opinion editorial in NYTimes
this article speaks about Bebo's recent acquisition by AOL and temptation #3.
Monday, March 24, 2008
lasermonks
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/03/24/moneytales.DTL
They've been around for a long time, but I find their business entirely wonderful and amazing - creating value for everyone involved. If all business was only this lucrative!
They've been around for a long time, but I find their business entirely wonderful and amazing - creating value for everyone involved. If all business was only this lucrative!
Saturday, March 22, 2008
temptations with social networks
I've blogged about things before, and on this day before Easter, one of my readings pointed out to me an important aspect of human life - temptation.
----
Temptation is out there, but weathering it and making correct choices at every fork in the road not only gives you the ability to sleep well, it also exposes your character.
I have a great deal of respect for Craigslist, they have created a site of extreme value, ensuring that the value exists to their users, not shareholders. They pull a moderate (ok, savage) salary from charging people who already would have paid more at other venues, and yet maintain an air of freedom and community that is hard to match in any other network.
They've faced temptation, and stuck to their guns, which I guess is what being ethical is all about.
I'm not here to debate morality, but I am here to talk about ethics.
To me ethics are rules that are chosen and determined by ones person, or codified in some sort of document as they pertain to a business (usually either in the mission statement or in some training document).
When it comes to temptations with social networks, we are faced with contrasting desires.
On one hand, the size of an social network can frequently determine its usefulness to its users. For every user past the first, the social network increases in value for each user at first with an exponential rate, then trailing off to flattening to a modicum, along an "S" curve. This is typically because the addition of close friends is more valuable than the addition of unknowns, and on the average the amount of utility that a friend brings will always be higher than a stranger - issues of trust and authority taken into account.
The temptation is that while growing this network as quick as possible, there are various shortcuts you may take.
First off is involuntarily adding people to your network. Several sites do this, I've blogged about them and you can find info about them on google.
The benefits of simply scanning the internet for user profiles, taking them, parsing and then adding them to your database is simple- you get users regardless of whether or not they want to join your service. The con is that they did not agree, and frequently will find your solicitation annoying to say the least. So you simply don't tell them.
What does this strategy get you?
It gets you information but not 'heart'. And 'heart' is what I believe makes a social network worth belonging to. Simply scanning through the intarweb and picking up users' data does not sum up to any sort of 'heart' in the information at all. 'heart' is what causes your users to invite their friends, 'heart' is what gives them empowerment to help police and shape their own network, 'heart' is what makes a social network a home for its users, and not for the corporation running it. The moment anyone gets any idea that they are being used for something, they will cease to give any 'heart' and pull back, as well as forget why they came and blow your popsicle stand.
The book I was reading gave this example to me: After the Chernobyl aftermath, the Russian government called upon citizens of the USSR to donate to the children of the families affected by the disaster. It was like pulling teeth, because you cannot legislate generosity. In the same way as the US attempts to legislate morality, you cannot cause people to care about contributing to your developing community of you just add them. Leading your users to water does not make them drink.
Another temptation is to incentivize people to join your network - giving them a reason to sign up that does not exist in your value proposition. This is akin to hiring employees that will work for you purely because of the salary.
And as anyone who knows the attitude of that type of person (I can, having been that type of person) you show up and do exactly as you're told, no more, no less. There is no such thing as the extra mile, there is no pride in your work, no need to innovate or show off, just everything cut and dry, grab the paycheck and get out of there.
And that's the type of users you'll have in your community - if they stay. More than likely they'll bounce and take off once they realize their probability of getting the reward, the door-prize, or the max user accounts they could have created is gone. You'll get a flood of users at the beginning - expanding at a dizzying pace, then all of a sudden, your sign up rates will floor and trickle.
Your users will not contribute, they'll only send emails to friends to join so they can possibly get in on the loot, and once that is up, you'll have a bunch of junk throwaway emails and no user participation.
Temptation 3: Selling what was given to you freely
Let's face it, as the operators of social networks, we're given tremendous amounts of data, in trust between owners of a site and those that reside on it- when you give me your data, you know that I will have it, but hope that I won't use it to do anything funny.
This temptation exists after "hitting it big", which is to use that information in a way that either invades your privacy, or allows me to monetize off the data unfairly.
