Guy Kawasaki of How to Change the World

Most advice to entrepreneurs focuses on what they should do: build a great product, assemble a great team, provide great service. All are “duhisms.” Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs don’t realize that there are things they should specifically avoid doing too. These are also duhisms, but somehow no one ever talks about them. Here is my list of the twelve most important things that entrepreneurs should not do.

1. Don’t worry, be crappy. Perfectionism, first of all, is an illusion. Nothing is perfect. Even worse, perfection stands in the way of revenue and truly learning what customers think because nothing is in their hands yet. When your product is “good enough” (but not “perfect”), ship it, and see what happens.

2. Don’t give out lofty titles. Just because a roommate was there during the drunken weekend when you came up with the idea for your company, doesn’t mean he should be CTO. Someday, you’ll need to hand out titles like director, vice-president, and chief whatever officer, so keep them in reserve. Until then refer to each other as “co-founders” and describe the area of responsibility: for example, “programming.” If your roommates aren’t cool with this, they’re doing you a favor by showing their colors now.

3. Don’t hire your family. The probability that your spouse or relative is the best person you can get for a job is 0%. The probability that people will hate working at company with spouses and relatives is 100%. The probability that one of you will have to go someday is also 100%. Never hire out of expediency. Always hire the best person you can get. This usually means not hiring your family unless you’re Jack or Suzy Welch.

   By the way, if you both hire your family and give them a lofty title, you are truly a bozo.

4. Don’t sweat valuation. This is easy for a venture capitalist to say, but your company is either going to die or make you more money than you imagined. Whether you have 10% or 15% and whether your pre-money valuation is $2 million or $3 million isn’t going to really matter. Do the math: 15% of $0 is $0, so stop negotiating, take the money, and build something that’s worth more than $0. Whatever valuation a venture capitalist offers you, increase it by 20% and counter her offer. This is just enough to show that you’re not a pushover, but not too much that it will prolong or blow up the negotiations.

5. Don’t believe venture capitalists. Having said that you shouldn’t sweat valuation, you shouldn’t believe venture capitalists. It’s not that we’re all liars—we just don’t finish our sentences. Rule of thumb: add “as long as things are going well” to everything a venture capitalist tells you. For example, “I am investing in your team” or “I will be there for you.”

6. Don’t create lofty forecasts that you call “conservative.” You know you’re pulling numbers out of the air. We know you are too. You know we know. We know you know. So why would you forecast the fastest ramp in the history of capitalism? (It’s more likely that I will play in the NHL than you will achieve $2 billion in sales in year four.) Just project $25 million in year four, and we’ll all be in agreement about your lie.

7. Don’t believe that the exception is the rule. This is called the Twitter Effect. It goes like this, “We’re focusing on usage and eyeballs like Twitter. We’re not that concerned about revenue right now. Look how valuable everyone thinks Twitter is. We’ll be just like that.” Twitter is the exception. Facebook is the exception. YouTube is the exception. There, I listed all the exceptions. Everyone else needs revenue asap, or you will #fail.

8. Don’t focus on partnerships. “Partnership, noun, a relationship between two parties that does not increase the profitability of either.” If your partnership doesn’t cause you to edit your Excel spreadsheet, it’s meaningless. Focus on customerships, not partnerships if you want to succeed. When you’re a big, dumb, slow-moving company, then fabricate all the partnerships you want.

9. Don’t build out your infrastructure. Sure, your conservative estimate is for a growth curve that makes Twitter’s look like a blip, so you need customer service, technical support, and racks of servers. I’ve never seen a company achieve even its “conservative” projections—I take that back: I’ve seen plenty of companies reach their overhead projections. The odds are that you’ll run out of money before you’ll run out of infrastructure.

10. Don’t assume you’ll ever raise another round. Most projected timelines should contain a event that’s called “This is where the miracle occurs.” A much better assumption is that no miracle occurs, it takes years of grinding it out to succeed, and you’ll never raise another dime, so you must reach profitability with what you already have. Miracles happen in movies, not startups.

11. Don’t compare your intentions to other employees’ results. Most people compare their intentions to the results of others. In this way, you’re never at fault or a failure. For example, you intended to ship on time, but the sales gal didn’t achieve her expected results. The effect of this is poor morale and chasms between people. You need to face the facts: you probably delivered less than you intended. Maybe others did too, but at least you’ll be more humble.

12. Don’t ask people to do something you wouldn’t do. This is the Golden Rule of business. If you wouldn’t fill out ten fields of information and provide a credit card number for a free password, don’t expect your customers to. If you wouldn’t work on weekends stuffing envelopes, don’t expect your employees to. If you wouldn’t invest in your company, don’t expect venture capitalists to.

Now sign here:

I hold these Don’ts as self-evident and necessary and proper to the creation of our company.
______________________ this first day of July, 2009.

