Erich Stauffer

Tag: Startups

  • Lean Startups

    Indianapolis Lean Startup Circle

    James Paden, VP at Compendium and Mentor at Indianapolis Startup Weekend, spoke at last night’s Indy Lean Meetup about the difference between bootstrapping and lean startups. While both conserve cash whenever possible, their goals are different. Lean startups aren’t opposed to accepting funding, they just shouldn’t take it until after some customer validation has occurred.

    From Iteration to Execution

    As you can see from this chart, in lean startups, the process starts with customer discovery, then goes to customer validation. The arrow back to customer discovery indicates revisions until a product/market fit is established and the process can move over to customer creation and eventually company building. While the goal of bootstrapping is to build without incurring debt, the goal of lean is to learn from short, iterative processes (the discover and validation phases) AND to build the company as fast as possible.

    The Lean Startup

    As Matthew pointed out on my book recommendations page, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries is a great book to help your startup get started right. But what I didn’t realize until attending last night’s Indy Lean Meetup was that lean was a part of the agile method.

    The premise of The Lean Startup is to, “Apply lean thinking to the process of innovation.” After reading this book, the next time you go to make a new product or start a new company, you’ll be asking yourself, “Can we build a sustainable business around this set of products and services?” and you’ll start to look at customer requests/desires differently than you may view them today. Using innovation experiments explained in the book, you’ll be able to determine whether a new product or service is required or simply a tweak to any existing product, but Ries warns, “Stated customer feedback is not always an accurate reflection of actual need/desire.”

  • What Meetups Mean to Me

    In January of 2005 I started my first Meetup called Indy Game Dev. One person joined and together we started to code a game. I didn’t know how to code a game. I had just graduated college with some Computer Science classes where I had to make a few small games in Visual Basic.NET, but I didn’t really know how to make a game.

    We started out meeting once a month, and then weekly at his house in Noblesville. He didn’t even have his own computer so we had to use the computer in his mother’s bedroom. I researched gaming engines and different programming languages, but we ended up going with a type of game similar to the NES game, Shadowgate.

    We had agendas and a group logo. We created the first screen in the game and started working on the story line, but then that’s when things started to fall apart. In April of 2005, Meetup began charging group owners a fee for hosting a group and the bottom sort of fell out as far as my desire to make games. What I realized is that I didn’t want to make games, I wanted to learn how to make games. Once I did that, my interest level was gone. My partner continued the group and the game for a while after I left, but I didn’t really start going to Meetups again until three years later in 2008.

    A Brief History of My Career

    I worked full time for the last two years I was in college and then immediately after helped a friend start a computer repair business on the side while continuing to work full time. It was during this time that I started going to Meetups, but I didn’t start going again until I left that job I had through college, started my own business, and got a new job in IT in October of 2007. This is when having a day job and going to meetups felt like I was living a double life. During the day I was a computer technician for an IT company and by night I was a web designer wanting to learn more about Adobe products or PHP.

    Through web design and SEO work, I was introduced to the world of affiliate marketing and started making money that way too. Eventually my web design customers started using me more for their technical needs and I began acting as their outsourced IT firm, or simply, their “computer guy.” Eight months after doing IT full time, I became a business analyst at a mid-sized, regional bank. By August of 2011 I was making enough from all of my side ventures to go at it alone so I quit my day job and went full time on my own. That’s when I really started to take advantage of meetups.

    Why Go to Meetups?

    To Socialize

    When I worked for other companies I was around other people all day long. We had meetings. I sometimes got to go places on the company’s dime. Some of these times were good. Most of them were not noteworthy. However, once they were gone, I started to miss that in my life. Sure, I met with clients occasionally, but for the most part I stayed in my office at home. While my family is a joy to me, there is a certain need to go beyond that and meetups can help with that. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m lonely, but there is a certain amount of Edward Norton’s Narrator that goes through my head when I visit a group for the first time.

    To Form an Identity

    What consistently meeting new people does to you is to help define who you are. This is partly because of the amount of times you have to explain who you are and what you do to new people, but also because simply by going to a particular group, you are associating yourself with that type of person. I’m currently a member of 16 meetups: Affiliate Freelancers Indianapolis, Affiliate Summit Indianapolis Meetup, AgileIndy, Central Indiana Entrepreneur’s & Vendors, Coaches, Consultants, Authors, Speakers & internet marketers, Esri Dev Meet Up Group – Great Plains, Geeks with Swag, Indiana Small Business Networking, Indianapolis Lean Startup Circle, Indianapolis Marketing Group, Indianapolis Search Engine Optimization & Internet Marketing, Indy Cowork, IndyDevHouse, TechLunch, Verge, and the WordPress – Indianapolis Meetup Group. I recently spoke at the affiliate marketing group, which gives me credibility with the speakers group, even though I already am a consultant.

