The Ugly Truth Behind Paying for Facebook Likes on a Facebook Business Page
The Experiment
I recently tested paying for Facebook likes on a Facebook business page. It seemed like a low-effort way to build a channel for future marketing messages. Start with some good page content, put in some money, and watch it grow. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have expected so much. Let me show you what I did and you can see for yourself whether there’s an underlying “ugly truth”.
The ad I created ran over the summer, around August. Facebook ads are undergoing new development, so what was true about the procedure this summer may now require modification. But I think the overall procedure must be the same. Start with an appealing image and some good text, like this:
I’ve completely distorted the ad because I don’t want any of my paid likes to see it here and think, “Oh man, he’s talking about me!” I’m not talking about you. Probably, you’ve never seen the Facebook page on which I ran the ad.
The ad used the full glory and power of Facebook targeting. Find me people:
- in certain US cities,
- between the ages of X and Y inclusive,
- who like culture, geneology, or the arts,
- who are not already connected to my Facebook business page,
- who are in one of the broad categories related to culture.
When someone likes your Facebook business page, you sometimes get a notice. Depending on their privacy settings, you can cyber stalk them (just a little, harmlessly) to see whether they might match your criteria.
The Data
Of my 38 likes, Facebook told me the names of 14 of them.
Of these 14 names, four of them had privacy settings that blocked some or all of my research. Based on reading the remaining 10 pages, I could see that four of them (40%) were what I would consider my dream customer.
What about the other 60 percent?
- One most likely lived in a city I hadn’t specified.
- One was devoted entirely to pornography (no, that wasn’t my ad).
- One had liked a lot of things with the word “respect” in it.
- One was devoted to hatred of the police (but he lived in the right city).
- One had such varied interests, I could only see that they had liked 2,100 things.
And this is where I became suspicious. Looking again at all of my new potential customers, I saw that the one who “liked” the fewest business pages liked 350 pages, the one who liked the most liked almost 3,600 pages, and the average “like count” was over 1,800. For comparison, in my own social circle, the average “like count” is something below 100.
The Ugly Truth
Imagine that you and each of these business pages are all posting on Facebook at the same rate. That means the “like” you paid for has a 0.05% chance of seeing your content. Once they see it,
- There’s some percent chance they click it,
- Some other percent chance they click towards making a purchase,
- Some other percent chance they actually make a purchase.
At about $1 per like, I could imagine having to spend over $50,000 (to get over 50,000 likes) before I could reliably turn a single post into a paid customer.
I think the ugly truth, therefore, is that Facebook lets you pay for Facebook likes by farming out your ad to users who will like anything. Facebook surely knows who these people are. The use of promiscuous likers, in the advertising context, means that the likes for which you pay are even less valuable than you think.
In the end, I decided to cancel paying for likes. It doesn’t make sense unless you have a marketing department with dollars to burn.
How Twitter Became an Alternative to Small Claims Court
In July I did some freelance consulting work for a client who shall remain nameless. If you’ve been following my posts, you will remember who this was. You can imagine my dismay in October when, after many attempts to contact the client for payment, I filed a small claim in Worcester District Court.
The money was as good as gone. The clerk at the backed-up small claims court said that it would be at least a year before the client would even be served. Past that, there’s the hearing, then the judgment, then the execution. It was a long, hopeless road.
Redemption
Enter Trevor Chang, an old friend and, as it turns out, a wise one. He read my previous post and casually suggested over Facebook that I tweet to the client. Twitter is, at its core, a public forum. Maybe a modern day scarlet letter would get the client’s attention. It seemed a good alternative to small claims court and a years-long wait.
I proceeded timidly. At first I tweeted directly @{insert client name here}, and only that I had sent an updated invoice. I did this in October. Then, on Thursday, November 14, I tweeted the following:
I wrote this blog article about @{insert client name here} a while ago. Still no response. {link}
Friday afternoon, November 15, my inbox contained an email from the client. This was his first communication with me since August 13, 2013.
The email was angry. Vituperative can be your “word of the day.” It was vituperative. “How dare you break non-disclosure and defame my good name” etc. etc. It ended with, “I’ll pay your invoice if you take down that blog article.”
I replied, in effect, “I’m sorry it took a blog article to get your attention. Deal.”
Within an hour money had changed hands — righteously, I might add — and the blog article, which never had done more than pose the question of malfeasance, had been taken down.