Sites that I've seen this happen - have started out as cool, fun and easy to use sites that provide use and value to the residents as well as visitors. Then all of a sudden the word "monetize" enters their brains and they somehow feel justified in reaping the rewards owed to the hard workers who made their site so rich with information to begin with.
Let's face it, as the operators of social networks, we're given tremendous amounts of data, in trust between owners of a site and those that reside on it- when you give me your data, you know that I will have it, but hope that I won't use it to do anything funny.
This temptation exists after "hitting it big", which is to use that information in a way that either invades your privacy, or allows me to monetize off the data unfairly.
Sites that I've seen this happen - have started out as cool, fun and easy to use sites that provide use and value to the residents as well as visitors. Then all of a sudden the word "monetize" enters their brains and they somehow feel justified in reaping the rewards owed to the hard workers who made their site so rich with information to begin with.
----
Temptation is out there, but weathering it and making correct choices at every fork in the road not only gives you the ability to sleep well, it also exposes your character.
I have a great deal of respect for Craigslist, they have created a site of extreme value, ensuring that the value exists to their users, not shareholders. They pull a moderate (ok, savage) salary from charging people who already would have paid more at other venues, and yet maintain an air of freedom and community that is hard to match in any other network.
They've faced temptation, and stuck to their guns, which I guess is what being ethical is all about.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
a very exciting time
My faithful beta testers out there have been giving the site a good smashing, and hopefully our efforts will produce a site worthy of KaZuum users everywhere.
I'm trying to keep a strong rein on my imagination, there's so many functions and "cool stuff" that I want to add to the site, but know that there's a line where it stops being cool and just becomes bloated.
I really do believe that this site has the opportunity to really push everyones' social networks into a new level of usefulness - and my first tests are of course my parents. If my mom can use it and find it useful, then I know that I'm at least headed in the right direction.
But this is the part I love about being in a startup - running on 3 hours of sleep, waking up before your alarm clock because you don't want to let go of the code process that you're holding on to. In the stillness between bug squashing discovering more interesting and cool uses for your work, and recognizing there is nothing but time and my limited typing speed (~100wpm) standing between me and that idea coming to life.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!
On my 3rd cup of coffee this morning, trying to switch to splenda.
-regards
&lex
I'm trying to keep a strong rein on my imagination, there's so many functions and "cool stuff" that I want to add to the site, but know that there's a line where it stops being cool and just becomes bloated.
I really do believe that this site has the opportunity to really push everyones' social networks into a new level of usefulness - and my first tests are of course my parents. If my mom can use it and find it useful, then I know that I'm at least headed in the right direction.
But this is the part I love about being in a startup - running on 3 hours of sleep, waking up before your alarm clock because you don't want to let go of the code process that you're holding on to. In the stillness between bug squashing discovering more interesting and cool uses for your work, and recognizing there is nothing but time and my limited typing speed (~100wpm) standing between me and that idea coming to life.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!
On my 3rd cup of coffee this morning, trying to switch to splenda.
-regards
&lex
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
commentary on Calacanis and Cuban
http://www.calacanis.com/2008/03/07/how-to-save-money-running-a-startup-17-really-good-tips
Buy Macintosh computers, save money on an IT department
- repurpose your old computers and run linux.
Buy second monitors for everyone, they will save at least 30 minutes a day, which is 100 hours a year... which is at least $2,000 a year.... which is $6,000 over three years. A second monitor cost $300-500 depending on which one you get. That means you're getting 10-20x return on your investment... and you've got a happy team member.
- good advice, i can attest to using dual monitors adding leagues of productivity - if it's excel spreadsheets across monitors or code/trace/webpage across the board.
Buy everyone lunch four days a week and establish a no-meetings policy. Going out for food or ording in takes at least 20-60 minutes more than walking up to the buffet and eating. If you do meetings over lunch you also save that time. So, 30 minutes a day across say four days a week is two hours a week... which is 100 hours a year. You get the idea.
-yeah definitely no need to have meetings - you should be in a semi-meeting - always synched anyways
Buy cheap tables and expensive chairs. Tables are a complete rip off. We buy stainless steel restaurant tables that are $100 and $600 Areon chairs. Total cost per workstation? $700. Compare that to buying a $500-$1,500 cube/designer workstation. The chair is the only thing that matters... invest in it.
