Can We Talk About StartUp?

Every so often I meet a person who doesn’t listen to podcasts.

This is crazy to me. It’s like you telling me that you still rent DVDs from Redbox. ??

If that’s you, I can just direct you here and then ask you to come back when you’ve decided to join this millennium. (And I’ll be so excited when you do. There are just too many good podcasts in this world!)

Now the rest of you: do you listen to StartUp?

I was an early listener, but then I stopped listening for a while and just happened to come back when they were doing the season on Dov Charney, the founder of American Apparel. I don’t normally find anything interesting about pervy men, but Dov. I get the controversy. He’s odd and smart, enchanting in the way Steve Jobs was: an obsessive perfectionist whose life revolved around–was inextricable from–his business. But, ultimately he was extricated from his business.

American Apparel is rightly controversial and, like anything controversial, makes for a fascinating story. Listen for the business side of it. They talk about its manufacturing, business model, marketing, growth and–of course–its downfall. And because Dov was so tied in with the business, it’s also his story, which is upsetting, disturbing, and hard to turn away from.

I hated their marketing, but I never tire of hearing how different business devise their marketing strategies. Hearing his was repulsive and interesting, if you can imagine that.

Or don’t imagine it. Just give it a listen here and let us know that you think in the comments!

But probably the best episode of the whole series is the very first one. That’s saying a lot because this show is so well-produced and covers all kinds of interesting companies, people, and stories.

It’s just that: we’ve all been that stumbling, inarticulate Alex Blumberg, just trying to craft our damn elevator pitch! It sets the tone for the entire show: authentic, funny, painful, nerve-wracking, exciting. For anyone who’s ever struck out on their own, this is a must-listen. Listen to StartUp season 1 here.

And if you aren’t someone who listens to podcasts, what do you do when you drive? Or clean? Or get ready for work or bed or lunch? What is that world even like?

My favorite candy bar is made of dark chocolate and infused with mint flavor. It’s got this texture that feels like you’re eating slightly crispy, crystalline chocolate that makes it feel kind of like eating a thin mint cookie. And, because I’m a hippie, I love that not only is it soy, gluten and emulsifier free (real chocolate doesn’t need emulsifiers), it’s also fair trade.

So of course it’s also stupid expensive.

I don’t buy candy or junk food (because I would eat it all. Every last thing.) except, on special occasions, this sweet, sweet indulgence. I enjoy every bite of that tasty, snobby chocolate.

And then, the thing you never want to happen to your snobby chocolate happened to mine.

I brought it home one day and opened it to find it covered in chalky awfulness. That’s right. Unlike every other time when I would rip into that thing as soon as it rang up on the register, I had waited.

Patiently.

All the way to my house.

And it was ruined.

But, it was a fluke, right? That’s not going to happen when I go back for next week’s groceries.

Oh yes it is. It happened the next week. And the week after. Three times my perfect chocolate bar was ruined (!).

I thought about going to social media or customer service, or even back to the grocery store. Why didn’t I?

Because it was too much damn energy. I just wanted my chocolate! I was mad that I couldn’t have it! Instead of resolving it, I just took my business and left.

Consistency Builds Trust

They got it wrong three times. I was willing to consider the first two flukes. A bad batch. An issue. Whatever.

But three times? That’s a company problem.

It was great speaking with aspiring entrepreneurs, from the UT Coding Bootcamp at Capital Factory, telling my story and paying forward advice that’s helped me dodge many obstacles leading to my success.

Here’s the video of my chat and Q&A with them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfmSO1o8hUE&t=4s

As if the Apple store experience weren’t cool enough, as if Apple weren’t already worth $800B, now Apple has reinvented retail yet again, transforming it into a social, educational, entertainment experience.

Which is to say: Apple is a destination. And in becoming a destination, it has established itself as the freaking Beyonce of the tech world with Today at Apple as its Lemonade.

Whatever you say about Jobs, you cannot say he didn’t take his shit seriously. He practically willed Gorilla Glass into existence. And he is the reason Apple continues to grow, transform, innovate, and dominate years beyond his passing.

You Don’t Have to Be an Asshole to Make Millions

First, Steve Jobs is renowned for his assholery–which, please, the world doesn’t need more a-holes okay?