So, incidentally, have my tweets.
The blog article was search-engine optimized for effect. I’m proud to say it was on the front page of Google search results for the client’s name and business name. But that, combined with my dozen increasingly stern communications, had no effect whatsoever on the client. Not even when I threatened small claims and then actually did file in small claims court was there so much as a peep from the client. None of my growling had any effect. What broke the logjam was the merest tweet. “Hey, @{this guy} owes me money, take a look {link}.”
Reflection
I find Twitter incredible. I look at my Twitter feed and I feel washed over in garbage. But sometimes certain tweets pack a relevancy and a punch that makes me feel like I’ve found a diamond in a coal mine.
And because it’s one of basically three(ish) digital channels (website and Facebook being the other two), companies attach enormous importance to what others will see on Twitter. Take the JP Morgan Tweetup Disaster as case in point. Call it a “microblog” if you will. It’s also a 17th century scaffold.
What’s the most memorable tweet you’ve ever written? Did it accomplish something good? Let me know in the comments below.
Ghostbusters: The Perfect Startup Business
A couple weekends ago I decided to go back to the 80’s and re-watch the original Ghostbusters movie (1984). When you revisit something you knew as a kid, you pick up on things you never saw before. With this movie, I saw the perfect startup business.
As with any startup, it begins with an idea. Catch ghosts. Good idea, there are lots of ghosts. And, as luck would have it, the founders are all trained in paranormal psychology. Motivated and qualified!
Rather than hunt down investors, they triple-leveraged the value of Ray Stantz’s parents’ house. Spengler does some math as they’re walking down the street that says they’re going to have to pay $95,000 in interest alone in the first year. Rates were at least 12% back in 1984, so that’s $791,000 of starting capital. In today’s money, that’s $1.8 million seed. Not bad, not bad at all!
Rather than test the market or bootstrap, they go full steam ahead and use their seed capital to buy a fixer-upper brownstone in New York City. They also buy a car. Then they hire a secretary to do nothing all day long except wait for the phone to ring. It doesn’t ever ring. They also take out an ad on daytime TV. Facilities? Check. Transportation? Check. Staff? Check. Marketing plan? Check.
We learn that they spend their last money on a Chinese take-out dinner. Luckily, they get their first customer that same afternoon. She heard about them on the TV.
About half an hour later they’re world famous.
Really, what more could you want from a startup? They even have a gnarly corporate theme song.
How I Got a New Sidewalk in Worcester, MA
City government is an interesting machine. And by interesting, I mean, hard to figure out. Here’s the photo- and video-tale of how I got a new sidewalk in Worcester, MA. It took three and a half years. If you have something similar in need of doing, you might learn from my experience.
It began in 2010. One of the maple trees for which the street was named was dying. It would loft large pieces of itself into the air every time the wind blew. Some of them were large enough to hurt someone, or to crush a car like in an All State commercial. Here are two of the evidence shots I submitted to my city councilor, who at the time was Bill Eddy. (These were taken on different days.)
The City of Worcester owns all the trees in the sidewalk. When I asked a city representative if I could pay for my own arborist to come and prune the dead out, she told me that if I so much as rubbed a piece of bark off it, they would be lawfully entitled to fine me for destruction of the entire tree according to the circumference of the trunk. It was something prohibitive like $50 per inch of circumference.
I asked Bill Eddy if the city could assemble a list of “certified arborists” so that I could hire one and prune the tree legally. I offered this to help with the tremendous backlog of arbor work that had resulted from the asian long-horned beetle disaster.
The official work order was entered May 24, 2010. What you see below is real. I edited it only to remove my address, phone number, and email address. Look at how it ends, where it says “CLOSED”:
The only reasonable interpretation of this otherwise senseless remark, “no city tree at this location,” was that Councilor Eddy had done some back room dealings and given me a free hand to prune the tree myself. The city had disowned it. Perfect! I started getting quotes from arborists to prune it. This was September 8, 2010.
The night of September 21 I drove home thinking about which arborist to hire. I pulled onto my street and lo! the tree was gone. Nothing remained but the stump and the upheaved sidewalk.
I called Billy Eddy to ask whether it would have been better just to prune the dead. I also asked about the stump and the sidewalk. I couldn’t get through to him, so I asked these questions in a voicemail. I would not hear from him again for two years.
