The whole is greater than... what again?
Here's a list of recent equipment purchases made by
Juterphusion Recording Solutions:
- Gemini XL-300 Professional DJ Direct-Drive Manual Turntable (pictured)
- SKB SK1818 Gig-Wing Touch Fastener Desktop
- KVM-12CKPS/2 2Port KVM Compact Autoswitch Kit with Combo Cables
- C5YMFF350MHz CAT5E RJ45 Male to 2 Female Splitter Cable
- Alesis SR-16 16-Bit Stereo Drum Machine
- 12 months Gold Coverage for Alesis SR-16 16-Bit Stereo Drum Machine
- Hosa Stereo 1/4 - 2 RCA 3.3 Foot
- Hosa Mono 1/4" (F) - Mono Mini (M) Adapter Jack
- Jade Audio TRS-TRS Patch Cables 10-Pack 2 Foot
- American Recorder (ART) Two RCA Female to Stereo 3.5mm Female Adapter Gold
This stuff was ordered from
baystereo.com musiciansfriend.com,
bestbuycable.com, and
bhphotovideo.com. I'm not making this list to illustrate how little I know about the recording industry. That should be obvious to anyone who reads this blog. But the point I made to Anthony Thompson, who's trying to grow this business, is this old saw:
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
It's true that if Anthony were to sell his business later on, and not sell himself with it, he'd lose a great deal of value. It's him -- his experience, his knowledge, and perhaps most importantly, his customers -- that give the components he buys such extra value.
The same thing with the
IMET Corporation. They bought
designnotes.com -- both the name and the company -- to expand their customer base and break into a new line of work -- do-it-yourself design assistance -- that dovetails well with their existing lines. So again, the whole is greater. Isn't it something when the world follows cliche laws like that?
The IMET guys tell me, by the way, that though the money isn't exactly rolling in (and I can easily believe that, because of buying a company), they have all the work they can handle. Forgive me if I am just a bit proud of that fact. I will post the Secret Origin of the IMET Corporation a little later.
College radio: a gift for the student entrepreneur
I was involved with college radio for two years while I was a grad student at the University of Akron. The station there,
WZIP-FM 88.1, was called WAUP-FM at the time. I confess that at the time I didn't take the experience very seriously, even though I was playing Christian rock, and nobody else in the region was doing it at that time, so I had a decent-sized audience. If I had been serious, then I could've made valuable contacts, like Marianne Manko (pictured), who worked at the station at the same time I did and is now a
10 PM news anchor. (She doesn't remember me.
LOL) That's the real benefit of college radio: some of the people you meet will ultimately become media personalities, and you may be glad you know them when they're in the public eye and your business is getting underway. But Manko had this to add:
I have to say I owe a lot to radio. Without it, I would have never learned to be "natural". Radio taught me to communicate better than I ever thought possible, as well and overcome a long list of fears. With radio, it didn't take long for me to learn to "be" myself. After [I learned] that, becoming the leader in everything I did just came naturally. I did not [generally] INTEND to become the leader... but somehow... I just did.
I can't stress enough how important it is to find out who you are... and just "be" that person. Radio taught me that more than any other life experience.
There are other strong benefits to entrepreneurs who have had involvement in college radio:
- Brevity. Reading public-service announcements will teach you the importance of getting a thought from your brain and out of your mouth with as few words as possible without losing intelligibility.
- Clarity. If you want radios to stay tuned to your station, you must not only play good music, but you must sound crisp and sharp when it's you on the air. You must sound like you know what you are doing. You'll learn this both through observation and experience.
- Knowledge of an audience. If you spend several weeks learning how to please a particular audience on the air, you will have some idea how to focus on your new audience when your business gets going.
So here are all these benefits, plus the possibility of perks like recordings the station doesn't need, or concert tickets, and it's all FREE while you're a student. You don't need to win anyone over with a resume to get into your local campus station, either. Just be willing to volunteer. At TCNJ, it's
WTSR-FM 91.3 (a personality from their station is pictured). If you join up after reading this, let me know how it goes!
Labels: education, young entrepreneurs
Orthodontist becomes an aggressive marketer
My kids' orthodontist is Dr. Karen DeSimone, whose office is a few miles away from here. While I was in her waiting room yesterday, I noticed a sign posted that said the office had a new commercial airing on
TNT,
Lifetime, and the
Food Network. (I actually
watch one of those channels from time to time. But I haven't seen the commercial yet.) Many cable channels carry commercials from enterprises local to the viewing region, and I'd always thought those commercials were passed on to the channel by the local cable provider. But that's a digression. The point is that this is an aggressive move for DeSimone and her two partners, and I'm anxious to see what kind of bang-for-the-buck they get out of what'll be four months of commercials.
