Startup Marketing

Over in my Skribit widget "startup marketing" seems to be a quite popular subject.  I have written several posts on the subject.  Below is a roundup.

Creep Don't Leap. Your startup marketing effort should be scaled slowly.

The Best PR.  Make sure your employees are happy and empower them to do the right thing for the customer.

Marketing Is Not A Department.  To do successful startup marketing every employee needs to make decisions from the beginning with the potential customer in mind.

Positioning.  A quite powerful marketing concept that every startup should proactively manage.

Markets Are Conversations.  Listen. Talk.

Your Brand Promise.  Just a fancy way of saying what unique value that you are delivering to the market.

Brand Identity.  The unique set of associations that you aspire to create for your startup.

Yes Master (The Only Brand Strategy For Startups).  Early stage technology companies should only implement a master brand strategy. 

Quote of the Week

"Build a company for the long term. Control your own destiny."

Justin Fishner-Wolfson

In his presentation Term Sheets 101 below.

The Liquidity Event Proceeds Calculator, developed as a joint project between the Atlanta Technology Development Center and Siavage Law Group, is a nice tool to figure out the affect a funding round might have on your particular situation.

Phone Call Number 9

Was to Mike the AT&T field technician who called to check on things after he upgraded the throughput on my service and left his cell phone number as a call back.

I called him around noon.  Told him my saga in trying to get a wireless gateway.  Asked him if he had one on the truck that he could drop off.  Mike said sure.  Asked me if I would leave the wrong ones on the porch.  Told him I was a little hesitant to do so because I feared that I would be billed for them.   I needed some evidence that they were returned.  Calling customer service did not seem to be very effective.

Mike was cool.  He said OK.

And about 4 hours later he showed up at my house, ring the doorbell, and handed the gateway to my wife. 

Good job Mike.  Thanks for helping me out.

The AT&T Saga Continues

Remember Nina.  That lady I thought was a god send.  She's a liar too. 

My wireless modem never showed up on Friday. 

Gotta give AT&T a little credit though.  Mike showed up.  I speed tested the AT&T service on Friday morning.  Maxed out at 3Mbps.   I signed up for 6Mbps.  So I had to call technical support (my fifth AT&T call in this ordeal).  It was about 7:30 am. They made me run an AT&T speed test.  Like the SpeakEasy speed test was wrong.  

Told me they were going to send out a tech.  Gave me a window of 8 - 12.  Gave them my cell.  I'm going to work.  Mike shows up at around 9:10 am.  Abby is still home.  Checks the outside equipment. Says he has to get some stuff.  Goes away.

I go away.  Have a fun weekend.

Come home Sunday night.  Speed check.  6.2Mbps down, 435Mbps up.  $32.95 a month.  Rock on.

Abby checks voice mail.  Mike called over the weekend.  Upgraded the service.  Left his cell phone number in the event we had any issues.

But remember, my wireless modem never showed up on Friday.  So I called customer service (call #6) on Monday, cause AT&T's convenient for them customer service hours are 8 to 7 on weekdays.  There was no record of an order.  Lady places another order for the wireless modem.  Tells me it will be here by Tuesday.

Tuesday comes and goes.  No wireless modem.  I am really not surprised.  The rep that promised me that it would be here was not able to provide me with a tracking number.  Was not able to send me a tracking number when I asked if she would do so via email when it was available.  Automated package tracking notification seems a bit beyond AT&T's capabilities thus far in the 21st century.

So I called customer service (call #7) on Wednesday morning, cause AT&T's convenient for them customer service hours are 8 to 7 on weekdays.  Guy tells me he needs to transfer me to another queue.  Puts me on hold for a bit.  Comes back asks me to wait.  Puts me on hold for a bit.  Comes back and tells me to call back later.  They are too busy.  Gives me a specific number to call and tells me to call back later.  When I tell him the number he gave me is the same number I called.  He is dumbfounded.  Tells me to call the number and select option #4.

I wait a few hours.  I called customer service (call #8).  There is no option #4.  It is all voice activated. Get Ray.  Nice lady.  She can actually provide a tracking number.  Wireless modem to be delivered today.  The anticipation is killing me.

