These tips are from a recent NWEN breakfast talk by Ben Elowitz. Ben’s currently the founder & CEO of Wetpaint, a wiki company based here in Seattle, and was responsible for much of the success of Blue Nile and Fatbrain (I used to love that site). If you can’t learn something from what he’s got to share, you’re probably in the wrong business.

Here’s the list, adapted from memory:

• What gets you hot and bothered? Consumer or enterprise? Products or services? Profit-driven or world-changing? Everyone’s got their own preferences – just know what gets you going before jumping into a new idea, or you may run out of passion before you get to the finish line.
• Find a good sherpa. You wouldn’t climb Everest without finding the best sherpa possible, why start a business without doing the same? Pick someone who’s got a ton of experience, loves mentoring new entrepreneurs, and has the connections to help you move your business forward. This person doesn’t have to actually be an entrepreneur.
• Think leverage. Selling and shipping heavy books (Fatbrain) for tens of dollars per order was tough, and took lots of people. Selling and shipping tiny diamonds (Blue Nile) for thousands per order, with a smaller team? Brilliant. Think about how to build your business to apply maximum leverage with your limited resources (money, people, time). This is something Justin and I think about all the time with Menuism.
• Relationships and references matter. There are countless options for service providers for your business. When picking someone you may have to lean on, remember your relationships, and get lots of references. You don’t want your support network to fail you at the worst possible time.
• Bigger isn’t better. Big teams are great for powering through the initial “build it fast” phase, but then what are they gonna do (besides burn through your cash)? Stay lean and mean, and hire only when it’s painful not to.
• Be deliberate. Like it or not, your company will take on your personality, so think carefully about what image you want to project. Cost-conscious? Workaholic? Alcoholic? Your pick – just be ready for the consequences.
• Nothing’s bold when everything’s bold. You’re not trying to be everything to everyone, so figure out your differentiator. It doesn’t have to be some crazy new technology – just pick the one thing that you’re gonna do better than anyone else in your market.

Thoughts? Got your own list of tips/advice? Let us know in the comments.

-john

• Company Kool-Aid (WebNote): The tagline, motto, mantra. How does the company do business and what attitude should employees take? There are often banners or signs posted in the hallways or on the walls reminding you how to act.
• Current Goals (WebNote): As a team, there are often short-term goals that the team is trying to rally towards and these are also posted.
• Project Schedules (To Do List, iCal calendar import): There’s nothing more motivational that publicly posted schedules. They keep people accountable and keep people on track. I’ve seen giant Project Plans printed and posted on walls.
• Team Roles (WebNote): It helps to know who to go to and who’s responsible for what. A simple list will do.
• Processes (WebNote): Are there certain protocols people should remember? Or a daily routine that should be followed?
• Suggestions (WebNote): How can we make our product better or make the working conditions better? An informal way to note suggestions helps get discussions going.
• Company/Industry News (RSS feed import, Serph RSS feed import, Technorati Blog Search, Web Search): In the breakroom you’ll often see related news printed and posted. It’s a great way to keep people informed of how the company is being perceived and make them feel like their work is making an impact. You can also use it to keep up on the competition.
• Progress (Alexa traffic graph, WebNote for manual notes): The team wants to know if it’s hitting the goals and gaining market share. Keep them informed to keep them motivated.
• Helpful Tools/Tips (Shared Del.icio.us bookmarks import): Some companies do informal roundtables or “coffee talks” where people can share tools or techniques that are helping them on the job.

Just setup a shared NetVibes account and have everyone set it to the browser home page. Then when everyone starts their browsing in the morning, they can also easily mentally sync up on what’s going on in your virtual company. We group things into 3 panes:

For more tips on using NetVibes, Mashable has a post on making it a personal office.

Anyone still in an office or remember what other things kept the team synchronized?

- Justin

In preparation for these and future promotional activities, we designed a sleek, black business card that could be used to promote Menuism and also be useful for the recipient, with a nifty tip chart on the back. We chose Vistaprint to print our cards, and in typical Two-Bit Operation fashion we procrastinated until the last minute and had to opt for the rush shipping. To our surprise, Christmas came early this year, and our big card order arrived today! We rabidly tore apart the packaging and found the following:

It wasn’t bad, but it definitely wasn’t as sleek nor as black as we had hoped. What’s even odder was the backside color was a different shade than the front, though our original images were both jet black. (Vistaprint will be hearing from us…) Who knew that gray was the new black? Regardless, we’re satisfied that the cards are at lease usable – we hope people like and use the tip chart. Got any suggestions for the next batch of cards? What other interesting things have you seen on business cards?