    To Learn

    While I have been encouraged to get my masters and have gone back to school for Microsoft, A+, and Network+ certifications, meetups allow a different type of continued education in a wider array of fields. They are also the fields you’re most interested in learning about, or else you probably wouldn’t have signed up or gone to the meeting. Even though I’m profitable with affiliate marketing I still learn things from my affiliate marketing group, but a better example may be the Agile Indy group I attended last night. I had no idea what Agile was, but I kept hearing it and seeing it so I wanted to find out more about it. I wanted to learn. I can’t say I’ve gone to a traditional classroom much with that mentality. If you’re interested in what Agile is, review the Agile Manifesto or visit David Christiansen’s blog, Technology Dark Side. Speaking of affiliate marketing, David makes $2000 a year from advertising Rally Software on his blog. Rally sponsored last night’s meal, which brings me to my next reason.

    To Eat

    Most meetups either serve food or meet at a restaurant where there is an opportunity to eat food. If you enjoy breaking bread with your fellow man around a topic you love, what better place than at a meetup. The early Christian church would call this their communion time, while the modern church might call it “small groups”. What are meetups, if not small groups of people, passionate about a topic? One exception to “small” may be Verge Indy, which currently has 1,280 members and regularly has to limit members to their events at Developer Town. Most meetups who serve food serve pizza and most of the time it’s free, but there’s no such thing as a free lunch so be prepared for the corporate sponsor to pitch their goods to you. Don’t worry if you’re not interested, maybe one day you will be. Maybe one day you’ll be the sponsor.

    To Travel

    You probably can’t just walk into Miles Design or Allegient‘s offices, but that’s exactly what I did when I attened Joomla Indy and Agile Indy, respectively. While Joomla Indy isn’t an official meetup, it still meets regularly, in-person, around a topic, which is what meetups are all about. Tonight I’ll be attending the Lean Startup at Green is Good off 86th and Zionsville Road and the Esri meetup at Harry and Izzy’s on Illinois Street, downtown Indianapolis. When I was a business analyst I got to visit the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce’s board room once, now I’m visiting new board rooms every month.

    To Network

    If you’ve ever been told that you need to get out of comfort zone to grow, meetups are a great way to do that. Most of the people at the meetup I attend, I don’t know before attending. In fact, it’s actually rare for me to know someone there at all. However, once I’ve gone once, I do at least recognize them and can start to get to know them. Networking is a natural result of getting to know other people and meeting new people. Sometimes business cards are passed around and sometimes they are not. Meetups that are specifically setup to network don’t seem to be as popular as ones that are setup around a specific topic. What makes Verge so popular is that it brings together inventors, startups, and venture capitalists with those interested and willing to help. The energy there is intense and the barriers to entry are low. There is no fee for most events, food is provided, and those attending get the chance to pitch and network with others. It’s a great mix.

    To Succeed

    Whatever you’re trying to accomplish, there is probably a meetup out there to help you do it. Whether it’s meeting like minded people for encouragement or collaboriation, or learning from others who have paved the way before you, meetups can help you become a success. As Eric Willke, agile adviser and speaker at Agile Indy said, “Know you can succeed,” and to that I add – “and you will.”

  • Who Asked You to Start a Business, Anyway?

    So you want to start your own business? Great. Here’s what your’e up against:

    The Government – It seems like the government should have your back. After all, you’re creating taxable income for them and either do or will help create new jobs, which in turn creates more taxable income for them, but your new business is a change – and no one likes change. First the state wants you to register your business with them. This costs money upfront and then again every year or so to keep it registered. Then you may also have to register with your local government and even with your local sheriff’s department. These are all people who could say, “No”. And if you are thinking of setting up a physical presence, there may also be zoning restrictions, which leads to the next roadblock.

    Your Neighbors – Your neighbors may be friendly now, but if customers start showing up or you have daily deliveries or pick-ups from FedEx and UPS, they may not be so happy. See, people expect things to stay the same and now you’ve decided to all of sudden up and do something different. Shame on you for disturbing the peace around your neighborhood. Even if city officials don’t mind that your business is not really zoned for it’s location, your neighbors might, and once they start complaining to the government all of a sudden those zoning restrictions matter more than ever. You can try to be nice to your neighbors and work with them, but remember, they don’t like change.

    Other Businesses – Other businesses are like the old guard or the established society. You’re the new guy who wants in. They have the websites you need backlinks from. They have the cash flow to outlast you. They don’t want to help you get started. They are just waiting for you to go out of business and leave them alone so they can keep doing what they’ve been doing. Businesses, like people, do not like change. You’re a nuisance to them just like you’re a nuisance to your neighbors. We’re not talking about competitors here, but since you brought it up, just hope your competitors don’t have your Craigslist ads taken down, click on your Google ads to run you out of funds, or report your business closed on Yelp.