-amen - in our case it's a dining table. good chairs a must- they take emphasis off your discomfort and allow emphasis on getting stuff done.
Don't buy a phone system. No one will use it. No one at Mahalo has a desk phone except the admin folks. Everyone else is on IRC, chat, and their cell phone. Everyone has a cell phone, folks would rather get calls on it, and 99% of communication is NOT on the phone. Savings? At least $500 a year per person... 50 people over three years? $75-100k
- phone systems are so 1980.
Rent out your extra space. Many folks have extra space in their office. If you rent 5-10 desks for $500 each you can cut your burn $2,500 to $5,000 a month, or $30-60,000 a year. That's big money.
- work out of my house - so the wife might be pissed at this one.
Outsource accounting and HR---such a no brainer.
- if you're too busy working at real value creating business opportunities, you won't have time anyways.
Don't buy everyone Microsoft Office--it's too much money. Put Office on three or four common computers and use Google Docs.
- YARP thank you google.
Use Google hosted email. $50 or free per user.... how can you beat that?!?! Why screw with an exchange server!?!?
- Free is yum!
Buy your hardest working folks computers for home. If you have folks who are willing to work an extra hour a day a week you should get them a computer for home. Once you get to three hours of work a week from home you're at 150 hours a year and that's a no brainer. Invest in equipment *if* the person is a workaholic.
- laptop = computer from work and from home, with codebase on it is another way to subtly say "you have your code in front of you, and you can't sleep at 5am. shouldn't you be working?" But handing out free laptops to people is just a dumb idea too- they should be a badge of honor for those who have productivity patterns you want to encourage others to aspire to.
Fire people who are not workaholics. don't love their work... come on folks, this is startup life, it's not a game. don't work at a startup if you're not into it--go work at the post office or stabucks if you're not into it you want balance in your life. For realz.
-this note got a lot of flak on techcrunch, but it's definitely true. Jesus didn't spend half of his last 3 years twiddling His thumbs - He was out pounding the pavement till the day they hung Him up. This is your life's passion, if it's not then why are you doing it? If you're not waking up to do this every day of your life then why are you doing it? If you just want to be in it for the money, go work for Microsoft (gasp) or GE or something.
Get an expensive, automatic espresso machine at the office. Going to starbucks twice a day cost $4 each time, but more importantly it costs 20 minutes. Buy a $3-5,000 Jura industrial, get the good beans, and supply the coffee room with soy, low fat, etc. 50 people making one trip a day is 20 hours of wasted time for the company, and $150 in coffee costs for the employees. Makes no sense.
- yeah that is a bit out of our price range, but this makes sense. Me- I just work at mcdonalds - free refills, GoogleWifi.
Stock the fridge with sodas---same drill as above.
- costco.
Allow folks to work off hours. Commuting sucks and is a waste of time for everyone. Let folks start at 6am or 11am and you'll cut their commute in half (at least in LA).
- allowing them to work off hours lets you work off hours too.
Go to each of your vendors every 6-9 months and ask for 10-30% off. If half of them say yes you'll save 5-15% on fixed costs. People will give you a discount if they think they are going to lose the business.
- vendors? what vendors? everything's free! well except hosting.
Don't waste money on recruiters. Get inside of linkedin and Facebook and start looking for people--it works better anyway.
- if you have to ask someone to join your company and pay them to join, they're probably in the wrong spot to begin with.
Really think about if you need that $15,000 a month PR firm. Perhaps you can get a PR consultant to work on 2-3 projects a year for $10-15k each and save 75%. More PR firms are wasted half the year while you build up your product anyway.{I'm going to add a couple more of mine as I remember them }
- not at this stage, but will remember this advice.
Outsource to middle America: There are tons of brilliant people living between San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York who don't live in a $4,000 one bedroom apartment and pay $8 to dry clean a shirt--hire them!
- dont' know anyone there, but will keep an eye open.
-------------------------------------------
http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/03/09/my-rules-for-startups/
1. Don't start a company unless its an obsession and something you love.
- this goes back to the Jesus point. If you're not all in, willing to lay your life down for it, then you shouldn't be doing it, and you owe yourself, your family, and friends and relationships you'll be sacrificing for this venture to make darn sure you're all in, bought and sold out for this idea.
