My belief is that profit is one of the largest secrets businesses keep from other businesses and society itself. If you start thinking about profit and cost you'll inevitably turn off your consumer trained brain something companies would hate to see. So what are the reasons companies keep profit a secret? Well here's a few: Competition and Sales.
1) Competition
If the competition knows your profit margin they can figure out how to compete or take over your market segment. If profit is very high then creating a cheap knockoff brand has a greater chance of occurring. There's always one competitor that knows your market, but now the field is open to anyone and everyone. Someone is always willing to charge less and now you have to figure out how to take price out of the equation completely, which can be a very hard task.
2) Sales
Once you make a sale and the customer buys a product they will be much more likely to keep track of ROI (return on investment). If your product doesn't give the best ROI they can then look at competitors and see how your products truly stack up. Are you holding back on a feature because its unnecessary? Or do you just want to make more money. Looking at the price and cost of the item will focus the sale in the wrong direction because as masterful salesmen know the majority of purchases aren't logical, but emotional.
As cold and calculating as this sounds, I like to look at a majority of my life in the terms of cost and profit. Perhaps it is the business person inside of me, but I always wanted to do a Cost Benefit analysis on my life and calculate the ROI of stretching in the morning. People know that watching tv is bad for them, but how much money are you losing when you watch an episode of Seinfeld? I am a fan of the NFL myself, how much of my life am I giving up to the 12 billion dollar juggernaut? What do you think?
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
The easiest way to win, Do More Than Expected
That's right I said it. The easiest way to win is to do more than expected and by more I mean MUCH more. I think my early mess ups in business were holding too many concessions. For example lets say I wanted to start a consulting business, which I have in the past. If I could go back I'd tell the other me to go build at MINIMUM 10 free websites/apps for people I ADMIRE and big players in the industry. This would get me the skills and connections I needed. Then I'd tell myself to start charging everyone else and ask for referrals. The best business relationships come from referrals. Of course back then I wouldn't be smart enough to listen to that advice anyways. :-)
I'd also tell myself to do social media for those websites/apps too so I could learn how to effectively synchronize them and further build my skills. I realize at this point the old me would politely say "ok" in an awkward tone and wonder when the hell I lost my mind in the future. When would I make money you ask? Wouldn't I be working myself to death? Well the answer is yes and no.
I would NATURALLY be making money with all the value I'd bring people. See I'm at a point right now where I'm starting to think about how to naturally make money. That sounds weird right? Naturally make money...but think about it like this.
You know a cool confident guy who is great at programming, an experienced salesman, with great connections in multiple business fields and is great at marketing...how much money do you think he's making? Lets say zero for example because he focused on getting the skills more than the cash and is just down on his luck.
Well I think it's a matter of time before people naturally start contacting him for more work right? Perhaps some want to start a startup with him, perhaps they have a client they'd like him to meet, perhaps he has an idea of his own in one of the fields he helped out for free. I know those like me, skeptical ask: "what if everything went wrong?" Lets say somehow he made the mistake of helping all these people he admires and they were stingy and didn't want to give back.
Well simple, with all of his skills he can now write 10 ideas down on a paper a day until he finds a great one. He can then spec that idea out and get a company started. He has 0 money in his bank right? Well with all his skills he can convince at minimum those 10 companies to give him $100 a month to upkeep the websites and social media for them to fund his own ideas. Lets say we are still skeptical (which is never really bad to be), well then he'll have to get a job. Guess what? Remember all that free work he put in? Well now he can put those skills he gained down on a resume.
Worst case scenario he gets a job/internship for minimum wage at a tech company, (I think he'll work at a startup), but now he can afford his own place somewhere (no matter where) and as long as he has a laptop he just needs to work. The more he works the more opportunities he'll get, I think people forget that skills are more important than cash.
Our protagonist can blog about all of his failures, triumphs and even the people that screwed him. He can try out all of his ideas and finally succeed one day (whatever your definition of success is). As long as he keeps doing more than expected he'll be great. The more he does the better. I think the reason I haven't been winning is because I haven't been doing what's expected let alone more than expected. Let me know where you have been putting extra effort in and what's been happening with that extra effort.
Yesterday, I met two men at a coffee shop who both had experience in startups and were programmers. Both men I met at separate times had their fair share of victories (the latter selling stock in the recently acquired Sun Microsystems). Both worked at a multitude of startups, some got sold others failed. The thing they had in common was that they both didn't go on to start their own business (I couldn't help, but wonder why not). They both settled for regular jobs (not a bad thing), but I just couldn't help thinking of the potential they had. Then it hit me, they were doing it for the money and not the skills, they they both talked about how they always did what was expected of them and not more than that.
You could tell they caved on the business dreams they used to have and gave me excuses. "Of course at the end of the day: as one of them quoted "1 out of 1000 succeed you'll see". "I have kids and a wife" the other told me "I can't do the same things anymore". I did see...I saw that you definitely lose when you stop doing more than expected of you and settle. In my eyes they lost, not because they got jobs or built families, but because they stopped trying to go beyond that. "I still get ideas every once in a while" one of them told me. Hopefully he'll get up and follow them again eventually. We lose when we don't do more than the given expectations.
As always, thanks for the read. :-)
Find me on twitter: https://twitter.com/VladMkrtumyan
Find me on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/pub/vladimir-mkrtumyan/15/454/878/
Or just google my name.
I'd also tell myself to do social media for those websites/apps too so I could learn how to effectively synchronize them and further build my skills. I realize at this point the old me would politely say "ok" in an awkward tone and wonder when the hell I lost my mind in the future. When would I make money you ask? Wouldn't I be working myself to death? Well the answer is yes and no.
I would NATURALLY be making money with all the value I'd bring people. See I'm at a point right now where I'm starting to think about how to naturally make money. That sounds weird right? Naturally make money...but think about it like this.
You know a cool confident guy who is great at programming, an experienced salesman, with great connections in multiple business fields and is great at marketing...how much money do you think he's making? Lets say zero for example because he focused on getting the skills more than the cash and is just down on his luck.
Well I think it's a matter of time before people naturally start contacting him for more work right? Perhaps some want to start a startup with him, perhaps they have a client they'd like him to meet, perhaps he has an idea of his own in one of the fields he helped out for free. I know those like me, skeptical ask: "what if everything went wrong?" Lets say somehow he made the mistake of helping all these people he admires and they were stingy and didn't want to give back.
Well simple, with all of his skills he can now write 10 ideas down on a paper a day until he finds a great one. He can then spec that idea out and get a company started. He has 0 money in his bank right? Well with all his skills he can convince at minimum those 10 companies to give him $100 a month to upkeep the websites and social media for them to fund his own ideas. Lets say we are still skeptical (which is never really bad to be), well then he'll have to get a job. Guess what? Remember all that free work he put in? Well now he can put those skills he gained down on a resume.
Worst case scenario he gets a job/internship for minimum wage at a tech company, (I think he'll work at a startup), but now he can afford his own place somewhere (no matter where) and as long as he has a laptop he just needs to work. The more he works the more opportunities he'll get, I think people forget that skills are more important than cash.
Our protagonist can blog about all of his failures, triumphs and even the people that screwed him. He can try out all of his ideas and finally succeed one day (whatever your definition of success is). As long as he keeps doing more than expected he'll be great. The more he does the better. I think the reason I haven't been winning is because I haven't been doing what's expected let alone more than expected. Let me know where you have been putting extra effort in and what's been happening with that extra effort.
Yesterday, I met two men at a coffee shop who both had experience in startups and were programmers. Both men I met at separate times had their fair share of victories (the latter selling stock in the recently acquired Sun Microsystems). Both worked at a multitude of startups, some got sold others failed. The thing they had in common was that they both didn't go on to start their own business (I couldn't help, but wonder why not). They both settled for regular jobs (not a bad thing), but I just couldn't help thinking of the potential they had. Then it hit me, they were doing it for the money and not the skills, they they both talked about how they always did what was expected of them and not more than that.
You could tell they caved on the business dreams they used to have and gave me excuses. "Of course at the end of the day: as one of them quoted "1 out of 1000 succeed you'll see". "I have kids and a wife" the other told me "I can't do the same things anymore". I did see...I saw that you definitely lose when you stop doing more than expected of you and settle. In my eyes they lost, not because they got jobs or built families, but because they stopped trying to go beyond that. "I still get ideas every once in a while" one of them told me. Hopefully he'll get up and follow them again eventually. We lose when we don't do more than the given expectations.
As always, thanks for the read. :-)
Find me on twitter: https://twitter.com/VladMkrtumyan
Find me on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/pub/vladimir-mkrtumyan/15/454/878/
Or just google my name.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
How to get people to blog about you
Recently I asked Gary Vaynerchuk a question on twitter. I was one of 7 people he answered in writing and was pleasantly surprised to be featured in his blog post. What he did made my day and now here I am to blog about this as a thank you. You can see my original question in the link I provided...however he also unknowingly answered another question by example. How to get people to blog about you. You see I'm blogging about Gary for a couple of specific reasons and this isn't the first time either. This is the second time! So lets dig into why I'm blogging about him and why I think others are as well.