If you’d like to read much more about startups and entrepreneurship, go here. Eggs photo updated by Peter Oneppo.

Lee Aase is the manager for syndication and social media for Mayo Clinic. This means he’s in charge of making in-depth health and medical news content available directly to patients and interested consumers in order to encourage feedback, dialog, and sharing of information. He is also the chancellor of Social Media University, Global (SMUG), an institution that provides training in social media. In this interview he explains how the Mayo Clinic uses social media as a marketing and communications tool.

1. Question: How did an old, established organization like Mayo Clinic get so involved in social media?
   Answer: If you knew what made Mayo Clinic’s reputation for more than a century, you’ll see that social media is consistent with that tradition. At the turn of the twentieth century, when Dr. Will and Dr. Charles Mayo built what was to become Mayo Clinic through a collaboration with the Sisters of St. Francis, it was relatively unusual for patients to survive a hospital stay. Quite often they succumbed not to the underlying ailment but to an infection resulting from surgery. The Mayo brothers and the Franciscan sisters pioneered aseptic surgical techniques which meant that many more patients lived to tell their stories. And when they went home, they spread the word about their experience.

   Even today word-of-mouth recommendations are the most important source of information that makes Mayo Clinic the top choice for diagnosis and treatment of serious diseases. Stories in the news media rank second in influence, and physician recommendation—another kind of word of mouth—is third. Social media combines the potential worldwide reach of news media stories with the personal touch of a friend’s recommendation. With over 90 percent of Mayo Clinic patients reporting that they say “good things” to their friends after a visit, using social media tools to amplify their impressions seemed reasonable.

   That said, we didn’t just immediately jump into blogging, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. It was a natural, gradual progression that incorporated what I like to call, “The MacGyver Mindset.” creating new solutions out of resources we already had on hand. Mayo Clinic created its “Medical Edge” syndicated weekly TV news resource in 2000 and offered local stations trustworthy health and medical news content. In 2004, we established a similar daily program for radio stations. read more

Michael Lee Stallard is the CEO of E Pluribus Partners, a consulting firm that specializes in helping leaders create “connection cultures” between management, employees and customers. Prior to founding E Pluribus Partners, he was chief marketing officer for businesses at Charles Schwab and Morgan Stanley.

He has written a manifesto called “The Connection Culture: A New Source of Competitive Advantage” that provides terrific insights into the value of connection cultures. You can read it by clicking here. It provides great insights for small business owners seeking to create a competitive advantage.

Keith Ferrazzi is the CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight. Since his breakout first book, Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time,
he has counseled the world’s top enterprises on how to dramatically accelerate the development of business relationships to drive sales, spark innovation, and create team cohesion. His latest book is Who’s Got Your Back: The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships That Create Success—and Won’t Let You Fail. In this interview, he explains how to ensure that your back is covered.

1. Question: Why do people fail to perceive how badly they are performing?

   Answer: People tend to fall victim of what scientists call “self-serving” bias. This means that when we succeed, we congratulate ourselves. When we fail, we blame someone else. Therefore, we learn less from our failures than we could or should, and that’s why we need people to help us complete the feedback loop.

2. Question: You don¹t really think CXOs can let down their shields, accept feedback, and change, do you?

   Answer: I sure do—I’ve worked with many execs who’ve done that, and it’s served them well. This is the kind of leader who will thrive in today’s economy and serve as the model for a new generation of CXOs. We need leadership focused on collaboration, cooperation, and candor, not isolationism and ego.

   Jamie Dimon, the president and COO of JP Morgan, turned the company on a dime in the financial crisis. He knows the value of relationships and of candor. He lets his employees tell him straight out when he has a dumb idea, and they respect him all the more for it. Candor and accountability are absolutely essential if we’re to rebuild this economy and this country. And you can’t be truly candid without being willing to “let down your shield” and be vulnerable.
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There are few things I enjoy more than moderating a panel, and there are few panels that are more interesting than those made up of entrepreneurs, and there are even fewer panels more interesting than those made up of entrepreneurs who are all younger than twenty-five years old. This means that this panel of entrepreneurs at the Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup was just about pure joy for me.

This video is approximately one hour long, but if you want insights into how young entrepreneurs think, it’s worth your time. This is something very empowering and exciting about young people. If teens are your market, you’ll learn something about how they think. If teens are your competition, you’ll learn how they are coming after you. Both are valuable insights.

The panelists were:

• Daniel Brusilovsky, CEO—Teens in Tech
• Jun Loayza, Founder—Future Delivery
• Jessica Mah, Founder—InternshipIN.com
• Ashley Qualls, CEO—WhateverLife
• Carly Wertheim, Co-president—Teens Turning Green

Handheld, Flip video courtesy of Marie Domingo, director of corporate communications, Teens In Tech.

