisions, but our business benefitted from those decisions.

I regret only one thing.  I should’ve done this a year or 2 earlier.

We’ve beaten the odds so far.  I’m excited about what’s in store for Protoven this year and in the year’s to come.  Thanks to the whole team for making this year great.

A public thanks to my wife Haley who supported my craziness and provided a sounding board for some of the crazier decisions I made it.  Her recommendations have been spot on every time.

Alan Weiss has been adding insight to the development of my company for the past 7 months. My only regret, having bought his book Million Dollar Consulting almost 3 years ago, is not reading it when I first bought it.

In a recent chapter I read, Alan (yes, we’re on a first name basis, in my head) presented the idea that every correspondence you send, whether it be a reply to an email, or an invoice, is marketing for your firm. I’ve had a couple of experiences on this topic recently that I’d like to relate.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to participate in a bid for an innovative project that used forward thinking technologies. We’d been looking for a good excuse to learn this technology, but with our busy schedule, couldn’t sacrifice the time to do it. This project was presenting us a prime opportunity to dive in with both feet while justifying the time and effort to learn. My colleague and potential alliance in the project was a design firm. I’d seen some of their work and considered it top-notch. In preparation for the delivery of the bid I provided the firm a Statement of Work that I’d prepared which specified what our role and contribution would be. As preparations were finalized I joined the president of the firm in a conference call to talk about the bid with the client. The president had the completed SoW with him and offered me a chance to look at the final prepared package. I was flattered to find out that the firm had been so impressed with the organization and design of our Statement of Work that they’d adopted it for use internally. You might ask why I didn’t consider this a trespass on Protoven’s intellectual property and copyright. As far as design goes, I can hardly lay claim to the design and layout that Apple provides in their Pages software. The organization came from ideas I’d garnered from multiple locations on the net and in literature. It showed me that taking the time to care about a simple SoW, not even the final version shown to the client, or so I thought, can pay dividends in your relationships with your clients and colleagues. Providing value to a client relationship is some of the best marketing you can do.

The second example I want to bring up happened a few days ago. I had a fellow consultant call me. We share a common client and he wanted to discuss with me some details of the project. It so happens that this fellow consultant is a heavy hitter. He’s a rocket scientist for hire with customers such as the Department of Homeland Security. I hold him in the highest regard. Imagine my surprise when he asked to have an audience with me. We’ve focused our efforts for this client and have taken on a fairly minor role. Nonetheless, because I took the time to respond intelligently and concisely to a feature request ticket I’d earned an opportunity to explore working together further. It was just a comment on a ticket. It turned into a marketing opportunity I hadn’t anticipated.

Take the time to scrutinize your correspondence. Take those opportunities to show partners, clients and colleagues what sets your work apart from others.

Dave and I are taking the less conventional road with Protoven. Instead of taking that one idea, raising an absurd amount of capital around it, leasing everything to our eyeballs, and praying that the 200 people we’ve hired can “execute”, we’re starting small.

We had an idea. We’ve had lots of ideas. But fundamentally we had ideas that have have turned into ideals. You see, we’ve been at this startup thing for most of our careers. We’ve never been the directly responsible decision makers, until now, but we’ve seen what has worked and what hasn’t. Let me contrast a couple of things for you.

In the early days at my former employer we had weekly staff meetings, that were quite enjoyable. We could sit in a circle and see everyone. We would discuss customer opportunities. I could look around the room, but at the end of the day I knew, if I didn’t jump straight into the fire to get things done, then there’s a good chance it wouldn’t get done. Everyone felt that way. There was a real sense of urgency. We were on the brink of a technology shift called adaptive streaming. I guess we were onto something because Microsoft, Adobe and Apple have all copied us. I consider that validation of the technology anyway. Rework talks about keeping the team small. I love the ideas of hiring when it hurts, making someone in the organization learn a job so they know exactly what characteristics and skills candidates need to do the job, and not immediately hiring replacements when employees leave. If you have no need to hire, why incur extra expenses? Reward your current people.

Another topic that Rework just nails is capitalization. Starting small, staying hungry, with the incentive of putting food on the plates of your children is great motivation to create something and get it out and testing in front of customers. Protoven is taking the long route to bootstrapping our own ideas. We understand the power of partnerships, and have taken equity stakes in some of the projects we consider “sure things”. For the most part our business is “for hire” work for clients at this time. We’ve structured income so that a portion goes into our war chest, and every month that war chest grows a little bit. Those funds will make it possible for us to afford a couple of months where we can focus specifically on our own projects. That’s what we feel comfortable with. This allows us to keep ownership of our projects. This let’s me spread around the big payoff with my great people. Raising money, as Rework mentions, means giving up control, and at the end of the day, profits. Find any means necessary to avoid fund raising.

These are just a couple of the dozens of gems included in Rework. The book opens by discussing the types of readers the book is meant for. If you’re reading this blog, that book is meant for you. Budding entrepreneurs or cubicle slaves alike, you’ll find some motivation to improve your situation.Order your copy today.