1) Authenticity
Each time you see Gary on youtube, twitter or anywhere he is himself. This is one of the main reasons I think he draws people in so easily and led to me admiring his style of doing business. If you ever find Gary on a platform, you can see he doesn't sugar coat anything, I think a lot of people respect that. By being honest with his audience he makes a great connection with us, which makes it a lot more special when he does something for you.
2) Empathy
So you know he's being authentic, but what also helps is he's very empathetic. Even though I've never met Gary in real life and I feel like he remembers me because of his ability to be so understand people. This is why I really liked his answer to my question. Read a blog he wrote about here, someone was disappointed in the comments section so he made it up to them. Of course there will always be people that can never be happy, but Gary's empathy helps him connect with everyone so each interaction gets him a lot of appreciation.
3) Give back more value than expected
Gary gave me a paragraph of an answer to my 1 minute thought out question, now that's a great ROI! This was a great way to surprise and delight me, which is the last reason I'm blogging about him today. By constantly giving people back more than they expect it earns him major points. Gary even does live streams with his audience giving back massive value by helping their businesses and making them more money!
So lets review. Gary is authentic in his brand and all of his content, which helps people feel close with him and like him a lot easier. Whenever he interacts with people he is empathetic with them and they like him more because he understands them. Finally Gary surprises people by giving them more value then they expected, which sets him apart and makes his audience personal ambassadors.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
All the Lies in Business
I was shocked with all the lies in my early years of conducting business. I had dealings with people promising to make me a millionaire in a two years; Clients telling me no one would ever agree to use my product when their neighbors did, people telling me the product was to costly when it wasn't, Startup friends bragging about how much business they were going to do when in fact I knew nothing was going on...Worse though...the worst of all those previous lies...were the people who lead me on.
"So what did you think about our product?" I'd say to a customer. "Sounds good he replied, let me talk to my accountant I can definitely see the value, I'll get back to you soon". A week later, after 6 attempts of contact he said on the phone: "Sorry I know this sounds like an excuse, but we're busy over here I'll call you back in a few days gotta go". Ok, you're busy I thought to myself no problem you'll get back to me or I'll get to you. About 15 attempts of getting in contact with him, passing notes, emails, voicemails, cellphone texts! I finally asked the secretary to talk to him for a response. "Sorry" she said: "your product is just too expensive"...Well there goes another opportunity down the drain I thought.
When clients don't pick up the phone or answer emails, when people make excuses for meetings you figure it out fast. The bottom line is you're just not valuable enough for them, and for whatever reason they don't want you to know. I've come to the conclusion though that its imminent, I myself am guilty of it as well on a smaller scale.
I'd tell people I was older when I wasn't, I'd say that me and my co-founder weren't related when we are, I would say I'm a programmer when I only know html and a bit of Javascript. I would pretend my company was larger on craigslist for development work early on and then quote graphic designers a fraction of the prices they asked for knowing they'd take it. (There's a close line to shrewd negotiation and lying I still don't know, which one that constitutes).
On the brighter side, in the recent years I've been more and more honest with people. We all know the "I ran into traffic" line just means you didn't think the meeting was important enough to come early. I still use some of those lines, but am cutting down on them. I think people love you for honesty as long as you're confident in yourself and can provide value.
The more people lied to me and my co-founder during business the more we were able to see through it. I guess being inexperienced salesmen back then we were way too optimistic about everything. We now know that "email me about your product, I'll do research and get back to you when I can, thanks" most likely means means fuck off, but in a polite way. If you do a cold call and someone says: "sorry I'm busy" well they're lying because they wouldn't have answered the phone for a random stranger in the first place, they'd just let it go to voicemail.
The more lies I hear the better business instincts I get. I've come to a point where if a client is acting shady during a free trial I cut them off and tell them to get back to me. At the end of the day I'll keep trucking on, hearing the lies and getting better at recognizing them. Each lie is more experience for me to learn from and another step closer to financial success or at least I tell myself for now.
As always thanks for the read.
Connect with me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VladMkrtumyan
Connect with me on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/vladimir-mkrtumyan/15/454/878
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Stuck in the movie Groundhog Day?
In one of my favorite movies Groundhog Day, our protagonist Bill Murray is stuck living out that same day for like a billion years. He never travels to the future past Groundhog Day until he becomes the nicest guy in town, learns how to play the piano, build a nuclear reactor (maybe not) etc. I've realized my life and society is sort of stuck doing the same things daily like that movie.
Watch the trailer for fun if you want:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSVeDx9fk60
As a whole people never change. If you take a look at our developmental accomplishments in life most of them happen from when we're born to around the end of college. After college everyone stops learning all of a sudden, we all watch football every weekend and drink beer with our friends (I still love the Seahawks). No need to study for finals so its back to the bar or time to watch another episode of Breaking Bad.
The financial road we're on is generally the same maxing at around the 60,000 income range. Starting tomorrow "I'll eat healthy!" or "exercise" or fill in the blank, we say to ourselves and tomorrow comes around today...again...
I told myself I'd blog everyday of my life starting..."tomorrow", but it didn't work out that way...I know I need to exercise daily, but I don't. Programming is an invaluable skill-set right? Well I've been saying that for the last 2 and a half years.
We all have the next step right in front of us, but don't take it for one reason or another, which are all lame excuses at the end of the day.
So with all my ranting and whining about the problem, what is my solution? Well the reason I'm able to publish this blog today, the reason I've been more active is simple. A start is better than nothing...
I got myself to commit a little bit of effort these last couple of weeks. I now do 10 push ups when I wake up every morning. Consistently doing 10 push ups daily, I was actually in the mood to exercise a couple of days later, which I now do regularly. I made myself outline blogs whenever a topic or idea hit me, which makes publishing these puppies a lot easier. The next habit I'll try to instill is programming. Tiny consistent commitments that got me started down the right path made a huge difference. Even though I'm not blogging daily, which is hard to do things are definitely improving fast and I feel like I'm on an upward spiral.
After this post I'll do 5 minutes of programming lessons, which may be nothing...but tomorrow I may do 30 minutes of programming lessons who knows. I know I'll also do 10 push ups in the morning and still outline a blog idea tomorrow, which will definitely help lead me down the right path. The point is to start very small and you'll be impressed by what'll happen if you keep it up.
"I don't have the time" or "I'm tired" aren't excuses if you break down a huge goal of exercising daily into doing 10 push ups each morning or even less.
As we take these small steps the next ones will illuminate and should help us escape the Groundhog Day we're all stuck in. My goal is to keep improving past my early 20s for the rest of my life and hopefully become a badass mofo with this method.
As always you can find me on twitter: https://twitter.com/VladMkrtumyan
Thanks for reading. :-)
Watch the trailer for fun if you want:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSVeDx9fk60
As a whole people never change. If you take a look at our developmental accomplishments in life most of them happen from when we're born to around the end of college. After college everyone stops learning all of a sudden, we all watch football every weekend and drink beer with our friends (I still love the Seahawks). No need to study for finals so its back to the bar or time to watch another episode of Breaking Bad.
The financial road we're on is generally the same maxing at around the 60,000 income range. Starting tomorrow "I'll eat healthy!" or "exercise" or fill in the blank, we say to ourselves and tomorrow comes around today...again...
I told myself I'd blog everyday of my life starting..."tomorrow", but it didn't work out that way...I know I need to exercise daily, but I don't. Programming is an invaluable skill-set right? Well I've been saying that for the last 2 and a half years.
We all have the next step right in front of us, but don't take it for one reason or another, which are all lame excuses at the end of the day.
So with all my ranting and whining about the problem, what is my solution? Well the reason I'm able to publish this blog today, the reason I've been more active is simple. A start is better than nothing...
I got myself to commit a little bit of effort these last couple of weeks. I now do 10 push ups when I wake up every morning. Consistently doing 10 push ups daily, I was actually in the mood to exercise a couple of days later, which I now do regularly. I made myself outline blogs whenever a topic or idea hit me, which makes publishing these puppies a lot easier. The next habit I'll try to instill is programming. Tiny consistent commitments that got me started down the right path made a huge difference. Even though I'm not blogging daily, which is hard to do things are definitely improving fast and I feel like I'm on an upward spiral.
After this post I'll do 5 minutes of programming lessons, which may be nothing...but tomorrow I may do 30 minutes of programming lessons who knows. I know I'll also do 10 push ups in the morning and still outline a blog idea tomorrow, which will definitely help lead me down the right path. The point is to start very small and you'll be impressed by what'll happen if you keep it up.
"I don't have the time" or "I'm tired" aren't excuses if you break down a huge goal of exercising daily into doing 10 push ups each morning or even less.
As we take these small steps the next ones will illuminate and should help us escape the Groundhog Day we're all stuck in. My goal is to keep improving past my early 20s for the rest of my life and hopefully become a badass mofo with this method.