-John

p.s. If you want to help spread the word about Menuism, or just need a useful tip chart in your wallet, let us know – we’ll send you some cards!

• Track news clippings and blog posts about all the competitors in a project
• Get a username/password protected RSS feed of the news (this gave me an error when I tried it but I’m sure it’ll get fixed soon)
• Create features and feature groups and view how all the competitors stack up on a big competitive matrix
• View basic traffic data and stats from alexa for each and compare them graphically (via alexaholic)
• Collaborate through commenting and "clipping" news stories into comments

If you’re curious, like Menuism, it’s built on Ruby on Rails.  Check it out.

- Justin

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1. Drink coffee
2. Take 15 min nap right away
3. Be productive!

This combination is supposed to provide a longer period of alertness than the coffee alone.  The caffeine supposedly clears the body of the "sleepy chemicals" and then the combination of waking up and the caffeine kicking in really gets you going.

I did it a little wrong (2 cups of coffee over 30 min of browsing, then slept for 30 min) but it seems to work.  I’m much more awake than I was a couple hours ago or any other morning for that matter.

Any thoughts? Anyone else willing to try?

- JC

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Pros:

• Traveling can be an interesting mental exercise to train yourself to adapt to change (and everyone knows that adapting to change is good…).  It forces you to break or adapt your regular routine and constantly encounter new things and scenarios.
• It’s a great way to keep networking in different locations.
• You get to visit with friends and family.
• It breaks the monotony of working at home.
• You get a lot of work and reading done.  Once you start realizing how productive you can be at the airport, you’ll start wanting to go early.  I think it’s good that most airports don’t have free wi-fi since it forces me to work offline.
• Even a working trip can be a mini-vacation.

Cons:

• Change can be mentally draining.
• Too much travel can just make you feel dirty and blah.  It usually takes me a day or two to recover.  In some cases you may come down with pneumonia.
• Sleeping can be difficult with changing sleep environments and times – ranging from different beds to couches to sleeping at 6am.
• Without a car, local travel becomes it’s own planning activity.
• Too much eating out.

Some Tips on Southwest:

• I think Southwest is one of the better ways to fly.  The A-B-C seating priority lines used to be annoying for those of us with carry-on luggage, but now that pretty much everyone has to check-in their bags (because of the liquid restriction), the open seating is nice since you don’t need to find a seat with overhead space.  If you get A seating you have a pretty good shot at getting that emergency row.
• You better check-in online beforehand (24 hours ahead) at southwest.com.  Even if you don’t have a printer, just check-in then go to any of the kiosks at the airport and print out your boarding pass.  Checking in early is the only way to guarantee a decent seating priority.
• Southwest is great for flexible travel.  It’s generally the same price to buy each leg individually or part of a larger round trip and any leg you don’t fly automatically turns into credit.  Keep the confirmation code and next time you fly you can apply that flight credit to your next ticket. 

General Travel Tips:

• Get some good headphones. I’ve got the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro.  Foldable, good sound and you’ll barely hear the engine noise or crying babies.  I love it.
• Fall sleep before take off and before landing if you those transitions make you nauseous. 
• 24-hour fitness membership is a great way to have a consistent place to workout.
• Get a good laptop backpack with easy laptop access for the security checkpoint.
• Don’t wear a belt.  Wear shoes that are easy to take off and put on.  Wear socks.

Got any other tips or observations to share?

- JC

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It took time, but I came to see that networking wasn’t dirty or fake.  At a basic level it’s simply a force multiplier, amplifying the effects and opportunities that come from one’s work.  Still, it was tough to change my habits from what the had become.  Perhaps it was because I was still working with in the same group, or perhaps it was a function of the culture I was raised in, or maybe it was one of a myriad of other factors.  Isn’t it always easier to blame anything and everything but yourself?

Complacency sneaks up easily in a stable corporate job, which is one of the reasons Justin and I decided to take the sink-or-swim approach of doing our own thing.  Having been at it for a couple months now, I’m well on the road to being a convert – networking is important in a corporation but almost life-and-death for a startup.  Even with our limited networks we’ve been able to find fantastic contacts and resources to help our business.  One thing that’s helped my conversion has been discovering two networks of local entrepreneurs in similar positions as myself:

• Biznik is a small business networking group that was started here in Seattle, partly as a reaction to existing business networking associations that were stuffy and what I’d call "fake".  Members host all kinds of interesting and informative events.  I found the site through a post on Scott Berkun’s blog (highly recommended), and my first Biznik event was a website design and UI crash course hosted by him and Ario Jafarzadeh, a local user experience designer.  I’ve been to a few events and found the members to be open, friendly and definitely not "fake".
• Seattletechstartups is a small and informal group of techies in the Seattle area who are either doing or thinking about doing their own startups.  I went to my first meeting last week and met a number of interesting people (and ideas).  It’s amazing how many of them are ex (or current) Microsofties.