Got home tonight.  Package is here.  The anticipation is really killing me.  Open the box.  Wrong modem.  It is the same silly single computer modem they sent when they slammed me, I'm sorry, activated my service without request. 

I could not make this stuff up if I had to.  But I might start a business selling unused AT&T modems on eBay.

Before I do that, I am gonna give Mike a call on his cell phone tomorrow. That will be call number 9.  And this whole thing is starting to sound a little bit like that Beatles song.

How I Spent Father's Day Weekend

Ignore Everybody Except Hugh MacLeod

It is rare that I do book reviews on FoG.  It is even more rare that I do them before finishing a book. But here goes. 

I am about a third of the way into Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod.  It's supposed to be a book about being creative.  But it is much more then that.  If you read it through the eyes of an entrepreneur that wants to change the world it is brilliant.  Or in the spirit of the book, totally f-ing amazing.  Not the tactics of making your venture successful, but the strategy of making your life successful.  Here are some gems from the first 11 pages:

"GOOD IDEAS ALTER THE POWER BALANCE IN RELATIONSHIPS.  THAT IS WHY GOOD IDEAS ARE ALWAYS INITIALLY RESISTED."

Quote of the Week

"'Social networks' may be a popular buzzword these days, but the whole concept of the internet was based on social networking from the start -- going all the way back to bulletin boards, email, and forums right up to today's blogs, social networking sites, and, yes, Twitter. As far back as 1978, bulletin board systems were essentially doing the same thing that modern networks are doing. The big difference now is that the usability and usefulness of the newer networks are infinitely better."

Jason Clark

I made my way to Jason's article via an eMarketer piece called "Time to Write Twitter's Tombstone?"  I don't think that's the case.  I do think that social networks are fashion.   They come and they go.  Jason believes that Google Wave will make Twitter obsolete.  Perhaps.  I like the concept of Wave a lot.  Keith McGreggor and I came up with a concept very much like Wave.  We called it The Greatest App Never Built.  Here's the pitch:

The Greatest App Never Built will solve the information overload problem of all your Internet communications. It will take your email accounts, RSS feeds, social networking communications into a simple interface and then sematically sort them not based on date or read/unread status but by how much attention they deserve based on your past behavior.

Still a good idea.

But back to my point.  Social networks are fashion.  People tire of them.  They are too hard to manage.  All the marketers come in.  They get spammy.  It is easier to move on to the next thing instead of scrubbing all the stuff within a particular network. And just leave it there.  An artifact of a bygone era.  Social networks have no staying power.

There is something else that is going on as well.  Something that Jason confused a bit.  Below is Jason's history of social networking graph.

There is a difference between the application layer of the Internet protocol suite and an Internet application.  Usenet (NNTP), Email (POP3, SMTP & IMAP), and Internet relay chat (IRC) are part of the core Internet application protocol suite.  Therefore they have tremendous staying power.  All of the social networks that have emerged since 2000 are not part of the core Internet application protocol suite.  All these social networks applications are built within the HTTP Internet protocol.  The social network applications are not as fundamental as the earlier Internet protocol suite applications.  Take another look at the chart.

Internet protocol suite applications are like underwear.  Have not changed much since the 1980s.  Social networks are like fashion.  They change every few years.

Internet Disservice

I called AT&T to inquire about Internet service pricing last week.  They slammed me.  I figured this out last night when I got home and there was a package on the porch.  Took it inside.  Opened it.  Saw a DSL modem.  Livid.

This started 10 days ago.  I made an inquiry to AT&T sales.  Wanted to know how much it would cost me to bundle my Internet, phone, and television service.  It was getting close to time to switch from EarthLink.  Though you will not find it anywhere on their Web site EarthLink charges $49.95 for 3.0 Mpbs.  AT&T is $30.  I am loyal to EarthLink.  But they are charging about 66% over market rate for the same level of service.  It was time to switch and it was my intent to do so when Abby and the kids were off on their summer tour.  Anyhow, the AT&T rep told me their pricing for various services and that I could immediately save $10 a month by switching phone service to something called Complete Choice Enhanced.  I said sure and forgot about it.

