Boulder is showing the world about mentorship
November 15, 2009
During the last TechStars summer, we were visited by representatives from two foreign governments: Singapore and France. Both had heard about something interesting happening in Boulder. Each came and observed the program for a half day or so, looking for a productive exchange of ideas and opportunities.
During the summer, I was invited by the Singapore government to visit their country and I jumped at the opportunity. I love to travel to places that I’ve never been before. They also invited Andrew Hyde to come along, which made the trip even more fun.
Singapore is pretty much as far away as you can go in the world from here. It’s a beautiful place with very warm, tropical weather. The total population is about 4 million. As you’ve probably heard, it’s very clean and there is a very low crime rate. It’s an extremely international city, and you can find an amazing variety of food there. We ate at a Korean BBQ place that was out of this world. See my Everlater trip for my notes on my visit.
We met with various government organizations, incubators, and startups. What was shocking to me was the sheer volume of funding, programs, and services for startups. It’s quite easy to get government funding to launch your startup in Singapore. There are about 10 incubators there to support you once you get going. Unlike in the United States, immigration is easy – nearly anyone who wants to live in Singapore can just move there. It’s only necessary to fill out one form to start a business in Singapore. It’s an amazingly business friendly place.
One of the government officials described the situation to me this way. He said that from a funding perspective it was as if you had walked into a restaurant where you were the only customer, but where there were about 16 waiters and staff waiting to serve you. It’s that awkward feeling of over-supply of servers (funding) and undersupply of customers (startups).
I actually (respectfully 
) disagreed. I saw a very vibrant and young web2 entrepreneurial community. Sure, it wasn’t huge, but it had plenty of critical mass.
I think it was something else that was actually lacking. And it was part of why I had been invited.
Everyone was telling me that the few web startups that were there were mostly learning on their own. There wasn’t a strong visible culture of mentorship in the community. They were hungry for the benefit of some of my experience building and working with startups. Perhaps insatiable would be the better word.
All of the government funding support in the world can’t create deep, engaged mentorship out of thin air.
On my trip, I met one of the founders of Match.com, who happens to be from Singapore. I asked him why there wasn’t more mentorship, and he thought that it was a simple lack of supply of experienced mentors who had been there and done that. You got the feeling that a few of them were certainly trying.
E27, a great startup organization there, had invited me to do a talk on my final night in town. I tried to focus my talk on entrepreneurial ecosystems, comparing what was happening in Singapore (as far as I could tell) to what had happened in Boulder over the last 15 years or so. I encountered the usual “Silicon Valley envy” and challenged the entrepreneurs in the room to start a new culture of mentorship. I asked them not to wait until they were rich and successful, but to mentor someone else now. Today. They had all learned things that they could share with others in their community. Certainly, I also asked those that had startups that had been or would be successful in the future to go above and beyond in helping others follow in their paths by mentoring them, angel investing, and by creating visibility for their community. I think it was fairly well received, although the cultural differences there are evident.
One fact that consistently blew my mind was that everyone in the web startup community in Singapore, on the other side of the world, had heard about little old Boulder. They knew something was happening in the startup scene here. And they were looking to us for inspiration, knowing that they too will never be Silicon Valley, but still wanting to be the best Singapore that they could be just like Boulder is becoming the best Boulder it can be.
When I got home and reflected on this great trip, I was reminded that we need to keep doing more of this right here in Boulder too. I was inspired by the fact that we’re an inspiration to others around the globe. How amazing is that?
So…. Hey you – yes you – go be a mentor to somebody that you can help. Today. Keep helping others a core part of what our community is all about. The payback is truly mind-boggling.
Mentorship is on the rise in America. I’m proud that TechStars has been some small part of the inspiration for that when it comes to web startups. I’ve already been to a few other cities here as well, answering their questions about what’s going on in Boulder. Soon, I’m off to England and Denmark to work with local communities there on improving their own entrepreneurial ecosystems. So far, a pattern seems to be emerging.
Want your town to be the best it can be? Create a sustainable culture of mentorship, and participate in it.
DonorsChoose - Go Colorado!
October 8, 2008
Thanks to Micah Baldwin for organizing the Colorado tech bloggers to band together and compete in the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge together.
I just donated to one of the Colorado education causes. You can get involved and donate a few bucks too. Doing so helps education locally, and it helps us as Colorado Tech Bloggers win this challenge. We are currently in 10th place among tech blogs, but we can do better! You can help right here.
Want to help spread the word on your own blog? Head over to Micah’s post and leave him a comment.
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Metro State College seeking e-mentors
October 6, 2008
I’m on the board of advisors for the Center for Innovation at Metro State College. Because we think mentors kinda rock and that they’re critical to helping first time entrepreneurs, we’ve established an e-mentorship program there. The program matches both high school (Denver Venture School - the only entrepreneurship-focused charter school in the country) and Metro State college students with entrepreneurial experts in the Denver and Boulder areas. These mentors counsel students on the skills necessary to become a successful business owner.
We tried to design this program so it would not take too much of your time (about one e-mail per week), but would make a huge impact in the lives of budding entrepreneurs. After an initial face-to face meeting, all mentor-mentee communications take place electronically in our specially-designed E-Mentorship website. So this is a “meet them once, then help them by email” type of relationship. Take it from me, mentorship can be incredibly powerful and this is a really easy way to get involved with some kids who would really value your experience and help.