On November 27, 2011, one year after the removal, the stump was ground down to a dusty pile. Now all that remained was the badly damaged sidewalk.
I waited. And waited. I called the city and asked what would be done about the sidewalk. Twice I was told someone would be out to repair it. The third time I was told, “Oh, that requires a petition!”
Shortly afterward, on March 20, 2013, I went to some lengths to post a sign out front inviting neighbors to sign a petition to City Council. I collected seven signatures with this passive device. I wanted to leave it out for two weeks. Then one night the petition blew away, carrying all of its signatures with it, never to be seen again.
I submitted the petition anyway on March 29, 2013, indicating all that had happened. It included the following imagery, juxtaposing the awful crater with my otherwise scenic front yard:
You can see how I encouraged neighborhood support by tying the petition text to my fence. When it was finally scheduled, I also tied up notice of the hearing, which was to be on June 19, 2013.
At the hearing I brought one neighbor, also a member of the Worcester Property Owners Association, and a prepared speech. I was one of the last petitions to be heard, after several hours of very tedious repetition of questions about how street paving was to be assessed. When I finally had my chance at the podium, I asked if I should read my speech or if there was no objection to fixing the sidewalk. Councilor Toomey apologized and said the sidewalk should have been fixed as part of the tree removal, and that it would be done before winter. No speech was required. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Privately I was advised by someone else to notify Bill Eddy about this successful hearing, otherwise the process might stall. So I notified him via email on July 10. He said it couldn’t possibly be done before next summer. I explained what had been said at the hearing and he said he’d look into it. On October 18, without any other notice, they came to dig out the stump. They posted the no-parking signs around 8a. I protested that it wasn’t fair to give no notice, and that I’d have to interrupt the neighbor’s morning routines to get them to move their cars. The man said, “If the sign is up, I can tow.”
I recorded some of the work:
On October 29, after leaving the “no parking” signs up for a week, they came and paved over the smoothed bed at 7 in the morning.
That’s 1,254 days and many, many follow-ups since the request was first made.
Suggestions for Improvement
I think these small changes would make things a little bit better here in Worcester:
- Recognize certain independent contractors as “city approved” and allow property owners with the means to hire them to work on city projects, especially trees, but perhaps also including sidewalks.
- Notify customers when work orders have been closed.
- Streamline the petition process by giving 30 minute hearing windows and cutting people off if they take more than so many minutes to explain their case.
- Treat “no parking” signs with more seriousness. Put them up the day before, write the word “tomorrow” on them, and take them down when work is going to be paused the next day, or week.
There certainly must be big changes required, as well. I hear the average time to fix a sidewalk isn’t as long as mine, but it’s still two years. If the city were a factory, I’d say their sales department needs to follow up better on orders, and I’d say their operations teams have too much going on in parallel. I’d also look into whether “squeaky wheels” weren’t constantly cutting in line. Probably city management could learn a lot by comparing Worcester’s performance to that of other cities.
What do you think? Leave a comment below!
Small Business Challenges I Didn’t Expect
Everyone knows “when you start a company, it’s hard work.” But so far there have been a few small business challenges that I didn’t expect because they’re so lame, no one ever talks about them. Allow me.
Small Business Challenge #1: Business Bank Account
Some time ago I called a bank that was recommended to me about opening a business account. I asked what kind of paperwork they would need to see. Usually it’s an IRS letter with your tax ID on it, a driver’s license, and a company document saying that you are an officer empowered to open an account. They said that’s all I needed and that I should just “come on down, no appointment is necessary.” I walked in and waited 40 minutes to be seen by a business account professional. When we finally sat down at her desk, she asked me,
“Did you bring a copy of your license?”
“Yes, here’s my driver’s license.”
“No, I mean your license to do business in the city,” she said.
“What?”
“I can’t open an account unless you have a business license.”
“I wish you told me that over the phone!”
“I’m sorry.”
So I went over to city hall and applied for a license to do business.
“Did you bring a copy of your workers compensation insurance?” the clerk asked.
“What? No, we’re brand new. We don’t have any insurance. I need a license to get a bank account. I need a bank account to get other things like insurance.”
“Well, I can’t give you a license without workers compensation insurance. It’s the law, you gotta have it,” the clerk said.
I opened the account in a different city.