As always you can find me on twitter: https://twitter.com/VladMkrtumyan
Thanks for reading. :-)
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
25 Reasons Programmers Should Love Cold Calling SaaS
Ah the programmer, one of my favorite types of people in the world. Stereotyped as an introvert not able to hold a conversation with his own mother and never getting the girl. We know this isn't true, screw society, we know each programmer breaks the mold in their own way. Hopefully one day people will see how extraordinary this skill really is, but what if programmers loved cold calling as well? I think they'd take over the world in a heartbeat.
I have a friend who describes himself as an "extroverted programmer", he was self taught with no college background, got into Microsoft and worked as a project lead for over a lead, quit that started doing consulting work and building startups. I also have a cousin who is a CS major at Berkley, the "I've done this since I was 13" type of programmer. Both of these guys have been extremely successful at business considering their young age, the former selling a company and the latter having one making thousands a month currently. They are both young, yet what they have in common is they don't mind picking up the phone and making a call.
You may argue "I shouldn't love cold calling, I need to specialize in one field to be the best I can in it". Well if your goal is to be Dennis Ritchie then you're on the right path, however if you want to be a founder of a tech company then don't lie to yourself and say having the guts to get business and close deals is a bad thing. God forbid you cold call someone, get some initial users or make some sales. I think we need more programmers who can put on the sales cap, we know they're smart enough all they have to do is jump in the pool. You hate "business monkeys" right? Well show them how useless they really are.
If I miss any reasons feel free to add on and if you disagree then cool story bro (just kidding opposite opinions are always welcome and facilitate good conversation).
So without further adieu, here is my list of 25 Reasons Programmers Should Love Cold Calling.
1) Human Hacking. Something Kevin Mitnick was great at (don't pretend he isn't cool). Cold calling is arguably similar to it except more legal.
2) It will teach you how to stand up for yourself. The best cold callers don't let people walk all over them and everyone needs self-confidence. Say your business fails, well you can now negotiate contracts and aren't afraid of receiving a "no" for your future boss.
3) You don't rely on a business co-founder anymore. In fact tell him you want 80% equity, he's gonna stay in operation land while you handle the big deals running the company the right way. Not relying on a business co-founder lets you be a lot more picky. Perhaps you want a business superstar now for salary? Perhaps even hire more programmers on board to show people what a Lean Startup really is.
4) New connections. No one can take away the power you'll build with great connections. Cold calling will build your sales skills to the point where selling yourself won't be a problem. Once you have the connections, the ability to build the product and sales skills to grow further...well I think we're on to something :-)
5) Never be cornered into one role again. By playing multiple roles at a startup you can switch back and forth when bored or perhaps stuck on a hard problem. Pick up the phone an start cold calling, make a sale, feel good and fix that Satan induced bug.
6) It kills your ego. When you cold call you have to get rid of that feeling deep inside the pit of your stomach that cares about judgement. Having an ego, being "too good" to do the little stuff will kill a startup fast. As a co-founder you have to put your pride aside and do whatever it takes to succeed, having an ego can drag all of us down in life.
7) Forget the QA Engineer or VP sales guy slowing things down. If you're a startup founder talking directly to customers will definitely help. Bypass the QA guy and get to the customers real gripe without playing telephone. There's a reason Michael Dell spent 20% of his time in customer development.
8) You're destined to do it. Have you tried cold calling? No? Is there 1% chance you'll love it? Maybe. Give it a try and you just might find another love of your's that will take you farther in life.
9) Being a programmer is a HUGE advantage in during the sales process. "Oh you don't like the product?...well what would like me to fix about it, I MADE it". Saying you're the owner (even partial) of the product will gain you tons of respect from customers. Telling people you're a programmer in sales or cold calls is very disarming. You're not that pesky guy attacking them to hurry up and buy, you're the creator seeking their insight trying to create value and actually fix their problems.
10) Gain more respect with your team. Is there another sales guy in your company? Well consider yourself brothers at arms now, you have a connection with him very few people ever will, you've been in the trenches you know what its like.
11) Hilarious stories. You'll laugh at the "professional" image some companies comically uphold, the hip hop hold music they put you on, the half asleep employees and much more. The last sweet old front desk lady who transferred me to the wrong person said: "oh fuck sorry!".
12) People will thank you. If the call goes well or at minimum if you're polite, people will thank you for reaching out to them attempting to provide value. A lot of cold callers forget about this, but then again most people in life focus on the negatives or what's in it for them during sales.
13) It helps figure out if the business you're in is worth being a part of. If most customers don't like the product then why should you continue with this path? The worse death is that of "a thousand paper-cuts" in startups vs. failing fast and pivoting to success.
14) Ever want to call yourself a Growth Hacker? Well if you understand programming and cold calling then marketing will be much easier. You can now create your own marketing tools with your new found knowledge of your prospects and clients.
15) Writing ads is easier then ever before. With all your experience in sales you know what your customers like to hear and how they like to hear it, you have the chance to understand the customer in the best way.
16) You're trying out a new way to get users. To get an edge or keep an edge in startups you have to try out new things, cold calling just may be the highest way to convert customers on top of all the valuable market research you'll find.
17) No co-founders no problem. Being a single co-founder is hard, damn near impossible, however now you can do it. On the flip side, prove your idea works first and your ideal partners will be more likely to join.
18) Add this as another skill on your resume if the startup idea failed. You can now talk about this experience and will stick out like a sore thumb versus everyone else.
19) Making a list of new features is faster than ever before. Simply asking people what they'd like to see in your startup isn't such a bad thing. It doesn't mean you can't innovate, but it does mean you're listening to customers and taking what they really want into consideration.
20) Find your dream clients. You can now be more picky with douchebags and find the dream clients you wanted. This is the reason I'm picky with our clients on trial today in fact because I know I can get someone else in their area.
21)Learn social skills. Yes cold calling involves keeping the conversation going and figuring out when people don't want you to talk, if you learn how to do this conversations will be easier then ever before.
22) Learn more about your competitors. Sometimes clients will tell you what you're not doing that your competitors are and who else they're comparing you to.
23) Build your business instincts. If you do enough sales you'll know just when a deal will fall through and when people are taking you for a ride, this makes building a startup a lot easier.
24) Learn more about your companies reputation and other people in your company. Some customers may have talked to other people in your company before who they'll praise or hate and can tell you why.
25) Find other product segments. As the case happened for my company a possible customer of your's may have a completely different problem then you imagined that you can solve, all solved through programming.
26) Bonus: Make More Money. An extra person on the sales team = more money, a programmer on the sales team = better product + more sales = Much More Money.
Well those are all the reasons I can come up with off the top of my head for now. This post was inspired by my cold calling/programming startup founder so thanks to him.
Follow my partner on twitter: https://twitter.com/hayksaakian
I have a friend who describes himself as an "extroverted programmer", he was self taught with no college background, got into Microsoft and worked as a project lead for over a lead, quit that started doing consulting work and building startups. I also have a cousin who is a CS major at Berkley, the "I've done this since I was 13" type of programmer. Both of these guys have been extremely successful at business considering their young age, the former selling a company and the latter having one making thousands a month currently. They are both young, yet what they have in common is they don't mind picking up the phone and making a call.
You may argue "I shouldn't love cold calling, I need to specialize in one field to be the best I can in it". Well if your goal is to be Dennis Ritchie then you're on the right path, however if you want to be a founder of a tech company then don't lie to yourself and say having the guts to get business and close deals is a bad thing. God forbid you cold call someone, get some initial users or make some sales. I think we need more programmers who can put on the sales cap, we know they're smart enough all they have to do is jump in the pool. You hate "business monkeys" right? Well show them how useless they really are.
If I miss any reasons feel free to add on and if you disagree then cool story bro (just kidding opposite opinions are always welcome and facilitate good conversation).
So without further adieu, here is my list of 25 Reasons Programmers Should Love Cold Calling.
1) Human Hacking. Something Kevin Mitnick was great at (don't pretend he isn't cool). Cold calling is arguably similar to it except more legal.
2) It will teach you how to stand up for yourself. The best cold callers don't let people walk all over them and everyone needs self-confidence. Say your business fails, well you can now negotiate contracts and aren't afraid of receiving a "no" for your future boss.
3) You don't rely on a business co-founder anymore. In fact tell him you want 80% equity, he's gonna stay in operation land while you handle the big deals running the company the right way. Not relying on a business co-founder lets you be a lot more picky. Perhaps you want a business superstar now for salary? Perhaps even hire more programmers on board to show people what a Lean Startup really is.
4) New connections. No one can take away the power you'll build with great connections. Cold calling will build your sales skills to the point where selling yourself won't be a problem. Once you have the connections, the ability to build the product and sales skills to grow further...well I think we're on to something :-)
5) Never be cornered into one role again. By playing multiple roles at a startup you can switch back and forth when bored or perhaps stuck on a hard problem. Pick up the phone an start cold calling, make a sale, feel good and fix that Satan induced bug.
6) It kills your ego. When you cold call you have to get rid of that feeling deep inside the pit of your stomach that cares about judgement. Having an ego, being "too good" to do the little stuff will kill a startup fast. As a co-founder you have to put your pride aside and do whatever it takes to succeed, having an ego can drag all of us down in life.
