Author Archives: Jason Evanish

I'm a coach and consultant for early stage SaaS startups. I help VPs of Product, Heads of Product, and 1st PMs with their toughest challenges like churn, team turnover, stakeholder challenges, issues with consistently shipping great features consistently, and more. I also started Lighthouse, which helps you learn to be a better manager through our blog, podcast, and training. When not working, I'm an avid reader, athlete, and enjoy lake life living in Austin, Texas.

How to Plan for Succession in Your Business

29 May 2012

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Whether you’re building a volunteer organization, a high growth business or a profitable side project, there is likely going to come a day when you no longer will be able to (or want to) run it.  Building something that outlasts your direct efforts is a real accomplishment, but few talk about how to actually do it.

As I just moved to San Francisco, I’ve gone through the process of succession for my role in Boston running Greenhorn Connect, a site that aggregates everything going on in the Boston startup scene.  (You obviously can’t run the day to day of such a site from another city.)

I’ve been fortunate enough to find someone great, Paul Hlatky, to take over and even managed to get my awesome team on board with the idea. This was no mistake. I was fortunate to have been able to solicit advice from some of Boston’s best leaders. I’d like to share what I learned from them and in the process of handling this succession.

Special thanks in particular to Tim Rowe of the Cambridge Innovation Center and Michael Skok of North Bridge Venture Partners for their advice for this post.

How to Handle Succession Planning for Your Organization

1) Start planning before you need a successor.

In October 2011, I talked with my team at our monthly Greenhorn Team meeting about the idea of me not always running the day to day of Greenhorn Connect. After 2 full years, it seemed like it would make sense for someone new to give Greenhorn Connect a fresh injection of energy and vision. At the same time, I was trying to launch a company, so I realized that a founder of a growing business would not have the time for a side project like GHC.

From that meeting forward, I started quietly keeping an eye out for a successor and thinking about what it would take to hand off the business. This led me to ask myself a few key questions:

  • What are the core benefits to the job I can sell someone on?
  • What is the archetype for the person & skills needed for this role?
  • What role would I expect to have after the transition?
  • What don’t I know about succession planning that I should learn about?

At the outset, I had few answers, but it gave me a framework to get started on the process before I needed my successor. It also helped me understand what questions to ask others when I had the opportunity to learn how they’d approach the challenges I felt were coming.

2) Be proactive and seek out your sucessor.

Once I realized the kind of person I was looking for was going to be a hungry student new to our ecosystem and hungry to help others that were new to the ecosystem, I needed to find some leads. By narrowing the definition of who I was looking for I was able to concentrate my search to a few student leaders starting to emerge in the community.  Since I didn’t want succession to be done in the spotlight, I had to seek them out directly and somewhat discretely.

Paul, then a senior at BU, had attended our massive conference the unconference and wrote a passionate blog post about connecting students. It came across my Twitter stream one night and I followed up with him by commenting and then meeting up with him for coffee.

3) Try before you buy.

Successions that fail don’t end well for anyone. Just ask John Sculley (aka- Jobs’s disastrous first successor). To save embarrassment for you and your potential successor, the best thing you can do is try before you buy. This means working with them and spending a lot of time with them to make sure you feel comfortable with them taking over.

For Paul and I, this trial ended up turning into a jointly organized Startup Career Fair. Pulling off a major event like this (500+ students and over 30 companies) requires a great deal of coordination and help. Paul showed incredibly skill as he recruited dozens of students to help, negotiated huge discounts from our venue and otherwise showed great business instincts. Even before the fair occurred I knew I had the right person, so I made the pitch.

4) Sell the Dream.

No matter how ugly, everyone loves their own baby. But if you’re handing it off to someone else, you have to convince them to love your baby, too.  Once you’re certain you’ve found the right person, you need to grab a pair of rose colored glasses and sell the dream of why this person should want to take over for you.

While I knew Paul was a great young hustler, I didn’t know everything about his motivations yet, so when I made the pitch, I laid out all the benefits I knew Greenhorn Connect could provide its leader. I focused on what I knew motivated me to do it as well as some of the things that were cool, ancillary benefits of the role.

If you’re stuck on what to say, just think about how Willy Wonka made it impossible for Charlie to pass on the opportunity to run the chocolate factory…and reveals much of his succession plans:

(Quite possibly the best “Sell the Dream” ever. Skip to 3:03 in the video)

5) Focus on values and key success factors.

When you choose a successor, you have to realize they are not you. You can’t expect them to do everything as you have done it before. Instead, you need to focus on instilling the core values of the role and what matters most to the success of the business or organization. These values and key success factors will act as guide posts for your organization’s new leader to make their own decisions by.

In the case of Greenhorn Connect, I shared a large Google Doc with Paul filled with insights to what I felt had made the site a success to date and things I felt were our core strengths and weaknesses.  I also shared with him many of the processes and productivity hacks I had used to run the site, but I tried to emphasize that he was welcome to come up with new strategies and tactics as long as they didn’t compromise our core values.

With what I’ve seen in Paul’s first 3 months running GHC, I can see that he learned the values and is now bringing some of his own style and ideas to the table, making Greenhorn Connect better than it was before.

6) Put them out in front.

Now that you’ve got your successor excited about the role and are instilling your values in them, it’s time to shine the spotlight on them.  When I asked Tim Rowe for advice on succession he had a lot to say about this in particular. He told me:

Give Paul the spotlight. Make it all about him. When you’re out there, let him be the one up on stage. Meanwhile, you should be in the background telling everyone, “isn’t he great?” Keep pushing him and promoting him from behind the scenes until one day you aren’t back stage and everyone simply knows he’s in charge now.

There’s a lot of pride and ego you have to swallow to do this, but in order to avoid casting a tall shadow on them, you need to let them shine while you’re still around.  It creates an intermediate step where you and your sucessor are together, rather than an instant switch from you to them that would be jarring.

7) Get out of the way.

Of all the steps, this is by far the hardest. You’re handing off your baby you watched grow and develop and now you have to trust someone else to continue caring for it. If you don’t get out of the way, you’ll end up meddling in their work, preventing them from succeeding.

To truly be a successor, they have to be able to put their stamp on it. This only comes with the independence of full control. As Michael Skok told me:

It doesn’t matter if they succeed or fail; either way if you do it right, they’ll be to blame for it, not you.

In some ways it feels heartless; when you’re handing it off, you want to feel like you have some lasting value you can provide. However,  the best thing you can do is tell them you’re there if they need you, but otherwise absent.