This is a guest post by Bill Reichert, my colleague at Garage Technology Ventures. He and I recently joined other bloggers for an overnight trip on the USS Nimitz. The USS Nimitz is an aircraft carrier that’s named after Chester Nimitz (Nimitz signed the US/Japan surrender terms that at the end of World War II). The Nimitz has a crew of approximately 3,000 men and women. When an air wing is deployed on it, the total number of personnel becomes 5,000. It is part of Carrier Strike Group 11.

I was excited. Who would turn down a chance to get on top of a nuclear power plant driving 100,000 tons of steel through the ocean, with 5,000 men and women handling scores of aircraft, carrying thousands of pounds of bombs and missiles, burning thousands of gallons of jet fuel a day, with margins measured in inches, and tolerances of seconds? What could possibly go wrong?

As a Prius-driving, granola-eating, anti-gun, Left-Coast Californian, I do not fit the stereotype of the typical armed forces booster. I am inclined to favor green technology over weapons of mass destruction. But I discovered during my visit that many of us who are working in non-military organizations, and who may not have given a second thought to the Navy as a model, would do well to understand how a small city floating on the ocean works. From startup entrepreneurs to seasoned executives, we can learn a lot from the U.S. Navy, from the enlisted men and women as well as from the commanding officers. read more

Dr. Richard Restak is a clinical professor of neurology at George Washington Hospital University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He also is also a member of the clinical faculty at St Elizabeth’s Hospital Overhoiser Division of Training, Department of Psychiatry, Washington, DC, and maintains a private practice in neurology and neuropsychiatry in Washington, DC. His most recent book is Think Smart: A Neuroscientist’s Prescription for Improving Your Brain’s Performance.

He provided me with this list of the top ten ways to improve your brain’s performance:

1. Take up video-gaming. Action video games improve eye-hand coordination, improve spatial visualization skills, and increase the number of things that you can visually attend to simultaneously.
2. Strengthen your memory. Memory is our most vital mental faculty. Strengthening memory is an important component in lessening the odds of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
3. Learn a new word every day. Learning new words not only enriches one’s understanding of the world, but also enhances the brain’s language centers and the prefrontal lobes where judgement and executive function are mediated. [You can learn a new word every day by subscribing to this feed from Answers.com.]
4. Engage in spelling exercises. Spelling forces you to mentally “see” the word prior to speaking it or writing it down. This exercises several language-related brain areas and circuits.
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If you’re in an airport, coffee shop, ice rink, or driving down the freeway, and your computer detects a wireless network called “Alltop,” I’m somewhere close to you. This is because I’m using the Sprint MiFi 2200 mobile hotspot card.

This device is about the size of six credit cards stacked on each other. It grabs Internet access using the Sprint 3G EVDO network and then creates a WiFi network for up to five people to use within thirty-three feet. (You can password protect your network in case you don’t want to be an ISP.) The device costs $99.99 after rebate and a two-year contract. The monthly charge is about $59.99 with a five gigabyte per month limit. It has a four-hour battery life (that is twice my Macbook’s battery life) with forty hours of standby.

Top Ten Use Cases

Skeptics will immediately wonder (and I was one of them) why would you need another way to connect to the Internet with there are so many WiFi networks around plus built-in EVDO and mobile broadband USB devices. I’ve been using one of Sprint MiFi cards for two weeks now, and I truly love it. I’ve listed several use cases below.

1. At the airport. Most airports have WiFI networks these days. Some, like SFO, have T-Mobile coverage. Others, like McCarran Airport (Las Vegas), have a free network. There are four reasons why a Sprint MiFi network is better:
   • Cheaper. If you’re not a monthly member of T-Mobile, Sprint MiFi is cheaper after five or six days of use in a month. If you have a monthly account, the Sprint MiFi is approximately the same cost but it’s not shareable or as easy to use.
   • Easier. Free or paid, WiFi networks are often a pain to use. Some require log in after creating a free account, for example. And you can’t share the WiFi access with your traveling companions.
   • Faster. Paid or free, you’ll be sharing the WiFI network with many others in the airport so it’s likely to be slower than a MiFi connection. If the Sprint EVDO network starts getting a lot of traffic, I suppose that this advantage will decrease, but until then it’s usually faster than the WiFi networks in airports. One notable exception: yesterday I got 20 megabits/second upload and download access at McCarran—what happens in Vegas doesn’t necessarily stay in Vegas.
   • More convenient. WiFi networks stop working once you get on a plane, so you have to make a choice: stop working and get on the plane right away or wait until the last minute and not have room for your carry-on baggage.

   With Sprint MiFi, you work in the waiting area, board the plane as soon as you can, and keep working right until the flight attendant threatens to call an air marshal because you haven’t shut your laptop. You probably won’t mind if the plane is even held at the gate for a while.
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