Eventful - http://eventful.com/
I love this service because they send an email every week to people in your area with the events that are about to happen.
Yahoo! Upcoming - http://upcoming.yahoo.com/
Yahoo! can send you a lot of very qualified traffic. Take advantage of it.
Windows Live Events - http://events.live.com/
Although not as powerful as Yahoo! and Eventful, it can still give you a good deal of exposure.
CitySearch - http://citysearch.com/find/section/events.html
This local search engine is here to stay. It's getting very popular and can make your event visible to thousands of people.
MeetUp - http://www.meetup.com/
Create your own MeetUp group or join other groups. Sometimes, if your event is really interesting, administrators of other groups will be happy to pass the word to their members.
MeetingWave - http://meetingwave.com/
This is one of my favorite resources to promote events. Post yours for free and get ready for all the exposure that MeetingWave will give you.
LinkedIn - http://linkedin.com/
Let all your contacts know about your event. In addition to that, you can join dozens of business networking groups based out of your city and post your event to their discussion boards.
Facebook - http://www.new.facebook.com/
Use Facebook to find groups and people in your area, and invite them to your event. You can also use Facebook Ads and deliver them to people in a certain location.
BizNik - http://biznik.com/
BizNik has a great feature to promote events. Be active and invite people in your area. Make sure that you write individual and unique emails to each of the people you invite.
Plaxo - http://www.plaxo.com/events
Join groups and use their forums to let people know about your event.
Xing - http://xing.com/
Another cool social network. Join groups and post your event.
Find People with Lists
Go after the influencers. I can guarantee that there are at least 100 people in your area that have email lists of other people in your area. Offer them an incentive - sometimes it's not even necessary, and ask them to let people know about your event through a blog post, a short announcement in their newsletters or a simple email.
Do a Google Search
If you live in Seattle, search on Google for 'Seattle Events'. There are hundreds of niche-websites that revolve around events in local area; they can give your event great exposure.
Contact the Press
Don't be afraid to contact local newspapers and other publications to let them know about your event. In most cases, they will find this information useful and relevant, and they'll be happy to share it with their readers.
If you enjoyed this article, visit my blog at www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com/blog for more great tips on entrepreneurship and online marketing.
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Blog: www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com/blog
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9:55 AM Friday March 13, 2009 9:33 AM Saturday March 7, 2009
As venture capitalists, my partners and I meet dozens upon dozens of entrepreneurs pitching their ideas and dreams. We love them - especially when their passion comes with capabilities and a good idea. I have been fascinated in understanding the "DNA" of great entrepreneurs in an effort to identify traits and markers that can serve as early clues for future success. I have come to conclude that great entrepreneurs share and need SGL: Smarts, Guts, and Luck.
Smarts. If you eat horseshoes for breakfast and always win in Vegas, then all the better for you. You ain't the norm. "Smarts" is the best foundation for any entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial smarts, however, needs to be defined and it certainly requires going beyond traditional MBA education. If I were honest, and not influenced by the fact that I hold one of these degrees myself from the institution closely affiliated to this site, then I would say that there's a lot of truth in what my partner Mats Lederhausen has said: "Most MBA's make for sucky entrepreneurs." This is not because they are not smart, but because an MBA--while potentially helpful--is not a requirement. Other smarts are.
The best self-made entrepreneurs possess outstanding street smarts, intuition, emotional and conceptual intelligence as much as--and often more so than--book smarts, analytics, and managerial intelligence. It is why founders are usually very good getting companies to a certain level, but usually less good at scaling their idea. The CEO who scales a company probably did could not have founded the business and, vice versa, the person who founded it probably could not have scaled it. The exceptions of Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Howard Schultz are just that: exceptions. They possessed the rare capability to bridge across the analytical and the creative, across the left and the right side of the brain. For our early stage investments, I am biased toward the right side- the more creative, conceptual and street smarts. "Visionary Skills 101", just does not seem to be on many MBA curriculums.
At the early stage of a business it is critical to build culture before company. The culture comes from the evangelism, heart, and fire in the belly of founders. You need to create a belief system, energy, and inspiration during the early stage of business and, as it grows, balance that with structure and process. If you put the latter (left side thinking) too early you lose the chance to form the soul of the company - you basically begin managing when the company has not yet been led.
Guts. Great entrepreneurs have the guts to go after big ideas. They are willing to put themselves out there when most worry about, "What will others think?" The definition of entrepreneurship that Harvard Business School Professor Bill Sahlman made prolific- "the relentless pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources" forms the center of the entrepreneurial mindset. Entrepreneurs don't worry about the resources they lack, but about the resourcefulness required to get the big idea done.