I’m still working at this last step. Since I stayed on as CFO at Greenhorn Connect, I still have some duties with the business. These duties are a blessing and a curse; I still get to see how GHC is doing, but it also then tempts me to interject in Paul’s work to make observations and suggestions.

Luckily, Paul is very gracious about them and he’s also strong enough to stick to his guns and do what he thinks is best. I think I’m getting better at this last step of late, but I still catch myself at times trying to prevent Paul from making his own mistakes. I have to let him make his own mistakes or he won’t learn.

—

Succession is hard.  But to ensure good things continue beyond the lifespan of its creator, it’s an important step in the lifecycle of every organization. I hope these tips will help you keep your great organization living on.

What advice do you have for succession planning?

SF Startup Survival Guide: How to Find an Apartment in San Francisco

20 May 2012

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Congratulations! You’ve taken the plunge and decided to move to San Francisco for your own startup or to join one of the hundreds (thousands?) here. Making the decision to move may have been difficult, but nothing compared to all the hassles and headaches of moving to this city.

Having just gone through this and spent a significant amount of time asking friends for advice on making the move, I’d like to share the best advice I received and what I learned myself.  For reference, most people take months to find a place to live and move in. With the tips below, I found an apartment and moved in within 2 weeks of landing in SF.

How to Find an Apartment in San Francisco

1) Move Yesterday.

When I started looking at rental prices, I was shocked. Prices for real estate in San Francisco are insane. Seriously. Studios in non-prime locations go for anywhere from $1,400-$2,000 per month, while two bedrooms are all in the $2,500-$3,200 range and rising.

I moved into a 2 bedroom in a 20 unit building in Pacific Heights and met a neighbor who moved in just 2 weeks after me and he is paying over $100 a month more than I am. This will only get worse after the Facebook IPO and as major growth companies like Twitter stay in San Francisco as they scale while others add shuttles to take you to and from the city for work. So if you’re going to come, come now or pay later (literally).

  • Pro Tip: A coworker of mine at KISSmetrics spoke with a realtor that says we’re on the same track for real estate prices as the last dot com bubble. When that happened, studios started going for over $3,000 per month. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

2) Find a roommate.

Realizing the crazy apartment prices made finding a roommate a necessity, I immediately emailed everyone I knew that lived in the Bay area asking if they knew anyone with a spare room or was looking for a roommate. I also blogged, tweeted and posted on Facebook.

While I only got a few responses, they proved invaluable; I got a ton of advice about the city as well as some good leads. Not only did their intros lead to my current roommate, but I was able to find a replacement for myself back in Boston.

It can be extremely competitive in the open market, so use your network. Look up any of your long lost Facebook acquaintances, sorority sisters, old coworkers, etc and let them know you’re looking.  You’ll get a low response rate, but if you stick with it awhile you’ll get some leads.

You can also try looking on Craigslist although you’ll find that you’ll be interviewing for any spots posted against 50-100 other people. Take your time to write a good email, if you want to get responses.

  • Pro Tip: Don’t just ask friends who live in the Bay Area. Look for people in your town that know others out there. It was a friend of a friend that helped me find my current roommate.

3) Learn the neighborhoods and narrow your search.

Once my friends started offering to help me look for roommates, their first question was, “where do you want to live?” I really didn’t know, but since San Francisco is a 7 mile by 7 mile city I really had to narrow it down for them to be able to help me.

I soon learned there’s a massive difference between living on the eastern side or western side of the city (it’s foggy and less sunny west of Divisadero St). There’s also huge differences from neighborhood to neighborhood as you are unlikely to find someone interested in the Mission, Marina and Sunset for a variety of reasons from lifestyle to commute to cost.

To narrow it down, I first eliminated everything that wouldn’t be easy to commute to work to; I use public transportation, so I limited my locations to places I could get to work in SoMA (aka- South of Market) in under 30 minutes by Muni or BART (the public transportation lines in SF). Next, I asked everyone who had any knowledge of SF to tell me what neighborhoods were like. In particular Zach Cole deserves a big shout out for giving me a breakdown of virtually every neighborhood.

4) Secure a short term living arrangement.

I knew there was no way I could find an apartment without being there to see it and get a feel for the neighborhood so that meant moving to SF without a place to live.  One of my friends I reached out to about moving out west happened to have a spare bedroom in her & her fiancee’s apartment, and they were kind enough to offer me a stay while I searched.

It was pivotal for me because I knew I didn’t have to worry about the safety of my things when I got to SF and I had two welcoming, friendly faces waiting for me when I landed. The latter cannot be overrated as I had just left all my friends in Boston behind.

If you can’t find any friends or coworkers to crash with, your next best bet is AirBNB. There are quite a few tech people that list their couches and spare rooms on there. You can generally find a couch for about $50/night or a bed for $100-$150 a night.  You can also look for short term Craigslist options, but it’s tough to find something that lines up perfect with your start date.

  • Pro tip: Move mid-month so that you can look for places starting the first of the next month; I moved out on March 14th and moved into an apartment then starting April 1st.

5) Pack your things.

Everything I’ve listed thus far were things I did before moving to San Francisco. With these things in order it was time to figure out how to move my clothes, bedroom and other personal belongings.

To save money, time and keep the peace with my roommate who wasn’t thrilled I was moving, I left virtually everything in my Boston apartment except for some cooking items and items from my bedroom.

You really only have 4 options when moving across the country under these circumstances (ranked in order of most to least expensive):

  1. Moving company – Pay a professional moving company to load up your things and take them out west for you.
  2. Relocation cube – There’s Pods, Door2Door and UPack as options. All will drop a container at your old apartment, then move it across the country and hold it in storage until you tell them when and where to deliver it.
  3. Uhaul – Drive across the country with a truck load of your personal belongings. Don’t forget the cost of gas and lodging for the drive!
  4. Throw away everything – I know a few people that took only what fit in suit cases and bought new stuff when they got to SF (Hello Ikea!).

I ended up going with the ABF UPack and couldn’t have been happier with them. They have great customer service, a sturdy, safe container and are about half the price of a Pod. Door2Door is an awkward wooden box that you have to wonder if it will fall apart or leak in the rain.

  • Pro Tip: If you go for option 1) or 2), get quotes from multiple sources then play them against each other.  I talked the UPack sales person down an additional $200 at the last minute with a Yelp discount and the offer to “Close right now and not call anyone else.” 

6) Scout the neighborhoods.

After getting to San Francisco, I met with my potential roommate, Chris in person. Once we realized we could get along, we agreed to scout the neighborhoods we were both interested in. We met up on a Sunday afternoon and drove around all the neighborhoods on our list and talked about what we liked or disliked.