To my surprise, I had a great time meeting new and interesting people at these groups, and it didn’t feel "forced" in any way.  Networking also helped satisfy the need for social interaction that can be an unexpected issue when doing your own thing.  All in all, I’m happy with the progress I’ve made so far, but there’s definitely room to grow.  Here’s one small step in that direction: I’ll be attending the Seattle Mind Camp 3.0 on November 11-12.  What could be more fun than 300 people together for 24 hours, discussing whatever comes to mind?  Let me know if you’re going, hope to see you there.

-JL

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It started ten days ago with sinus pressure, fever, and a headache – classic signs of a sinus infection.  Having had them in the past, I decided I would let it run its course – a viral infection might last just a few short days.  Of course, the real reason was that the insurance plan I had chosen when we started the business (when I was feeling on top of the world and invincible) had a high deductible and didn’t cover office visits, so I’d have to pay for everything out-of-pocket.  That brings us to the first lesson learned:

Two-Bit health lesson #1: Choose health insurance very carefully, making sure not to overlook things like office visits and prescriptions.

So did I improve after a few days?  No; on the contrary, I picked up an annoying cough to go with my other fine symptoms.  At this point I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, and utterly frustrated that I wasn’t able to be productive with the business.  However, I was still concerned about the costs of a full-blown office visit, so after some digging I found a number of great local resources, like free nurse hotlines and local clinics.   Ultimately I found a local Minute Clinic where the nurses confirmed my sinus infection and prescribed antibiotics to treat it.  I was really pleased with my experience at the clinic – it’s a great concept that I hope becomes more widely accessible.  This leads to my second lesson learned:

Two-Bit health lesson #2: Learn about your local health resources, such as community health clinics, free 24-hour nurse hotlines, and low-cost quick clinics.  Make use of them.

Now that I had the antibiotics, all was well, right?  Not quite; otherwise I’d have posted this sooner.   Once I started taking the antibiotics some of my symptoms disappeared, but unfortunately not all of them.  Of particular annoyance was the hacking cough, which over the next few days got stronger and more frequent, finally keeping me awake all night and turning me into a tired, hacking zombie during the day.  After six days on the antibiotics I decided it was time to see a real doctor, so I went to the local urgent care clinic.  After an afternoon full of poking, prodding, and x-raying, I got the news that congratulations, my sinus infection had developed into pneumonia.  Yes, the same pneumonia that took out our dear President William Henry Harrison.  This time I was prescribed even stronger antibiotics, which I’m glad to report seem to be doing the trick.  Due to lesson #1 above, I’ll have to pay for the costs out of pocket, but that’s preferred over letting the illness linger on.  Which brings me to the third and final lesson learned from this painful saga:

Two-Bit health lesson #3: Health trumps wealth.  Don’t cut corners when it could cost you (and your business) a lot more in the long run.

And that’s the story of how the past ~2 weeks have passed, where my only productivity has been the form of phlegm.   Sometimes it takes a sharp reset to bring new perspective and renewed focus towards an ongoing project, and I think this definitely did the trick.  As you can see I also learned a number of lessons which, had I applied them in this case, would have saved me both time and money. Hopefully some of these lessons will help keep you and your small business healthy and productive. 

-JL

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The recording lasts an hour and can be a bit dry at times, but there’s a lot of good nuggets of wisdom, like where your company should be before being appealing to investors (when you have decent customer traction). Even though we’re not looking for investors right now the clip is still useful to help learn about the rules (and rulemakers) of the startup game. Check it out if you’ve got the time.

-JL

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Here are the values for some domains that I tried:

• AOL.com: $981,722
• Microsoft.com: $1,644,314
• Google.com: $2,840,064
• Yahoo.com: $1,393,944
• twobitoperation.com: $14,406

Based on the value for this site, it’s obvious LeapFish has some significant errors with undervaluation.   Still, the attributes that they use to make their valuations seem pretty reasonable – I’ll definitely use their site when choosing the next domain name to register.  Let us know what your site’s worth!

-JL

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