When Hiring Entrepreneurs, Ignore Their Resumes

Note: This is the third installment in the Startup Team Building series. Read Part I HERE and Part II HERE.

No ResumeWhen hiring ATM Operators at a Big Dumb Company (BDC), assessing each candidate’s ability to execute predictable tasks is of paramount importance. As such, the recruitment process revolves around applicants’ resumes, which highlight what they have previously done in their professional careers.

What is important at a BDC, because most duties performed at mature entities are repetitive, structured and involve minimal ambiguity. Thus, evaluating the tasks a candidate has previously performed is a valid methodology when filling job openings in relatively static organizations. Continue reading

Guerilla Marketing Fail – What I Learned From The Austin Police

Article first published as Guerilla Marketing Fail – What I Learned From The Austin Police on Technorati.

David BelleAcrobatic ninjas, the Austin Police and several livid tradeshow executives – a perfect recipe for a reality television show, but not a great combination for Seth Epstein’s startup, Social Stay.

Seth discusses below what happened in Austin when he tried to rock the largest hospitality tradeshow of the year and what he learned from this humorous, but stressful experience.

You can watch my interview with Seth below or on YouTube here: http://youtu.be/O9TEOY-QYhs

 

To hear Seth verbally describe this enlightening story, watch the video. Below is a guest post in which Seth tells the story in written form. Both the video and Seth’s post are excellent primers regarding how to deal with guerilla marketing gone wrong. I suggest you check out both the video and Seth’s entertaining depiction below. Note: the story takes place in Austin, not Dallas, which I incorrectly reference in the video. Continue reading

T-shirts And Tacos – A Winning Guerrilla Marketing Combination

TestFlight logo

TestFlight’s mission is to reduce app developers’ pain. The company effectively leveraged this credo at Apple’s 2011 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).  As Ben Satterfield, TestFlight’s CEO explains in the interview below, for the cost of some T-shirts and tacos, TestFlight was able to dominate the mindshare of many WWDC attendees.

As Ben points out, successful guerrilla marketing is predicated on creativity and clever execution, not a huge budget.

You can watch my four-minute interview with Ben below or on YouTube here: http://youtu.be/RzSrfTE87EY Continue reading

Startup Children – How To Parent An Entrepreneur (Part II)

Note: This is part II of a five part series. Access the first installment HERE, part III HERE, part IV HERE, and part V HERE.

In part I of this series, I discussed how you can teach your children to make something from nothing by sharing with them Marcia Brown’s Stone Soup. There are a number of other children’s books that also serve as good platforms from which you can impart entrepreneurial values and lessons.

Sam I AmOne such book comes from a surprising source, the notoriously left-leaning Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. He inadvertently drafted the salesman’s manifesto in the form of Green Eggs and Ham, utilizing 50-different words, 48-of which are one syllable. Not only will your children understand it, it is even accessible by the average salesperson.

 
Continue reading

Avoid Getting Grin Screwed By Properly Qualifying Your Prospects

In Don’t Be A Grin F**ker, Mark Suster describes a concept that the two of us have discussed at various Board meetings. Startups often expend significant resources attempting to coax a relationship out of someone who smiles and says all the right things, yet whose inactions are inconsistent with their alleged intentions.

Entrepreneurs who are self aware and have the Whole Package are less prone to being successfully grin screwed. However, even the most enlightened entrepreneur can unknowingly waste valuable time and energy pursuing non-qualified prospects. Thus, developing an ability to identify Grin F☺☺kers is a startup skill worth cultivating. Continue reading