We found that seeing the neighborhoods brought insight our friends alone couldn’t provide. After the driving, we were able to easily cut our list down from 6 neighborhoods to 3 in one specific section of the city.

  • Pro Tip: Every neighborhood in San Francisco has slightly different architecture, so it’s surprisingly easy to note what neighborhood you are in based on architecture and knowing a few key streets in the city.

7) Get your blood sample ready.

When I was getting ready to move, I noticed the list of paperwork to provide your landlord was pretty absurd compared to what I was used to in Boston. It doesn’t actually include a blood sample, but you do need just about everything else:

  1. Reference from a past Landlord
  2. List of past landlords with contact info for the past 2-3 years
  3. Copy of your full credit report (I used freecredit.com)
  4. Pay stub or offer letter to prove you can afford the apartment
  5. Check in hand to pay for first month, last month and security deposit

Yes, this is a lot, but if you have it in hand, you’ll impress the landlord and avoid getting passed over; there’s apparently a law in San Francisco that says a landlord has to take the first qualified applicant for their place. By having all this paperwork, you’ll be qualified.

  • Pro Tip: My roommate and I put our paperwork in a Dropbox folder we shared. This made it handy if we ever needed to print emergency copies and it allowed both of us to look at the other person’s report and see that both of us pay bills on time and have good jobs.

8) Search like a Pro.

On Sunday Chris and I drove around SF to pick what neighborhoods to focus on in our apartment search. That night, we started looking.  Craigslist is weak compared to Padmapper. I love Padmapper because of some of their added search map features.

You pick your neighborhoods and most importantly, get alerts when any property is posted to quite a few different rental sites including Craigslist.  This gives you a fighting chance of being one of the first people to see a place (basically the only way to get an apartment). You can also check out walking scores, crime rates and some other cool factors that can help you in your decision making process.

  • Pro Tip: Take your email to the landlords about available apartments seriously. This is a sales pitch you want to nail. Optimize for making you and your roommate sound like attractive tenants without lying.

9) He who hesitates, is lost.

Chris and I had alerts set for Nob Hill, Russian Hill and Pacific Heights. We saw a couple of options that night and emailed to set up showings.  We set the first up for a 10:00am showing Monday morning.

As I was waiting for Chris to meet me that morning, I was accosted 3 different times by crackheads. Not a good start. Once we got in the apartment, we were further unimpressed. Amateur hour on the renovations showed poorly laid carpet and a cabinet where they messed up their dimensions and had cut a giant hole in the back of a cabinet. The landlord also didn’t speak very good English. This was not going to be the place.

As fate would have it, I found a padmapper alert in my inbox while Chris and I were talking about the poor apartment we had just looked at.  The new listing, in a nicer area, had a phone number to call for a showing. We called saying we were 15 minutes away and would love to see it right away. The landlord agreed to meet us and 40 minutes later we were signing the paperwork on our new apartment (while her phone was ringing off the hook with more people interested).

  • Pro Tip: NEVER go to an open house for an apartment. You will be competing against as many as 100 other people.  Some sketchy landlords will even try to get everyone to pay an “application fee” so they can squeeze money out of all the people coming in addition to the rental fee that will invariably be bid up with all the frenzied lookers.

10) Tough Market != Impossible Market.

The important thing to keep in mind is that everyone I know eventually found a place. Many of my friends that have moved here learned hard lessons about avoiding open houses and the need to have all that paper work ready in advance, but now that you have this post, you can avoid those pitfalls. In the end most of my friends are now in places they really like. With a city this size there’s something for everyone and always places coming on the market.

Realize that apartment searching here is a “full contact sport” as one of my friends described it and commit to putting in the effort to find your ideal place. If your employer gets annoyed about missed time looking at apartments, just remind that how much more productive you’ll be when you stop worrying about this and sleep in your own bed at night.

  • Final Pro Tip: Choose a place you could see yourself living in for a few years; with the current tech boom, prices are only going up for the forseeable future. If you’re like me, you can barely afford the rent now, so you won’t be able to afford to move when your lease is up in a year.

What advice do you have for people moving to San Francisco?

The Secret to Getting Any Job You Want: Focus

6 May 2012

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Whether on the subway, at home with family for the holidays or talking with friends, I often hear the same thing:

     “It’s so hard to find a job right now…”

     “I applied to 100 jobs on Monster.com and heard nothing!”

     “I applied to every job I could find and I couldn’t even get a phone interview!”

In the last 4 years, during a recession that crushed our generation in the employment market (over 17% unemployment for Gen Y) I have landed three different, awesome jobs. What makes it particularly interesting are the following facts:

  1. Each job I applied for was a reach based on my existing skills.
  2. Each job was the only job I applied for at the time.
  3. Each company ended up giving me a different job than I initially applied for, but that was an even better fit than what I started out going after.
No matter how hard you focus on getting a job, there are still only 24 hours a day. I have the same constraints as you. The problem is, when you apply for 100 jobs, you’re spreading your energy across 100 companies, while when I apply for one job, I’m focusing all of my energy on one company. That concentrated energy gets you noticed and gets you the job. How is this possible? In simplest terms, it’s all about focus.

Let’s look closer. I’m sharing all my secrets for getting the perfect job:

Step 1: Choosing the right company.

There are thousands of companies out there and especially as our economy finally recovers, many of them are hiring. For those of you who applied to 100 jobs, you know this is true.  What really matters though is picking one company that you really want to work for.

It’s up to you to decide what matters most to you. Is it location? Company size? The market they work in? You want to choose the two or three most important things and use that to filter the companies you see that are hiring. Then you should dig into the company closer and see who gets you excited. Every company has an “About” page full of information about who they are. Keep searching until one of them stands out for you. If you’re going to put a ton of effort into pursuing one job, then you should make sure it’s a job you really want.

Step 2: Plan your attack.

Applying for a job is a lot more than writing a cover letter and submitting a resume. If you are going all in on one job, you need to do some serious prep.

Start by tearing apart their website. Then Google them. Learn everything you can about them. Pretend you have to give a major presentation for a class about them. Next, research the people you may be working with; if you’re a designer, look up other designers at the company, if you’re in HR or marketing, look at those departments specifically.

Step 3: Fire the first shot.

As you do your research on the company, see if you know anyone who works there or if you have a close friend/mentor/family member who knows someone there. If they do, ask for their help in getting an introduction into the company. Ideally, you want it to be someone in the department you’re applying to (if the company is big enough to have departments), but work with whatever you have.