7) Forget the QA Engineer or VP sales guy slowing things down. If you're a startup founder talking directly to customers will definitely help. Bypass the QA guy and get to the customers real gripe without playing telephone. There's a reason Michael Dell spent 20% of his time in customer development.
8) You're destined to do it. Have you tried cold calling? No? Is there 1% chance you'll love it? Maybe. Give it a try and you just might find another love of your's that will take you farther in life.
9) Being a programmer is a HUGE advantage in during the sales process. "Oh you don't like the product?...well what would like me to fix about it, I MADE it". Saying you're the owner (even partial) of the product will gain you tons of respect from customers. Telling people you're a programmer in sales or cold calls is very disarming. You're not that pesky guy attacking them to hurry up and buy, you're the creator seeking their insight trying to create value and actually fix their problems.
10) Gain more respect with your team. Is there another sales guy in your company? Well consider yourself brothers at arms now, you have a connection with him very few people ever will, you've been in the trenches you know what its like.
11) Hilarious stories. You'll laugh at the "professional" image some companies comically uphold, the hip hop hold music they put you on, the half asleep employees and much more. The last sweet old front desk lady who transferred me to the wrong person said: "oh fuck sorry!".
12) People will thank you. If the call goes well or at minimum if you're polite, people will thank you for reaching out to them attempting to provide value. A lot of cold callers forget about this, but then again most people in life focus on the negatives or what's in it for them during sales.
13) It helps figure out if the business you're in is worth being a part of. If most customers don't like the product then why should you continue with this path? The worse death is that of "a thousand paper-cuts" in startups vs. failing fast and pivoting to success.
14) Ever want to call yourself a Growth Hacker? Well if you understand programming and cold calling then marketing will be much easier. You can now create your own marketing tools with your new found knowledge of your prospects and clients.
15) Writing ads is easier then ever before. With all your experience in sales you know what your customers like to hear and how they like to hear it, you have the chance to understand the customer in the best way.
16) You're trying out a new way to get users. To get an edge or keep an edge in startups you have to try out new things, cold calling just may be the highest way to convert customers on top of all the valuable market research you'll find.
17) No co-founders no problem. Being a single co-founder is hard, damn near impossible, however now you can do it. On the flip side, prove your idea works first and your ideal partners will be more likely to join.
18) Add this as another skill on your resume if the startup idea failed. You can now talk about this experience and will stick out like a sore thumb versus everyone else.
19) Making a list of new features is faster than ever before. Simply asking people what they'd like to see in your startup isn't such a bad thing. It doesn't mean you can't innovate, but it does mean you're listening to customers and taking what they really want into consideration.
20) Find your dream clients. You can now be more picky with douchebags and find the dream clients you wanted. This is the reason I'm picky with our clients on trial today in fact because I know I can get someone else in their area.
21)Learn social skills. Yes cold calling involves keeping the conversation going and figuring out when people don't want you to talk, if you learn how to do this conversations will be easier then ever before.
22) Learn more about your competitors. Sometimes clients will tell you what you're not doing that your competitors are and who else they're comparing you to.
23) Build your business instincts. If you do enough sales you'll know just when a deal will fall through and when people are taking you for a ride, this makes building a startup a lot easier.
24) Learn more about your companies reputation and other people in your company. Some customers may have talked to other people in your company before who they'll praise or hate and can tell you why.
25) Find other product segments. As the case happened for my company a possible customer of your's may have a completely different problem then you imagined that you can solve, all solved through programming.
26) Bonus: Make More Money. An extra person on the sales team = more money, a programmer on the sales team = better product + more sales = Much More Money.
Well those are all the reasons I can come up with off the top of my head for now. This post was inspired by my cold calling/programming startup founder so thanks to him.
Follow my partner on twitter: https://twitter.com/hayksaakian
Thursday, September 19, 2013
How I Met a Billlionaire and What I Learned
Out of respect to the man I interviewed, I will keep his identity semi-anonymous. I don't think he cares much if I share his identity, but I never told him I'd blog about the conversation so it's purely out of respect. If you are dying to find out I'm sure with research you can guess who.
Firstly lets get the how I met him part out of the way. I joked around a lot with my mom about it because she told me every once in a while she sees one the founders of Costco around the office.
What's her position? Well she's simply an accountant like thousands of others, but luckily she works at the headquarters. Being a good CEO you can see him walk around headquarters and he greets all his employees. She saw him one day when he said hello, gave him my phone number and he told her he'd contact me. After weeks of no contact I got a call from a tired sounding secretary and I was in!
Now my meeting was with 3 other guys my age who had questions, but I didn't mind because I got my 30 minutes of one on one time in.
By the way, meeting millionaires is very possible! Hell James Woods just tweeted a smiley face at me today on twitter :) Gary Vaynerchuk and James Altucher are both on twitter and I got them both to respond to my emails (for which I am eternally grateful). I even snapchat with Gary Vaynerchuk from time to time, connect with him its easy! James Altucher even answers questions on Thursdays for twitter followers so go check those guys out...but interviewing this guy at the top of his level...a billionaire...he was at the end of where a lot of business people only dream to be on their business journeys.
I happened to write all his answers in a journal, some answers are controversial others you already know. I'll make this short, I had a 30 minute interview. If I was smarter I'd get a camera and record our interview and make it public (something you could do when meeting famous people you'll rarely see)...the problem is I doubt I'll ever see him again. He's very busy and I tried reaching out to no avail.
Now remember these answers are from memory, so all the bad stuff is mine and inexperienced interpretation, all the great stuff is his.
1) What's the answer to work/life balance?
That's a hard questions...There's never going to be a perfect answer to that question. I work 10 hours everyday and on weekends. My only tip is when you're with family make it all about family and vice versa with work. I recommend you balance your time on only 3 things in life: 1) Family 2) Work and 3) Health, everything else will take care of itself.
2) Is Mentorship important?
Mentorship is very important. I would definitely not have been where I have been today if it wasn't for Sol Price. I learned everything I know about business from him. He was the type of guy who when I said, "Look how great we're doing!" would say: "Keep your head down and get back to work". Each one of you should get a mentor. He has been pushing me to work beyond what I thought was capable.
3) I believe luck is when opportunity meets hard work, what are your thoughts?
A lot of young bright guys think they can sit there and reach the level of Gates or Jobs, but I'd be very foolish not to tell you luck had a lot to do with my success. You can only reach a certain level of success along with working 24/7 of course. If you take a look at my past I was amazingly lucky to land the jobs I landed, learn all I needed to learn, meet the right partners and be involved in just the right market during the time banks were giving out the types of loans not accessible today.
4) Amazon is killing it online, what are you guys doing in that space?
We are making more money online than consumers can fathom its just we still believe people will travel to stores to get things in quantity. Right now you don't have the buying experience you do in store, one day that may be wrong, we have people watching.
5) How do you deal with set backs?
Look we all have setbacks as a natural part of the process. You will no doubt stub your toes on the way to success, the question is will you stop like everyone else or keep moving forward. We tell our managers to make a list of everything they want to get accomplished for the week on Sunday and review each week, keep it simple.
At this point in the conversation I let the other three guys pitch him their product. My company was selling leads in real estate I told him about it, but he didn't reply and I didn't think he could help too much. I also figured I was lucky enough to get an interview so I left it at that, which may have been a mistake. I should have asked him to be a mentor, later I did in a letter, but I'm sure it was too late. Overall I'm very grateful for the opportunity.
The main two things I learned besides the lessons above is A) Everyone says they're "busy", but they're not, if a billionaire could meet with me anyone can make the time to meet with anyone. The bottom line is "I'm busy" is lying. B) Having a lot of money doesn't make you so special, his answers weren't revolutionary, but still good. A lot of his insights were great, but I thought he'd totally blow my mind with business knowledge...maybe it went above my head and looking at my notes I'll come to realize the genius...The success he attained seemed like it came from abnormal amounts of hard work, meeting the right people and luck.
Firstly lets get the how I met him part out of the way. I joked around a lot with my mom about it because she told me every once in a while she sees one the founders of Costco around the office.
What's her position? Well she's simply an accountant like thousands of others, but luckily she works at the headquarters. Being a good CEO you can see him walk around headquarters and he greets all his employees. She saw him one day when he said hello, gave him my phone number and he told her he'd contact me. After weeks of no contact I got a call from a tired sounding secretary and I was in!
Now my meeting was with 3 other guys my age who had questions, but I didn't mind because I got my 30 minutes of one on one time in.
By the way, meeting millionaires is very possible! Hell James Woods just tweeted a smiley face at me today on twitter :) Gary Vaynerchuk and James Altucher are both on twitter and I got them both to respond to my emails (for which I am eternally grateful). I even snapchat with Gary Vaynerchuk from time to time, connect with him its easy! James Altucher even answers questions on Thursdays for twitter followers so go check those guys out...but interviewing this guy at the top of his level...a billionaire...he was at the end of where a lot of business people only dream to be on their business journeys.
