I officially sold my business today. Thanks mainly to my business partner, it’s been a relatively short and painless process. Here are some of the major lessons I’ve learned about getting out:

Do you love your company?

Even though I didn’t want to admit it, I’ve had a problem with the products I’ve been selling. Don’t get me wrong, I’m convinced that they actually help people but I always knew that I didn’t want to be on television, in print or on the radio pitching these things. The whole thing just isn’t me. If you can’t get excited about what your company is doing, it’s time to get out.

Seek new challenges

You’ve got to be challenged by your business or it just becomes a bore. Getting up everyday and doing the same thing eventually got to me. I didn’t feel useful at all. This bred a complacency that was toxic.

Recognize burnout

I tried. I really tried to overcome this complacency that eventually overwhelmed me. I’ve been an ambitious guy my whole life and I just thought I could work through the burnout. I tried reading inspirational books, creating more detailed time management plans, engaging in more exercise and eating a healthier diet. Nothing seemed to work. If you’re unhappy and unmotivated and can’t seem to do anything about it, it’s time to move on.

Listen to advice

Almost every good friend of mine mentioned at some point that I should sell. I didn’t listen. Instead I rationalized my way into staying put. (More on that below.) I would just caution those entrepreneurs out there to really listen to your closest advisors and honestly force yourself to give reasons why you shouldn’t move on.

If you’re convinced that you should stay with it, then make a timeline. Create measurable goals for your business. Then make a pact that if you don’t reach them, you’ll exit.

The world didn’t end

It took me far too long to exit this business primarily because I was locked into a comfort zone. The pay was decent and there are some real perks to the entrepreneurial lifestyle. The trouble was that the lifestyle was making me miserable.

There’s always a reason to stay put. I think we avoid uncertainty because dealing with it is a painful process. (Armchair psychology alert!) I suspect that one of the coping mechanisms is to build up the potential negatives that change may bring about. Remember anything worth doing is going to be difficult. Don’t be afraid to tackle the problem and move on. Things will work out. It makes no sense to waste your life being miserable.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, exitstrategy

“You can ask them to imagine his stories as all about a kind of door. To envision us approaching and pounding on this door, increasingly hard, pounding and pounding, not just wanting admission but needing it; we don’t know what it is but we can feel it, this total desperation to enter, pounding and ramming and kicking. That, finally, the door opens… and it opens outward (italics in the original) - we’ve been inside what we wanted all along.”

- David Foster Wallace
Some Remarks on Kafka’s Funniness in Consider the Lobster p. 65

I was talking to a good friend about life and career this afternoon and he told me this: You should orient yourself in the general direction you want to go and not worry too much about anything beyond that. Planning where you want to be in ten years is a bit ridiculous because where you end up is so dependent on the opportunities that you’ll be presented with in the intervening period. So enjoy the ride. Planning long-term is a good thought exercise but you shouldn’t sacrifice job satisfaction on the way to your goal. You’ll perform better at something you enjoy doing. From this increased performance will come better opportunities. The destination is important - but just as important - is the road getting there.

Technorati Tags: career, planning, kafka

eCommerce is a great business. In theory, you just have to watch orders come in, send them to your fulfillment center and watch your profits grow. Of course it’s much more complicated than that. Launching an online store doesn’t guarantee you visitors, having visitors doesn’t guarantee you orders, and having orders doesn’t guarantee you profitability. You probably know most of this. That said, if you want to get involved in the eCommerce boom, here are some product considerations for you. I think the following are good characteristics for products you might want to sell online:

When people can’t get it elsewhere

About 20% of US citizens live in a rural or non-metro area. Despite local merchants best efforts, you simply can’t get everything out in the country. (I know, I lived there.) The local video store hasn’t got Criteron’s Sid and Nancy for sale. Nor does it have Withnail and I. But DVDs aren’t the only things that small towns don’t have. Residents also often don’t have access to: fancy lingerie, high end chocolates, kilts, John Kruk rookie cards and organic teas.

It’s not just country folk who can’t buy everything that they want. One of a kind, novel products are typically only available in one part of the country and are also perfect for Internet retail. Do you happen to make the world’s best rhubarb jam? What about your artwork? If it’s a high quality unique item, you’re in business.

When people are embarrassed about buying it

The Internet is an anonymous shopping experience allowing visitors to buy things they just otherwise wouldn’t. That’s one big reason why sex and the Internet go so well together. Sexual products aside, you have an opportunity to market anything that people are embarrassed about buying. Solving relationship problems is one area that comes to mind. Solving financial worries is another.

When it’s cheaper

A couple businessmen I met run a very profitable online operation selling… well selling all kinds of things. People love a bargain. If you’re running your business properly, you should have a cost advantage on the brick and mortars. If you’re able to pass that savings on, you can be a winner.