Completing this step means getting an intro to someone in the right department. The real trick to succeeding in an interview is getting past the mess of general applications.  An intro directly to the person hiring is how the pros get it done; they end up at the top of the proverbial resume stack…unlike the “spray and pray” kids from Monster.com that never get past the inbox.

Step 4: Follow up with value.

Now that you’ve submitted a great resume and cover letter tailored to the company and target job along with that intro to someone in your target department, it’s time to take your game to another level.  You’re now going to create content to add value to your (hopefully) future employer.

The goal with the content you create is to show competence in the job you hope to do for them and also show an understanding of their company and their present challenges. If you’re a designer, perhaps it’s feedback on the design of some of their site or a proposed new design for something they have. If you’re a developer, you could make a small app with their API and include feedback on how they could make the API better.

If you’re on the business side, try submitting feedback on their product from a user perspective or even gather some insights from their market that would be valuable to your target supervisor.

Another great trick I’ve used is to literally tell them what I’d do if I had the job.  I once submitted a 7 page document full of ideas of how a startup could engage its community and build buzz. It made for great conversation fodder in the interview and made me stand out against candidates who had more impressive work experience than I did. Startups love do-ers and this showed I was someone who got things done and had my own initiative.

Step 5: Double down and be persistent.

The great thing about submitting all this content to your target employer is that when you’re following up to find out where you are in the interview process, you’re not just bugging them, you’re sending them something of value. Each time you follow up in the process, try to have something of value to give them along with the ping. It will keep you on their radar and impress them with your persistence.

Do you have time to follow up with potential employers when you submit 100 resumes? Obviously not, which is why your new tactic of following up and adding value will stand out so much.

Step 6: Crush the interview and close.

With all the goodwill you’ve built up by getting a good introduction to someone on the team you want to join and submitting valuable content to them, you’re extremely likely to get brought in for a full interview.  When you do, your goal is to show you’re as good in person as you are in all the electronic interactions you’ve now had.

When you come to the interview, come ready for everything. Find out everyone you’re interviewing with and research all of them like you already did the company you want to work for. Have something interesting to talk to each person about that shows you did your homework on them. Refresh yourself on all the research you’ve already done and be prepared to talk about and build upon the ideas you submitted in the content you’ve produced.

The great thing about all this effort is that on top of impressing everyone at the company, you should have a very clear idea of what the company is like and be ready to contribute in a big way from day one.

Step 7: What if I don’t get the job?!?

So there is is always the chance that despite all your efforts, you won’t get the job, it’s rare, but it does happen. What’s great is that very often when someone puts in this kind of effort a person hiring will do one of two things:

1) Try to find another job for you so the company can still hire you.

2) Refer you to someone in their network that could hire you.

I have personally experienced scenario 1) twice in my career and have friends who have ended up very happy in roles that came from referrals in scenario 2).

If all else fails, brush your shoulders off and move on to the next job. This much hustle is guaranteed to pay off sooner rather than later.

How would you recommend standing out in the job applicant crowd? Have you found a job and have advice to offer? Tell us in the comments!

Connecting the Dots: How a Boston Connector Landed at an SF Startup

13 March 2012

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“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” – Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Speech, May 2005

One of the most common questions I’ve heard over the past few weeks from younger members of our community, especially students, is how to build a career in startups. Unlike climbing the corporate ladder, it’s not a straight forward, linear process. As I just made a major move in my career to join KISSmetrics, I’d like to share how I ended up going from Boston startup connector to SF Product Manager.  This will also help answer questions I know some of you have about how I landed this job.

Connecting the Dots – The unorthodox journey of one startuper

To really begin this story, you have to go back to my days at oneforty. When I joined oneforty, I was given the title of Customer Development Manager and asked to help make oneforty a Lean Startup. Since I had only spent a few months working part time with John Prendergast as his cust dev intern, I really had very little experience. Laura Fitton, oneforty’s founder, took a leap of faith I could learn it, but she also was wise enough to know I could not do it alone.  That’s why she set me up to have mentors from day 1.

Immediately upon starting at oneforty, Laura connected me with two Valley Lean experts she got to know while she was out west raising money for oneforty and Pivotal Labs worked to build V1.0 of the site.  These people were internet mentor legends, Dan Martell and Hiten Shah.  Once a month I seemed to find myself on the phone getting what I would happily call an “ass-kicking” from Dan helping me realize all the things I was doing wrong and most importantly, could do to improve my custdev methods.  Roughly every other month I would have a similar discussion with Hiten.

These discussions were priceless in my career development. I would take copious amounts of notes and seriously reflect upon what Hiten and Dan discussed with me each time. I would also share these notes with Laura to make sure I truly understood them and to force myself to teach someone what I learned (a great tool for deepening your understanding).

A Chance Meeting

Fast forward 12 months at oneforty and it is April 2011. I’ve learned a ton about customer development and lean startups, enough that Trevor Owens, founder of Lean Startup Machine (which was just getting off the ground at the time) invited me to be a mentor at the Lean Startup Machine event in New York City. As destiny/fate/karma would have it, Hiten Shah was also one of the mentors for the weekend.

Being a mentor traveling in from another city is very different from mentoring in your home city. When you’re in your city, you likely only stop by for a brief period of time that fits your schedule. But, when you go to another city, you find you spend the vast majority of your time there…which both Hiten and I did in New York City.

After Saturday’s activities wrapped up, all the mentors went out for drinks.  This turned into an audition and test for me.

With Hiten Shah to my right and Patrick Vlaskovits (co-author of the awesome Lean book at custdev.com) grilling me on all sorts of topics from lean startups, to lessons learned at my first real startup job to topics on psychology and body language.  At the time I was dead set on leaving oneforty to start my own company so all Hiten said was, “if you raise money for your idea, come out west and I’ll give you some intros.”  He also encouraged me to quit ASAP to start doing my own thing if that’s what I was passionate about. Coincidentally I did just that on Monday back in Boston.

Out on my own, but on the Radar

After leaving oneforty, I set out to start my company I’ve always dreamed of.  After spinning my tires for 6 months though, I found myself pretty empty handed and a bit discouraged. After a meeting with Sim Simeonov, I refocused my efforts on the lean startups movement.  After a month of interviews and discussions, I published the results, which caught Hiten’s eye when they were tweeted out.

Hiten DM’d me after my first post and we had a call to discuss my findings, which confirmed his suspicious: Lean as a concept is far ahead of actual solid execution of it in the startup world. At the end of the chat, I mentioned that I was planning a trip out to the Valley in early December and asked if we could meet while I was in town.  He agreed.