So don’t be an a-hole but do learn this lesson: But it stemmed from his profound love of his products. He wanted to make the best things, make them beautifully, make them perfect, make them better than anything else out there could ever be. (I would argue he succeeded.)

Apple’s products are your web content.

If you don’t take it seriously, no one else will either.

You Do Have to (Probably?) Be a Control Freak

Steve Jobs was a control freak. He didn’t just insist on the visible, functional, important piece of his products (like the unscratchable Gorilla Glass on iPhones). He wanted even the inside of his computers to be beautiful. Which makes sense except that MacBooks, by design, are made to only be opened by Apple personnel. The consumers would never know, but he did it anyway. That’s how seriously he took his products.

In 2011, Beyonce put out a music video for “Run the World (Girls)”. At first glance, it appears to be a pretty run-of-the-mill pop music video. She dances. Backup dancers dance. It’s visually appealing. But two, far-fetched, beyond control freak things set this video apart from all other videos:

1. She flew in dancers from Africa to teach her to do a specific dance. But not famous dancers. Her team spent 4 months tracking down two guys from a random youtube video because no other dancer in this country, apparently, could dance quite like they did. She insisted on learning directly from them.

It must be a pretty important dance, right? Like there’s some crazy dramatic twist, an epic climax wherein she and a hundred people perform this carefully, beautifully choreographed number and the viewers have no choice but to respond with breathless wonder and awe.

Ha! The song opens with the three of them performing the routine. Total screen time? About 50 seconds (!). And I bet most viewers never even notice the two dancers flanking the queen.  

2. But maybe my favorite crazy detail in this video is the four seconds beginning at 00:31. It’s a lion, guys. A full-grown, black-maned, king of the jungle lion. For no reason other than to make Beyonce look badass. (Success!)

A lion!

Four seconds!

Can you imagine the logistics that went into to producing that shot? Like, last I checked there weren’t lions roaming around America. She couldn’t just go to the Savannah and stick it in the back of her Jeep (for so many reasons). It had to be scouted, transported it and trained to sit in the front of the camera so that it didn’t turn grumpy (violent) and shred everyone around it (which is what I do when I’m hangry). All of that for a four-second shot.

A shot, by the way, in which nothing at all happens.

I’m not saying you have to be Steve Jobs or Beyonce (as if you even could).

I’m saying that these people are at the top (and Jobs has been dead for 6 years) because they took their content seriously. They continually reinvented the game, upped the stakes, innovated, created, crafted, and, ultimately, changed the world forever. (And definitely for the better.)

Now it’s your turn to build a business that matters and content that rocks.

The Business You’re Trying to Start Will Most Likely Fail. Here’s How You can Beat the Odds

The two business decisions that will make the greatest impact on your company immediately and long-term are: your team and your marketing.

Your Team: Hire for Talent and for Team

Your company is as good as your team. Don’t just hire great individuals. Hire great teams. Ensure that your team’s individuals can work well together as people and complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Hire with an eye for growth and development. Look for people who can lead well, which means not just looking out for their own promotion but are great at mentoring and supporting, and who care about other people as much as themselves.

Most employees in the US are disengaged which means they aren’t contributing their best ideas and energy. That means that the company misses out on the strengths of their employees and taken to scale, that’s working with just a fraction of a work force.

At a startup, you have the opportunity to hire smart hard workers who will bring their A game, and stay with their A game. You build a strong company culture that values performance, creativity, the unique strengths, skills, and talents of each team member so that instead of working with the equivalent a fraction of your workforce, you’re working with a workforce powerful and effective beyond your team’s individual contributions.

It sounds simple enough but this is so often overlooked. People who look great on paper aren’t 100 in the interview, but we hire them because they’re good enough. People who are fabulous in interviews and give all the right answers are never given actual hands-on exercises or introduced to other team members and by the time it’s apparent they’re a bad fit, team dynamics have already taken a hit.

Take care in hiring your people, even if it takes longer. Surely you know from your own experience that all it takes for a good person to leave a company is one bad manager. People are your greatest investment. Protect them.

