Perhaps there is no better example of this new found community than SnapImpact.  When Dave Angulo and Rich Grote decided to build an iPhone app to improve the world, they called upon our entire community to help.  Almost 60 people showed up for the first meeting and more than 100 people have contributed to the project so far.  Now that’s a community!

I sat down with Dave and Rich to talk about their community sourcing model and to find out what they have planned next.  Good stuff.  Enjoy.

Incredibly smart/tech-savvy people start a company around a cool idea. These founders build amazing tools/products that demonstrate their concept and their abilities. At this point they might decide they need to get funding. And, what will they use the money for? Often times, the word “marketing” will show up near the top of their funding needs (Sales and Business Development are also near the top, but that’s another post). Seems reasonable enough, right? I mean how else are people going to know about your company/product without marketing?

The trouble begins when you start to dig a little deeper on the “marketing” bullet point. The founders often won’t have a marketing plan yet. No problem they will explain, part of the funding will go towards hiring a marketing person. The basic thinking here is “we don’t know anything about marketing so we will hire someone who does.” If you are a startup CEO, and you think you are going to hire your way in to good marketing, I’ve got news for you: you are almost certainly going to fail. Why? I could write an entire book on this topic, but let’s start with a few basic points:

1) Marketing is not a bolt-on component of your company that you can outsource to another person. Marketing is an integral part of every decision the company makes. In my opinion, it is critical that the CEO drive the core marketing strategy in the early stages because all the major decisions around the company, the product and marketing are interrelated. A good marketing person can only help execute a plan that is based upon a strong vision that is set by the CEO. Hiring a marketing person before you know your marketing strategy is like hiring a developer before you know what platform/technology you are using to build your product.

2) If you don’t know anything about marketing, the odds that you can hire a good marketing person are pretty slim. Sure, a blind squirrel can occasionally find a nut, but I wouldn’t fund a business that was based upon such a rare occurrence. You can certainly get referrals from people you trust and respect. But, unless the person that is being recommended is coming from an identical business and you are planning to steel the previous employer’s marketing strategy (see point #1) there is little reason to believe the recommended person will be a good fit for your company/strategy.

3) If you don’t have a solid marketing strategy, your new marketing hire is either going to drive you crazy or accomplish absolutely nothing or both. If your new hire is motivated to do a good job, they will be constantly peppering you with questions you can’t yet answer in order to get some direction. You’ll be reacting to questions instead of developing a good strategy. If your new hire is bad, they will just sit back and wait for you. Either way, you lose.

So, how do you avoid this common mistake? Like a lot of growth opportunities it starts with self-awareness and acceptance. Once you accept your current understanding of the subject and you recognize the fact that you have to embrace marketing as your responsibility, you can learn quickly and make rapid progress on building an effective strategy for your company.

More thought on marketing strategy coming soon…

I originally envisioned a long post that described in detail the reasons why I spend time being a mentor.  However, when I started writing, I quickly realized the reasons can be boiled down to one simple (selfish) fact:  I enjoy spending time with smart energetic individuals that are open to new ideas and are brave enough to try new things (even if they might fail in the process).  These attributes sound straight forward enough, but I can assure you that these characteristics are hard to find in people and even harder to find in companies.  David Cohen and the TechStars team do a fantastic job finding these rare individuals and teams.

One of the teams I worked with this summer was Vanilla .  The founders, Mark O’Sullivan and Todd Burry, represent  everything that is right about TechStars.  Today I was lucky enough to sit down with Mark just as he finished his very last session with TechStars.  Mark spent a few minutes reflecting on his experiences in TechStars this summer.   Take a look at our conversation and I think it will be obvious to you why I enjoy spending time with people like Mark.

The good news is that TechStars isn’t finished yet!  I’m doing some mentoring with a few teams in Boston too.  Investor day in Boston is set for September 10th.  So, I’ve still got a few more weeks of being energized by these amazing entrepreneurs.  After that it is going to be a long cold winter.

Vanilla Interview with Mark O’Sullivan from Chris Moody on Vimeo.