The argument may be that many people in DeSimone's potential target audience will be watching winning personalities like Rachael Ray (pictured) -- assuming that the price DeSimone paid is getting a commercial on what must be one of Food Network's most popular shows -- but to me, DeSimone has roughly the same target audience as
Club Z Tutoring, and
I just wrote that Club Z eschews commercials, at least in this market, in favor of less expensive marketing. I'm not saying either approach is wrong. I don't know yet. And DeSimone has what I think is a more mature business, and may be able to take a chance on new markets.
That's not all DeSimone is doing, either: you see the bumper sticker (pictured above) that she is giving out. She is also giving out T-shirts -- and if Mom wears the T-shirt to her kid's next appointment, she will get a certificate for having her nails done; if it's Dad with the shirt, he (read: I) will get a movie certificate. The T-shirts are far from being unwearable, and of course T-shirts are always an excellent marketing tool for entrepreneurs who can afford them.
Even the small things matter in DeSimone's office, though: her appointment cards are not just cards, which Heaven knows we lose all the time; they're colorful stickers, which transfer well to calendars and date books. She no doubt pays a little more for this bit of color, but what she gets is the benefit (though perhaps not totally measurable) of fewer forgotten appointments.
Conclusion: it's an aggressive marketing campaign, and the jury is out as to how well it'll work. I don't know why it's happening now, but I will. Stay tuned.
Labels: consulting
The entrepreneur of Kabul
I just finished reading Asne Seierstad's
The Bookseller of Kabul, which turns out to be an Entrepreneur as Hero [tm] book -- or maybe Entrepreneur as anti-hero. The book is centered around Sultan Khan, bookseller, and pulls no punches about what American entrepreneurs will probably see as moral lapses underlying Khan's business:
- Though he is permitted as head of the family to take a second wife, when he does it does not make his family happier.
- He trusts only relatives to work for him in his bookstore, blasting the prospects of his sons and nephews for an education.
- He does not account for intellectual property, nor does anyone else in Afghanistan, as he prints and binds the words of others for sale in his shop.
- Although by American standards, Khan is stealing the works of others for sale, may Allah help you if you shoplift from him. For taking a handful of postcards from Khan (the photos copied by Khan, again, without attribution), a local carpenter was sent to jail and away from his starving family.
You could argue that Sultan Khan is just doing what he has to to scrape a modest existence out of the dust of Kabul, and maybe that's what people have to do in a place like Afghanistan, which has known no peace in several decades.
I would be interested in knowing what entrepreneurial ventures would really stand a chance of success in dusty Kabul. Seierstad's book, which is really a fine read, doesn't give me any ideas.
Labels: diversions
I've been scoffing at "Corporate Social Responsibility!"
One thing we have to remember about "corporate social responsibility" -- it's no replacement for our personal responsibility.
I'm the kind of person who will give something to, or do something for the poor, but who hopes that I will not have to actually deal directly with those people. It's almost like what they have is catching -- and having "caught" whatever it is a couple of times during my life, I'm not interested in catching it again. So lemme give the pocket change or the used clothing or the canned goods, and lemme walk away. Don't let me become caught up in the plight of the poor, or those down on their luck.
And you know what? Others around me are just like me, to varying degrees. When somebody is out of work, we send 'em ads and ask 'em if they've sent resumes here or there -- we do this once or twice -- and then we're out of stuff to say. When somebody is bereaved, we tell 'em we're sorry, maybe even make a covered dish for the wake, offer to "help any way we can," and then leave 'em in bereft silence. It's just our way: we have big hearts but those hearts are seldom touched.
I loved
The Corporation, but it had this negative effect: in getting me pissed off at what companies do to show they don't really care about human needs, the video got me to take my attention off myself, and the fact that I don't really care either. At least, not enough to have a changed heart.
Here's why I'm saying all this: entrepreneurs need to understand that changing the world isn't gonna happen when we shine bright lights on dark enterprises, if we won't allow those lights to shine on our own untouched hearts as well.
What does an entrepreneur do to show social responsibility? Loaded question. And there are lots of great organizations,
like this one out there who can tell you more than I can. But here are general principles:
- Make sure your employees sleep well at night, knowing what they're contributing to.
