I hope you saw that Foundry released our latest video last week โ Bored Meeting. At the time Iโm writing this more than 100,000 of you have, which is pretty exciting. Bored Meeting follows on the heels of two prior efforts โ Iโm a VC and Worst of Times. Iโm fortunate to have a really talented partner in Jason Mendelson who writes, performs all the instrumentation for, mixes, edits and produces these songs and videos. Itโs a labor of love for all of us โ an attempt to bring a little personality and humor to a business that often lacks both. The process is a blast โ from recording the song in Jasonโs basement studio to working on costumes toโฆ
Posts By / seth levine
Focusing on Actions, not Results
I just had a conversation with an entrepreneur Iโve worked with for decades that resulted in an insight that I thought was worth sharing more broadly. We were talking about managing teams and in this case the challenge of getting some of his exec team focused on broader goals and the end result weโre driving for in the upcoming year (a big growth year for this business). The solution we outlined was to focus on actions (concrete, clear, definable) vs. the more vague set of results that we had been trying to align everyone around. Weโre still driving to the same outcomes but the leap was too large in a couple of cases for people to get their hands aroundโฆ.
BREAK THE INTERNET TO SAVE NET NEUTRALITY
We have just hours. The FCC is about to vote to end net neutralityโbreaking the fundamental principle of the open Internetโand only an avalanche of calls to Congress can stop it. So we decided to help โBreak the Internetโ on our sites. You can also support on Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube or in whatever wild creative way you can to get your audience to contact Congress. Thatโs how we win. Are you in? More info here.
How Startups Actually Grow
Weโve all seen the growth curve on the left โ all successful startups strive for a version of one. But in reality, the notion of a smooth growth curve actually masks how most successful companies truly grow. Our experience at Foundry suggests that if you blow up the growth curve youโll find that companies grow linearly and that what creates the log curve is a series of small changes that either change the slope of the growth (itโs still linear, but now growing faster) or that โjumpโ the growth curve up (growing at the same rate but now from a high base). Examples of things that fit in the first category are changes in sales efficiency, successfully adding to theโฆ
Friday Fun #3
Grumpy Cat always makes me laugh.
Vote FOR a renewable energy future by voting AGAINST the Boulder muni
Iโm really frustrated with the way many from the the pro-muni block in Boulder have misappropriated the idea that being for municipalizing our local utility infrastructure (condemning the Xcelโs local grid and forming a city-owned and operated electric utility) is the only way to move Boulder towards the goal of 100% renewable energy. Theyโre trying to co-opt the idea that a vote against muni is a vote for fossil fuels and a vote for it is a vote for renewables. I couldnโt disagree with this line of thinking more. In fact I think the opposite is true โ a vote to continue the Boulder muni effort is the wrong way to go about pursuing the goal of lessening our dependence onโฆ
Is your sales problem really a product problem?
Not suprisingly when companies are having issues in sales they look to their sales or and sales leadership for the source of the problem. In the cliche example (but one which happens all the time) sales will loop in marketing (โweโre not getting enough leadsโ, โthe leads arenโt high quality enoughโ). But typically product is left out of this mix. To be clear, there are plenty of sales related issues that are directly attributable to poor sales processes, bad training of sales resources, poor time management, etc. But often overlooked is the role product plays in sales challenges. Iโm not writing this to offer a ready made excuse for sales teams that arenโt executing but as a reminder to executiveโฆ
The Feature -> Product -> Company Continuum
Iโve been thinking about the continuum between a feature, product and company a lot recently. Specifically the challenge that companies have as they move across this continuum, how rare that last category really is, and the combination of product idea and market potential that is required for companies to actually make it to Company status. Most companies begin life somewhere between a feature and a product. Theyโre started by an entrepreneur trying to solve some problem that s/he finds compelling and generally that problem is a feature of some larger set of problems. At this stage most entrepreneurs are given the advice to โfocusโ. Itโs good advice (and advice I give all the time) but does sometimes perpetuate the feature-nessโฆ
Friday Fun #2
Beware of Lotters. And guys with guns who canโt spell.
Friday Fun โ #1
The world needs more humor (or at least I do). Iโll be posting some here every Friday. Enjoy! Todayโs #FridayFun is one of my favorite all time SNL skits. More Cowbell โ Saturday Night Live! from Robert J. Lunte on Vimeo.