PR Lessons: The Difference Between Good and Great

These days our marketing team is going through the effort of selecting a new partner for our public relations(PR) and brand building efforts at KidoZen. This selection process comes after a failed attempt to work with a different PR agency which, despite their best efforts, turned out not to be the best fit for our current needs.

After being incredibly frustrated with the experience with our former PR partner, I shared my thoughts with a few of my advisors and they almost laugh at me explaining that my frustration was just a symptom of not knowing how difficult is to find the right PR partner for your company. It’s absolutely true, the KidoZen marketing team has decades of experience in PR and still managed to select the wrong firm for our current goals.

With this experience I learned a very fundamental lesson that could be valuable for every startup CEO: when comes to PR, you quickly learn the difference between good and great. Below I summarized some of my thoughts that, hopefully, will be helpful when working with PR partners

Different Stages, Different PR Needs

When selecting a PR firm, it is very important to clearly understand in details your current PR needs. The stage of your company is one of the fundamental elements that needs to be considered when working with a PR partner. While a mature company might have the need to increase its visibility in the public markets media outlets and specific types of investors, a smaller startup has completely different needs.

In Early Stages, Small PR Firms Might Be Better

There are many exceptions to this rule but, in my experience, I’ve found that smaller PR firms might often result in better partners for startups during their series A-B timeframe. Boutique PR agencies have the flexibility of growing with your company and can devote the right level of attention to your team to understand their PR needs.

Find Someone Who Understands Your Space

This is a tricky one. Every other PR agency, will do their due diligence in order to appear knowledgeable in the space but that doesn’t mean they are true experts. Deep knowledge, experience and connections in your current space are key in order to be a solid PR partner. When going through your selection process, push your potential partners in terms of understanding of the new trends in your space, your competitors, acquisition patterns, VCs investing in the space etc.

Good PR is not Cheap

Might sound obvious but I was a bit surprised of how expensive good PR agencies can be. While, as a startup, you need to remain very cost-conscious, it is important to realize that good PR work is going to require a significant investment on your side.

Connections Matters

When selecting a PR agency, look for someone who is really connected in the space. Connections are extremely important because, more often than not, your PR partner will have to call favors in order to increase the visibility of your company.

You Need an Internal Marketing Team

As engaging in PR efforts, don’t attempt to manage your external PR partner. It will drive you insane. It is important that your internal marketing team owns the relationship and manages the communication channel between your team and your PR partner. At the end, a good PR partner will grow with your company and it is key to have dedicated resources focused on nurturing that relationship.

 

Some Thoughts About Strategic Alliances

In the last few weeks we have been announcing a series of strategic alliances around our KidoZen platform. While watching the press releases I was reflecting upon the great job our team is doing finding, structuring and nurturing the right types of partnerships. This process has been a learning experience for us given that, as any new startup, we had to go through the process of figuring out which models of strategic alliances were effective for us and our partners.

Establishing effective strategic alliances is one of the hardest things on the early days of any startup. Identifying the right partners, make your technology visible to them, building and getting in motion the right partnership dynamics are some of the fundamental elements that need to be master as part of your early business development effort.

Based on our experience, there are a few lessons learned that I think might be helpful when structuring strategic alliances in startups.

Don’t Focus on the Big Guys

When thinking about strategic alliances, a lot of startups make the classic mistake to focus on the biggest players on a specific category. As tempting as partnering with a big company might be, you need to be aware of the level of effort and resources that might be required to establish those types of agreements and get the right level of attention from your potential big partner.

Instead of focusing on the big guys, we have found very effective to find the medium, boutique players on a specific category that are truly innovating in the space and devote the right resources and focus to the strategic alliance.

Have a plan to execute after the agreement is signed

A lot of business development folks think about strategic alliances mostly from the marketing perspective. Big announcements, solid press release but no real plan of how to execute after the agreement is signed. As a startup, you should spend the right time focusing on putting the dynamics in place to make the partnership effective and deliver real value to your company and your partner.