I happened to write all his answers in a journal, some answers are controversial others you already know. I'll make this short, I had a 30 minute interview. If I was smarter I'd get a camera and record our interview and make it public (something you could do when meeting famous people you'll rarely see)...the problem is I doubt I'll ever see him again. He's very busy and I tried reaching out to no avail.
Now remember these answers are from memory, so all the bad stuff is mine and inexperienced interpretation, all the great stuff is his.
1) What's the answer to work/life balance?
That's a hard questions...There's never going to be a perfect answer to that question. I work 10 hours everyday and on weekends. My only tip is when you're with family make it all about family and vice versa with work. I recommend you balance your time on only 3 things in life: 1) Family 2) Work and 3) Health, everything else will take care of itself.
2) Is Mentorship important?
Mentorship is very important. I would definitely not have been where I have been today if it wasn't for Sol Price. I learned everything I know about business from him. He was the type of guy who when I said, "Look how great we're doing!" would say: "Keep your head down and get back to work". Each one of you should get a mentor. He has been pushing me to work beyond what I thought was capable.
3) I believe luck is when opportunity meets hard work, what are your thoughts?
A lot of young bright guys think they can sit there and reach the level of Gates or Jobs, but I'd be very foolish not to tell you luck had a lot to do with my success. You can only reach a certain level of success along with working 24/7 of course. If you take a look at my past I was amazingly lucky to land the jobs I landed, learn all I needed to learn, meet the right partners and be involved in just the right market during the time banks were giving out the types of loans not accessible today.
4) Amazon is killing it online, what are you guys doing in that space?
We are making more money online than consumers can fathom its just we still believe people will travel to stores to get things in quantity. Right now you don't have the buying experience you do in store, one day that may be wrong, we have people watching.
5) How do you deal with set backs?
Look we all have setbacks as a natural part of the process. You will no doubt stub your toes on the way to success, the question is will you stop like everyone else or keep moving forward. We tell our managers to make a list of everything they want to get accomplished for the week on Sunday and review each week, keep it simple.
At this point in the conversation I let the other three guys pitch him their product. My company was selling leads in real estate I told him about it, but he didn't reply and I didn't think he could help too much. I also figured I was lucky enough to get an interview so I left it at that, which may have been a mistake. I should have asked him to be a mentor, later I did in a letter, but I'm sure it was too late. Overall I'm very grateful for the opportunity.
The main two things I learned besides the lessons above is A) Everyone says they're "busy", but they're not, if a billionaire could meet with me anyone can make the time to meet with anyone. The bottom line is "I'm busy" is lying. B) Having a lot of money doesn't make you so special, his answers weren't revolutionary, but still good. A lot of his insights were great, but I thought he'd totally blow my mind with business knowledge...maybe it went above my head and looking at my notes I'll come to realize the genius...The success he attained seemed like it came from abnormal amounts of hard work, meeting the right people and luck.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Three Lessons Gary Vaynerchuk Taught Me About Business
***Note: I am in no way affiliated with Gary Vaynerchuk and he didn't tell me to write this post or structure it in anyway, therefore all the good stuff goes to him and the bad stuff is my ineptitude.
I first ran into Gary when he replied to an email my company sent him 3 years ago. We were sending millionaires emails because we wanted "advice" on our first venture (having no experience on anything business related then), Gary was just another name on a list. I quickly read his description about taking his company from 3 million to over 40 million in revenue and I thought he could definitely be a good mentor.
Gary replied the next day! His reply was a sentence, it had grammatical errors, a misspelled word, however he was the only person at his level that got in contact with us at the time. Out of 100 people 6 replied and the other replies were from secretaries. I knew that the reply was his because it was only a sentence long.
Here it is:
"guys I am so sorry but I am head down these days with new book, family and Vaynermedia, I wish u nothing but awesome!"
No capital letter at the beginning of the sentence or anything, but I was very happy he replied!
Next we asked what we could do to get a mentor and we got another reply!
"exactly what u ate doing ... Ask"
It shocked me that he sent us another email reply! His interaction later lead me down the path of doing more research on him, his company and most recently pre-ordering his book Jab Jab Jab Right Hook. I remembered his name and how he did something so simple, yet it meant a lot.
So without further stalling here are the three lessons I learned from Gary during our on and off relationship the past three years.
1) Caring helps you provide Value, which = Winning
In his latest book Jab Jab Jab Right Hook, I'm going to make a bet on what the book will revolve around...The book will say you need to care and actually listen to your customers, give them value first and to then finally receive it. The rest of the book will give you examples of how you can do this through different marketing platforms and tactics. Every business thinks they can spam to win, take a look at the term "Real Estate" on twitter and you'll see what I'm talking about, people just spam articles in your face, no interaction whatsoever.
What winners do is listen to their core audience, ask questions to possible prospects and then give the prospects something they care about aka value. Once you give the prospects enough value you then have their attention and can make the sale or even learn more about your field to figure out how to give more value, more value = more money.
2) You don't Need a Mentor
When Gary told me to "just ask" for mentorship, I listened his advice it and it worked! I got a mentor, he was very successful and every week he'd meet with our company for a few hours teaching us a lot...thing is however I later learned from him you don't need a mentor. On Spreecast someone asked Gary if he had a mentor and he said "no", after he said that on Spreecast I said "Wait you don't have any mentors" (at the 51 minute mark and 28 seconds in ;D)...and he replied:
"Vlad yeah, I mean its not that I don't have any mentors, I'm like a weird unit this is probably my flaw Vlad, I would not say this is a strength and the truth is I'm wired a certain way...I'm one that learns by actions or watching other people"
After thinking about his answer quite a bit and it just goes to show you don't NEED any mentorship...Personally, I've learned a lot from my mentor, but I've also learned a ton from doing business with people who could be my mentors (latter feels better). If I ever have a question I can always get it answered by asking enough people, but most of the time everyone knows what they need to do in business. Perhaps I'm very biased, but people know they need to hustle, they know they need to care, they know they need to get outside of their comfort zone and stand out. Your mentor, your team can only push you so far at the end of the day you control your own your own success and only you.
3) Way too many people read and don't take action
I wrote "the Theory Guy Never Wins in Business" blog post and got a lot of flack from some people. Now I'm no psychic, but my reasoning is they were mad at me because they didn't want to take responsibility for their lives. In multiple interviews with Gary you can hear him saying "quit watching Lost" everyone has enough time, the only way to win is to WORK period.
I've learned a lot more from Gary than just those three business rules, but those three are the main ones I decided to share with you guys today. I encourage all of you to connect with him. At the end of the day if you show people you care and take enough action, winning is immanent. The secret is there is no secret, no magic pills, no instant results, just instant coffee in the morning you make while you're busy working away.
Connect with Gary on twitter: https://twitter.com/garyvee
I first ran into Gary when he replied to an email my company sent him 3 years ago. We were sending millionaires emails because we wanted "advice" on our first venture (having no experience on anything business related then), Gary was just another name on a list. I quickly read his description about taking his company from 3 million to over 40 million in revenue and I thought he could definitely be a good mentor.
Gary replied the next day! His reply was a sentence, it had grammatical errors, a misspelled word, however he was the only person at his level that got in contact with us at the time. Out of 100 people 6 replied and the other replies were from secretaries. I knew that the reply was his because it was only a sentence long.
Here it is:
"guys I am so sorry but I am head down these days with new book, family and Vaynermedia, I wish u nothing but awesome!"
No capital letter at the beginning of the sentence or anything, but I was very happy he replied!
Next we asked what we could do to get a mentor and we got another reply!
"exactly what u ate doing ... Ask"
It shocked me that he sent us another email reply! His interaction later lead me down the path of doing more research on him, his company and most recently pre-ordering his book Jab Jab Jab Right Hook. I remembered his name and how he did something so simple, yet it meant a lot.
So without further stalling here are the three lessons I learned from Gary during our on and off relationship the past three years.
1) Caring helps you provide Value, which = Winning
In his latest book Jab Jab Jab Right Hook, I'm going to make a bet on what the book will revolve around...The book will say you need to care and actually listen to your customers, give them value first and to then finally receive it. The rest of the book will give you examples of how you can do this through different marketing platforms and tactics. Every business thinks they can spam to win, take a look at the term "Real Estate" on twitter and you'll see what I'm talking about, people just spam articles in your face, no interaction whatsoever.
What winners do is listen to their core audience, ask questions to possible prospects and then give the prospects something they care about aka value. Once you give the prospects enough value you then have their attention and can make the sale or even learn more about your field to figure out how to give more value, more value = more money.