Small Business Challenge #2: Workers Comp. Insurance
In Massachusetts in particular, employers must have insurance to cover expenses for an employee injured on the job. This prevents employers from declaring bankruptcy in an injury lawsuit and thereby leaving the injured employee in a lurch.
The law grants some exceptions for founders who are also officers that own 25% of the company. The trouble is, the law mandates you have it as soon as you have a part time paid employee, no matter how little exposure there may be. A $300 premium for someone who’s only going to do 30 hrs of work for you at $10/hr doubles the cost of that person’s labor.
You might think you’d be set for a year, so just get it and forget it. But it’s very important that your employees be classified correctly. If you tell the insurer they’re a secretary and then you have them cutting pieces of wood, and they lop off their finger, that’s a big no-no. Talk about finger wagging!
Heaven help you if you pivot a great deal, you’re going to need to hire those employees as contractors or else keep calling your insurer to reclassify your laborers.
Small Business Challenge #3: Hiring Contractors
Contractors are appealing because, in theory, you just pay them straight cash and issue a single 1099 at tax time. You don’t even have to issue a 1099 tax form if they received less than $600 that year. That eliminates the burden of filing payroll taxes, and the extra cost of paying the required social security and medicare match.
Good luck hiring a contractor! There used to be a 20 point test — I think it’s simplified now — that basically says, “If you want to manage them like you’d manage an employee, there’s no way they’re a contractor.”
That means when you pay someone to do odd jobs, you need to withhold taxes, file those taxes, match those taxes with more money, and issue pay stubs. Very easy, once you know how. Those links are a good start.
Small Business Challenge #4: Any Kind of Underwriting
Underwriting is when someone vouches for your company and says that you’re respectable enough to receive their product. You need underwriting for general liability insurance, for unowned auto policies, and for merchant banking (i.e., taking credit cards).
Occasionally, you will find companies that recognize the underwriting problem. If I had known earlier about stripe, for instance, that would helped me avoid the headache of starting a legitimate merchant account. When you’re a startup, you’re so risky-looking that underwriters will rather focus on tried-and-true businesses than be faulted for going out on a limb with you.
With all these challenges, there’s a real gap between “zero” and “other businesses want to work with me.”
What do you think, was this helpful? Let me know in the comments below!
Does it Matter How Founders Split Startup Equity?
Ask the question, “How should founders split startup equity?” and you will most likely receive a hand-wavy answer. Some offer blanket statements like, “The programmer should get at least 30%.” Others offer calculators or other arbitrary measures. These answers have never satisfied me. Before I offer a more rigorous approach, I’d like to play Devil’s Advocate for a moment and ask whether rigorous founder splits are even necessary. Here are three scenarios that cover the spectrum of possible outcomes:
- The company fails and is worth nothing.
- The company becomes successful as a going concern but its stock does not command a premium on any market, private or public.
- The company is successfully sold in part or in total for a premium in the market.
The first scenario is clearly moot. The second leaves the founder without an “exit.” As a going concern, however, the company will provide salary, perks, and other recognition that can compensate the founder beyond what a partial or total sale would. In this case, founder’s equity doesn’t really matter.
The third scenario is what entrepreneurs hope for. Imagine the startup is sold at a significant premium to its value as a going concern. The difference between 20% and 45% founder’s equity has huge dollar value difference, but probably little or no difference in terms of their new-found quality of life. They’re a successful entrepreneur with vastly more money and cachet for their next project. In some blowout exits, founders become rich even with just a sliver of starting equity.
Such a focus on dollar outcomes could tempt you to argue that equity splits are a “champagne problem,” that the only scenario in which they obtain significance is one in which the founders are so successful they don’t really matter. But you’d be wrong to argue so. Equity splits actually matter crucially in two spheres of a startup’s early business, without which any speculation of an exit would be in vain.
The first sphere is in founder relationships. Founders must be able to talk candidly about their relative strengths and weaknesses, their relative contributions, and their mutual and perhaps uneven commitments to one another. These difficult conversations cannot be glossed over, or else down the road, when more serious matters of success and failure are at hand, there will be no professional basis for frank and searching problem solving.
The second sphere is in that embryonic stage where no one is getting paid for their work. Everyone must be counted on to lift their share of the weight. Shares must be allocated with foresight of individual founder availability, skills, and financial resources. Otherwise a situation may be created in which the most able have a diminished incentive to work hard, on account of the least able receiving an apparently unfair percentage of equity.