Meeting in SF and an Offer

When I met with Hiten in December during my Valley trip, we barely talked about KISSmetrics or my potentially working there. The vast majority of our one hour chat was about my strengths and weaknesses and where I was at in my startup career.

Hiten tried to sell me on the idea that coming to the Valley would solve many of my problems, but I presented a series of challenges that I felt prevented it from being the right decision for me.  He countered I could come work for him and it would resolve many of them. I noted the offer, and it did intrigue me, but it mostly sat just sat in the back of my mind.

By the end of the trip, I was much more interested, thinking it may be the next logical step in my career. On the flight back, I emailed Hiten expressing great interest in the role, especially as I discovered I could potentially be filling the shoes of the departed Cindy Alvarez (who just weeks before my visit had left KISSmetrics to join Yammer).

Getting Serious

With the holidays fast approaching, Hiten and I took things slowly, talking about the the potential first in loose terms then in much more specifics. After one phone call where Hiten lifted the proverbial kimono on everything I wanted to ask regarding KISSmetrics as a business, all that was left was an answer to the question, “When can you come meet more of my team for an interview?”

With that, I booked tickets to take a quiet trip to SF for the interview in early February.

Sealing the Deal

With an interview scheduled and a focus on landing this job, I employed my proven job acquisition system that requires me to produce, insightful, valuable content for KISSmetrics.  I happened to be reading a psychology book at the time and so I produced a massive document on different ways KISSmetrics could improve their site based on the principles I found in the book.  I also aggregated all my lean learnings in one place so the rest of the team could see the credibility in Lean that Hiten knew I had.

I wasn’t sure what to expect in the interview. All I had were the names of the people I would be talking to and a vague idea that we’d talk about the KISSmetrics product.  Most of the interview turned out to be focused on implementation: how would you do this, what’s wrong with that, what would you do in this circumstance.

Despite not really preparing for such questions, I was able to crush the interview for one simple reason: the last startup idea I had worked on was a Lean Product Management tool.  While the idea didn’t pan out, it led to me talking to 40 people who run product at companies. Through this, I picked up on many best practices and common mistakes. I was armed with more than enough fodder for the interview and believe I’m really armed to take on my first full time product role.

Conclusion – You Never Know…

Whether it’s lessons learned in a failed startup idea’s customer development interviews or an event you’re randomly invited to in another city, you never know what will lead to the next great opportunity in your career.  Startups are all about embracing serendipity. Embrace the machine and you never know where you’ll end up.

Do you have an example of unrelated events that looking back were instrumental in a step or moment in your career?

Boston, I need your help!

28 February 2012

2 Comments

As I prepare to take the giant leap from Boston to San Francisco (in case you missed it read more here), I have a number of things that would be tremendously helpful.  If you can help with any of the following, I’d be most appreciative.

1) Looking for a roommate in SF.

– I’ve heard it’s a nightmare to try to find a place in San Francisco so if you have anyone in your network that lives out there that you could ping and see if they’re looking for a roommate or have a room they need to fill, I’d love to hear from them.

– To give you an idea of what I’m looking for, since KISSmetrics is in SoMA, I’m looking for a place within 20-30 minutes of SoMA via public transportation. Pet free (allergies).

2) Looking to talk to KISSmetrics users

– Does your company use KISSmetrics? Did you try and give up on it? Either way, I’d love to talk to you before I leave March 10th!

– This is your chance to have in person customer development done by the product manager of KISSmetrics. I’ll always be happy to talk to Boston companies, but nothing beats a good in person customer development interview.

3) Looking to Sublet my Somerville Apt

– I have an awesome roommate that loves scotch, pool (I have a table in my apt) and electronics. He’s a great, loyal guy and I need someone to tak over my room in our apartment. It’s near Porter Square. If interested, contact me for details and to come check it out.

4) Anyone I *must* meet in SF?

– A few of you have told me you know some people I need to meet when I get out west. I have a pretty small network out there now so I appreciate any insights on who to meet when I get out there.

5) Advice for Living in SF?

– I know there are a number of you who at one time lived in San Francisco. A number of you have already dropped a lot of knowledge on me for making the most of SF, but if anyone else has advice let me know!

—

How to get in touch:

Feel free to leave a comment if it’s just some quick SF advice, or to set up a KISSmetrics meeting or connect me to anyone in SF (to meet or talk about roommates), use my gmail: evanish dot j at gmail dot com.

Thanks!

Dear Boston…

24 February 2012

51 Comments

Dear Boston,

The past 8 years have been the most invigorating and exciting of my life. You were my first city after escaping the suburbs of central Pennsylvania to attend Northeastern. We were together for the wild rides of the Red Sox playoff runs in 2003, 2004 and 2007 and all the other championships that have made this the city of champions that such a rabid sports town deserves.  Many of my favorite memories with friends involve Boston sports playoff games. You’ve also been a big part of my life’s ups and downs.  Nothing calms my mind better than a walk down Boylston Street on a busy day or a quiet night of reflection by the Christian Science Center reflecting pool.

When I walked onto Northeastern’s campus for the first time, I knew it was where I’d spend the next 5 years. After graduation, I still felt a strong connection as I excitedly got my start at E Ink.  Later, your startup community welcomed me thanks to the amazing DartBoston community and helped shape me into the person I am today: better, faster, smarter, stronger.

All of this is what makes what I’m about to say so hard.

—

From almost the beginning of my time here, I’ve known I wanted to be an entrepreneur more than anything else in the world; it was a presentation by one of your leaders, Russ Wilcox, when I was a freshman that convinced me of this path. It was later other entrepreneurs that helped me get my start and make me who I am today: from Tim Rowe and Scott Kirsner helping encourage me to start Greenhorn Connect to John Prendergast giving me my first job in the ecosystem as a customer development intern to Laura Fitton being the one person willing to give me a shot at a full time job. Countless others have helped along the way as I’ve needed advice, friendship and a helping hand.

I left oneforty in April 2011 to finally build the great company I’ve always dreamed of.  I wanted to take all the lessons I’ve learned and build the next great anchor company here. Unfortunately, despite trying many different ways to get a company started, nothing has worked.

While I struggled to find the cofounder for my dream company for a multitude of reasons, I was equally failing at finding the right startup idea. Many have told me it’s a spiritual quest; the right idea will grab you and you’ll just “know.”  I know they’re right. That’s how Greenhorn Connect happened, but it doesn’t make the pursuit any easier.

