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Execution

August 28, 2008

As a follow to the the post about Guy Kawasaki’s tips I thought I would expand on the number two point “make a little progress everyday”.  What this is really getting at is execution.  One mistake a lot of founders make is to assume their great idea or cutting edge science is enough to build a successful company.  In fact a great idea is worthless without execution.  David Cohen of Techstars has this to say

“ The bottom line here is that your idea is not really as valuable as you think it is. Executing your idea however, can be priceless…….I once overheard someone put this another way: “A company with brilliant execution can [perhaps] steal ideas, but a company with brilliant ideas can’t steal execution.”

This is the reason it is critical to have co-founders, preferably with complementary skills, experienced advisers & mentors and plan or list of discrete tasks and time-lines.  These will change over time but provides a framework to ensure you make a little progress each day.

Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

kentucky entrepreneurship

August 26, 2008

As an advocate for building a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem in Kentucky, The following report issued by the Mountain Associaition for Community Economic Developmentis no surprise to me. Kentucky’s economic development efforts at the state level are stuck in the past. One of the things that the MACED report does not address is whether government intervention is the best way to stimulate entrepreneurial development. The state has many initiatives that have had only a modicum of success. I have focused on working with those to create grass roots efforts, start-up weekends, entrepreneurial coaching etc. I do think the state should spend more of it’s resources on stimulating entrepreneurial growth and less on trying to attract large manufacturers with large tax breaks. In the end these types of policies have only lead to states under cutting one another to the point where as soon as the required time is spent the company picks up and moves to another state for their next round of incentives.
I don’t agree with everything that MACED advocates but I do think they are right to shine a light on the problem and hopefully this can lead to engagement and further conversation.

Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Politics |  

5 most important lessons for entrepreneurs

August 25, 2008

Guy Kawasaki has a solid post on his five top lessons for entrepreneurs:

1. Focus on Cash Flow

2. Make a little progress everyday

3. Try Stuff (serendipity is a part of success)

4. Ignore Schmexperts

5. Never Ask anyone to do something you wouldn’t do

A lot of times the workload and uncertainty can be daunting in a startup.  If you can’t handle 5 I’ll boil it down to the top 2: watch your cash and make a little progress everyday.

Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Inc 500

August 24, 2008

The annual Inc 500 list of the fastest growing private companies (3 year revenue growth) in the US was released.  The state of Kentucky only had one company listed, Integrity Asset Management in Louisville, which is an employee owned investment management firm with over $2.5 billion in company assets.  The company was founded in 2003 and has had revenue growth of 3,217.9% over the past three years adding up to a gross revenue of almost $20 million.

 As a comparison below are the numbers from some of the other states in the spring stage network:

  • Texas-43
  • Colorado-12
  • North Carolina-12
  • South Carolina-7

I am sure a few companies that could have made the list either were not discovered/submitted to be on the list. I think many entrepreneurs in Kentucky often are accepting of having a “lifestyle” business as opposed to building the next great company in their industry and in some cases they have a truly scalable idea but are unable to locate the right assistance and capital needed in an overlooked state like Kentucky. I work to try and break through these barriers and build a thriving entrepreneurial culture. 

  

Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Profile: Tallulah Cosmetics

August 14, 2008

I normally write about tech oriented startups but thought I would highlight another company you might not expect to find in Kentucky.  Tallulah Cosmetics is the brainchild of Amy Wheeler and is based in Louisville.

You were a first grade teacher and then in sales, what caused you take the leap into entrepreneurship?

I went to sales for more money and found the ethics or lack there of to be less than uplifting. At that point I realized that uplifting and authentic was much more important than money so I began searching for the real me (what was I truly excited and knowledgeable about?). I also believe I reflected upon and learned from my own lesson I had been teaching kids for years which was believe in yourself and follow your dreams.

What skills did your previous jobs teach you that help you in building your cosmetics empire, obviously sales is key but any lessons from life in the first grade?

I believe I learned the importance of authenticity from being around children who just are who they are 24 hours a day. Teaching first grade definitely taught me flexibility and how to be calm and even happy just going with the flow. This is something I continue to do on a daily basis when faced with numerous things I cannot control. The fact that having confidence in yourself makes others have confidence in you was reiterated over and over again throughout my teaching career. My own confidence, to this day gains me respect, relationships, and growth in general within my business.

The beauty and fashion business is highly competitive and subject to trends. How do you plan to keep Tallulah relevant in this environment?

One key thing is to always know as much as I can about every product in the beauty market…what the product does for the consumer, its advantages, and disadvantages. This helps me go in the proper research and development direction and create a more unique stand out product. TALLULAH will always have a fresh new product idea and a twist for every product that is already on the market today. Creativity that is visible within a brand is very important and TALLULAH will always strive to let the consumer see the creativity and work that goes into our brand.

How have you built the business? Expansion plans, needs etc?

The key here is slow and steady, never give up and don’t bite off more than you can chew. Slow is very difficult when we are pumped about our product and some buyer is offering us a bigger deal than we have had before, but it is always in our best interest to move cautiously and make sound decisions that are right for TALLULAH.   One of the biggest assets I have found in growing my company is the relationships I have built with more experienced people in my industry. These advisors are priceless to me and my business and I acquired everyone of them by reaching out with an email or phone call and having a casual sit down conversation.

We are currently planning to expand with a unique treatment product and the addition of lipsticks. We currently have partnerships with about 30 US and Canadian boutique retailers and we will soon expand into an exclusive national chain retailer and gain partnership with an international brand.

Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Drew Curtis and Fark, Part Deux

August 7, 2008

Part two of Drew and fark.

Many people would think it was a handicap to build a web business in Kentucky.  Did you ever think of relocating?

No, I grew up here, it is cheap to live and travel is easy, I can catch a commuter flight and be in New York or LA by mid-morning.

You have been around the web for quite some time (10 years) what do you see as promising for the future?

If you look right now Facebook is the hottest thing and five years before that it was Myspace and before that it was compuserve.  Five years from now it will be something different. I think we will see an open format where you take your online identity with you, just reuse your profile so you could take your fark “profile” to whatever the new facebook is.

What’s new with Fark?

We have a news aggregator, farkit.com, you may have seen the button on our site.  It is a clone site where people can come and vote on stories but with oversight so their won’t be any vidoes of puppies at the top like on Digg.  We are going to tell everybody up-front that if some stupid shit gets voted to the front, we reserve the right to remove it. Comments are going to work the same way with a vote for best and funniest for each article but we want to keep as much the same and as seamless as possible so if someone doesn’t want to participate they don’t have to.

We have started a travel site. We are building in the functionality for travel ratings.  We already see people posting questions for what are the best places to go in a particular city.  We have recoded everythingin Perl and will have a beta launch August 11th which will have some twitter functionality as well as some social networking features.

Basically the hardest thing to do on the web is build an audience.  We have an audience now we just want to try new things that we think will leverage our 4 million farkers and give them more of what they want.  Another example would be location based services, We think it would be cool if you were in a new city at a party etc to have a feature where Farkers could see if other people who used Fark were in the vicinity, they would at least have that in common.  It would make a great dating site, you already know you have something in common, you both like Fark.

Finally, I have heard you talk about the troubles of traditional media, can you give us a short rant on this?

Mid-market dailies are the most screwed, as are local tv newsrooms. They don’t do local well enough to compete with the alternative papers/sites, and they don’t do national well enough to compete with AP/Reuters.

 Time for another round!

 

 

Written by Richard Stump · Filed Under Blog, Startups |