It’s imperative that startups start out on the right foot by discussing candidly and concretely how much each founder is bringing to the table and signing up to contribute.
If you’re sold that equity splits matter, let me know in the comments below. If you want me to take it to the next level and offer a rigorous method for how founders split startup equity, let me know that, too.
Time Management and GTD During My “Search”
I’d like to share some interesting time management data I’ve collected over the last nine months. When I first left Terrafugia, in October 2012, I started what my McKinsey friend called “search.” That’s when your full time job becomes finding your next full time job. I was busy with “search” the very first day off of work, finding entrepreneurial networking groups, looking into various business ideas, and meeting with all kinds of people about all kinds of topics.
After a time, it became clear that certain projects would earn my regular and ongoing attention. The graph below shows one series for each such project. The data begin on January 24, 2013, but they’re smoothed out as 40 day moving averages. The vertical axis shows “level of effort,” or what percent of my working hours went to a given project.
A short legend:
- “mtl 7” is my rental property. It’s a steady 10% effort except during vacancies, like in March and April.
- “ArtistBomb” is a bona fide tech startup with real potential; it’s where I put most of my effort now.
- “ghost bear” was the code name given to a project to develop a luxury consumer product. This was canceled due to what we forecast as shrinking margins and rising development costs.
- “stocks, finances, and accounting” is the time I spend keeping my financial house in order.
- “wpoa” is the Worcester Property Owners Association, a volunteer effort with far-reaching possibilities down the road
- “blog/consult/elance” tracks my time developing this blog, doing ad hoc consulting, and learning how to use elance both as buyer and seller. They’re grouped because these activities happen under the same entity.
- the “bagpack” is the BagPack for Hands Free Groceries, a consumer product that was able to get off the ground. (We’re still looking for a real model.)
- “search” includes the wide variety of projects with which I’ve had some contact, including apps for local search, hardware and software for robotic vision, and just over a dozen other concepts pitched to me. It also includes my networking time before I started representing ArtistBomb exclusively.
- “business of life” is my catch-all for things like “getting new tires” or “getting new cell phone.” They directly benefit my productivity but can’t be allocated fairly to any project.
I find it interesting to look back and see how my attention has shifted hither and thither. Some projects require constant nurturing, some develop wings and fly off on their own, some have to be taken around back and shot. But that’s the risk with any new venture. Good time management ensures that you’re getting the most out of yourself, even if sometimes you head down blind alleys.
If you’re interested in knowing how I track my time like this, check out my previous article.
What do you think? Have you pivoted your time away from some things and onto others in the past year?
Elevator Pitch at Boston ENET
Last Tuesday I had the chance to give an elevator pitch for ArtistBomb at Boston ENET. (The pitch was recorded, so I can post a link if it gets uploaded somewhere.) I’d like to share the formula I used so that you can adapt it for your own work.
What’s the Goal of an Elevator Pitch?
You want to convince someone in a very short amount of time to do something helpful to your business. At last week’s ENET meeting, I had 90 seconds. If I were actually in an elevator with someone, I’d have between 5 and 30 seconds.
I know the pitch I gave was effective because the three investors in the room, who got to make one comment or question after I spoke, didn’t use their moment to ask for clarification or to suggest a refinement. Rather, they each asked a logical follow-on question, indicating that they had understood all that I had said. If the format of the meeting had allowed for me to answer them, I would have engaged them all in meaningful conversation. What more can you ask for at a first meeting?
Generic Outline of an Elevator Pitch for Investors
ArtistBomb exists in the live music universe and does this great thing for these specific people. Unlike all of our competitors, ArtistBomb is different in this one significant way. This matters because those other companies are missing something.
For $30/mo, our customers can use our service, which solves their problem. We solve their problem by doing X, Y, and Z. This helps them make more money with less risk.
ArtistBomb just recently hit a significant milestone. We want to raise $X in the next couple of months so that we can hit the next milestones B and C.
If the investor to whom you’re speaking is interested, that’s all you need to say. If they have money and like the idea, they’ll express an interest. If not, they may ask a question. Or if they really don’t like you or the idea, they’ll say, “Well, good luck!” and that’s your answer.
What’s so Special about that Formula?