Your Marketing: Authentic and Finely Crafted

It’s not easy to convey a company’s personality through the internet. The companies that make it look easy do it with a stellar marketing team.

Go look at the instagram page of any big brand. Look at how beautifully the photos are taken, how they all follow a color palette and design scheme. Watch what times and days they’re posted and the interactions they have with their followers.

Naturally when we try to tell a story about ourselves, we end up talking about ourselves. You can’t do that with a brand or company because you exist to serve other people. Therefore, your story must be about them. Most companies struggle to communicate their value, and that’s fatal.

Anyone who’s written an admissions essay knows how hard it can be to speak interestingly and illuminatingly about our purpose. It’s just hard! You write and re-write and tweak and hire a tutor and freak out. It’s the same with storytelling as a business but arguably the stakes are a little higher.

That’s why it works so well to get someone else to do the storytelling (which is all marketing really is). As listeners, they know what’s boring/interesting about it, the pieces that will be valuable to your base, the parts than can be clipped down for a tweet or edited into a video. They take what you’ve been working so hard to achieve and present it so that others can relate. Instead of hearing an idea, they’re evaluating how it will benefit their life. That’s what you want.

Doing marketing right is so complex and time-consuming. Producing stellar content and ensuring vibrant, engaged social media channels are full-time jobs unto themselves, and with the high stakes of startup it’s crucial to start with a good strategy well-executed. It will ensure you grow from the very beginning.

Your team is going to set the course and your marketing is going to ensure that you have enough business to keep on that course. So choose your people wisely, even if it takes a long time, and market like your business depends on it. Because it does.

In 2014, the number of websites on the internet crossed 1 billion. It was a milestone in internet history. It had barely been around 20 years and it hit its first billion. Today, which is 8/26/17, websites are popping up at a rate of 100 per 17 seconds.

I haven a little trouble understanding numbers, so let’s get visual with it:

The difference between $1M and $1B is the difference between sitting down for dinner and sitting down for a fresh juice in the world’s tallest tower–more than 1000 chairs up.

All of which is to say: there is a lot of damn noise on the internet. A lot of places for people to visit. A lot of competition to face. It’s like shouting on the side of a freeway yelling into traffic. You’re drowned out by the traffic and the sheer speed of the cars.

How to Get Noticed In a Loud, Fast, Crowded World

Strategy. That’s how you do it. You’re going to market differently in a nightclub than on a freeway than on a YouTube video. But, what will those differences look like? How can you be sure you’re being effective?

HIRE OUT. I know I’m saying that as a marketing agency, but seriously. We live and breathe internet marketing. We know about getting eyes on your site and traffic to your pages. We know about growing social media audiences and engagement. We know how to design your site so that people want to hang out on it (man, there are few things worse than ugly, clunky websites), and can use it to buy your products.

Marketing Builds Your Brand’s Awareness, Loyalty, and Competitive Edge

Social media. Being a channel that people love to follow and share takes lots of work. Not only do you (we) make unique content, but it has to be fresh, engaging, and frequent. It goes further when there’s a human there to cultivate relationships. Influencer marketing is said to explode this year. You have to know how the influencers are, then they have to want to work with you. There is so much more to say about the significance of social media to your company’s security and growth, but we’ll just leave you with this piece of advice: leave it to the professionals.

Search engines. In 2015, The Atlantic reported that people visit 96 websites a month. When you account for the email, social media and shopping websites we typically visits, plus a few random google searches here and there–there aren’t that many opportunities for discovering your site. A marketing agency builds your site with search engine optimization in mind so that it’s ready to rank the second it goes live. It’s beautifully, carefully designed with the ideal customer–based on in-depth market research–in mind.

It’s virtually impossible for people to stumble onto your website. It has to be plugged into the information superhighway, and positioning it at the right stop on the way (so to speak) takes skill, planning, and flawless execution.

User design, user experience, advertising, email lists, landing pages and so on and so forth. Marketing is big in terms of all that it encompasses and in terms of its importance to your success. In this day and age, brand is everything. That’s how you build your customer base and get referrals and, ultimately, succeed.

Everyday, new websites are born and die (yes, new websites die). Marketing your website and your company is complex, long-term, and energy intensive–and crucial to your success. Market it right. Your customers will come.