On Monday night my Internet service went down.  Seemed odd.  Used to do that quite a lot back in the day.  Not so much anymore.  Decided to head off to work and give it a little time.  When I got home it was still down.  So I called EarthLink tech support.  The rep did not speak English well.  Made me do all the obvious things.  Then something not so obvious.  He asked me to switch phone jacks.  Which is not the easiest thing to do in the world.  I pinged.  Googled the word idiot.  It seemed to have worked.  Odd that the jack would just go bad.  But I started moving some network gear around to get all the computers online.  Did not work.  I checked all the jacks.  None of them would give me PPPoE.  Called back EarthLink tech support. The rep did not speak English well.  I was told there was a widespread outage and my service would be down until midnight on Tuesday.  Suggested I use dial up.  Was a bit taken aback when I said that my computers did not have dial modems so that was not possible.

On Wednesday morning DSL was still down.  So instead of calling EarthLink tech support, because the reps tend to not speak English well, I decided to have a chat session.  Was told that the outage would continue to affect me for another 24 hours. And then I got home and opened the DSL modem.  No prior notification that I had an account with them of any kind.  No mail.  Nothing.  Just a DSL modem on my doorstep.  And it's just a simple plug in one computer type of modem.  Would not even work for my setup if I wanted it to.

Livid.  So livid I think I scared my kids.  Livid because AT&T slammed me and made my Internet service go down.  To get semi-technical here, a DSL line can only be provisioned by one telephone company at a central office.  If AT&T has a DSL line provisioned on the switch for your phone then EarthLink cannot.  EarthLink had my line provisioned.  AT&T put in the order to provision my line and essentially took down my DSL service.

Called AT&T.  Asked for a sup.  No love.  Could not even tell me what level of service they signed me up for without my permission.  Said I had to speak with customer service.  Which of course is closed at night when normal people take care of such things (remember that convenient for us not the customer sin?).  Denied that they had anything to do with my EarthLink service going down.  Liar.

Called EarthLink tech support.  The rep did not speak English well.  With a little direction he figured out my line was "inactive".  Transferred me to another phone queue.  The queue that I was transferred to had a recording.  "Not able to handle calls due to system outages."  Great.

So I called AT&T customer service this morning.  Explained what had happened.  Guy was a jerk. Denied that they had anything to do with my EarthLink service going down.  Liar.   Hung up on him.

Called back, got a nice calm lady.  Explained what happened.  Found out I was signed up for 6.0Mpbs service.  That I was currently being billed for the DSL service, and I was being billed $75 for the DSL modem that I did not order.  Made a note in the account that I did not order the service and if I cancelled I would not be billed anything.

I cranked up EarthLink chat tech support.  This is the conversation.

Quickly would be nice.  It's been three days.  I called the EarthLink tech support.  The rep did not speak English well.  He told me it would take five days to reprovision the account.  I said no thanks.  Tired to cancel.  Guy would not let me.  I hung up.

I called EarthLink tech support.  The rep did not speak English well.  Told the lady I wanted to cancel.  Told her pricing was too high.  And I swear it was just like the infamous AOL recording.

I very specifically had to say "cancel the account" seven times.  Once she got finished with that she started to tell me about the final bill that I was going to be receiving.  $49.95 for the period of June 16 - July 16.  I tried to politely explain to her that she could not charge me for a service that was not being provided and that if she did so I was not going to pay it.  She agreed to only charge me $25 because the phone company got the other half.  Told her that was not my problem and that if they charged me anything I would not pay it and would walk down the street to EarthLink HQ and have a chat with the receptionist.  I am not going to get billed.

So back to AT&T to see if they want my business.  Explained to the rep what happened.  Said if they did not do something to make up for this mess I would cancel all my AT&T business and go to Comcast.  I got transferred to a specialist. Nina.