When buying online is more convenient

When I was running my business, I used to send vendors a gift during the holidays. For me it was easier to go and find something online and have it sent to them. Wine.com and Red Envelope were my choices. Perhaps there’s a business specializing in B2B gift giving?

***

An eCommerce store is inexpensive to start and operate. Most of your marketing can be done with grassroots efforts posting (not spamming) on relevant messageboards, working on search engine optimization, purchasing Google Adwords and sending out a few local press releases for good measure. Fulfillment can start as a bidaily trip to the Post Office. Your accounting can start as a notepad. It takes a just a few hours a day to create a source of cash flow. It can be fulfilling and fun too.

Technorati Tags: internetretail, ecommerce, ideas

I started the job hunt this week. But today it feels as though the world web is conspiring to push me back into entrepreneurship:

• First - I read this essay by Paul Graham (quoted in the post below) - which got me thinking about prestige, money and doing something that I actually love
• Then - I read Seth Godin’s Small is the new big which inspired me to start another online enterprise and gave me hope that small firms can not only make it - they can thrive
• Finally - to top it off, this quote from Picasso was on Tom Peters dot com when I visited there: “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”

Well that’s great. Just great. What am I supposed to do with this information? I’m a sucker for inspirational literature and I read it all the time. The common theme seems to be this: you have to do your own thing. You can’t be afraid to stand out. Try to do something really special. So why am I searching for jobs that will mold me into a company man?

Technorati Tags: jobs, entrepreneur, inspiration

Your goal as a creator of websites should be to make things as easy as possible for your visitors. Ease of use is a tricky thing to measure especially if you don’t have the money for qualitative research. Thankfully there are plenty of big players out there giving you free lessons.

Default, default, default

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but four of the biggest Internet properties Yahoo, Ebay Google and Amazon all use the default link color. Do you want to know why? It’s because it’s the color people are familiar with. Use the default colors for everything you can. Heck, while you’re at it, don’t pretty up those form elements either. People are familiar with the ugly gray “Submit” box. Give them what they know. Minimize the learning curve.

Whitespace is your friend

When you’re creating a layout it never hurts to have a little too much whitespace. Whitespace makes it easy for your visitor to scan elements of the page. A good amount of whitespace looks professional and also helps make your text easier to read.

Readable

It drives me nuts when text is either too small or in a barely visible color. My laptop has a display which is a little too bright. I’ve tried fixing it on numerous occasions and nothing seems to work. When I visit Signal vs. Noise I can barely see the date next to the author’s name. Sometimes you’ll get bogged down in the design process of making things look pretty and forget to make things look readable. Don’t let it happen to you.

Show your users where they are and where they’ve been

A breadcrumb trail is an absolute must for navigation but it’s not enough. A breadcrumb is too linear and fails to keep track of the individual pages a user has visited. I was on the Price Waterhouse Coopers website last night and noticed that they have this great feature that shows you the last few pages you’ve visited. I’m not sure if it was modelled on Amazon’s ‘recently viewed items’ or not but I found it very useful. I didn’t have to stress about finding that page a visited awhile back because the site was keeping track for me.

***

It takes effort to make your site easy to use. Sometimes you’ll have to bicker with your designer to get it. I think it’s worth fighting for. Observe how the best in the business do it and then follow their lead. If you want to read more on this stuff Jakob Nielsen’s Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design is a great place to start.

Technorati Tags: usability, design, ui, web

So you’ve quit your job, rounded up some financing (from your savings account) and are ready to go. Now what? During this stage you should be focused on: (1) articulating your vision and values, (2) hiring the right people and (3) developing a proof of concept.

Vision and values

You may not have noticed, but I haven’t spent enough time speaking about the importance of a company’s values. That’s a big mistake that I humbly apologize for. I know from experience how divergent values can tear apart a working relationship. You must articulate them up front. (This article over at the Entrepreneurial Mind talks about values and touches on how they can be implemented.)

Think about the problem facing consumers or society and how you intend on solving it. Create a meaningful vision. A meaningful vision is something that you genuinely believe and hope to achieve. Don’t create a vision for your business plan, create it as a guide to all that will come after. Make it inspirational.

Your values support your vision by describing how you intend to get there. To give you an idea look at IBM:

In the end, IBMers determined that our actions will be driven by these values:

• Dedication to every client’s success
• Innovation that matters, for our company and for the world
• Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships

(From: http://www.ibm.com/ibm/values/us/)

Meaningful values should inform your actions. Everything produced by the company should be aligned with your values. Most importantly management must live out these values. People are more cynical than ever and one faux pas will make people think “those values are just for show”.