As I continued my quest, I felt I had to start expanding my efforts. That’s why in December, I took a trip to visit your brother out west, San Francisco.  I needed to spend some time away from you to gain perspective and see if the next step could actually be anywhere but here.

—

I thought I’d never take another job after oneforty. I’m an entrepreneur at heart and felt like my time was now. But after getting perspective out West and having the right person say, “why don’t you come work for me?” I realized I had the perfect opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

There are certain people in the startup world I’ve grown to admire greatly. They’re all on their way to, or already have built great companies. They’re thoughtful leaders with big visions. They understand the pay it forward mentality. And when one of them not only offers you the opportunity to join their team, but in an ideal role, where you get to work directly with them and the company is still at a small enough stage to your liking, you have a too-good-to-pass-on opportunity.

In this perfect storm, the leader is Hiten Shah, the company is KISSmetrics, and my role is Product Manager with the responsibilities to make them a great customer-focused, lean startup with a product their customers love.  I’m both punching above my weight class and bringing all of my skills to the table for this role. I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities and challenges ahead. At the same time, it hurts greatly to leave Boston to join this San Francisco-based company.

After all the memories, all the great friends inside and out of the startup community and all I’ve built here, I know it’s hard to believe I can pack my bags and leave, but I know this is the next step I must take.  It is far from easy, but a move that makes sense as I work to get closer to my dream of building an achor company.

—

Your first question is probably, “What happens to Greenhorn Connect?”  Do not worry. Greenhorn Connect is in *great* hands with Paul Hlatky and Pardees Safizadeh.  They are two of the best young people I’ve met in Boston and I’m honored they’ve accepted the ongoing challenge of keeping Greenhorn Connect serving the Boston startup community.  I’ve been working with Paul for months to prepare him to be my successor and I know that he is not only up to the task, but will take Greenhorn Connect to new heights.  He was the driving force behind the Boston Tech Talent Fair and the buses that brought students to #RubyRiot. This is just the beginning of what he can and will do.

While I’ll be handing the reigns to Paul and moving out West, know that Boston and my many friends, mentors and colleagues will not be forgotten. Technology is folding space and time which means that Twitter, Skype and the occasional flight will still keep us connected.  I care so much about our startup community and all the friendships I’ve made along the way, I can’t imagine just forgetting about it.  I’m still planning events in the community like RamenCamp in May and I wouldn’t miss the unConference for anything. I hope to be a bridge between my new home and those here in Boston.

This is the beginning of an exciting and scary new adventure for me and the Greenhorn Connect team. I hope I can count on your support as I set out on my new journey, and more importantly, that you’ll help Paul and Pardees succeed in having Greenhorn Connect continue to support the Boston startup ecosystem.

Thanks,
Jason

Is Wentworth more entrepreneurial than Harvard and all of the UMass schools combined?

15 February 2012

I was looking at the numbers today for the Boston Tech Talent Fair coming next Wednesday and was very excited: over 400 job seekers signed up and 30 companies committed to attend hiring for both internships and full time roles in business and engineering roles.  But what was interesting was when I looked at the numbers for which schools had the most signups…

BU – 81
Hult – 67
Tufts – 42
Babson – 36
BC – 28
MIT – 26
Northeastern – 15
UMass Boston – 12
Wentworth – 11
RISD – 7
Yale – 7
HBS – 6
Harvard – 6
MIT Sloan – 5
Suffolk – 4
Brandeis – 4
UMass Amherst – 4
UMass Lowell – 3
Brown – 2
Bryant – 2
BYU – 2
Emerson – 2

So a big high five to the folks at Hult International Business School, Tufts, Babson and home team, BU. But wow…there’s some serious under-representation at all of the UMass schools, Harvard, Suffolk, Brandeis, Bentley, and Olin...who didn’t even have one sign up…ouch!

So, if you go to any of these schools and know anyone you can help spread the word to…please do! I know Harvard, Suffolk, UMass and the other basement dwellers on the list have more entrepreneurial students than this! We all know at least one professor, student group leader or administrator at our alma maters we could pass this along to.

To make it easy, here’s a message you can use:

Hi <name>,

I wanted to let you know that there’s a big Startup Career Fair put on by the people over at Greenhorn Connect next Wednesday, February 22nd at the BU School of Management right at the Kenmore T stop.  If you or any entrepreneurial minded students are looking for an internship or full time job, this is a great opportunity to meet 30 growing Boston area companies!

<Your School> is way behind the leading schools in registration and I wanted to help show we have lots of great students interested in startups too!

You can learn more about the event and sign up here: http://www.greenhornconnect.com/careers/Boston-Talent-Fair

Thanks!

—

So consider this a little social experiment and request to help us pack the place on Wednesday!  If we want our ecosystem to finally fix our student retention problem, events like these have to be big successes and that starts by getting the students aware and out the door heading to them!

I appreciate all your help and the communities support to get us this far!

The Concept – Product Chasm: The End of my Lean Product Management Tool & Rediscovery of Passion’s Importance

11 February 2012

18 Comments

For the past couple of months I’ve been working on ideas in the lean startup space. As explained in previous posts, it seemed logical: I have a solid background in it from my days at oneforty as well as consulting before and after and the subject is hot now with Eric Ries’s book out, Steve Blank’s book coming soon and a seeming never-ending discussion about the principles in our community.

After initially exploring the opportunity to provide tools for performing customer development, I pivoted to the broader idea of providing a tool to help with Lean Product Management. Initially, the response was great; I wrote a blog post on the concept of Lean Product Management and it was universally loved. It’s the most read blog post on my blog ever and it generated significant inbound interest.  At the same time, I talked to quite a few people that had interesting feedback on the process and where they were coming up short. I also met a number of people and companies that needed help in the areas I was looking for the product to work. However, in the end, a few major issues are leading me to place this idea on the scrap heap with the other previous 8 ideas I’ve evaluated over the past year.

The Concept – Product Chasm

The biggest problem in developing this idea was a major gap between the buy-in to the concept I wrote about and the actual execution of the concept.

In the product management world, it seems everyone has a different way of implementing it. Some people are absolutely hardcore and have impeccable wikis and project management tools (like a 1-2 punch of Jira and Confluence). Others keep it loose with simply a Google Spreadsheet and a Kanban board (both real and virtual).  Finally others have utter chaos and have absolutely destroyed their project management tool by jamming everything in there (usually Pivotal Tracker or BaseCamp).  It seems individuality is greatly valued in the world of product management…

This presents a series of problems:

1) There is no silver bullet

The difference between a Kanban board and a wiki based product management tool is significant. This would mean any tool that was valuable for one is unlikely to be interesting to the other.