2) You don't Need a Mentor
When Gary told me to "just ask" for mentorship, I listened his advice it and it worked! I got a mentor, he was very successful and every week he'd meet with our company for a few hours teaching us a lot...thing is however I later learned from him you don't need a mentor. On Spreecast someone asked Gary if he had a mentor and he said "no", after he said that on Spreecast I said "Wait you don't have any mentors" (at the 51 minute mark and 28 seconds in ;D)...and he replied:
"Vlad yeah, I mean its not that I don't have any mentors, I'm like a weird unit this is probably my flaw Vlad, I would not say this is a strength and the truth is I'm wired a certain way...I'm one that learns by actions or watching other people"
After thinking about his answer quite a bit and it just goes to show you don't NEED any mentorship...Personally, I've learned a lot from my mentor, but I've also learned a ton from doing business with people who could be my mentors (latter feels better). If I ever have a question I can always get it answered by asking enough people, but most of the time everyone knows what they need to do in business. Perhaps I'm very biased, but people know they need to hustle, they know they need to care, they know they need to get outside of their comfort zone and stand out. Your mentor, your team can only push you so far at the end of the day you control your own your own success and only you.
3) Way too many people read and don't take action
I wrote "the Theory Guy Never Wins in Business" blog post and got a lot of flack from some people. Now I'm no psychic, but my reasoning is they were mad at me because they didn't want to take responsibility for their lives. In multiple interviews with Gary you can hear him saying "quit watching Lost" everyone has enough time, the only way to win is to WORK period.
I've learned a lot more from Gary than just those three business rules, but those three are the main ones I decided to share with you guys today. I encourage all of you to connect with him. At the end of the day if you show people you care and take enough action, winning is immanent. The secret is there is no secret, no magic pills, no instant results, just instant coffee in the morning you make while you're busy working away.
Connect with Gary on twitter: https://twitter.com/garyvee
Friday, August 23, 2013
The Worst Cold Call That Taught Me The Most
After a horrible day of little to no calling I sat there on the couch playing chess. Internally I felt like a failure and like I was completely hopeless...then my cellphone starts ringing. "Surely it can't be a customer" I told myself they never call (This was literally the first person to do that). "Hello" I answered very nervously...who could it be? "Hi this is Janet". After leaving a voicemail she actually called me back to inquire what I was calling about and so the process began.
Pitching her my services and what my company does I finally stopped asking her questions and paused to force her to speak..."I'm not gonna buy from you she said". "Ok I replied not a big deal, we'll get someone else in your region, may I ask why?". "Well let me be honest" she said, "honesty is what I want most of all lay it on me" I replied. "You sound way too nervous for me to do business with you", "the truth is I am nervous" I replied.
"Why are you nervous" she asked? "Well because I don't know you"...That's when it hit me over the head...if I knew the person I was calling it would be so much easier to talk to them yes or no, no matter their reply. I am very confident in person, but over the phone something slips. I love connecting with people, but it goes out the window when I cold call. "Why is that she said? Tell me more about how you could help us". I went on more confident now after I had acknowledged my nervousness. Still I prodded her to be work with us, however after 4 objections I figured I should use the time to simply learn more.
I knew I couldn't sell her because our product simply didn't fit with her needs, so I switched the topic. In front of me was a CEO who called called a lot. "What advice do you have in terms of cold calling?"I asked. "every no gets you closer to a customer that will say yes" she said...well I knew that, I wasn't impressed. Then came the good advice: "I tell myself everytime that this is a conversation, remember that and you'll be fine, you're just having conversations with people that's what this is about." That statement is where I made my breakthrough. No longer do I feel nervous anymore, if I feel nervous I acknowledge my feelings and they die down. Looking at each call as a conversation made me want to connect with people first and sell second.
People can say no, you don't have to close every call and I now hold comfort in that thought. I can mess up because the next conversation will go better. I treated each call as if it was the last shot before the buzzer, however this game is a marathon not a sprint. I'm sure I'll continue to get butterflies, but there's finally a sun after the storm.
Pitching her my services and what my company does I finally stopped asking her questions and paused to force her to speak..."I'm not gonna buy from you she said". "Ok I replied not a big deal, we'll get someone else in your region, may I ask why?". "Well let me be honest" she said, "honesty is what I want most of all lay it on me" I replied. "You sound way too nervous for me to do business with you", "the truth is I am nervous" I replied.
"Why are you nervous" she asked? "Well because I don't know you"...That's when it hit me over the head...if I knew the person I was calling it would be so much easier to talk to them yes or no, no matter their reply. I am very confident in person, but over the phone something slips. I love connecting with people, but it goes out the window when I cold call. "Why is that she said? Tell me more about how you could help us". I went on more confident now after I had acknowledged my nervousness. Still I prodded her to be work with us, however after 4 objections I figured I should use the time to simply learn more.
I knew I couldn't sell her because our product simply didn't fit with her needs, so I switched the topic. In front of me was a CEO who called called a lot. "What advice do you have in terms of cold calling?"I asked. "every no gets you closer to a customer that will say yes" she said...well I knew that, I wasn't impressed. Then came the good advice: "I tell myself everytime that this is a conversation, remember that and you'll be fine, you're just having conversations with people that's what this is about." That statement is where I made my breakthrough. No longer do I feel nervous anymore, if I feel nervous I acknowledge my feelings and they die down. Looking at each call as a conversation made me want to connect with people first and sell second.
People can say no, you don't have to close every call and I now hold comfort in that thought. I can mess up because the next conversation will go better. I treated each call as if it was the last shot before the buzzer, however this game is a marathon not a sprint. I'm sure I'll continue to get butterflies, but there's finally a sun after the storm.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
The Are entrepreneurs born or Made debate
So I was sitting with an entrepreneurial mentor of mine at a restaurant (whom I very much respect). I hold him in high regard for two reasons. 1) He has a great business mind (successfully sold a company and built another large one) 2) He is always brutally honest with me (honesty is what I always admire in people).
Anyways, at the time I was telling him about a brilliant friend I had and how I liked her business ideas. "She has the work ethic and is certainly smart enough to make money" I said. After I said this, he responded with a patient, but slightly annoyed look on his face: "You know you might be pushing her on this path, not many people are like you or me and meant to do this."...I know for a fact I wasn't pushing anyone, she came at me with her business idea...At the time I let that comment slip by though because I had other questions and topics I wanted to discuss. He has succeeded a lot and I recognized the rare opportunity I had. Since that lunch though I think about his comment a lot...I've seen the "natural born" concept hit over and over and over again by business people. Do you really think you're that special?
Mark Cuban talks about how he was selling garbage bags at the age of 6, Gary Vaynerchuk says he always had the business DNA owning 6 lemonade stands at age 13, people speak about Bill Gates' natural born genius in his biography, the man I was speaking to said he was very successful very early on as well, Gurbaksh Chahal sold his first company at 18, Donald Trump always says about how he was, well you know Donald...It seems to me people think they're very brilliant from the start. I can go on and on with the young success examples; Elon Musk is noted to have sold a startup at a young age. These people can all argue they were "born" entrepreneurs.
What about people that made it later in life? Surely not everyone was born with it. What about Ford creating his first prototype car at age 32? (Note he still wasn't successful at this point). Sol Price (had a big part in creating Costco, Sams Club and Walmart) didn't start FedMart until he was age 38. Rose Blumkin (Sold her two companies to Warren Buffet) didn't start Nebraska Furniture Mart until age 44. At age 24, Duncan Bannatyne (worth over well over 200 million now) was in jail. Coincidentally Barbara Corcoran (the short haired blonde on Shark Tank) just started her own business at 24. These are the people you can argue weren't born entrepreneurs, but became successful later down the road.
I come from the side that thinks this game isn't about DNA...I think you can start out doing bad, but dramatically turn things around. Henry Ford, Sol Price and Rose Blumpkin plus many more didn't have big successes early on and still all became very financially wealthy. I don't think there's any secret genetic code to being an entrepreneur and I think its pretentious of people to think they're different. You can say there are natural born geniuses that give people a head start, but then again there are people with 180 IQ's who you've never heard about in life with no major accomplishments; Plus, not many entrepreneurs on the high IQ list either.
If I wanted to bad enough or if someone held a gun to my head I'd learn how to program javascript in a month (been putting it off for a while now) and it would give my business a big advantage. I'd argue effort plays a huge role in developing your entrepreneurial success and is by far the most major contributor. Everyone knows that effort is important. As the adage goes the harder you work the luckier you get...yet, sadly we don't have a way to measure effort so you can't tell when someone is bitching or really failing.
So are entrepreneurs born or made? I think made because all of them have stories about their trials and tribulations, none of them speak as if they didn't have to sacrifice everything to get to where they are. As Malcom Gladwell wrote about the 10,000 hour rule on any field, I think sheer dedication is most important for success on entrepreneurship. Happy to hear your agreeance or disapproval.
-Vlad
https://twitter.com/VladMkrtumyan
Anyways, at the time I was telling him about a brilliant friend I had and how I liked her business ideas. "She has the work ethic and is certainly smart enough to make money" I said. After I said this, he responded with a patient, but slightly annoyed look on his face: "You know you might be pushing her on this path, not many people are like you or me and meant to do this."...I know for a fact I wasn't pushing anyone, she came at me with her business idea...At the time I let that comment slip by though because I had other questions and topics I wanted to discuss. He has succeeded a lot and I recognized the rare opportunity I had. Since that lunch though I think about his comment a lot...I've seen the "natural born" concept hit over and over and over again by business people. Do you really think you're that special?