- Make sure what you make now isn't going to leave behind a world of trouble later.
- Don't just throw money; take ownership of a problem. Get involved in the solution.
- Don't try to heal the whole world; one problem is good for a start.
- The law says you have to put your shareholders first; make them part of your solution.
Oh, yeah: I really am just thinking out loud here. I gotta get myself straightened out before I can really think about you.
Labels: character
Staples' contest spins off from The Apprentice
This article describes the way Staples has developed a concept featured on an episode of
The Apprentice last season. It was for Trump and his crew; now it's for the world.
Three of the ten finalists are within an hour's drive from here; two within 20 minutes.
- Scott Clark of Hamilton came up with the Notebook Binder Clip (pictured)
- Eric Gibbons of Bordentown has the CD-Dott, which is difficult for me to picture even after seeing it in the local paper. It apparently is an insert which fits in a CD's hole, and which "sticks to anything."
- Sarah Pantaleo of Harleysville, PA, has a thing called a Spindlerack, which organizes your CDs.
(CD management must be a real -- or perceived -- problem out there. There are any number of CD cases and wallets out there for you to organize yours, and the Staples contest now tells you that yours are still not organized.
:-))
Don't mistake me; I'd be glad if one of these three locals pulled out a win. It's encouraging for inventors everywhere. Especially if some of the also-rans are able to find distribution agreements through other channels, like second- and third-place finishers on
American Idol.
Question: do you think the ideas produced by the locals match up well with the "Desk Apprentice" (pictured)?
When I'm their customer v. when they're MINE
The difference is pretty simple: when I am the customer -- when I'm paying -- I expect not only attentive service, but interpretable service. Even though I have a brand-new NJ teaching certificate in English as a Second Language, I'm only the teacher when I have students. When I'm being paid to do it. If I'm a customer, on the other hand, it is NOT MY JOB to help service providers to do their jobs in English.
Pictured is a mild version of what I might run into as a customer: a local restaurant, which serves up a pretty good lunch buffet, cannot spell "Dunkin Donuts," and as a result what should be a landmark to help others find them actually gets in the way. Likewise, it's not "Penning," it's "Pennington Road." Like I said, it's a mild problem in this case: locals can find them. There was a more severe case when I had some dry cleaning done at a nearby shop, needed a receipt, and nobody in the shop understood the English word "receipt." It took me 20 minutes to explain what I needed.
You could argue that as the specialist I should be more patient. You could also argue that for me to BE patient might open up business opportunities for me. But in most cases I'll reject those arguments. In the first place, I'm paying them for the privilege of being forced to be patient. In the second place, I have never been offered work, never even received an inquiry, as a result of an encounter like this one. I have no reason to believe I ever will. So now, dry cleaners have a requirement in order to get my business: they must have someone on duty who speaks English.
Labels: office space
On facing the money people
I wish I could tell you that one of the companies I'm involved with now is about to face a battery of angels and VCs, but I can't. None of them are that far along. But I want to tell you a story of one such visit -- before the Pennsylvania Private Investors Group (which appears to have had its Web site taken down) -- that took place when I was involved with
GreyPilgrim, Inc. Maybe this story will help you.
If you want to address a group of money people, and tell them about your business, you have to pay for the privilege of the group deciding whether you're worthy. This is not unlike paying to take an exam which, if you pass, will allow you not to take an otherwise required undergraduate course. Circa 1997, the PPIG was charging $150 to review business plans. Since they agreed to have us address them, the partners felt the $150 was well-spent. But the other partners agonized over this pitch for several weeks, and I decided that since so much effort went into it, I'd better tag along and see what was up with that. Even though the partners weren't going to let me actually TALK during the pitch. They said that since I was an engineer, and that I was likely to (a) tell the truth as I saw it and (b) put everyone to sleep with technobabble, I'd better sit in the background.
The meeting was held in a nice hotel, and coffee and muffins were amply available. I couldn't have a muffin, even though I'd missed breakfast -- we couldn't take the chance that one of the high-rollers would think I had bad table manners and decide not to invest in us for it. We were pretty sensitive to those kinds of things.