2) Marketing is a nightmare

With everyone having their own ideas on how to implement product management principles, targeting and acquiring a customer would be extremely difficult. Even those that I confidently believed had problems in their process often either A) did not perceive there was a problem or B) even if they knew they had a problem, they weren’t actively seeking a solution.

3) There was no MVP

As I talked to over 40 people who owned product at their company, I found no consensus on what part of the process was broken for them; without this consensus, there was no way to build an MVP. More importantly, the lack of consensus showed no agreement on a core problem which could be used as the tip of the spear towards acquiring customers and building out a platform over time; building a Lean Product Management tool would take significant time to become a complete, full life cycle solution, but there was no clear path for doing so.

A Greater Problem – Passion?

One of the most fascinating things about my trip to Silicon Valley in December was seeing how entrepreneurs interact with one another there versus here in Boston. Specifically, I’m talking about the first questions an entrepreneur is asked about their startup/idea. There is no right or wrong here, just different.

In Boston, common questions are:

  1. What stage are you at?
  2. How will you make money?
  3. Do you have any customers?

In the Valley, common questions are:

  1. Why are you passionate about this idea?
  2. How will you acquire customers?
  3. What is the big vision for your idea?

Of all the questions, the one I found most jarring was, “Why are you passionate about this idea?”

Over the past 9 months of questing for an idea, I’ve been attacking ideas with laser focus and rigid customer development methodology. While this has likely saved me a lot of time on any of the ideas, it also was devoid of the thought of passion; was I ever really passionate about an idea in the moving industry or restaurant services? Being completely honest with myself, I don’t believe I was.

Rebooting – a Focus on Passion

Paul Graham, amongst many others, has always said, “solve the problem you wish someone would solve for you.” I actually have an Evernote full of “hack project ideas” that are just that. I plan to start looking hard at those ideas and working on approaches to test those ideas.

Jason Baptiste wrote a blog post back before Cloudomatic (which came right before he and his cofounder discovered the OnSwipe opportunity) which covered a series of ideas he was thinking about. He got a great response from people showing who also cared about the ideas. I may do the same soon.

Embracing Fate

I had a great conversation with Eric Paley after a Dart Dinner early this past fall about my struggles to find an idea. He told me, “I think founders have to believe in a little fate; the right idea will find you at the right time.”

Those words have stuck with me and ring true with my first real venture: Greenhorn Connect. I could not have had that idea come to me at a better time both personally (it was the only way for me to build credibility in the Boston startup ecosystem and land a job 4 months later at oneforty) and for the ecosystem (October 2009 was the very beginning of our ecosystem’s awesome resurgence…the perfect time for a uniting site).

More importantly, I wasn’t even looking to start something when Greenhorn Connect happened. It just grabbed me and I couldn’t not do it. As many of you who knew me then may remember, I was a man possessed to make it work. Despite all the obvious reasons not to do it, I still did it (Lean Startups principles would have definitely it shot down). I will never forget my first Mass Innovation Night after launch and Adam Marchick and Michael Cohen both giving me the proverbial “You’re crazy. Why are you doing this?” speech. Both are great converts now, but it was only the passion and a touch of fate/destiny/luck that really possessed me to so blindingly go after the idea.

After 9 months of trying to force ideas, I’m trying to get back to basics. I need to find my passions and try to let the right idea find me instead of desperately grasping in the dark for ideas or trying to force an idea through the grinder.  A quote from Drew Huston has stuck with me in this process.  He said that of all the 5 or 6 companies he’s started, only Dropbox felt like, “the wind was at our back.”  That feels telling and reminds me of the commonly discussed need of Skill, Luck and Timing to build a truly great company.

Alternate directions

It’s been 9 very long months since I left oneforty. While even today I have a runway left that most young entrepreneurs would envy, I’m realistic about my endeavor to start something; how long should you stick with it before you realize the timing isn’t right?

The great entrepreneurs say it takes Skill, Luck and Timing to build a great company. I believe I have the skill to build a great company, which is why I left oneforty. I was also inspired by this oft-tweeted blog post encouraging you to quit your job and start a company even if you don’t have an idea. However, as time continues to slip by, I ask myself if I’m making the most of my time.

That’s why I’m beginning to evaluate working opportunities for the first time since I started this process.

I’ve thought a lot about the framework of what I’m looking for; not needing the money gives me the luxury of weighting all my other priorities over compensation. I’ve realized the most important things to me are:

  1. Working on a really big idea
  2. Working with a truly great leader I can learn from
  3. Having the opportunity to further develop skills that are assets to a business founder

No Regrets

I have ZERO regrets of how I’ve spent my time since leaving oneforty. I’ve learned a tremendous amount about myself, what I need in a technical cofounder and thanks to this most recent idea, how to manage product. I’ve also continued to build my network which is filled with mentors I know I can count on for help when I need it and people I can’t wait to invite to join me in working on that great ideaI know I’m going to find.

Like Steve Jobs said in his Stanford Graduation speech, “you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”  If you found me 3 years ago and told me I’d have done the things I’ve accomplished thus far, I wouldn’t believe you. However, looking back I can see how critical each step was in this crazy journey. Frankly, the less logical the next step, the more it seems to have worked out for the best.

I can’t wait to see what’s next and hope you’ll stay tuned; my beliefs are unshaken: I will build a great anchor company one day.

Leadership Lessons in Real Life: Leading by Example

31 January 2012

I’m a leadership junkie. Nothing fires me up quite like a good example of leadership, especially if it comes in the face of adversity.  It’s probably why I love so many cheesy sports movies like The Replacements and Hoosiers. They’re all chock full of leadership lessons. As art imitates life, it’s fitting this weekend I witnessed some truly profound leadership right in front of me at a soccer game.

Setting the Stage:

I play on an indoor soccer team as part of the Boston Ski and Sports Club. It’s nothing fancy and to the outside world, it’s pretty meaningless. But to those of us that play it has a lot of meaning. Many of us grew up playing sports and continued all through high school and college. There’s a void left by that only filled by finding a team sport to play even after school.

The team I’m on is pretty special. No egos. No dead weight. Just a bunch of athletes that enjoy playing with each other and find that perfect balance between hyper competitiveness and having fun.

That mix combined with a little luck found us in the championship game of our league this past Sunday. We were coming off one of our best performances of the year in our 5-3 semifinal victory, so we were pretty confident entering the game.  Things did not go as planned, but thanks to a great example of leadership in its purest form all was not lost.

