Online press is always fun, especially when you’re not used to it. This year I’ve had the good fortune of having some articles mention me. Just the other day my first one on one interview was published. (You can read the full interview here) But my interview didn’t go without a few rookie mistakes. So here are the two lessons I learned from my first online interview.

Supply the Writer with Lots of Photos

Writers are busy people, they don’t have time to peruse the internet for your best looking photos. Therefore, you must take it upon yourself to supply the writer with plenty of photos. I made the mistake of only sending one photo (It wasn’t even that great of a photo). When I took at look at the magazine spread, I was mortified to see some of the photos the writer used to fill the pages of the story. Be proactive and don’t get caught with your pants down…or an iPhone mustache.

Share Your Contact Info 

I failed to capitalize on this extra exposure in the press by making sure my contact information was shared with readers. It would have been a wise choice to share my Twitter handle and to direct readers to my blog . But in my excitement to answer the questions in the interview, I left out this crucial information. Whoops! Lesson learned. Give all the information the writer needs upfront.

In the end, I can’t really complain. I had a nice article published about me and my company. It’s flattering and good PR. I’m sure (or I hope) there will be more opportunities for online PR in the future. I’ll be sure to rectify the mistakes I made this time around. I hope you don’t make the same mistakes I have.

In 2006, my last year of college, my mom sent me a letter containing a section of Jodie Foster’s commencement speech from Penn (See below for specific excerpt). Ms. Foster’s words articulated exactly what I was going through at that point in my life, and I think my mom sent me this text so I knew that it was ok and I wasn’t the only one. Since then, each year during college graduation season, I enjoy reading or watching the speeches by distinguished commencement speakers. Like Jodie Foster’s speech, they often can communicate personal stories of struggle and hardship, that eventually lead to their success. This yearly, cathartic exercise reminds me that success is not easy and I’m not alone.

It’s no secret that my favorite commencement speech is Steve Job’s 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University. I’ve embedded that video several times in this blog, the most recent being the April 19 post, ”Enjoy the Journey.” And aside from Jodie Foster’s 2006 Penn speech, another  favorite of mine is Ellen DeGeneres’ 2009 speech to the graduates of Tulane. Her 10 minute speech was humorous and genuine. She shared low points in her life, her highlights, more low points, and the current success in her life.  Her message reverberated with everyone who saw it, which is why it was an amazing speech. Few speeches are remembered years later, from people who didn’t graduate from that school.

I hope that one day, I become successful enough, that I can speak at a graduation and impart knowledge to a graduating class. Until that day, I’ll leave you with the words of Jodie Foster and the story of Ellen DeGeneres.

 ”All of that fine and delicious matter has a way of becoming the material of your life. You pick up bits and pieces of treasure and trash, pain and pleasure, passions and disappointments and you start stuffing them in your bag…your big bag of experience. You do some dumb things that don’t work out at all. You stumble excitedly on little gems that you never saw coming. And you stuff them all in your bag. You pursue the things you love and believe in. You cast off the images of yourself that don’t fit. And suddenly you look behind you and a pattern emerges. You look in front of you and the path makes sense. There is nothing more beautiful than finding your course as you believe you bob aimlessly in the current. Wouldn’t you know that your path was there all along, waiting for you to knock, waiting for you to become. This path does not belong to your parents, your teachers, your leaders, or your lovers. Your path is your character defining itself more and more everyday like a photograph coming into focus, like a color that becomes more vivid in contrast with its surroundings.”

- Jodie Foster, Penn Commencement Ceremony 2006

Ellen DeGeneres, Tulane Commencement Ceremony 2009

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Business is business and not everything turns out the way you hope. I recently ended my first business partnership after approximately 19 months. Not quite the 10-year ride I was expecting. But it’s for the best. It was an experience and as long as I learn from it, I won’t regret it. So, here is what I learned from my first business partnership.