Another small company, which had developed an "expert system" to activate alarms in chemical and power plants in the event of an accident, presented ahead of us, and we had a chance to learn from them. (This group was inspired by
the famous Union Carbide Bhopal accident, as I was when I wrote
the sci.engr.* FAQ on Failures. They took a response manual used by
Dow Chemical to determine triggers and responses for alarms, and automated the manual. Then they added customer suggestions to the knowledge base, and made an intuitive graphical user interface. It really was sweet. And they'd set up copies of this software at HUGE companies like Dow,
Dupont, etc. -- but they hadn't SOLD any yet. That was baffling to me, and baffling to the money people listening in, too.
And it didn't bode well for us, either, because software generally requires less of a buyer commitment than robot arms.
Well, as it happened, our presentation went "very well." I used to scream when the partners would use that phrase, "very well," about how something was going. It drove me crazy, because it was undefined. And it never meant we'd made some money. So I tended not to believe them. My job, as the engineer, was to be the Voice of Reason, making impartial observations. And the Voice of Reason also got to flip the viewgraphs. Afterwards, we found ourselves surrounded by half a dozen old tycoons, asking questions and watching our videotape for nearly half an hour. They'd told us they'd never seen such enthusiasm. I never saw it either: we didn't get a dime of investment money.
Anyway, the Voice of Reason will now tell you what it means to feel "very well" in this context:
- you really do feel good when it's over
- you take a significant amount of time to answer questions, and you CAN answer them (in this case, they even let ME answer a couple of them)
- you collect numerous business cards (and with any luck, a commitment from a couple of guys to call you at a later date)
I heartily recommend visiting an investment group like this to any entrepreneur. Even if you're not on the agenda, if they can let you sit in, you may feel something fulfilling: palpable interest, and even excitement, about what entrepreneurs are doing.
Labels: rhetoric
What new employees need
Former student Linh (pictured), who proposed
Far East Distribution, has a summer job that got her thinking:
I think the head teller (manager) is great, but she is busy because she has to do [lots of different jobs] and is not really there [all the time] because she is planning to get married; therefore the other tellers helped me out.
One person will tell me that if a person wants to cash a 500-dollar check you need [to see] an ID; others will will me that it has to be a 1000-dollar check [before you check for ID]. I cannot really ask the head teller because I do not want to bother her... she has other things to do. If she finds time to communicate with me and talk me through things, instead of me having to listen to the other [tellers], then I would not be so confused. She is the head teller, and if something goes wrong, at least I will know that I did what I have been asked.
Linh is making a point I hear often: young people on their first job assignment need guidance. Sometimes they hear conflicting messages. It's not that the co-workers are confused themselves, and it's not that nobody
can communicate effectively; it's that nobody
does.
I occasionally hear gore stories about interns who come to an office and don't have a place to sit. How can this happen? Simple: everyone thinks someone else is handling it.
In my first professional assignment, at
the NASA Glenn Research Center, I found that
my mentor (who turned out to be a brilliant, valuable mentor) was on vacation for two weeks when I arrived for work, and had left me a stack of manuals to read. Oh, how I wish I'd had a "shepherd" (pictured, with an artist's conception of "me") then.
The lesson to be learned is that a new employee costs money to train and get up to speed. The way to minimize that cost is to make sure that any teaching that doesn't actually involve creativity or direct experience be in place before the new hire gets there:
- Have an employee manual, and make sure it's up-to-date.
- Have someone assigned to show the new hire around on the first day.
- Have someone designated to answer questions until the new hire gets up to speed.
- Have some kind of social set aside to make the new hire comfortable. Get the gang to take the kid to lunch, at least.
Labels: office space
Holcombe Chassis status
AIM is a wonderful thing.
Brian: you'll be impressed when you see the frame in person as it sits now
Me: i am really looking forward to that.
Me: your progress has been one of the highlights of my summer.
Brian: cool
Brian: did i mention i have another hot item on the product list
Me: no. tell me.
Brian: its called the stocker "trunk system", nearly every fast stocker is using a fuel cell, battery box and weight box in the trunk of their cars, then they weld in tabs for mounting weight bars and pucks
Brian: this combines it all into one system that bolts in with 4 1/2" bolts
Me: all right, and you are working on this methodology as well?
Brian: i'm building a chrome moly round tube frame for it, and my own battery box, weight box, fuel cell and weight puck tabs for holding 5lb weights
Brian: i'm building it along with larrys project, i have the weight box finished
Me: good job.
Brian: i'll be back in a minute, gotta use the bathroom
Me: i assume that since there is a battery in this box, it serves as an active power source, and not as a spare?