2. If you have an exit strategy, its not an obsession.
- never thought about this, but it seems to make sense. KaZuum is definitely one of those things I want to work on for the rest of my life.
3. Hire people who you think will love working there.
- Ah but how to tell if they will love working here?
4. Sales Cures All. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales.
- sales is the STFU for anyone who has questions about marketing plans.
5. Know your core competencies and focus on being great at them. Pay up for people in your core competencies. Get the best. Outside the core competencies, hire people that fit your culture but are cheap
- here's a hint - ours is not web design.
6. An expresso machine ? Are you kidding me ? Shoot yourself before you spend money on an expresso machine. Coffee is for closers. Sodas are free. Lunch is a chance to get out of the office and talk. There are 24 hours in a day, and if people like their jobs, they will find ways to use as much of it as possible to do their jobs.
- I disagree on this one- one cup of coffee is like 3 of soda. Coffee stains your teeth, soda eats them away. Plus saying "i'll buy you a cup of coffee" and walking over to the machine sounds so much better than "I'll buy you a soda". Lunch is a perfect time for people to get together and eat and hang out and talk about work.
7. No offices. Open offices keeps everyone in tune with what is going on and keeps the energy up. If an employee is about privacy, show them how to use the lock on the john. There is nothing private in a start up. This is also a good way to keep from hiring execs who can not operate successfully in a startup. My biggest fear was always hiring someone who wanted to build an empire. If the person demands to fly first class or to bring over their secretary, run away. If an exec wont go on salescalls, run away. They are empire builders and will pollute your company.
- yeah agreed - if you're here to build an empire, go DIAF.
8. As far as technology, go with what you know. That is always the cheapest way. If you know Apple, use it. If you know Vista... ask yourself why, then use it. Its a startup, there are just a few employees. Let people use what they know.
- actually you should hire people who are firmly rooted in their own technologies - forcing them to play together is something any deeply religious OSX / linux / windows / BeOS person would know how to do anyways. And if you're using distributed apps like googleapps or smb or ftp even then you don't have to worry.
9. Keep the organization flat. If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail. Once you get beyond startup, if you have managers reporting to managers, you will create politics.
- middle management is the heel that stamps on the neck of your startup. You're either doing work or you're dead weight. There's no one that should be "making sure it gets done", only "making it done".
10. NEVER EVER EVER buy swag. A sure sign of failure for a startup is when someone sends me logo polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public, its ok to buy for your own folks, but if you really think someone is going to wear your Yobaby.com polo you sent them in public, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money
- Personally I think you should get swag depending on your business and target audience. Like graffiti is cool- skateboarder stickers, pens, and of course, an orange elephant with a Kz logo.
11. NEVER EVER EVER hire a PR firm. A PR firm will call or email people in the publications, shows and websites you already watch, listen to and read. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them an email introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communications with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you.
- yes yes heard you guys the first time
12. Make the job fun for employees. Keep a pulse on the stress levels and accomplishments of your people and reward them. My first company, MicroSolutions, when we had a record sales month, or someone did something special, I would walk around handing out 100 dollar bills to salespeople. At Broadcast.com and MicroSolutions, we had a company shot. Kamikaze. We would take people to a bar every now and then and buy one or 10 for everyone. At MicroSolutions, more often than not we had vendors cover the tab. Vendors always love a good party :0
- this is a really hard task but really important - if you don't validate peoples' hard work, reward them in obvious and visible ways, it can really crimp your morale. When people are always charging up the hill, you have to let them take in the view.
thanks guys for the inspiring advice. now back to work, you scalawags!
Buy Macintosh computers, save money on an IT department
- repurpose your old computers and run linux.
Buy second monitors for everyone, they will save at least 30 minutes a day, which is 100 hours a year... which is at least $2,000 a year.... which is $6,000 over three years. A second monitor cost $300-500 depending on which one you get. That means you're getting 10-20x return on your investment... and you've got a happy team member.
- good advice, i can attest to using dual monitors adding leagues of productivity - if it's excel spreadsheets across monitors or code/trace/webpage across the board.