Honor the Partnership

Partnerships are only effective is both parties can benefit from it. As a startup, it’s natural to focus most of your attention on driving value to your organization but you should also put the right level of effort to honor your partnership agreement and make your partner successful even if it require sacrifices on your side.

You are Always Looking for Partners

Signing solid strategic alliance is a constant marathon, not a sprint. If you are a CEO or head of business development of a startup, you are always looking and reaching out to potential partners even if you are not equipped to get any agreements in place at the time. Building strong relationships, keeping partners up to date about your progress and vision will do wonders for your company when comes time to build solid strategic alliances.

 

4 Key Characteristics Of A Great CTO

These days I am helping a couple of startups with their technical recruiting processes and organizing their engineering groups. One of the things that I find interesting is how much non-technical founders emphasize on hiring experienced people. While I consider experience a very important factor in a great tech executive, I don’t believe experience alone can help you build a great technical team.

A few years ago, when I was still a computer science student, I had a very interesting conversation with a very wise professor about this topic. At the time, I was evaluating offers for engineering leader at several large organizations but was second-guessing myself due to my lack of experience in the industry. During our conversation, my friend enumerated some of the factors that are required in great technical leaders:

• Knowledge: Being extremely, and I mean extremely, knowledgeable about the technology market, ecosystem, new trends etc is key to lead a great engineering team. Experience alone certain doesn’t give you knowledge.
• Experience: Having “been there, done that” definitely helps to recognize the patterns, techniques and processes that can be effective in specific situations.
• Perspective: From my viewpoint, this is the most important quality of look in a tech leader and the hardest one to explain. Perspective uses knowledge to overcome the lack of experience and make effective decisions. The thing about perspective is that is almost impossible to teach, you either have it and nurture it or you don’t
• Analytical and Organized Thinking: Finally, engineering leaders need to be able to look at problems from a very analytical perspective and organize engineering processes in models that can be effective. These challenges require very strong, organized and analytical thought process which is very hard to fund in most people.

I know these are not the only characteristics of a great engineering leader but I consider them the most important. Other aspects such as the ability to listen, team player etc are also necessary but can be coached and learned over time.

I hope that helps. What do you think? What makes a great engineering leader?

 

 

Fighting the Culture of Asking with a Culture of Giving

Last week I hosted a dinner for a few folks in the tech community in FL that I thought will benefit from meeting each other. We had a wonderful time enjoying wine and discussing the technology market. When leaving, one of the attendees approached me to thank me for the invitation and she quickly expressed her surprise that I didn’t take advantage of the event to explore some new business opportunities around my new venture (KidoZen). My response to her was very simple: dinner was part my attempts to fight the “culture of asking”.

The “culture of asking” is one of the most detrimental aspects of modern business relationships. With some exceptions, of course, we constantly engage in business dynamics on which each party is constantly asking for different things for their benefit. While asking favors is part of everyday business, I find it incredibly constraining to nurture a relationship on the premises of always thinking how to benefit from it. Instead, we can really create long term relationships if we spend the time thinking how to benefit the other party without expecting anything in return. While we consider giving a fundamental element of personal relationships, its rarely part of modern business relationships.

A few years back, one of my longtime mentors advised me to devote sometime every week to think about how to help some of my business acquaintances without expecting immediate reciprocity. To this day, I have been trying to practice that regularly and couldn’t be happier with the experience.

The explanation is very simple: Giving is not only a pure way to help other people but also an incredibly effective way to build strong business relationships. Here are some of my favorite reasons while giving is more important than asking:

• Giving makes you feel good: Spiritually, chemically, biologically…you name it…people always feel better when they give than when they ask for something.
• Asking is short-term, giving is long-term: Giving helps people build relationships without a short–term objective in mind.
• When you give, people feel obligated to reciprocate: As opportunistic as it sounds, when people receive a favor, a nice gesture they feel psychologically obliged to reciprocate it in the future.
• Giving allows you to be genuine: Being genuine is one of the hardest things to achieve in a business relationship. However, there is no better setting to be completely genuine than what you are giving something without expecting anything in return.

