Only now, as I look back, do I realize how fortunate I was to work for a startup so early in my career. It was part-MBA, part mom-and-pop shop, part family, and a whole lot of fun. It engrained so many values into me and I learned so much. A lot of long hours, hard work, lifelong friendships, and some occasional stress as pressure mounted, especially that last Christmas holiday before we were purchased trying to get the product ready. I didn't know, when I returned from vacation, if we would still be in business, so I took a programming book with me to study in case I needed to find new employment. Who can resist such adventure?
Because...when you eat, they eat, too!
So, when I started to look around for new challenges, I knew I wanted to get back to the startup vibe. My friend and the CEO of my first startup experience (Pixel), Jim Fontaine, introduced me to Andre Angel, the founder and CEO of TangoTab (and founder of CODEKKO, NTRglobal, and Work Meter). Andre founded this venture that not only promised the excitement and challenge of building a new business, but an innovative service that uses a portion of its proceeds to fight hunger. Wow! And, it revolves around restaurants and dining out, a couple of my core passions.
TangoTab is a marketing tool for restaurants that allows them to make a controlled amount of offers to their customers, many times the same offers they are making anyway, and only when a customer redeems an offer, they pay TangoTab. No risk. The fun part starts from there, as TangoTab then donates a portion of the proceeds to the local food banks and hunger charities in the cities where we are deployed.
So much fun. So useful. So gratifying. And, that is why I have taken the plunge, again.
Go check out TangoTab yourself and learn about the fight against hunger. We're still working out some kinks, so register and access us via the website, as we need to post a fix for the iPhone app. If you are in an area that we currently serve, try the service, and I'd love your feedback and your wish list of restaurants. If you are in an area where we do not currently serve, let me know, along with your favorite restaurants, and I will let you know when we launch in your area. You can reach out to me via twitter.
I once had a Director, early in my career, who if nothing else, taught me that, "if it was easy, everyone would do it." It was a motivational statement for all the hard work we had to put into a product we were working on. His message was that stuff that is worth it normally takes hard work. If it's easy to do, likely consumers won't be willing to pay you or pay you much for it. The reverse is true, as well: if something is free, it has no value.
Barrier to entry is one good barometer when you are thinking about new propositions. If it's too easy for your competitors to do the same thing, then its only a temporary advantage and not strategic. Getting there first has advantages some times, but sometimes, being a fast follower offers you perspective of what the first did wrong.
Most great new propositions has some key differentiation that distinguishes them from legacy and the competition. The differentiation normally adds a lot of value to the consumer and makes it tough for them to switch and tough for competition to match. Once in a while that differentiation is so good, it disenfranchises the way things have been done historically. Those are the gems.
Next time you are burning the midnight oil on something important, think about whether you are just running ahead of competition on the same road, or building new roads that they have yet to find or traverse.
We are all arm-chair quarterbacks when it comes to predicting the past in the digital world. Of course AOL would tumble because of their reliance on dial-up. MySpace?! Seriously?!? Everyone could see their demise. After it happened.
I suppose if I had really good advice for predicting such future, I would be retired on a beach somewhere and not writing this blog. Well, maybe I would still be writing this blog, but I would be more relaxed. The reality is there is no crystal ball, but the cliffs are steep when leaders fall. We have a hard time imagining Google or Apple or Facebook not being leaders in their space, but it's almost inevitable that their time will pass, as well. The great companies are always reinventing themselves, because any combination of market forces, competition, technology, etc. change the environment that made them successful. IBM did it. Apple did it. Nokia was renowned for attempting to reinvent itself every year, but somewhere along the way, they have stumbled and chosen the wrong path.
I once forced myself to read the book The Invisible Computer, by Donald Norman, and at the time, I worked in the computer industry. The concepts described in this book are much of what makes Apple a leader today: embedding computers in everything, making them smart and seamless, invisible. The book was published in 1999. I remember thinking that the concepts that Mr. Norman discussed were interesting, but he ignored the realities of the business aspects of the market and the economies of scale that existed and the advantages they provided to the PC world. I've learned since that those advantages go away quickly when consumers and businesses vote through their purchases. It's happening to Nokia, and now Apple is recognized to have the advantages of economies of scale. It's a prize you receive, if you run a tight, smart ship, when you make good products.
Great strategic leadership can help to identify the cliffs before you drive the bus off them. Always be aware and never be content.
Having worked in technology-related pursuits for over 21 years, I often use the "my mom test" with my work. I mean, does Bubs "get it?" I've worked on enough cool new projects that have never made it to the shelf that I figure if my mom does not understand what I'm working on, there's a higher probability that others won't, and its really not the shizzle.
It's not to say that, with new technology, early adopters won't like something and create the buzz that later the "my moms of the world" love. But for the love of all that's holy, I want my mom to at least understand, in some broad sense, what it is I do. It's not nuclear physics, for Pete's sake. I mean, who knows what she's telling her friends at the bridge game?
So, the next time that you're gearing up to pitch a VC on that new service that is like Facebook crossed with Instagram with a built in gamification like Angry Birds, test it out on your momma, first. Sometimes, momma really does know best.
Come see me and other industry leaders from Sam's Club, BBC America, The Daily, Ogilvy & Mather, Nutro, The Weather Channel, and Starcom Mediavest talk about tablets in marketing at ad:tech New York City next Thursday at 3:00PM Eastern and 4:30PM Eastern. If you can't make it, tell a friend, and I will think of you while enjoying NYC!