Trust Your Business Partner

In February  I wrote a post about what to look for in a business partner. Trust was one of my main arguments. I will reiterate that lesson right now. There must be unconditional trust that your business partner will be willing to work things out with you and be there for the long haul. Business is hard and things will get volatile. If you’re worried that your partner will take the first available opportunity when things get tough, don’t partner with that person. I knew my business partner for a VERY short amount of time before deciding to partner with her. I attribute that to my fear to start a business alone. But, I’ll never make that mistake again. If I ever team up with a business partner again, I have a very clear scenario in my mind, as to whether or not I can trust them. If my (currently unborn) child were to be falling off a cliff, would I trust that my business partner would risk their life to save my child? Yes, it’s a outlandish, non-business related scenario, but that’s what it’s going to take for me to partner with anyone again.

Sweat the Small Stuff

Asking the difficult questions in the beginning of a partnership can be awkward, especially for first time entrepreneurs. You don’t want to “prepare for failure” by creating an operating agreement with a divorce clause. Naturally you’re going to assume that your business is going to be flourish and one day be worth a billion dollars. You’ll probably think to yourself, “If anyone were to leave this company prematurely, it wouldn’t be me.” But starting a business, more often than not, ends with failure. That’s why it’s imperative that you create an iron clad operating agreement that both parties agree to and signed off on. Getting these details out of the way in the beginning will make your life easier down the road. If you don’t have these things clearly written out, if the time to part ways occurs, things will get really messy.

Outline Roles and Responsibilities 

A trusted advisor told me this as soon as I started my company: Outline your roles and responsibilities very clearly. I didn’t follow his advice. Partly because I was scared to broach the topic with my partner (red flag anyone?) and because I figured, it was a new company, we’d end up doing everything. Well, companies grow and roles become more defined. It’s infinitely helpful if people know what their roles and responsibilities are. Know who is responsibly for things like partnerships, client services, sales/marketing, accounting, etc. Even though a young company will have people wearing multiple hats, it’s always good to have  outlined roles keeps everyone on the same page and it will save you a lot of headache in the long run.

The moral of my story is to ask the hard questions. Set expectations right away so there are no questions when times get tough. There is a lot of uncertainty with business, but one thing you can be certain of is there will be difficult times. That’s when trust and communication will be key and get you through to the success. My first business partnership failed, but that doesn’t mean yours has to.

Let me be blunt…I’m out of shape. I can point to a myriad of reasons why this happened (which I’ll document below) but the bottom line is I need to start taking better care of myself. I’m not 18 anymore. I can’t eat whatever I want. I must take control of my health. A mentor of mine told me, “Take care of your health, and the rest of your life will fall in line.” Well, now’s the time for me to turn my health around.

How did this happen to me? I used to be an athlete with a  muscular physique. I had stamina, flexibility, and strength. Now, I’m breathing hard after  three jumping jacks. There are three distinct reasons why I gained all this weight (I’m too embarrassed to share the exact number). Lack of physical exercise, too many processed foods, and late night eating. The combination of these three things, plus stress, has taken a tremendous toll on my body. Since gaining all this weight, I hate how clothes fit me and how I feel all day. Imagine wearing four sweatshirts and being covered in mud. Yep, that’s how I feel. Gross. But here’s how I’m going to change all this and get back into shape.

Daily Exercise

I’m slowly starting to exercise again. Two years ago I could run 13 miles in 2 hours, now I’m done after 10 minutes. But I still try to be that guy who can run 2 hours at a time. So when I start working out

I miss this body.

again, I go hard one day, and then I’m so sore I don’t work out for another 5 days. No consistency. No good. That’s why I’m doing two things differently. First, I’m working out first thing in the morning. I like working out at night, but something always comes up and I don’t work out. The morning is always there. This week I’ve started each day with a workout. Secondly, I’m starting slow. I’ve written out a workout plan that consists of light lifting each day and light cardio. It’s not intense. My walk to the gym, my workout, and my walk back takes me an hour (I live 5 minutes from the gym). The lifting is to get my metabolism going again and burn calories during the day, and the light cardio is to get my body used to physical activity again. I’ll slowly up the intensity of the workouts as the weeks go by.