Buy everyone lunch four days a week and establish a no-meetings policy. Going out for food or ording in takes at least 20-60 minutes more than walking up to the buffet and eating. If you do meetings over lunch you also save that time. So, 30 minutes a day across say four days a week is two hours a week... which is 100 hours a year. You get the idea.
-yeah definitely no need to have meetings - you should be in a semi-meeting - always synched anyways
Buy cheap tables and expensive chairs. Tables are a complete rip off. We buy stainless steel restaurant tables that are $100 and $600 Areon chairs. Total cost per workstation? $700. Compare that to buying a $500-$1,500 cube/designer workstation. The chair is the only thing that matters... invest in it.
-amen - in our case it's a dining table. good chairs a must- they take emphasis off your discomfort and allow emphasis on getting stuff done.
Don't buy a phone system. No one will use it. No one at Mahalo has a desk phone except the admin folks. Everyone else is on IRC, chat, and their cell phone. Everyone has a cell phone, folks would rather get calls on it, and 99% of communication is NOT on the phone. Savings? At least $500 a year per person... 50 people over three years? $75-100k
- phone systems are so 1980.
Rent out your extra space. Many folks have extra space in their office. If you rent 5-10 desks for $500 each you can cut your burn $2,500 to $5,000 a month, or $30-60,000 a year. That's big money.
- work out of my house - so the wife might be pissed at this one.
Outsource accounting and HR---such a no brainer.
- if you're too busy working at real value creating business opportunities, you won't have time anyways.
Don't buy everyone Microsoft Office--it's too much money. Put Office on three or four common computers and use Google Docs.
- YARP thank you google.
Use Google hosted email. $50 or free per user.... how can you beat that?!?! Why screw with an exchange server!?!?
- Free is yum!
Buy your hardest working folks computers for home. If you have folks who are willing to work an extra hour a day a week you should get them a computer for home. Once you get to three hours of work a week from home you're at 150 hours a year and that's a no brainer. Invest in equipment *if* the person is a workaholic.
- laptop = computer from work and from home, with codebase on it is another way to subtly say "you have your code in front of you, and you can't sleep at 5am. shouldn't you be working?" But handing out free laptops to people is just a dumb idea too- they should be a badge of honor for those who have productivity patterns you want to encourage others to aspire to.
Fire people who are not workaholics. don't love their work... come on folks, this is startup life, it's not a game. don't work at a startup if you're not into it--go work at the post office or stabucks if you're not into it you want balance in your life. For realz.
-this note got a lot of flak on techcrunch, but it's definitely true. Jesus didn't spend half of his last 3 years twiddling His thumbs - He was out pounding the pavement till the day they hung Him up. This is your life's passion, if it's not then why are you doing it? If you're not waking up to do this every day of your life then why are you doing it? If you just want to be in it for the money, go work for Microsoft (gasp) or GE or something.
Get an expensive, automatic espresso machine at the office. Going to starbucks twice a day cost $4 each time, but more importantly it costs 20 minutes. Buy a $3-5,000 Jura industrial, get the good beans, and supply the coffee room with soy, low fat, etc. 50 people making one trip a day is 20 hours of wasted time for the company, and $150 in coffee costs for the employees. Makes no sense.
- yeah that is a bit out of our price range, but this makes sense. Me- I just work at mcdonalds - free refills, GoogleWifi.
Stock the fridge with sodas---same drill as above.
- costco.
Allow folks to work off hours. Commuting sucks and is a waste of time for everyone. Let folks start at 6am or 11am and you'll cut their commute in half (at least in LA).
- allowing them to work off hours lets you work off hours too.
Go to each of your vendors every 6-9 months and ask for 10-30% off. If half of them say yes you'll save 5-15% on fixed costs. People will give you a discount if they think they are going to lose the business.
- vendors? what vendors? everything's free! well except hosting.
Don't waste money on recruiters. Get inside of linkedin and Facebook and start looking for people--it works better anyway.
- if you have to ask someone to join your company and pay them to join, they're probably in the wrong spot to begin with.
Really think about if you need that $15,000 a month PR firm. Perhaps you can get a PR consultant to work on 2-3 projects a year for $10-15k each and save 75%. More PR firms are wasted half the year while you build up your product anyway.{I'm going to add a couple more of mine as I remember them }
- not at this stage, but will remember this advice.