It's gutsy for people to pursue a mission despite the gulf that exists between their available resources and the largesse of their ideas. It is gutsy to swing for the fences when one could settle for a single or double. It's gutsy to shape change that most cannot yet see and persevere forward with singular clarity. Here's an amazing fact: About two-thirds of billionaires on the Forbes billionaire list started with nothing. Desperation can be a good motivator, but these folks were born with the fire in the belly and vision in the mind. Read the biographies of Andy Grove, Ralph Lauren, or J.K Rowling and you'll find some pretty inspiring stories. As Eleanor Roosevelt stated so eloquently, "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
Luck. Even with all the smarts and guts, you don't get the glory without some luck. Requisite elements of fortuitous timing, serendipitous encounters, or inexplicable higher connections come in handy. Yes, people can create the circumstances for luck, but that should not discount the value of Lady Luck's gracious blessings. Recognizing that luck is part of the success formula helps maintain the necessary and important humility during the entrepreneurial journey and beyond. Circumstances beyond one's control will always occur. Accepting this vulnerability and understanding that sometimes you just need the cards dealt in your favor is necessary to maintain the conviction, courage, and momentum of entrepreneurial enterprises. As I think back on the ups and downs of my prior entrepreneurial experiences, I am certainly grateful for my kismet being on the right side more often than wrong.
The central philosophy of my investment firm, Cue Ball, is that human capital trumps everything else out there. We consistently say it is all about the people, and we would take a B business plan with an A team over an A plan with a B team any day. And in that A team, there's likely to be a good triple dose of SGL.
What about you? Have you seen any other key traits necessary for entrepreneurial success?
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Tue, Mar 24 09:14 AM
Chennai, March 24 (IANS) Ever heard of an Indian MP submitting an annual self-appraisal report to the people of his constituency?
Meet 59-year-old M. Ramadass of the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), a doctorate in economics and an economics professor-turned politician who is charting a new course in politics.
He is the only member in the outgoing Lok Sabha and perhaps the first Indian MP to submit to the people of Puducherry an annual report of his activities as their representative.
Asked if the concept was borrowed from his academic field, the first generation politician told IANS: 'I felt it is my duty to give an account of my activities to the people. I want to be accountable to my people.'
His annual reports contain the welfare schemes and various projects brought to Puducherry by him, debates in which he participated in the Lok Sabha, his attendance in parliament, the utilisation of the MP Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) and the protests and even social events in which he took part.
By his own admission, Ramadass, who hails from a fishermen community, has taken part in 151 parliament debates, raised 380 questions and has scored 94 percent attendance.
According to a study by PRS Legislative Research, an independent research initiative, nearly 60 MPs including former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda and actor-politicians Dharmendra and Govinda did not ask a single question in the 14th Lok Sabha. Sixty-seven MPs asked 10 or fewer questions.
Admirers of Ramadass say he was instrumental in bringing to Puducherry the Rs.330 million Karaikal port project, improving rail connectivity, and expanding railway reservation counters at Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam.
'Our MP was instrumental in the conduct of local body elections in Puducherry after a four-decade gap. He was also instrumental in devolution of powers to the local bodies,' said one PMK worker.
Ramadass is also credited with elevating Puducherry's classification to that of New Delhi -- so that the house rent allowance (HRA) for government employees goes up.
As to the utilisation of funds under the MPLADS, against his entitlement of Rs.100 million (Rs.10 crore) for five years, Ramadass issued work orders for Rs.125 (Rs.12.5 crore). 'I have effectively used the unspent money of my predecessor. My focus is on improving the basic amenities for the people,' he said.
Way back in 1986 Ramadass was in the limelight for a brief period when he won the National Prize for the best suggestions on the making of the Indian budget.
It was PMK founder S. Ramadoss who convinced him to join politics.
'Our leader wanted educated people to enter politics. My wife was very apprehensive about my entering politics, from being the registrar of Pondicherry University. A lot of cajoling had to be done,' he recalled.
In 2004, Ramadass was elected to the Lok Sabha, securing 241,653 votes (49.95 percent), defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate who got 171,472 votes (35.65 percent).
Today his services are utilised by the PMK, which submits alternative budgets for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, and also for preparing the party's election manifesto.
As an academician he has guided seven Ph.Ds, 40 M.Phils and 15 M.S. theses. He has also authored five books and has 45 research papers to his credit.