Diet

This is the biggest reason why I’m soft. I eat like shit. It was  a combination of laziness and limited funds. I couldn’t afford $75 of groceries at a time, so I ate a lot of cheap processed foods, and cheap take out. I ate a few large meals instead of many small ones. And I’d often eat late. Dinner might be at 10pm. Sometimes I’d go out drinking and then at eat at 2am. Not good habits. Now I’ve been consulting with my buddy Johnny Adamic on how to improve my eating habits. He works for the New York Health Department, fighting obesity. Now I’m consciously  eating less processed foods, in order to drastically reduce my sodium intake. My breakfast is greek yogurt with walnuts, Grade B maple syrup, and whole oats. My lunch and dinner options include lots of green veggies (arugula, spinach, broccoli), chicken, and brown rice. Snacks are almonds and fruit. It’s only been a few days, but I’m starting to feel less heavy after meals.

Health is one of those things you take for granted until you have poor health. Since I’m young, I’ve never really had to worry about it. Only now am I starting to see my poor habits result in a decline in health. I’ve just begun my health turnaround and I urge you to do the same. Don’t let your health slip, because it’s a steep climb back to where you want to be. Trust me. Make your health a priority, no matter how busy you are.

“You can’t connect the dots moving forward. You can only connect them looking back.” – Steve Jobs

This is a reminder to everyone. It doesn’t matter what you do for a living, how old you are, or what you’re trying to become; there will always be obstacles in your way. You’re going to have good days, crappy days, and seemingly apocalyptic days. Regardless, make sure you enjoy the journey. The crappy days are what make the good days feel great. Everything is connected and even those “the world is going to end” days can lead to great days. Like Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots moving forward. You can only connect them looking back.” Therefore, you should just enjoy the journey, and trust that it’s all going to work out.

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I’m just full of obvious advice recently aren’t I? Well, this is important. I can’t stress this enough. Get contracts, written by lawyers, signed by clients before doing work. DO NOT ignore this step.

I know this seems really obvious and I’m embarrassed that I’m writing about this, but here’s the reality situation that I’ve experienced time and time again. You land a new client, you’re excited, and you want to make a good early impression. You want to start the relationship off right and start on good faith while their team signs the contract and pays you. Then you get caught up in the actual work for the client and the administrative works falls by the wayside. You like the client, they like you, and you have faith that it will all work out. But the reality is, you don’t have a signed contract. This is not a good situation to be in. Therefore, make sure you have all contracts signed before starting any work.

I recently found myself in an uncomfortable situation because I neglected to push for a signed contract. When I was asked to produce a contract months later, I was unable. I was shocked, scared, embarrassed, and upset. I had been working with the client for a year and everyone involved knew what the scenario was. But when I had to prove that we had a signed contract, I was not able to do so. Legally, I was very vulnerable. Fortunately for me, the moral compass of the client was high and we were able to work things out. But, for a brief moment, I realized how stupid I was. Don’t let clients’ busy schedules and demands for action get in the way of a signed contract. Make sure you have all your  paperwork in order before starting work. It will save you a headache down the road.

Getting contracts signed is fundamental to business. It may be hard to push for this when you’re first starting out, this isn’t something that you probably had to deal with if you worked at a large company. They had a department to take care of that. Now that you’ve started your own company, this responsibility falls on to you. Don’t neglect this and focus on the work first. Make sure your legal agreements are in order because I guarantee that clients will not pay on time, or sometimes at all, and you’ll need a contract to help recoup the money that is owed to you.

This is a quick and easy lesson. Don’t be a fool like me and mess this one up. Open up TWO business checking account when you start your company and make sure both accounts have money inside them at all times.

I would recommend opening one account with a small bank or credit union, usually their fees are lower and more enjoyable to work with. The other one  should  be a large corporate bank that has locations all over the country.  This will insulate your company from financial difficulties down the line. And by financial difficulties I mean, having one bank account frozen and still be able to access cash for short term operating costs. My accountant told this to me and I never listend to him. Now, I’m learning the hard way.

You might be like me and say that you don’t need a second bank. You don’t have anything to worry about because you do everything according to the book and there should be no reason for you to encounter such a situation. Yep. That’s probably true, but you know what? Banks suck and shit happens.