Nina from Atlanta.  Nina in Atlanta. Nina in the office park where I take the kids to Taco Mac.  Nina was nice.  The first person I spoke to in this whole ordeal that was nice.  Nina understood the semi-technical issue I described.  Nina had empathy that I had been without Internet service since Monday.  Nina cut me a deal.  Nina is overnighting the proper modem.  Nina fixed the problem.  Nina kept me as a customer.

Nina was service.  Service gets and keeps customers.

How Sig Found Out I Created Secret Sig

I really did create Secret Sig.  And it pretty much unfolded the way that I described in my How I Created Secret Sig post (less all the snarkiness).  And after I made Secret Sig I pretty much put it on the shelf. But like the ring of power Secret Sig did indeed have a will of its own.  And like the ring of power it was forgotten for a long time.  Until it awoke and ensnared me.  This is the story about how Sig Mosley found out that I created Secret Sig.

Once again, it all started innocently enough.  It was June of 2008.  I had a meeting with Melanie Leeth of Imlay Investments.  I wanted to get her view on one of the companies that I advise.  And as is often the case when seeking Melanie's advice we were having a great conversation.  Right in the middle of it she changed the subject.  Melanie asked me "Lance, what are your going to do?"  Well since she asked me, I told her.  I told her my master plan.   She wanted to know if I had discussed this with Sig.  I told her no and she encouraged me to do so.  So shortly thereafter I sent Sig a note and we scheduled lunch at the now defunct The Globe in Technology Square.

Sig Mosley and I went to lunch.  We had a good meeting.  As we were winding things down and settling our tab Sig asked me one last short question.

"Have you ever heard of Twitter?"

"Yes" I replied as calmly as possible while a B9 voice started screaming in my head.

"Well somebody has gone and created a Twitter account called Secret Sig and attached a Web page to it. Would you have any idea about how someone could do such a thing?" Sig asked.  I am not sure of the exact words.  I was in a state of shock.  And panic. 

Yes, Secret Sig did indeed have a will of its own.  And lots of power.  The power of Web crawlers.  The power of search engines.  All you have to do is bing Sig Mosley to understand the extent of the power.  Someone close to Sig had searched on the term Sig Mosely and told him about Secret Sig.

Here I was sitting across from the most powerful technology investor in Atlanta, if not the Southeast, and he was asking me a direct question about something that I had created to semi-impersonate him.  I never dreamed that things would unfold this way.  People talking about it at an event and online with me just listening, sure.  Getting asked a direct question from Sig himself, no.  My mind was racing.  Really, really racing.  I had not done anything with the Secret Sig persona for several months. Was this an innocent question?  Was there some artifact out on the Web that connected me to Secret Sig from the botched first attempt?  Does he know?  What do I say?  Is my master plan going to completely blow up before it gets out of the gate?  My career flashed before my eyes.  I tried to stay as visibly calm as possible. 

You know they say under stress people revert to their true self.  I believe in being honest.  It's what my parents taught me.  So I came clean.  I told Sig the truth.  It was really the only option.  "Yes Sig, I know how someone could do such a thing.  I created Secret Sig."  

And waited for a response.  Waited for what seemed an eternity.  How was the unwitting father of Atlanta angel investing going to respond to this gem of a confession?  I really did not know him very well.  We had worked together on the GRA/TAG business launch competition but that was about it.  I had no idea how he was going to react.  I was dying. 

And what did Sig do?  Sig smiled.  To me at the moment a smile that was more beautiful than the Mona Lisa.  With that smile I knew things were going to be all right. 

Sig asked me how I did it.  I told him the story.  He asked me about Twitter.  I told him all about that as well.  Sig asked me if he could have control of @secretsig.  I said yes.  I even game him a tutorial on how to use it.  With the exception of an entry or two at the beginning it has been Sig himself tweeting since last June.

Eventually Sig asked me if he could have control of Secret Sig he wanted to change some of the content.  Correct some errors in fact.  I said yes.  Came to find that there is really no way to transfer a blogger account.  So I am now the webmaster of the only Web presence of Sig Mosley and Imlay Investments.  Sig wants changes, I get cracking. 

Serves me right.

Entrepreneurs Can Change The World

A little Monday morning inspiration.

With a shout out to Jonathan Kay for sending this in my direction.