These are some of my favorite reason why I think is important to foment a culture of giving. I would encourage to follow the advice it was once given to me and think hard about what to do every week to help some of your business relationships without expecting anything in return. However, always do it because is right and without a second agenda. You will find it incredibly rewarding.

 

This is Water, This is Water

It’s been a crazy and insane week filled with exciting developments that have prevented me from blogging but I still would like to share something with you today.

Yesterday, while having coffee with a friend, we started debating the importance of awareness in our professional lives. That conversation reminded me of one of the most inspirational speeches about this topic I watched years ago. Delivered by David Foster Wallace, this brief commencement speech reminds us  about the conscious choices we can make every day :

 

Stay Away from Workaholics

I find writing this post a bit ironic and I am, without a doubt, a workaholic. Between the rapid growth of KidoZen, leading the strategy side of TelIago and some third-party projects I work around 16 hours during weekdays and another 8-10 hours during the weekend. I don’t complain about it. I have the privilege to be at a point in my life on which I enjoy what I am doing more than at any other time in my career and I am convinced that it takes that kind of effort to make a difference in this highly competitive market.

Having said that, I tried very hard to not encourage that type of behavior within our team. At KidoZen, our teams work fairly regular 8-10 hour days and although, occasionally, we end up putting insane hours at the end of each release cycle, we never encourage or reward that type of behavior. At this point in my career, as I am convinced most workaholics are damaging to the team dynamics.

My reasoning here is very simple: If you are going to regularly work insane hours you need a structure to sustain that rhythm and most people don’t even think about. I can work long hours because I meticulously divide my focus during the day on different aspects that help keep me fresh. Contrary to that thinking, I found that most workaholic behaviors are completely triggered as a continuous and disproportioned response to short-term needs with little strategy or structure around it.

Here are some of the reasons why, I think, you should stay away from workaholics:

• Workaholism is contagious: When someone regularly work insane hours to accelerate certain delivery, their colleagues feel compelled to do the same even if they are not equipped to do so
• Competitiveness: Related to the previous point, workaholism indirectly foment a level of competitiveness within a team that can be detrimental to the long term goals of a specific project.
• Long term performance degradation: Unless you take the time to structure a method that allows you to regularly work long hours, your performance will degrade over time as an inevitable consequence of exhaustion.
• Burnout factor: Being burnout as a consequence of working long hours ends of affecting the overall performance and attitude of the team.
• Short-term focus: If you are constantly burning hours focusing on short term objectives, it becomes really hard to keep thinking and contributing to the long term strategic vision of a product or company.
• Working hard for the wrong reasons: Ultimately, I can live with workaholics as long as they are driven for the right reasons but I found out that, more often than not, you encounter people whose only objective with working long hours is not passion or motivation but a selfish desire to score some points with their management team.

Those are just some of the elements why I fundamentally try to not encourage workaholic-type behaviors within our team. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts about it. More about this topic in a future post….

 

Want to Be Creative? Be Happy!

Cognitive science has become one of my favorite non-technical subjects during the last year. For the last few months, I have been reading a ridiculous amount of books and research papers about different cognitive science subjects ranging from psychology to neurosciences. It never ceases to amaze me how a basic understanding of human’s reactions can help us to make better decisions in the business world or influence the culture of an organization. A great example of this are some fascinating studies that a good friend sent me about some of the elements that influence creativity.

Creativity is one of the most important aspects of successful entrepreneurs. The ability to make creative decisions can influence different aspects of a company ranging from a product design to the culture of an organization. However, creativity is rarely constant. Sometimes individuals can make incredibly creative decisions but that creativity seems to dissipate at times.

Influencing people’s creativity is not an easy task and certainly not one that has a magic answer. However, cognitive science teaches us that there is a very simple factor that can help to increase creativity: happiness!

Yes, you read it right. It turns out that there is a direct correlation between being happy and what psychologists call “intuitive performance”. By that fancy term, scientist refer to people’s ability of making accurate, intuitive and creative decisions. As a lot of studies prove, when in a good mood, people are more likely to make intuitive and creative decisions. Following that argument, it’s pretty clear that we can influence people’s creativity by fomenting an environment and a culture that makes them happy.