Outsource to middle America: There are tons of brilliant people living between San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York who don't live in a $4,000 one bedroom apartment and pay $8 to dry clean a shirt--hire them!
- dont' know anyone there, but will keep an eye open.
-------------------------------------------
http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/03/09/my-rules-for-startups/
1. Don't start a company unless its an obsession and something you love.
- this goes back to the Jesus point. If you're not all in, willing to lay your life down for it, then you shouldn't be doing it, and you owe yourself, your family, and friends and relationships you'll be sacrificing for this venture to make darn sure you're all in, bought and sold out for this idea.
2. If you have an exit strategy, its not an obsession.
- never thought about this, but it seems to make sense. KaZuum is definitely one of those things I want to work on for the rest of my life.
3. Hire people who you think will love working there.
- Ah but how to tell if they will love working here?
4. Sales Cures All. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales.
- sales is the STFU for anyone who has questions about marketing plans.
5. Know your core competencies and focus on being great at them. Pay up for people in your core competencies. Get the best. Outside the core competencies, hire people that fit your culture but are cheap
- here's a hint - ours is not web design.
6. An expresso machine ? Are you kidding me ? Shoot yourself before you spend money on an expresso machine. Coffee is for closers. Sodas are free. Lunch is a chance to get out of the office and talk. There are 24 hours in a day, and if people like their jobs, they will find ways to use as much of it as possible to do their jobs.
- I disagree on this one- one cup of coffee is like 3 of soda. Coffee stains your teeth, soda eats them away. Plus saying "i'll buy you a cup of coffee" and walking over to the machine sounds so much better than "I'll buy you a soda". Lunch is a perfect time for people to get together and eat and hang out and talk about work.
7. No offices. Open offices keeps everyone in tune with what is going on and keeps the energy up. If an employee is about privacy, show them how to use the lock on the john. There is nothing private in a start up. This is also a good way to keep from hiring execs who can not operate successfully in a startup. My biggest fear was always hiring someone who wanted to build an empire. If the person demands to fly first class or to bring over their secretary, run away. If an exec wont go on salescalls, run away. They are empire builders and will pollute your company.
- yeah agreed - if you're here to build an empire, go DIAF.
8. As far as technology, go with what you know. That is always the cheapest way. If you know Apple, use it. If you know Vista... ask yourself why, then use it. Its a startup, there are just a few employees. Let people use what they know.
- actually you should hire people who are firmly rooted in their own technologies - forcing them to play together is something any deeply religious OSX / linux / windows / BeOS person would know how to do anyways. And if you're using distributed apps like googleapps or smb or ftp even then you don't have to worry.
9. Keep the organization flat. If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail. Once you get beyond startup, if you have managers reporting to managers, you will create politics.
- middle management is the heel that stamps on the neck of your startup. You're either doing work or you're dead weight. There's no one that should be "making sure it gets done", only "making it done".
10. NEVER EVER EVER buy swag. A sure sign of failure for a startup is when someone sends me logo polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public, its ok to buy for your own folks, but if you really think someone is going to wear your Yobaby.com polo you sent them in public, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money
- Personally I think you should get swag depending on your business and target audience. Like graffiti is cool- skateboarder stickers, pens, and of course, an orange elephant with a Kz logo.
11. NEVER EVER EVER hire a PR firm. A PR firm will call or email people in the publications, shows and websites you already watch, listen to and read. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them an email introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communications with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you.
- yes yes heard you guys the first time
12. Make the job fun for employees. Keep a pulse on the stress levels and accomplishments of your people and reward them. My first company, MicroSolutions, when we had a record sales month, or someone did something special, I would walk around handing out 100 dollar bills to salespeople. At Broadcast.com and MicroSolutions, we had a company shot. Kamikaze. We would take people to a bar every now and then and buy one or 10 for everyone. At MicroSolutions, more often than not we had vendors cover the tab. Vendors always love a good party :0
- this is a really hard task but really important - if you don't validate peoples' hard work, reward them in obvious and visible ways, it can really crimp your morale. When people are always charging up the hill, you have to let them take in the view.
thanks guys for the inspiring advice. now back to work, you scalawags!
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