Consider signing up today to be an e-mentor in the program. I bet you’ll be glad you did.
Tip #7: Obsess over core metrics
September 17, 2008
For those of you with good memories, you’ll recall that I have been blogging a series of startup tips. I’ve previously done tips 1-6 of twelve startup tips that I derived from my TechStars experiences.
This tip is about “core metrics.” I think most startups should have 2 or 3 core metrics that they use consistently to evaluate their business. If you have many more, then it’s hard to focus your efforts. Having just one probably oversimplifies things. So 2-3 core metrics is a good rule of thumb.
I’ll give you an example from last summer. Intense Debate is a company from TechStars 2007 that replaces the crappy built in comment system on most blogs. Subsequently, it drives subscriber engagement and page views. Early on in the life of the company, we often talked about the number of publishers (blogs) using the service. It was a metric everyone had in their heads. We also obsessed over “number of commenters per post” early on. We thought that improving engagement primarily meant getting new people into the conversation. At first glance, these seem like reasonable metrics. But we quickly learned that they’re lousy metrics, and certainly not metrics that we want to orient the business around.
Think about it for a minute. Should they go out and just get every tiny little publisher as a goal? Is Intense Debate really “about” number of publishers? Does that somehow increase the value they create? Sure, it’s nice to improve more and more blogs, but in the end they needed to monetize the service somehow. Number of publishers and commenters per post were quickly replaced as a core metrics for the company with core metrics like “total comments per post” (subtle difference - who cares how many commenters there are) and “page views per post.” If you’re a blogger, I’m sure you’ll recognize that comments per post and page views per post are good things to be focused on.
It turns out that Intense Debate has an enormous impact on both of these core metrics where substantial existing communities are present. We quickly learned that comment systems don’t (necessarily) create user engagement. Instead, where there is already user engagement, they enhance it greatly.
This meant that it was doubly important for us to focus on the new core metrics, not the original ones that we theorized might be true. It seems so obvious looking back. However, for many early stage web startups I meet, they appear to be obsessing over either a) nothing, or b) seemingly inappropriate core metrics.
So the first point here is: Obsess over the correct core metrics. Harder than it sounds.
The second point is to actually obsess over them. Everyone in the company should know the current values of these core metrics. Experiments should be undertaken with the goal of manipulating them.
One of the tactics that we regularly use with TechStars companies is that we insist that they build core metrics into the product very early on. In my experience, there’s a definite correlation between building measurements for these core metrics right into the product and long term success. It turns out that it’s very easy to build these sorts of measurement and reporting systems into the product early on. But it’s often surprisingly difficult to do it later on once the product is sufficiently complex. So the lesson is simply: Build in automated reporting systems for your core metrics very early on.
Most TechStars companies with products in alpha, beta, or launch phase have a daily email that goes around to the founders and mentors with detailed statistics relating to their core metrics. Those that don’t often send weekly updates with this information. They make their core metrics visible. When things change in a major way, they’re often asked what moved the needle. It’s like the old adage: If you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it. So stick them in everyone’s face!
In my opinion, the best startups have 2 or 3 metrics that represent true drivers of their business, and they literally obsess over understanding and improving those numbers on a day to day basis.
What are your core metrics? How do you report and communicate them?
Tip #6: Scratch your own itch (but it’s just one possible way to become passionate)
April 20, 2008
I’ve been slowly blogging twelve startup tips from last summer at TechStars. Here’s #6 about “scratching your own itch.”
The original idea behind this tip was that many successful startups start out fixing a problem that pisses them off, and that they believe needs to go away.
But I’ve since refined my thinking on this. Scratching your own itch is certainly no guarantee of success, just like all the other tips. I now think of this as just one way of being passionate about what you’re working on. If you’re scratching your own itch, then you’re likely to be passionate about the solution.
But it’s just as easy to be passionate about a problem you don’t personally have. When I think back on the three startups that I founded prior to TechStars, one was scratching my own itch and was successful. The other successful one was solving a very real problem for a very large market. And the one that failed was one where I’m now pretty confident that I was scratching the faintest and least annoying of itches - one that just didn’t need to be scratched by anybody.
But you’ve got to have passion about what you’re doing. So scratching your own itch is a great way to generate passion. The way that I generated passion in my public safety software company (I had no personal itch to scratch in that case) was thinking about my customers customers. We could get ambulances on scene more efficiently and for less money than the competition. Trust me, when millions of patients are relying on your software to save their lives, it’s easy to sustain your passion.
I’m not talking here about the fake passion that I see so often. It’s often phrased as “the world really needs this cool product” and “therefore I’m very passionate about bringing it to market.” I think it’s important to stop and ask yourself what’s generating and sustaining your passion, and whether or not that source of passion is real. You’re going to need it or it will be too easy to just give up.
Startups are a ridiculous amount of work that (on average) come with a low probability of success. It’s not going to work if you’re not passionate and dedicated about solving a problem or bringing something to life.
So, founders: What’s the unending source of your passion about your company?