A couple of points not covered in the video:

• Yes, this is different than having two computers setup full time on Skype or iChat. We tried that approach first. You lose audio quality with regular computers which eliminates a lot of the value.
• In my opinion, the screen sharing feature works better than typical web conferencing services like WebEx.  The video quality is better and the refresh rates are much faster.  I’ve even watched someone share a video and it was watchable (don’t try that with WebEx).  You can share the audio from your computer too which works well because the units have such nice speakers.
• In terms of bandwidth, you only need 512kbs upload capability to use the system.  I have a standard Comcast business connection and it works flawlessly.
• My system is configured so that you can plug it into any internet connection and it will work.  Kind of a nice feature if you need to move the unit around the office or if you work from home occassionally  (although the unit isn’t exactly portable).

Also, if you’re curious.  Here’s what the folks in Boston see when they watch me in Boulder. Tango (our amazing designer) came up with the idea of adding the rest of my body to the video.

Question of the day:  Can I expense a liver transplant?

I use the same unit of measure to recall my professional career.  1998 is the year I decided I could no longer work for a giant company (I worked for IBM at the time).   2004 is the year that we launched Robohead.  2007 is the year we launched MajorTom and the year we really solidified our current sales strategy.

What’s the point?  In spite of the fact that I feel like I’m always really busy and getting a lot done, I’ve come to accept that I only accomplish one or two things a year that really matter.   This realization has been one of the most important discoveries of my career.  Here’s why…

Imagine how liberating and powerful it can be to recognize that you are only capable of accomplishing one…maaaaaybe two… major goals a year BEFORE you start each year.   The last few years I’ve started the year by sitting down with our leadership team and asking them to help me answer the question “20XX is going to be remembered as the year that we (insert single goal here)”.   I’ve found that it is really important that we limit ourselves to just one goal in order to get the necessary buy in and focus from each member of the team.  Once we agree upon the goal, individuals can plan out their action items with a real sense of purpose.  Any “to do” item that doesn’t have a clear impact on helping us achieve our goal will likely get tossed.

After we set our 2009 goal in early January, I reviewed all the strategic items that had been accumulating on my to do list, and I scratched off every item except one:  “hire great people”.  Of all the things that I wanted to do or that I thought I needed to get done this year, I realized that if I did nothing else but hire great people in 2009 we would have a great shot at achieving our goal.  As time passes throughout any given year, my to do list naturally starts to expand and drift.  As this year has progressed, I’ve added a few additional to do items to help us achieve our goal.  More importantly, I’ve removed items before I’ve even started working on them when I realized they weren’t on goal.

Most of the people I meet who are in the early stages of launching a new business are passionate, ambitious, and seem to have boundless energy.  And, I honestly don’t think you can be a successful entrepreneur without these attributes (being lucky certainly doesn’t hurt either).  However, I’ve seen plenty of examples where these very same traits lead to unnecessary failure because the goals are too broad and so the energy and the passion aren’t directed.    Sometimes the only way to learn this lesson is to: try to do too much, do nothing particular well, and fail.   On the flip side, if you are willing to put all of your energy in to just one goal, your chances of doing that one thing very well increase significantly.

Ask most successful founders why a particular business was successful and they’ll usually point to one or two key accomplishments across the entire life of the company.  For a tech startup, it might be introducing a single killer feature or building one key partnership that leads to success.  As the old saying goes, it is the quality of activities not the quantity of activities that will typically make the most impact on the success of your business.  This is particularly true in an early stage business where there are few resources and lots of things you might want to quickly get in place.

I recognize that some people are far more productive than me.  Others are probably never willing to accept just one goal a year.  Either way, I suggest you try a trick I use every time I’m faced with a mounting list of stuff to do.    I simply review each item on my list and ask myself “if we executed this particularly task to perfection, does it really help us get to where we want to be?”  I’m always amazed how often the answer is “no” and I can just scratch the item.  How does an item get on your list if isn’t going to make an impact?  I’m not exactly sure, but I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that high-energy people are willing to add stuff to their very full plates without thinking too much about the cost of the loss of focus.

If you’re feeling guilty or lazy about only accomplishing one major thing a year, just remember that you’ll likely work 45+ years in your life.  That type of success rate ultimately adds up to a lot of wins along the way.