Imagine I started my pitch with paragraph three. The investors would have been distracted by their own internal interrogation, “What’s ArtistBomb? Should I already know what this is? Why don’t I know what he’s talking about?” That’s why you lead off instead with a broad statement about your company’s space.
What if you didn’t include a differentiator early on? Now your investors are distracted by a different internal monolog, “Oh great, another XYZ company. Just like that other one I don’t like.” You want to let your audience know why you’re different and better.
What if you didn’t include a firm price? Now you leave your audience wondering whether you have any monetization strategy. Most investors prefer to invest in businesses that make money. Otherwise, finding any net profit is going to be pretty tough.
The rest of the pitch adds to your credibility by providing details and indicating recent progress.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
Locked Out of Our Connected World
A week or two ago I was locked out of my house. Here’s the story of what happened and what I did, in case any of you find yourselves in a similar situation.
I was outside digging an underground pipe and dry well for my new gutters. The ditch was out-of-sight of the back door and on the way from the back door toward the street. My back door is always locked except when I’m working outside, when I leave my keys, wallet, and phone inside. I leave those inside because when I’m using power tools, like the diamond saw I used to cut through my patio, I don’t want things in my pockets making it hard to move or squat.
My brother, who lives with me, and his fiancé, who was visiting, came out of the house. They walked into view and we chatted about the ditch, then they left to get on with their day. Normally, the conversational ritual is like this:
My brother: “I left the door unlocked.”
Me: “Okay.”
That day, however, his fiancé left the house first. She opened the back door — the fact of it being already unlocked indicating no special procedure to her — and my brother’s muscle memory led him to lock it as if that’s how he had found it.
Two shovelfuls after they left I realized the frightening truth. The door was locked and I didn’t know when they’d be back. I ran into the street looking for their car, saying “Shoot shoot shoot” (equivalent). But they were gone.
Traveling Salesman 101
“Hi there,” I said to the neighbor as I walked up her driveway. “I’ve been locked out and I was wondering if I could borrow your cell phone to look up a number.” I should remember my brother’s number, but he’s on speed dial, so I’ve never had to remember it. I tried to think of the hundred or so other numbers I have saved in my Contacts, but none of them came to mind, either. Panic causes amnesia.
My neighbor was not impressed. I offered $10 to refund the 411 fee. “Is 411 like the operator,” she asked?
Cell phones are generally unlisted, so we tried Labcorp in Westborough, MA. A friend of my brother works there and would have his cell number. The 411 computer suggested some car dealerships. I dialed 411 again, thinking it had misheard me. We got the same result. I stood in silence thinking about my options, and then the computer offered an operator, to which I said yes. The operator found Labcorp’s number and dialed it for me. On the other end of the line, a fax machine picked up the phone and started making all those noises. I hung up and thanked the neighbor. I said I’d pay her back. Then I wandered searchingly back into the street.
I started to walk towards downtown Worcester. I thought if I could find Sandra Katz, she would have a computer and a phone I could use to look up and find some number that would get me to my brother. I thought it was more than a mile to her office (it’s actually 1.5 miles). That didn’t seem as close as NU Cafe, which was seven minutes in the other direction, so I went there instead. I’m there regularly, so I figured they’d let me use the store computer.
It was lunch time when I walked through the door. I was unshaven, covered in dirt, and looking pretty wild. A concerned looking patron glanced up at me from his table. I saw him and thought it would be better to talk to him, who obviously had a computer right there, than it would be to wait in line for the cashier, who might not be allowed to let me use the store computer. So I started walking towards him. He concentrated very hard on his laptop, trying to make me disappear. But I introduced myself, and before long he was less afraid than when I had first burst onto the scene. I sat down across from him.
He helpfully Googled and dialed some numbers for me but we couldn’t get anywhere. Cell phone numbers really aren’t listed, and we confirmed that Labcorp’s listed number was definitely a fax number. I really needed some time to work at a computer, but to ask the man to quietly eat his panini while I spread dirt all over his keyboard was too much to ask. So we pulled up qpmservices.com and dialed Sandra Katz. Before long I was in Sandra’s car heading to her office.
(It’s worth mentioning that I keep all of my phone numbers in Google contacts. In principle, I should have been able to access these from the man’s laptop in NU Cafe. The problem is, I use Google’s two factor authentication. So when I tried to log in from an unrecognized computer, Google treated it like a criminal enterprise and sent a text message to my cell phone. I needed to use the content of the message to log in from the man’s computer. Without my cell phone, I couldn’t log in.)