    Your Family – Your family will, like your neighbors, smile to your face and talk about you behind your back to each other. They will all hope that when you run out of money you won’t come to them begging for help and won’t try to change their lives in any way. Remember, people do not like change. You were supposed to keep your job, not start a business. Did they say you could do that? What will the rest of the family think when you fail? When they ask you how your business is going, expecting you to say it’s failing, try hard to keep a straight face when they act concerned about your future and wish you well. There only wish is for you to go back to doing whatever it was you were doing before (and to never ask them to change).

    Yourself – You are the biggest obstacle to your own success. It’s you who decides how you are going to handle each and every obstacle you face. No matter what life, the government, your family, neighbors, friends, or other businesses do or say to you, it’s your choice on how you react to them. You are your own hero and they are the dragons. Will you slay them? So you have no money and rent is due. What does that have to do with how you feel? Who controls your feelings, really – you or your rent? Choose to be a success and do the work it takes to be successful and you’re 90% better off than any of those change-averse people (just like you). If what you’re doing isn’t working. Change.

    “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” Mark Twain

  • How to Start Your Own Web Design Business

    I recently wrote a blog post on my Indianapolis web design site about how to start your own web design business. I shared a little bit about how I got started, but I wanted to go into more detail here on my own blog, An Entrepreneurial Mind. When I first started, I had just quit my job (much like today, but more on that later) and had started working at a call center for a textbook publisher company (hey, at least I was closer to my dream of being a publisher there than while balancing transactions at the bank). While in training on how to interact with customers over the phone, I became friends with another new employee who had some web design experience. I explained to him how I’d had a couple of people ask me to make web sites with them and asked him if he’d like to help build a new web design company with me. Neither one of us had any experience doing so, but that also meant we weren’t afraid to try. When the call center gig ran out, we both started working on the web design business, Watershawl, full time. It was a blast, but our lack of experience caught up with us and I had to let him go. I was now on my own, sustaining the business by myself. I would meet with clients, pitch them websites, and about half of the time, get turned down. Eventually I branched into computer repair, but over time, moved into more of a consulting role.

    Today, I can safely look back and say that I’m glad that I did it, that I learned alot, but it ultimately was just a stepping stone for what I really liked doing, which was building web sites to promote products for a commission, otherwise known as affiliate marketing. I write all about affiliate marketing success at my eRich Online blog. The things I learned about web design, SEO, marketing, and promotion for my customers I’ve been able to apply for my Internet marketing business where I get paid to promote products. One of the funnest parts for me is discovering profitable micro-niches, which are subsets of a niche, which is a subset of a market. The key is to find a product with high interest and traffic, but low competition. I know you’re probably thinking that all of the niches have been explored and exploited, but there are millions of micro-niches out there and new ones being created every day. For example, Farmville, the flash game on Facebook, wasn’t around 5 years ago, but it’s a huge niche market now. It even has it’s own magazine! You can learn on your own and sometimes that’s the best way, but if you’re like me, you’ll want help in learning how to do Internet marketing.

    Oh, one more thing, I mentioned that I quit my job today. I did, actually, which really scared my wife, but we have been planning for this day for a long time, we know what it takes to be successful, and we trust in God to provide for our needs. Before I start the day or begin to work, I pray for guidance from the Lord. God is the foundation of my life, my family, and my business. Before I started this work session, I searched for a bible verse about work. I came across Collossians 3:23-24 which says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” In other words, Jesus is my boss – whether I work for a major corporation or myself I need to be working as if for the Lord. And just as I have meetings with my earthly bosses to get guidance and feedback, I am having meetings, through prayer and meditation, with the Lord, my boss.

  • Ever Wondered How to Start Your Own Web Design Business?

    Every business starts with an idea. That idea may come from you or from someone asking you to do their idea, but it all starts with an idea. Four years ago I had the idea to start my own web design business because friends and family kept asking me to develop web sites for them. I wasn’t really interested in it at first, but once I started getting more clients, I was hooked – especially when I saw the paychecks come in, but I had a rocky start. I wished there was someone there to help me get started when I was starting up.

    Have you ever considered starting your own web design business?