People

Hire the most outstanding people you can and make sure that they share your values. Lure them with equity if you must. If you’re having trouble, here’s a rule of thumb to follow: hire individuals that are smarter than you. Management is the foundation of every good business. Don’t settle. You’re going to need to find people with business acumen, market-specific knowledge and operational experience. Take a look at what’s missing from your resume and fill in the gaps.

Proof of concept

Your vision will articulate the problem that your company is attempting to solve. Develop your solution to the problem. What is the market? Is the market growing? What is the urgency of the problem? How much can be made from your solution? And is that solution scalable?

Once you’ve answered these questions set about creating the best solution you can. Constantly improve your product or service with feedback from your customers. Use your vision and values as a guide to how you’ll create value for your clients.

***

A final word of advice: spend whatever money you have wisely. Be especially cautious if you’re seeking financing. A smart investor will judge you in part by how you’ve spent your money up to this point.

Technorati Tags: startup, entrepreneur, values, vision

(Even though I created the image, I borrowed the ideas from Mr. Tulio Cedraschi.)

Technorati Tags: businesscycle, boom, bust, bubble

Even though it’s a couple months old, I really love this post.

According to the formula, a brilliant idea with no execution is worth about 20 bucks. Great stuff.

Technorati Tags: ideas, execution, entrepreneur, doit

Even though I’m currently looking for jobs where I take direction from someone else, it wouldn’t take much to convince me to halt that entire process. A good friend of mine just forwarded me an excellent idea for a business and the little hamster in my head just got on the wheel. That excitement is back. Thoughts are racing around my head. I thought I’d detail a bit of the thought process in this post (with the idea omitted of course). After having launched a couple businesses and advised on a couple more, here are some thoughts on how to get started.

The Idea

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, the idea is just the start. A good idea is not enough to start a good business. A friend of a friend of mine back in 1994 wanted to start an online auction for Pez enthusiasts. He never did anything about it. Ebay did. The rest is, as they say, history. If you’re not prepared to suffer for your idea with a lot of hard work, then stop right now. If you’re happily putting in sixty-five hour weeks, you’re off to a good start. Execution is everything.

The one feature of a good idea that I do look for is scalability. Think big! How can you really grow your business? Could your franchise? How do you extend your product offering? Take a look at how Google does it. They started out as just a search engine now they have quite a diverse product offering. It’s great to start a little business to employ yourself, but for me, that’s not enough. I want to make a contribution by creating jobs and opportunity for others. Besides, what’s the fun of starting a business if you can’t grow it?

The People

Okay, perhaps I was a little harsh on the importance of the idea. The idea is important - but not nearly as important as the people you surround yourself with. If you’re considering starting a new business I really encourage you to find a business partner. Why? Well a partner can:

• share the workload and help prevent burnout
• provide skills that you don’t have
• offer a fresh perspective
• extend your network of people
• help to provide motivation - you won’t want to let him/her down

Another key person to any startup is a mentor. Mentors can help you deal with business problems and provide wisdom based on experience. The things you’re going through - they’ve been through. The most important thing a mentor can offer though is encouragement. In those dark days (and you will have them), sometimes you can feel all alone. Mentors can help pick you up and give you the shot in the arm that you need. Get a mentor.

As a rule, surround yourself with outstanding people and good things will happen.

The Business As A Whole

When I started my first business, I didn’t really stop and analyze all of the business processes required to support the operation. My first business was selling products on the Internet. So I went about designing and implementing a website and getting payment processing online. I failed to address the whole backoffice question. What happens to an order when it comes in? What if something is backordered? What if a customer cancels an order after it has been shipped? You have to think about your business and all the marketing and processes required to support it. Only then do you have a chance of providing excellent service to your customers and creating something of lasting value. (Note: This can be accomplished with decent business plan.)

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As the business moves along you’ll have to tweak things here and there but I think these three items provide a solid foundation for any new business. I’ve no doubt overlooked some elements - please (I beg of you) point them out in my underused Comments area.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, venture, launch, smallbusiness, idea

Yesterday I was dining at a relatively new spot in Toronto called da nu la. The meal was quite good but not exceptional. As we were leaving the chef came out from the kitchen, shook my hand and introduced himself. He asked how my meal was and then held my jacket out so I could put it on. It cost him nothing but a minute of his time. I really noticed this. This was a good guy and I really want to help him out. I will tell all my friends about this place and, when I’m in the area, I’ll go back myself.

What little things do you do to improve the lives of people you work with? How do you connect with customers to show them you care? When’s the last time you told an employee that you genuinely appreciate her contribution? What about sending an important vendor a token of your appreciation? People want to feel appreciated. If you actively work on maintaining a good rapport with people, you will make people want to do business with you and improve morale. Little gestures can go a long way. So why not incorporate them into your management style?

Technorati Tags: marketing, customers, gestures, management