At a time when even small-level politicians speed around the cities in big fuel guzzling utility vehicles, Ramadass is satisfied with his old Tata Indica car.
He is confident of not only getting the party's nod to contest again from Puducherry but also of winning. His annual reports, he knows, have won the hearts of his voters.
(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)
"VCs are generally bombarded by requests for meetings, so a warm introduction helps an entrepreneur's request float to the top of the list." -- Chris Wand, Foundry Group
You're not the only entrepreneur in the world who is trying to raise money. And in today's economy, money is even harder to come by. Investors get more requests for meetings than they can accommodate in this lifetime or the next. So they use introductions to prioritize and filter meeting requests.
You could send investors a cold e-mail, but your traction, team, or product better be mind-blowing -- and they probably aren't.
Getting an introduction is a test of your entrepreneurial skills. If you can't convince a middleman to make an introduction, how will you convince employees to join your company? How will you convince customers to buy from you? How will you convince investors to put their money in your pocket?
So don't spam investors with your business plan. Instead, convince middlemen to introduce you to investors. An effective middleman is simply someone investors listen to.
But not all middlemen are created equal. The quality of the middleman helps investors prioritize meeting requests. It's easier to land a meeting with a high-quality middleman. And if the middleman sucks, you won't get a meeting.
So, who makes the best introductions? In rough order of effectiveness:
1. Entrepreneurs whom the investor has backed and made money with, wants to back, or is currently backing.
2. Other investors whom the investor has co-invested and made money with, wants to co-invest with, or is currently co-investing with.
3. Market, product, and technology experts such as senior executives at dominant companies or lauded professors.
4. Lawyers, accountants, and sundry industry people like us.
5. Communists.
6. Someone the investor met at a party once.
Use this list to measure a middleman's potential. But the details of a middleman's relationship with investors are more important than this list. So ask your middleman questions like:
"How do you know the investor? What have you done together? What companies have you sent him that he has subsequently backed? What makes our company interesting enough for you to make an introduction?"
This first post from Venture Hacks is based, in part, on an excerpt from the book "Pitching Hacks", available at http://venturehacks.com.
It seems like a fool-proof plan: start up with a close friend. You’ll get along (obviously), and you’ll get to share the exciting, fantastic, scary experience of starting up with someone you care about. It’s not a bad idea, but there are a few caveats that you should be aware of before you proceed1.
When I started my first company with one of my closest friends, I expected things would go very well between us. We understood each other in ways that would take years to build up (and did take 10 years). We knew each other, and we knew we could rely on each other. We were prepared to have many surprises along the way — starting a business is always going to be a scary adventure.
What we weren’t prepared for was that the main problem would come from us and the dynamic between us.
I’m not going to go into all the details of what exactly went wrong, for a number of reasons (among them, it would be a one-sided account and inherently unfair on my friend and first cofounder). The long and short of it is, we had different expectations about the business. I left my safe, comfortable corporate job to work on it, so I needed it to succeed, or else I would find myself back in the corporate world. By contrast, my friend had already started several companies and was comfortably well off, so he didn’t have the same expectations and requirements.
It turned out we have a different definition of “the business isn’t working out”. For me, it was working out if it was making enough money to cover my expenses. For my friend, it wasn’t working out unless it was making enough money to also add to his existing wealth and thus justify the time and effort which he poured into it. Both those views were correct, but because we knew that we understood each other, we didn’t realise that our views were different until that difference had grown into a huge misunderstanding.
This core divergence of views could have been resolved easily if we’d known about it and discussed it ahead of time, but we didn’t know about it, so it festered and turned into dozens of other misunderstandings, so that by the time it finally became clear what our main divergence was, much of the damage was already done and it was entangled in a huge mass of emotional misunderstandings2.
This almost cost us our friendship. We got through this thanks to the help and mediation of another very good friend, who helped us to communicate to each other how we felt, so that we could move forward together rather than against each other.
I’m glad to say the mediation worked, and we’re still friends (perhaps even stronger than before). Nevertheless, I learned some important lessons from this.
The first lesson is to keep agreements explicit. It’s not enough to think that your friend understands what you think: make sure he does by discussing it openly with him. As my mediating friend phrased it, “unspoken promises” have a tendency to turn into broken promises (which are always hard to swallow). Avoid unspoken promises.
Here’s an example of a really bad thing to keep implicit: “We’ll only call it quits if the business is bankrupt and can’t raise any more money.” The promise here is that we’ll keep going until the very end. This may seem obvious to one party in the business, but it may not be so to the other. One partner could, for instance, feel that the time to call it quits is when the business has 3 months of cash flow left. Another may feel that it’s worth going deep into credit card debt territory before giving up.