    It may seem simple at first. Setup a website, show off your portfolio, do a little marketing and boom – clients, work, and cash, but as you know it’s usually not that easy. For example, do you know whether or not you need to be incorporated or what contracts to use after you’ve made the sale? Have you outlined exactly how you are going to work, or even what you plan to do once you start working? What if there was a way that you could learn how to secure more clients, and follow a more professional and repeatable approach with each client? What if you could eliminate all the doubts and worries and stop wasting valuable time and money getting burnt by clients who dont pay or won’t convert. What if I told you I found someone who has not only gone through all of this, but bundled it up for others to learn as well? Instantly download this comprehensive kit on how to start a web design business that will not only save you time, but improve your chances of establishing a highly lucrative web-based business you can run from your home.

  • Gig Economy Allows Entrepreneurs to Start on a Dime

    Cloud Computing Lowering Barriers to Entry, Allowing the Gig Economy to Thrive

    Startups have traditionally been capital intensive ventures and most have had to wait until they got big to look big.  Not anymore. Web services in the cloud have made start-up costs not just affordable, but in some cases free, and they are the same software packages being used by major corporations. This puts any Tom, Dick, or Harry piecing work together from elance, odesk, and Amazon’s mechanical turk on par with popular startups like Color. As long as they are running WordPress and Google Apps, the world does not know the difference. And some Gigger’s as they are called are now starting their own business using the very tools they used to get jobs. Matthew Stibbe, a serial entrepreneur, combined cloud computing and long hallways to start his third business, Turbine: The Company Built With Elance.

    Enough time has passed for BestVendor to do a survey of 550 startup staffers — most in marketing and executive administration positions — on their favorite tools for email, accounting, web analytics, CRM, productivity, design, storage, payment processing, operations and so forth. Their answers, in aggregate, speak to the growing trend in startups moving toward predominately cloud-based operations, the most popular being Dropbox, Paypal, and Salesforce to name a few, although I was glad to see Square in the running. Google Apps, Google Analytics and Quickbooks each garnered a majority of the votes in the email, accounting and web analytics categories, respectively. Salesforce bested its CRM competition with 59% of respondents selecting it as the application of choice, and consumer-friendlyEvernote proved hot with startup-types, too, in the note-taking category. For netbook and MacBook Air users, utilizing cloud storage programs like Spotify and DropBox is key to maintaining enough disk space for maneuverability.

    Cloud computing is a relatively new model with lots of benefits and a few drawbacks. For example, it’s scalable, the provisioning cost is near zero, and you don’t need to hire a tech team, which saves money on payroll, benefits, space, insurance, supplies, and equipment, but with cloud computing, if the service or product you are using goes ‘down’, there is little to nothing you can do about it. You’re essentially trading control, security, and privacy for cheap, convenient, up most-of-the-time software running on hardware that you didn’t buy and will probably never see, let alone have to upgrade.

    The Gig Economy

    While a study by the Kauffman Foundation indicates startups create an average of 3-million jobs per year (about four times more than any other group), cloud computing and its reduced need for workers is creating a new economy. Sarah Horowitz, the executive director and founder of the Freelancers Union, says the employment picture in the U.S. is changing quickly. “People are working gigs now, but the BLS is tracking jobs. They’re two different things,” Horowitz explained to the LA Times. “We are really moving towards a gig economy.” The bureau of labor and statistics now tracks self employment (giggers) – and the number now stands at 14 million. And that number is set to grow. A Forrester Ressearch survey of small- to medium-size businesses found that 40% of businesses with 2 to 19 employees said using cloud service offerings was a “very high” or “high priority.” For medium-size businesses (20 to 1,000 employees), the figure was 25%.

  • The Entrepreneurial Mind Shift

    Is working for yourself or for others more risky?

    That’s the question Hannah Kaufman Joseph tried to answer in the Indianapolis Business Journal. She has had the somewhat unique experience of interviewing new entrepreneurs about their motivations after they come to her firm for legal help in setting up a new business. What she found was that the most common response to why someone wanted to own their own business was to have “some degree of control” over risk, even if the risk can be inherently greater than working for someone else. This is a result in a recent paradigm shift workers are going through where they no longer see employment as risk-free.

    Whether or not you have been laid off, fired, or downsized, you probably know someone who has and the culmination of those events have slowly shaved away confidence in the workplace enough to make going out on your own seem less risky and more controllable. Joseph also notes that sometimes, “People are mad.” Even if they haven’t been laid off or fired they have been asked to do more with less. Many companies stopped giving raises or cut pay or benefits. This has given people an excuse to do something they may have always wanted to, but were afraid to try.

    Joseph’s main point is that, “Individual performance is the key indicator of success.” Your business grows or falters in large part due to your own attitude. Measure success and be willing to change and environmental factors matter less.

    One if the things I hated the most about working for someone else was the time clock. I didn’t quite agree with rules about tardiness as long as I got my work done. Times are easily tracked though and so late arrivals are easy targets for HR and managers. Joseph finishes her article with, “When you own your own business, you are never off the clock. But it is your clock.”