Mark Cuban talks about how he was selling garbage bags at the age of 6, Gary Vaynerchuk says he always had the business DNA owning 6 lemonade stands at age 13, people speak about Bill Gates' natural born genius in his biography, the man I was speaking to said he was very successful very early on as well, Gurbaksh Chahal sold his first company at 18, Donald Trump always says about how he was, well you know Donald...It seems to me people think they're very brilliant from the start. I can go on and on with the young success examples; Elon Musk is noted to have sold a startup at a young age. These people can all argue they were "born" entrepreneurs.
What about people that made it later in life? Surely not everyone was born with it. What about Ford creating his first prototype car at age 32? (Note he still wasn't successful at this point). Sol Price (had a big part in creating Costco, Sams Club and Walmart) didn't start FedMart until he was age 38. Rose Blumkin (Sold her two companies to Warren Buffet) didn't start Nebraska Furniture Mart until age 44. At age 24, Duncan Bannatyne (worth over well over 200 million now) was in jail. Coincidentally Barbara Corcoran (the short haired blonde on Shark Tank) just started her own business at 24. These are the people you can argue weren't born entrepreneurs, but became successful later down the road.
I come from the side that thinks this game isn't about DNA...I think you can start out doing bad, but dramatically turn things around. Henry Ford, Sol Price and Rose Blumpkin plus many more didn't have big successes early on and still all became very financially wealthy. I don't think there's any secret genetic code to being an entrepreneur and I think its pretentious of people to think they're different. You can say there are natural born geniuses that give people a head start, but then again there are people with 180 IQ's who you've never heard about in life with no major accomplishments; Plus, not many entrepreneurs on the high IQ list either.
If I wanted to bad enough or if someone held a gun to my head I'd learn how to program javascript in a month (been putting it off for a while now) and it would give my business a big advantage. I'd argue effort plays a huge role in developing your entrepreneurial success and is by far the most major contributor. Everyone knows that effort is important. As the adage goes the harder you work the luckier you get...yet, sadly we don't have a way to measure effort so you can't tell when someone is bitching or really failing.
So are entrepreneurs born or made? I think made because all of them have stories about their trials and tribulations, none of them speak as if they didn't have to sacrifice everything to get to where they are. As Malcom Gladwell wrote about the 10,000 hour rule on any field, I think sheer dedication is most important for success on entrepreneurship. Happy to hear your agreeance or disapproval.
-Vlad
https://twitter.com/VladMkrtumyan
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
3 Lessons I learned starting out as an Entrepreneur
Here are 3 lessons I learned starting out as an entrepreneur. I'm not saying I won't learn anymore, but I think these are important to avoid and definitely slow down a startups progress. Now the answer "it depends" applies to literally everything in our quantum physics world, so feel free to tell me where they don't apply or give me your thoughts on why they do as always discussion is encouraged. I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors, I want you guys to see this before I pass out for bed.
1) Never extend free trials
So this one is simple. As a startup you don't have the costly time to give clients extended trials because the more you extend the trial the lesser it makes your product or service seem worth it. For example, lets say you give 3 months worth of service for free that was supposed to have a 2 week trial. Now imagine how hard it is going for a monthly fee after...The client will almost always try to talk you down (in my B2B experience). This happened on two business models I ran and both resulted in no deals. Plus starting out I don't need hard to get clients, I want my good clients to get to the point where I can have the option to afford picky ones. Some people are never satisfied with anything, so if you ever will extend free trials tread with haste.
2) Best do what you have to do directly
Now this one is more complicated to find. A lot of times in startups if you're not doing your tasks as effectively as possible then you'll shoot yourself in the foot or die the death of 1000 papercuts. Happened to me when we were trying to do SEO on a product that made a $150 monthly profit. With some products selling face to face or cold calling works faster and is easier to get going. Of course in the best scenario you want all business channels producing, but in a startup you need to do what's effective first and disqualify or establish the business asap. Cold calling still hurts me to this day, but I do it because like flossing I know its the most effective way to my goals, maybe one day I'll love it.
3) If your gut says something is slowly going wrong, cut it off fast
Following number 3 is similar to 2, but warrants its own bullet point. Sometimes you'll be in deals or be a part of a team that doesn't feel right. Cut that off now! I had my co-founder go off to another state, tried working remotely failed slowly and miserably, while my gut told me to get out the whole time...as a result I wasted a few months of progress. I've also been in deals with people fishing for information and nothing more...should have listened to my gut and gotten out rather than waste my time. Now I follow deadlines meticulously, if you haven't met a deadline something is terribly wrong.
So there you go, those are the three tips I try to follow and would tell myself when starting out, let me know what you think.
Thanks for the read,
Find me on: https://twitter.com/VladMkrtumyan
Find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vlad.mkrtumyan
1) Never extend free trials
So this one is simple. As a startup you don't have the costly time to give clients extended trials because the more you extend the trial the lesser it makes your product or service seem worth it. For example, lets say you give 3 months worth of service for free that was supposed to have a 2 week trial. Now imagine how hard it is going for a monthly fee after...The client will almost always try to talk you down (in my B2B experience). This happened on two business models I ran and both resulted in no deals. Plus starting out I don't need hard to get clients, I want my good clients to get to the point where I can have the option to afford picky ones. Some people are never satisfied with anything, so if you ever will extend free trials tread with haste.
2) Best do what you have to do directly
Now this one is more complicated to find. A lot of times in startups if you're not doing your tasks as effectively as possible then you'll shoot yourself in the foot or die the death of 1000 papercuts. Happened to me when we were trying to do SEO on a product that made a $150 monthly profit. With some products selling face to face or cold calling works faster and is easier to get going. Of course in the best scenario you want all business channels producing, but in a startup you need to do what's effective first and disqualify or establish the business asap. Cold calling still hurts me to this day, but I do it because like flossing I know its the most effective way to my goals, maybe one day I'll love it.
3) If your gut says something is slowly going wrong, cut it off fast
Following number 3 is similar to 2, but warrants its own bullet point. Sometimes you'll be in deals or be a part of a team that doesn't feel right. Cut that off now! I had my co-founder go off to another state, tried working remotely failed slowly and miserably, while my gut told me to get out the whole time...as a result I wasted a few months of progress. I've also been in deals with people fishing for information and nothing more...should have listened to my gut and gotten out rather than waste my time. Now I follow deadlines meticulously, if you haven't met a deadline something is terribly wrong.
So there you go, those are the three tips I try to follow and would tell myself when starting out, let me know what you think.
Thanks for the read,
Find me on: https://twitter.com/VladMkrtumyan
Find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vlad.mkrtumyan
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Literally Sweating for My Startup
My hands are tingling and sweating as I fight with myself and finally decide to dial the first number. There's a deep pit in my stomach feeling like this call is make or break. Sitting on a bed in the midst of silence, convincing myself watching youtube videos isn't gonna stop me from living with my parents, I slowly dial the number and hit the green call button. All I hear is ringing stuck in pitch black silence..."Hello" the front desk person speaks "how my I help you?".
"May I please be connected to John?" I ask, she replies "sorry John is out of the office" can I take a message or would you like to leave a voicemail?", "voicemail sounds good" I say in a hesitant tone...When I finally get through to the voicemail I hang up the phone because they never call me back. On and on this process plays 20 to 30 times everyday until I finally I speak to the decision maker 2 or 3 times. Those are the make or break moments knowing that if they don't like my pitch I have to start all over again.
This is crazy I say to myself. Cold calling is the only way I can reach my demographic, they're not a techy group of people so online marketing channels are out of the question...I repeat this process a lot, my much more technical co-founder seems to be getting people on trial what am I doing wrong!? At night I watch cold calling videos hoping there's some sort of solution, but its even painful to watch those videos as well. I tell myself the more I do this the better I'll get, but progress is slow and my hands still sweat. Weeks go by with little to no progress. Will it ever change? Well it does.
Our first two clients came from friends and this week is finally different. My less social and caring co-founder seems to have convinced a guy in another state to get on trial the past weeks and finally one verbally commits to paying monthly. This is our first client! Our first real straight up business, no "friend introduction" or "I'm doing this as a favor" client! We need ten of these to make a living on top ramen and hopefully can.
I got a few people on trial and am hopefully improving. I don't get that pit in my stomach like I did the last few weeks, but my hands still sweat...the only thing that differs is I fake confidence now and it works. I switched my pitch up, I don't ask anymore I tell them I'm doing them a great favor by putting them on trial. I let them ask me questions, but I ask them their email and contact information during the instigation process. I no longer care about questions such as: "what's your companies name?" or "how many people are you working with?" I quickly answer those and steer the conversation to results and how they will get a sample of what we do in a couple of days.
I still don't meet my sales goals, but I have been consistently meeting half of it the past three days and slowly improving. From concepts, pivoting to here... I and my co-founder have created our B2B SaaS business in the last 4 and a half months...my hands still sweat and I get nervous and I might fail, but I'll do so fighting down this path...I wonder if other co-founders are as scared as me?...I wonder if I'll ever move out of my parents house doing what I love with a great team I built together from scratch?...I'm stuck in a place of wondering, hoping I'm going down the right path with my life.