My business account if frozen because of reasons unknown to me. My account has two people who an access it. That way, if one member is unable, there is someone else who can (Another tactic attempting to insulate risk) access money. However, with our banks (Wells Fargo), if there is an issue with a personal account that is connected to your business account they will freeze all accounts associated with that person. Which means, even though I haven’t done anything wrong (and to be honest, neither has the other member) I don’t have access to my business account. And since banks suck, they’re not swift when it comes to rectifying the issue. So you can guess why I’m telling you to have a second bank account with money in it…so if you’re frozen out of one account, your normal operating expenses aren’t affected. Running a business with a frozen bank account is flipping hard. Just trust me on this one.

To beat a dead horse, let me say it again. Open two business checking accounts and make sure that both accounts have money. I would try to have at least one month of cash in the second account, if not more (I know that might be hard for some startups, but do your best to do this).  Don’t assume the bank will solve the issue quickly. People are never as quick to act as you’d like. As an entrepreneur, you’re always weighing the risks, this is no different. Open two business checking accounts just in case one of your accounts becomes inaccessible.

I started Demeter Interactive nearly two years ago. During this time, I’ve learned first hand what it takes when scaling a services company. There are two types of companies, a product company and a services company. Scaling each company is quite different and pose different types of challenges, but service companies are more difficult to scale because of its linear revenue to employee growth requirement. Demeter is a services company and I’ve encountered three main obstacles to building the size of Demeter; stable cashflow, size of the company, and custom solutions.

Stable Cashflow

Cash is king. It’s the lifeline of any company. Having a stable cashflow is what allows you to increase overhead and grow your company. I’ve experienced two major issues with cash flow. The first issue is the obvious lack of revenue. Getting initial business is not easy and until you get that first client to say “yes” and pay you, you’re working off savings (I had very little). Once you do get a few clients, you start to have hypothetical cashflow. Be careful when calculating your monthly fixed costs based on this figure. I made the mistake of increasing fixed costs based on expected revenue. This was a mistake because clients never pay on time. Believe it or not, paying vendors isn’t the highest priority for companies. Now there are tactics to get paid more promptly (I need to work on these) but only in a perfect will all the money you’re owed be paid on time each month. Therefore you must determine expected cashflow vs. perfect cashflow. This will help you create a better budget of fixed costs that doesn’t stress you out when one client doesn’t pay on time.

Size of Your Company vs. Size of Potential Client

Companies like to do business with companies that are the same size as them. Small companies make larger companies uneasy. There are questions about the quality of  your work and the long term stability of your company. Unless you’re an already successful entrepreneur and able to self finance or raise capital based on your previous record, most likely you’re going to have to bootstrap your services company. Which means, even if you have a few co-founders, you’re going to start as a small company. In order to combat this problem,there are two solutions. One is to have existing relationships with larger companies before starting your company. This eliminates the question of quality of work. The second is the good old fashioned method of “fake it until you make it.” Develop your company so it appears to be larger than it is. It’s a bit disingenuous, but there isn’t a company out there who hasn’t done it. (See the story of Larry Ellison launching Oracle 2, when in fact there was never an Oracle 1).

Custom Solutions

Unlike a product, services must be tailored for the client. There is no solution that will work for every company. If you try this, companies will be quick to figure this out. So the sales cycle of acquiring a new client is much longer than a product. It’s a different pitch each time, which requires careful consideration and creativity. Your ability to put in the ideal time and effort into custom pitches is difficult because your time is limited and you must prioritize time to current clients. There is a fine line balancing between the two.

Service companies are easier to start because there isn’t as much initial cost as a product company requires. However, products are able to scale quicker than a services company. If you’re building a services company or are considering it, please keep my talking points in mind. I guarantee you’ll encounter these problems and the more prepared you are to overcome these challenges, the quicker you’ll grow your business to the size you desire it to be.

Like a broken record, I’ll say it again. Starting a business is really difficult. It can be draining and soul crushing. But no matter how crappy things get, always keep moving forward.  I always envision a running back, running into a pile of huge lineman. Some go down, but those who just keep their feet moving, find a way to move forward. So keep your feet moving young entrepreneurs and good things will eventually happen. Take it day by day and just keep moving.