Brian: active yeah, and alot of these guys put a fake battery in the front mounted battery slot. the real feature is the ability to quickly and easily change the overall weight of the car, and it puts it in the best spot for traction
Brian: brb in a minute
Brian: ok i'm back
Me: this thing you tell me about weight boxes, well, I never knew it. one of the ways you can tell that i'm a real drag racing idiot. LOL
Brian: in stock eliminator the many individual classes have minimum weights, so the objective of the owner is to take as much weight out of the front of the car as possible, and remove as much rotating weight as possible, and put all the weight required to make the minimum into the trunk to help the car wheelie (traction)
Brian: there is good weight and bad weight, bad weight is rotating weight as it slows the car down significiantly more then static weight that sits in the trunk of the car
Me: right. but... if the car actually DOES "wheelie," doesn't that have a negative impact on traction?
Brian: yeah, the wheelie is what creates maximum traction under most every bad conditions
Brian: even* bad conditions, meaning hot summer tracks or worn out track surfaces
Me: that seems counter-intuitive. when you use the term "wheelie," you use the "traditional" meaning of "front wheels off the track?"
Brian: yeah
Brian: only for the first 60ft or so
Brian: so the car can build enough wheel speed to maintain traction as the car is settling down from the wheelie and weight is transfering back to the front tires on the ground
Me: OK, so you are depending on the rear wheels during the most critical acceleration phase.
Brian: oh yeah, the rear wheels require the total weight of the car in most cases to be on them entirely to maintain traction on the start and first 60ft
Me: that is very interesting. I'd need to take that into account in a loads analysis. up to this point i was assuming static loads -- the whole car is as if standing still.
Brian: so, the events are as fallows, the car will initially shock the tires on the starting line by the driver letting off of the brakes and flooring the accellerator, the tires will initial grab the track surface and start to "pitch rotate" the car which means wheelie the car onto the rear wheels to increase the total weight on them and maintain traction while the car accellerates
Brian: yes, as the weight of the car drops back down to the ground, the nose weight will increase on the contract as the nose of the car droops, then it will go back to static or less then static as the nose rises again and the car travels forward
Brian: lots of dynamics into making these cars work very well, maintaining traction under all conditions and using the power effectively
Me: man, you know yer shit.
Brian: thanks!
Labels: young entrepreneurs
Club Z Tutoring's local business strategy a winner!
I had a chance to talk to Jim Pankiewicz of the local
Club Z Tutoring franchise. Jim had been interested for some time in owning a franchise of
some business, and found that Club Z was a natural fit for his interests and temperament. But I was impressed with his well-researched approach to entering into this market with Club Z, a purveyor of in-home tutoring for students of all ages.
The sale of franchises is in this case based on Zip codes, the boundaries of which are defined for this purpose by the 2000 Census. But there are some school districts that have seen extensive growth since the year 2000, and this is not reflected (yet) in the distribution of Zip codes. Jim bought the ones that offered -- or are still in the process of offering -- fast growth in the school-age population. A strong source of bang for the buck. An example in this area is
Robbinsville, about ten miles from me, which has a brand new high school. Jim might very reasonably expect to reach out to a strong customer base there.
Then there's his advertising strategy. He eschews TV and radio, and I think rightly so, because the cost is, like, REALLY high. He'd need to get thousands of customers back to justify it. (Personally, I think that TV and radio is really unsuitable for most advertising, with the exception of special events. But that's another story.) He will use some newspaper ads, and (though he cringes when he says it) the Yellow Pages (again, very expensive, but people do respond to entries there); but his big targets include
- Google (in which he has tried hard to gain high-on-the-list status)
- signs posted at street corners (I see these often for furniture stores, and I believe they have mixed results for those users; we've all seen them for political candidates, and most of us never vote on the basis of a sign in someone's yard or a vacant lot)
- direct contact with schools
There is no arguing that last one. His plan there is especially fine: he gives the front office a plastic apple filled with candy, and holding a stack of his business cards. Huge bang-for-the-buck there. It's amazing how people respond to small acts of kindness and politeness.
But what I admire most is his customer service plan. My feeling has always been that there are two kinds of customers: (1) happy, and (2) someone else's. And Jim has more-or-less the same view: he won't make people pay through the nose to end a tutoring relationship. Learning centers force a month's notice, or more, sometimes with a fee; Jim says two weeks and no fee. He says it's important for customers to walk away from you feeling they've been treated honestly.
Best of luck, Jim!
Labels: young entrepreneurs
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