Quote Du Jour

I love this quote...it is describes startup-ing and also reminds me of the modern day movie Gladiator.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
-- Teddy Roosevelt

Hat tip to Matt McCall

Brand Attribute #1 Is Always Reliability

In today's competitive world, reliability (synonomous in the software world with quality and robustness) has to be at least a perceived attribute of a product before a customer will contemplate purchase. So you won't sell much if you don't pay the price to build quality.

There are also a number of reasons why it's beneficial for an organization to think about building a reliable product. Off of the top of my head I can think of the following:

1. Quality is the cornerstone of building brand and trust. So it is not just important to get the first product sale, but it is also the beginning of the relationship with each customer. If you want them to buy from you again, they better be impressed the first time.

2. If a customer is pleased, they may evangelize for you, and tell their friends and colleagues. (There are many articles, both academic and anecdotal, about how word of mouth is by far the least expensive and yet also the most effective form of marketing).

3. If a customer is dissatisfied, they will tell the world and cause real damage to your brand.

4. Building an organization to support product problems is expensive. It is a huge time sink, especially to those who are trying to drive the product forward. Refunds and recalls are deadly.

5. If you're spending big time and energy dealing with problems in your current product, you surely can't quickly scale the product.

6. It is extremely fatiguing to an organization to steadily hear negative feedback from customers.

7. Conversely, repeated positive customer feedback is uplifting and energizing and empowering, and can propel the organization to even greater levels. There is little that is more individually empowering than having pride in your work.

8. Life is short. Who wants to spend their time around suckiness? Recruiting into an organization that builds mediocre products gets harder and more expensive, and building a great team becomes next to impossible.

I'm sure there are many other reasons, too - anybody got any?

Wisdom of the Day #2

Success is driven by vision and conviction and not by following directions.
- Furqan Nazeeri, in summarizing what he learned about a characteristic of successful CEO's.

It's a marathon, not a sprint...

Contrary to our society's romanticized vision of an entrepreneur's life, success takes a long time to come (if it ever does). While there are famous counter-examples, in the overwhelming number of cases, success takes years and even decades of hard work.

I post on this topic today because it's a particularly important issue to me, because it's come up quite a bit in the last six months in talking with lots of other entrepreneurs, and because of an article in today's WSJ entitled The Other Tech CEO's Find It's Not Easy To Keep the Faith (subscription required).

Not so many years ago, I myself was sucked into the myth of "work fanatically, to the exclusion of everything else, and you'll strike it rich, and then be able to take it easy". Through the school of hard knocks I have been reformed, and I now realize that the time to live the life I want is now. In Dave Matthews' words, "the future is a terrible place to put your better days." Just to add a fourth cliche-containing sentence to this paragraph, I'll add that I now ascribe to the "the journey is the reward" approach.

I still enjoy being an entrepreneur, and I am still known for a strong work ethic, but I no longer do it to the exclusion of other things in life that are important to me (primarily family, friends and fitness). I aspire to be an entrepreneur for the duration, and, Allah willing, my duration will last for decades. Therefore my tenure as an entrepreneur has to coexist with my other life goals, as opposed to temporarily supplanting them.

Work-life balance is an extremely common challenge for passionate entrepreneurs. I've known quite a few entrepreneurs, and the vast majority struggle with this. It is extremely difficult to master the balance between an entrepreneur's passion to change the world, his responsibilities to the various constituencies of his company, and his other life goals and passions.

I've heard some say that it's not possible to have a balanced life while being CEO of a startup, and I've heard others say that balance leads to better (and longer-lasting) stewardship of a startup. I'm out to be a poster child for the latter.

Commensurate with the importance and difficulty of mastering this issue, I think about it often. I would enjoy your comments and perspectives.

PS - I think that I first heard phrase "it's a marathon, not a sprint" applied to entrepreneurialism and startups by Terry Gold. Thanks Terry!