However, some other unexpected things derivate from the effects of being in a good mood. It also turns out that, while undoubtedly creative, people that are in a good become less vigilant, analytical and more prone to logical errors. A good mood, is obviously a sign that things are going in the right direction in certain aspects which makes the brain be at a “cognitive ease” state on which we are more relaxed but also less analytical or vigilant.

There you have it, happy people are more creative but can also be less analytical!

Hmmm….interesting dilemma…..

Not really!

From a company culture standpoint, I will always pick creativity and happiness every time. I am convinced is a better formula to win in the long run.

 

Finding the Foil in Your Story

In literature, the Foil is a character type that used to highlight the qualities of the protagonist by highlighting a strong contrast. Arguably, the most famous foil of all times is Sancho Panza, the famous Don Quixote squire who continuously contrasts with the protagonist both morally and physically and serves as a constant reminder to Don Quixote’s mission. Notice that the foil is not necessarily a negative character.

Just like in literature, missions in startups are better described and accomplished when there is a Foil in the story. In this context, a foil can be a large competitor, a situation in the current macroeconomic context of a particular industry or even a type of customer. Regardless, by presenting the characteristics of your foil you will highlight the benefits and vision of your company, product or service. It’s not that hard, if you are working on something relevant just look around and you will find many many Foils 🙂

 

A Startup is Like Mass “God Gets Mad if You Don’t Show Up”

Ernest Hemingway used to write every day. Obviously, the majority of his writing efforts didn’t translate into the great parts of his novels but he still attempted to write every day. The great writer used to say “Writing is like Mass. God gets mad if you don’t show up” 🙂 In addition to his talent, I think his incredible consistency and perseverance made Hemingway one of the great writers of all time.

Tracing a parallel to the startup lifestyle we can probably say that “Startups are like Mass. God gets mad if you don’t show up” 😉 Maybe this seems obvious from the outside but startup founders can agree with me that is not always that easy to show up to work when times are tough.

Perseverance, consistency and resiliency are essential elements in the success of a startup but the first step is always to show up. When times are good, you can’t afford to relax and need to keep pushing your company to the next phase. When times are difficult, you need to show up to continue leading your times through the challenging times.

Realize that most of the big success, ideas don’t come as a sudden inspiration but are rather the result of a series of experiences and efforts to take small footsteps towards the end goal. Regardless of the current status of your startup, remember that the main step to success is to ALWAYS SHOW UP!

 

Is Your Market Position Defensible?

This is a hard but necessary question every founder should think hard about. We all create products that we think are fairly innovative and better than the competition. However, if you are playing in a big market, you are likely to face competitors with stronger financial resources that will be going after your same customer base. In those situations, a startup has to understand the different strategies to defend its market position. Even though you might think that you can always out-innovate your competitors, that’s can rarely be consider a strategy to defend your value proposition

Based on the characteristics of your product and market, there might be different product sustainability models that can be consider to create a defensive and solid market position

IP

IP-based sustainability is the most traditional product sustainability model. If your product provides a very unique IP that is relevant to your customers and target market, that could translate into a very solid market position that will make it hard for your competitors to capture. Contrary to what you might think, IP-based sustainability is really hard to achieve in big markets.

Strong Alliances

Establishing strong strategic alliances and partnerships could result in a very clear product sustainability strategy. A healthy partner ecosystem will not only help to improve your product market presence but it will also make it harder for your other companies to compete in the space.

Stickiness

Is your product or service is able to retain customers once they purchase it? Are they able to switch to a different solution without a significant investment? Sticky solutions with high customer retention levels are more defensible in the long term that solutions without those characteristics.

Solid Exit Strategy

Even If you are not thinking in a short term exit you need to accordingly determine the potential exit strategies for your product and company. Understanding the exit dynamic is important in case you can’t sustain your competitive advantage as a standalone company.

What do you think? What else makes the position product or startup defensible?