Don’t make this mistake: keep those agreements explicit.
Once you make some agreements explicit, it should become clear that you need further discussion to figure out exactly what your explicit agreement is. Don’t be afraid to do this. It’s not “too early to discuss this”.
Here’s an explicit agreement that’s not detailed enough: “We want the business to make a lot of money”. Really? How much are you happy with? 10’000 pounds a month? A million? What is the definition of success? It’s almost certain that you and your business partner have different views as to what “a lot of money” is. Being on the same page about what you expect out of your business will ensure that you don’t pull in different directions when things are going well. Think of how mortifying it would be to find out that your partner wants to pull the plug when you think that the business is successful.
There are a number of subjects which seem almost embarrassing to discuss when things are going well. For example, “What if one of us decides to pull out?” Your first reaction to this topic might be “What? We’re barely getting started, and already we’re talking about what happens if one of us pulls out?”
The reality is that people’s life circumstances change through time. They get married, or decide to leave the country, or get engrossed in a different pursuit, etc. Many things can get in between a founder and his start-up. Similarly, many things can go very wrong with a start-up. When those things do go wrong, or when one of the founders decides to pull out, is not the time to discuss these things. You need to discuss them with a clear head when no one is thinking of pulling out and the business looks healthy and hopeful.
When you discuss your start-up’s future, do not be afraid to talk about the disaster scenarios. Also, when you negotiate what will happen if a partner quits, don’t be so sure that it won’t be you.
There are two reasons to write things down: first, people’s memories of conversations are faulty. Writing things down also ensures that there is no disagreement, later, about what was decided. You don’t need a long document for this — even just one or two pages describing your agreement is enough to avoid later misunderstandings.
The second reason is that people may think they have reached an agreement when in reality they never agreed about the details. Once you put something in writing, you give it a certain air of finality that teases out those last remaining disagreement. Basically, putting an agreement in writing is like putting a new piece of functionality in code. Until it exists in that form, it’s just vapour.
Halfway through my misunderstanding with my friend, we thought we’d figured out a way forward. I wasn’t sure that we were both thinking the same thing, so I made the effort to put it in writing, in the form of a business plan. When my friend read it, and understood more clearly what I meant, he recanted, and the agreement fell through. It’s a good thing that it fell through, because it would likely have resulted in even more problems later on if we’d gone through with it based on our flawed understanding of each other.
Yes, I know this is your friend that you’re starting up with, and this is your great opportunity to start your own business. However, if, in those discussions, you find that there’s an intractable disagreement, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the most important thing is to smooth things over and start the business.
Starting up with someone is almost like marrying them (temporarily), in a way. You’ll be talking to them almost everyday, and possibly even more than with your significant other. You’ll be working on a “baby” (your business) for many months. It’s a big commitment, basically, and much like any other kind of significant commitment, you shouldn’t go into it if you think there are major problems, because those problems will only get worse.
It’s easy to rationalise away big problems by assuming that things will get better with time. In some cases, they will, but in a majority of cases, they won’t. What this means, for example, is that you shouldn’t assume that your inexplicably small share of the business will magically grow to 50% later on. This is even less likely to happen if the business is working well (if the business isn’t working out, chances are it doesn’t matter anyway).
This article wouldn’t be complete without a list of questions that you might go through and discuss with your cofounder. Use them as a guideline or as a checklist, as you please.
This is not a final list by any means, but it should at least provide some starting points to make the implicit explicit. If you have other suggestions, please do add them in the comments below.
I don’t regret starting that business with my friend, but I do regret not clarifying those kinds of questions upfront. It would have saved me a lot of worry. If your business is struggling, you don’t need the additional pain of seeing your friendship unraveling under the stress of accumulated misunderstandings.
So, do yourself a favour, and set out to:
I hope this helps others. Your comments below are much welcome.
1 It’s worth adding that this advice can be useful for any kind of adventure, not just business. However, given the propensity of businesses to crank up the pressure to diamond-producing levels, and what can often be at stake, it’s particularly important in this context.
2 Although this sounds like a barely mitigated disaster, I must add that, on the whole, the business was a success (it made money, I learned a lot from it both about myself and about start-ups, and it provided a jumping board from which to start my next business). It wasn’t as much of a success as it might have been, and there were some times when it looked like it might turn into a small disaster, but on the whole it turned out reasonably well.