Numbers, Numbers Everywhere
As it turns out, a great many phone numbers are available online. When you’re locked out of your home, most of them are not helpful. You can, in certain circumstances, find office numbers or other work numbers for people who know the person you need to reach. I left a couple voicemails like this. “Hi, this is Doug, can you call my brother and tell him he needs to go to 90 Madison St, 4th floor…”
What eventually broke the logjam was a little bit of an exaggeration. I found a corporate headquarters’ number for the workplace of someone I knew who knew my brother. I used a deep, measured voice and told the person who picked up that I had a family emergency to report and that I believed the message needed to go to an employee in that building. Could she use an internal company directory to look him up? She connected me right away.
From there it was all quickly resolved.
“Locked Out” Lessons Learned
- Digging ditches, like everything else it seems, now requires that you have your cell phone with you.
- A winning smile and deferential tone of voice get you access to other people’s phones and computers, even when covered in dirt. People are basically good.
- It pays to know local folks who can come give you a ride.
- In an age of concern over privacy and security, a great many things really are private and secure.
Two Must-Join Networking Groups for New or Aspiring Boston Entrepreneurs
About a year ago I left Terrafugia and launched myself solo into Boston’s entrepreneurship scene. The advice given to me by a distant mentor was “find some local entrepreneurship resources and get involved.” I started by Googling. I was amazed by how much exists in Boston. Two groups in particular have earned a lot of my attention on account of their polished and varied programming:
IEEE Boston Entrepreneur’s Network
(Visit Boston ENET.)
The format of the meeting provides “as you like it” networking time way before, before, and after a set of three carefully screened and rehearsed presentations. Way before the meeting you can pay your own way to dinner at Bertucci’s. This is how I ended up meeting two of my eventual co-founders. At the meeting location itself there’s time to mix and mingle over sodas and snacks. After the meeting you can swarm the speakers or, even better, go introduce yourself to someone who asked an interesting question in front of the group.
The presentations are moderated, well timed, complementary perspectives on a single theme. For instance, this month’s meeting was “How do you know you’re ready to start a company?” The first speaker, Greg Skloot of Attendware, talked about the difference between tinkering on a project and really knowing that you have a business. The second speaker, Joe Baz of Above the Fold, gave insights into the personal aspects of entrepreneurship. Third we had Vicki Donlan, an impressively experienced consultant able to speak to a wide variety of startup success and dysfunction. We closed with Bill Seibel, whose resume slide made you turn to the person next to you and whisper “Wow.”
Every time I go to ENET:
- I meet someone helpful to my startup.
- I’m entertained by at least one charismatic and engaging speaker.
- I find a new role model of entrepreneurial success.
The Capital Network
(Visit TCN.)
This is like getting a laser-focused entrepreneur’s MBA for $400. Before I joined, I knew more than the average entrepreneur about debt and equity, about investment, and about business valuation. But the rules and norms for startups are usually a little different, and often they’re quite esoteric. For instance, when you buy $50,000 worth of stock of a publicly traded company worth $5,000,000, you get 1% of the company. When you buy the same amount from a startup worth the same thing, you get 0.99%. The reason is because of this difference: buying publicly traded stock gives you existing shares; buying startup stock causes new shares to be issued. If you’re thinking about taking investor money, this consideration and others must enter into your calculations, because the dilution effect on you means your share of the company will shrink with each investment round.
Unlike ENET, TCN often has a single speaker go for the full 90 minutes. In this format, the topics are meandering overviews of narrow subjects driven partly by slides and partly by audience questions. It’s a real good chance to ask about your specific startup. For instance, at the “founder issues” talk given by Paul Sweeney at Foley Hoag, we had a good audience-driven discussion about setting the strike price of stock options given to employees. (See my previous article here.) They also experiment with panels and roundtable discussions, which are helpful for giving diverse perspectives or more time in smaller groups.
Every time I go to a TCN lunch:
- I get delicious, healthy food.
- I can ask detailed questions of a knowledgeable speaker.
- I meet someone new starting an exciting business.
Summary
If you’re in Boston, you get access to lots of good Internet resources just the same as anyone else anywhere in the world. But these two groups are fun and, if you’re really going to do this for the first time, absolutely essential.