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Startups need strong vision. Startups need someone to guide them through the unknown and to  what they will see. Every startup has a vision, but I’m astounded at how many people  comment in blogs or forums that blast ideas or think products will never make money. People often look at the current iteration of the product and think that’s the end game. In reality, it’s just the tip of the ice berg and that old adage is why  I’m starting to really understand vision and the ideology of starting small.

I have a lot to learn. This is painstakingly obvious. It’s only in the past year have I really immersed myself in understanding what it takes to build a technology startup from the ground up. I’ve learned a great deal from reading books and blogs, but it’s not until I do something do I really learn. Have I personally built a product yet? No. But I’ve worked with a startup since their first public launch and I personally started down the path of product development. Despite not actually creating anything; I learned valuable lessons that will serve me well for years to come.

The major lesson I learned has been to think big and start small. When you build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that really means the bare bones of your idea. This is a really hard concept to grasp. It’s difficult because as entrepreneurs we have this long roadmap of features in our heads  and want to skip all the way to Step Z so the public can realize how genius we are. But in order to get to Step Z, we need to start with a very simple Step A. When I was looking into building my mobile app, I wanted to launch it with Step D. That’s probably why the idea never took off, I didn’t start with the first step.  Fortunately, I never built the app, I just researched and designed it. I say fortunately because Foursquare just shared a bit more of their roadmap and it’s on a collision course with my idea. That would have been a lot of wasted time and money had I started it (not to say I won’t rework the idea a bit and try again later). But, this taught me the very important lesson of starting small and being aware where the competition is headed.

As I was researching my idea, there was no one out there who was doing exactly what I wanted to accomplish, which is why I felt that I should build it. There were a few startups that were skirting around the idea, but Foursquare was always the one company that worried. Still, they were not touching my idea (to be fair, my idea was more of a feature than a product), so I was determined to move forward with it. But when I heard Foursquare’s roadmap, I recalled Fred Wilson’s blog post about founder’s roadmaps, and it all clicked for me. When researching potential product competitors, don’t look for who’s already doing it, but who is already in the space and where they are headed. It’s not easy,but very necessary.  You’re a long shot to beat an incumbent product (with cash) because you have a different feature. (For example, look at iPad. Everyone is trying to build their tablet to beat the current version iPad. While competitors waste their time trying to beat last year’s model, Apple is already working on another version.)  Let’s take an abbreviated look at Foursquare’s progression to see where they started and where they’re going and how we can learn a lesson from their product.

Foursquare started off as a location check in service. You simply let people know when you were at a local venue, with a few game mechanics built in. At this point, there were no check in specials. People ripped the app, saying it was dumb and they didn’t want people to know where they are (I’m guilty of this). But Foursquare grew. Soon “mayors” of locations were given special deals…but people bemoaned the fact there was only one mayor and they weren’t eligible for the deal. Next came special deals to any user who checked in. Deals progressed with an American Express partnership and users got discounts when using their AmEx when they checked in. As Foursquare grew in size, their database of checkin information grew. This information allowed them to  launch “Discovery” which let’s users discover local venues based on their friends’ behaviors. Now Foursquare is building out a robust recommendation engine with predictive capabilities. I’ve probably missed some features, but it’s obvious they’ve progressed considerably since their beta launch. They started small. Even though people didn’t quite understand, they kept growing and iterating. Dennis Crowley laughed when Facebook tried to emulate checkins because he knew that wasn’t the end game. We didn’t. The public thought that was the end for Foursquare. Now, it’s obvious that Foursquare has a lot up their sleeve and is poised to be a great tech company.

Next time you bash a startups idea as dumb, try and think about what they’re trying to accomplish and where they are heading. One of my favorite Steve Jobs’ quotes is “You can’t connect the dots moving forward. You can only connect them looking back.” From the outside, it’s very difficult for outsiders to connect a startup’s dots moving forward. But when we can connect them looking back, it’s absolutely fascinating to see where it started, the small steps they took along the way, and how they ultimately build a viable long-term company. Startups are built upon faith, so understand that there is always more than meets the eye.