"May I please be connected to John?" I ask, she replies "sorry John is out of the office" can I take a message or would you like to leave a voicemail?", "voicemail sounds good" I say in a hesitant tone...When I finally get through to the voicemail I hang up the phone because they never call me back. On and on this process plays 20 to 30 times everyday until I finally I speak to the decision maker 2 or 3 times. Those are the make or break moments knowing that if they don't like my pitch I have to start all over again.
This is crazy I say to myself. Cold calling is the only way I can reach my demographic, they're not a techy group of people so online marketing channels are out of the question...I repeat this process a lot, my much more technical co-founder seems to be getting people on trial what am I doing wrong!? At night I watch cold calling videos hoping there's some sort of solution, but its even painful to watch those videos as well. I tell myself the more I do this the better I'll get, but progress is slow and my hands still sweat. Weeks go by with little to no progress. Will it ever change? Well it does.
Our first two clients came from friends and this week is finally different. My less social and caring co-founder seems to have convinced a guy in another state to get on trial the past weeks and finally one verbally commits to paying monthly. This is our first client! Our first real straight up business, no "friend introduction" or "I'm doing this as a favor" client! We need ten of these to make a living on top ramen and hopefully can.
I got a few people on trial and am hopefully improving. I don't get that pit in my stomach like I did the last few weeks, but my hands still sweat...the only thing that differs is I fake confidence now and it works. I switched my pitch up, I don't ask anymore I tell them I'm doing them a great favor by putting them on trial. I let them ask me questions, but I ask them their email and contact information during the instigation process. I no longer care about questions such as: "what's your companies name?" or "how many people are you working with?" I quickly answer those and steer the conversation to results and how they will get a sample of what we do in a couple of days.
I still don't meet my sales goals, but I have been consistently meeting half of it the past three days and slowly improving. From concepts, pivoting to here... I and my co-founder have created our B2B SaaS business in the last 4 and a half months...my hands still sweat and I get nervous and I might fail, but I'll do so fighting down this path...I wonder if other co-founders are as scared as me?...I wonder if I'll ever move out of my parents house doing what I love with a great team I built together from scratch?...I'm stuck in a place of wondering, hoping I'm going down the right path with my life.
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
The Theory Guy Never Wins in Business
I recently met up with an undisclosed wantrepreneur in business (someone who wants to do this full time, but doesn't have the means) and it has greatly disappointed me with what he was saying. The main question he presented to us during the meeting was "Who do you think could use this product I just built?".
What am I supposed to say to that? The truth is you need a targeted user before you build your product and hopefully a cash commitment as well. Playing the "is this product useful" game is very tough and a pitfall I see all too often.
Thinking about it today I've realized that all of my successful friends in business HATE reading. Even billionaires may read 3 hours max a day (Mark Cuban for example), but take action on their company at least 8 hours a day.
The theoretical guy never wins in business and I'm not saying you can't predict anything, the main point I'm making is that the winners are the ones that take more action Period. Get in contact with your client!!!
If you have an idea, don't ask your friends, or build it and then ask what you can use it for because its cool. Go to a person you think is the target demographic or ask what your own problems are and solve them while also getting a cash commitment (You can build a non-profitable billion dollar site later).
No matter what aspect of business we you look at, the theory guy still loses. Marketing people for examples can only guess so much, until they TEST (important word everything you do in business should be a test) an idea to see if it really works. The faster you can get anything live in the field the better, this is one of those business sins people talk about, yet still commit. Forget months of getting your product out, we got our first user in 2 weeks (one of the beauties of B2B, B2C on the other hand is still a huge headache for me).
So here I am getting this post out in the field ASAP, let me know what you think lets talk about all the theory we've seen, how does it still exist in this "lean startup" world? Perhaps we should go from lean to anorexic startup. I've never heard of a company launching too fast as Paul Graham says very few do and so far I know none. Once you're in the field you are forcing yourself to fix up the product before you get embarrassed anyways as I'm sure I'll edit this post later.
Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying thinking is bad at all, or theorizing is bad; I'm ultimately trying to make the point that action is the most valuable thing you can do. Action gives you deeper insight on your theories. Even the guy I mentioned in the beginning of the article built something, which is much better than him giving me an idea of a product with no audience; now he has a product with no audience, by taking action he can get somewhere. :-)
If you can find me on:
https://twitter.com/VladMkrtumyan
or search my name online.
Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying thinking is bad at all, or theorizing is bad; I'm ultimately trying to make the point that action is the most valuable thing you can do. Action gives you deeper insight on your theories. Even the guy I mentioned in the beginning of the article built something, which is much better than him giving me an idea of a product with no audience; now he has a product with no audience, by taking action he can get somewhere. :-)
If you can find me on:
https://twitter.com/VladMkrtumyan
or search my name online.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
A year of no writing/what has happened so far
Jesus christ a year has whizzed by so fast...I looked back and my first post on this blog was 2/2/2012...Man have things kind of changed/not really...where do I begin? Well firstly since I wrote my last article the first start up I've had has been thrown in the closet.
Lets start with the negatives:
Apparently since I couldn't program it and my cousin "the CTO" was just starting to program he underestimated how hard it would be to create it...I still get about 5,000 mobile app users a month making me about 7 dollars a month, but that's not really anything. I'm not the master programmer I thought I would be by now, in fact I can't program at all...way for slacking off...I'm not close to rich and making less money then I was making in the first place from my mobile start up apps. (Around 65 dollars a month). I broke up with my ex-girlfriend due to the horrible work/life balance I have had before it made creating a healthy relationship harder. Plus being broke definitely didn't help since I quit my sales job at a music store. I have lost my mentor because his company is taking off and very successful I don't get coaching anymore losing him obviously makes things tougher. I haven't been blogging consistently...man whatever happened to that right? I am way not as far as I thought I'd be by now...At 22 I still live with my parents...thought I'd move out by now...I've decided that I have to be single until I'm at least 24 to put in the hours it takes to make this start up stuff work so I can get a grip on it, 10 hour days are no longer enough...I haven't landed any real deals, yet...I know soooo little its insane...I have figured out that you need to be a master of online marketing/sales/programming/team building and leadership to have a successful business and currently I am a master of none of the above. I think a big question people should ask themselves whenever doing something is how do they stack up to the greats? I think the closer I am to saying I have Bill Gates' skill level at business the more successful I can be...and let me tell you right now to have Bill Gates level of skill looks like Mount Everest and I'm feeling like an ant.
Now we can comment on the positives:
Although I can't program I have learned how to utilize twitter bootstrap to the point where I can make my own websites now. I may not be able to program, but I can code and am definitely more technical then last year. I am learning Javascript from code academy currently since my cousin who has returned from Berkley is now on the team full time and I can learn more from him, he has turned into a pretty decent programmer. I know code academy is bad, but I'll get my hands dirty and then pick up a book on javascript later. I met a billionaire last year. He's one of the founders of Costco, I got to interview him face to face for 30 minutes even though I will probably never see him again. The conversation I had with this guy him has changed my life even though he forgot about me already (there where 3 other people my age in the room). I am actually close to coming up with a real business model. I have made good friendships and added a partner on my team who has my same business principles. This guy has made enough income to do start ups full time, which I consider a success. I feel comfortable with sales, I really don't give a fuck, if it needs to be done I'll do it. This is the attitude many say they have in start ups, but I can honestly say I feel I represent it quite well now. Even though I am barely surviving, I haven't quit yet and have learned a ton. I feel like I could literally lecture the old me for hours on end about business. I paid off all my financial aid. Instead of moving out i've decided to stay with my parents and pay off all my debt. My networth is finally positive although I won't give a specific number lets say its below a couple thousand (still not good).
I am also in the best shape of my life right now health wise. I have never stopped working out and can bench press 230 while weighing 175...guess I'm running out of positives to be desperate enough to add that one huh? lol
Overall things are going ok for me. I'll keep you guys up to date on my progress/business thoughts. The biggest thing I can say for now is don't underestimate the necessity to be technical in a start up.
If you can program then you can actually 1) Keep sharpening your skills daily without heavily leaning on others 2) Offer contracting to pay the bills, while you think of your idea/modify your business 3) Not have to flail around on your start up idea like I did. 4) Become very hard to dispose of in the team (while you guys are starting out early 5) Let business guys do their things and learn from them, while all you do is build their idea and collect cash. 6) Become much more flexible in your product since you can change it faster to actually create something valuable easier
Most of all I have learned that at 22 I'm still a baby (although walking a tightrope I have a limited time until my goal comes trough) and with enough concentration and perseverance I think I can own my own software company and have the ability to retire by then. If things don't go well before I turn 24 then I will have to get a job and have failed my goal at retiring before the age of 25...now's the time that really counts.
Overall I'm still at it and doing well, hope you guys are too. I took a look at my blog post and I still agree with a lot of my views, but as always feel free to disagree/comment.
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