Struggles and Setbacks:

In the first half we stumbled a bit to a 0-1 deficit. At halftime we all talked about how we just needed to finish a few opportunities and we’re in it. We were a little discouraged to have not scored yet, but confident in our abilities to have a solid second half.

Unfortunately, the second half started off very poorly. Within minutes of the half starting an errant play by me led to an own-goal. Seizing the momentum, just a minute after that, another goal was scored as our defense looked lost.

We hung our heads. Down 0-3 with 20 minutes left. But one of us refused to relent. Rob was more fired up than ever. He kept encouraging all of us to keep fighting. There was plenty of time to come back. He started chasing down every ball within range and ripping shots every chance he got.  The opponent’s momentum was stopped when Rob ripped his first goal to bring us within 2 goals.

Rob then subbed out after a lengthy shift and not long after a fourth goal came. down 1-4, just 15 minutes left. While the rest of us looked beaten and thought we were toast, Rob was more passionate than ever.  He ran down balls, beat defenders and kept pushing. At first the rest of the team didn’t respond. He was like a one man wrecking crew, but playing 1 on 5.

The Turning Point:

With Rob running around the field like a maniac for a few minutes finally another player on our team started making big plays too. Soon after another joined in and before we knew it, we had the whole team challenging every ball and pushing hard on goal.

Not long after, Rob got his second goal of the night. After the goal he ran right by our bench yelling at all of us to get fired up and get ready to come in and make a play too.

It worked. With 8 minutes left, down 2-4, Brandon dribbled hard into the defense and was taken down inside the box. Penalty kick. Like a man on fire, Rob convinced Brandon to let him take the shot, which he quickly buried in the back of the net. Now down by just 1 goal, Rob got a little crazy.

In outdoor soccer, when you’re down with little time left, you’ll often grab the ball after you score and bring it back to the mid line so the other team can’t stall waiting to kick off. Fired up after his goal and desperate to keep our momentum, Rob attempted to take the ball from our opponent and run it up. A near fight ensued that got our whole bench fired up and fortunately led to no penalties.

Completing the Comeback:

After the post-goal scuffle, there was no doubt that everyone on our team was ready to do whatever it took to tie the game. As a team we won every 50-50 ball in the open field and even took some 40-60 balls from them. We wanted it. Bad. Rob’s passion had infected the whole team and there was nothing our opponent could do about it.

With just 4 minutes left, a quick save by our keeper with a throw up the sideline led to a fast break. A quick give and go then led to a shot from the corner which Brandon buried in the back of the net. Tie game.

With all the momentum in our favor we pushed hard to try to win before time ran out, but unfortunately we were unable to settle it in regulation.

Overtime in our league means straight to Penalty Kicks (PKs). Leading the way once again, Rob scored our first PK, and went on to lead encouragement of our goalie and other shooters. A clutch save by our keeper and 3 straight goals made led us to a 3-2 victory in PKs.

The Moral of the Story:

Leadership is not about what happens when times are easy. It is what you do when the times are tough that matters. When the rest of the team was ready to give up, Rob refused to lose.  When no one else seemed to have any fight left in them, Rob continued to lead by example, challenging every ball, running hard on every play and encouraging everyone.  Eventually, he got others to join in and soon everyone was believing again and putting everything they had into the game.

No matter your challenge, realize that leadership means flying in the face of group think (the game is over) and being bold enough to stick with it long enough for others to join you and change your situation, whether that be a soccer comeback, your company on the ropes, or dancing on a hill (my favorite TED talk ever, below):

How Do You Get Back on the Customer Development Horse?

18 January 2012

2 Comments

Note: This post originally appeared on GreenhornConnect.com on July 27, 2011. I’m organizing all my customer development posts from GHC on here for easy reference (see the Lean Startups tab)

It happens to us all. Your startup is cruising along, or at least you’re really busy running in a million directions. Maybe you’ve also got pulled away with some personal issues like selling your home, caring for children or relationship challenges. No matter what the cause, you get away from the most important thing: Getting outside the building and talking to customers.

So knowing that you have dropped the ball and need to pick it up again, what do you do? How do you get back on the customer development horse?

How Do You Get Back on the Customer Development Horse?

Step 1: Review your previous notes

The first thing you should do is go over all of your past customer development work. Look at how you’ve already progressed and jog your memory on what you have already learned. This should include previous raw interview notes, any summaries of those notes and progress from your Lean Canvas.

This is a good time to find out if you’re taking good enough notes! If you can’t efficiently figure out what you learned, than anyone else using your notes, canvas and summaries can’t either.  A great Lean Startup should be keeping their team and their advisors up to date on customer development progress and most of what they’ll have to go on are these notes.

Step 2: Schedule new customer development interviews

Once your memory is set (this should hopefully only take an hour or two if you’re organized) then go back and see if you had any outstanding interviews to shedule. This is your low hanging fruit to schedule meetings. Reconnect with these people immediately and schedule new meetings with them as soon as possible.

Customer development is a numbers game, so regardless of if you had oustanding interviews, you need to get more feelers out for additional people to talk to; not everyone you reach out to will respond.

Here are a few ways I’ve found work to get more customers to talk to:

1) Your Early Adopters: Ask any of your early adopter users to talk if you haven’t talked to them (also get product feedback if you haven’t connected with them lately).

2) Ask Past Interviewees for Intros: Ask any past customer development interviewees that fit the problem you’re solving if they know anyone they could intro you to. (You should ask this at the end of any interview…it has a 4x success rate of responses compared to cold emailing.) In general, people want to be helpful and if you really are working on solving one of their problems, they’ll be happy to connect you with someone they know that also has the same problem.

3) Cold Email: Cold email, call or walk into the buildings of your potential customers. Unfortunately, this mode has a particularly low success rate (expect a 10-20% response rate on cold emails at best, but 5% isn’t unusual) so be prepared to have to do a lot to get results. I usually email 10-20 people at a time expecting a few responses.

If you know a good blog post on tips for cold emails for customer development, let me know and I’ll link to it here.

4) Use the Reverse Lead Model:  I’ve recently fell in love with the reverse lead model: if your startup serves a group their has their own customers that your tech supports (such as a real estate agent software that helps them interact with homeowners or moving company software for booking moving deals), then pretend to be a lead for your target customer (ie- pretend to be a homeowner or someone about to move).  Then turn the tables when they call you.

The trick I’ve found is when they call play along at first but be chatty. Pretend you’re still selling your house or moving, but then ask them about the software they use as you talk. As this first friendly conversation goes their way…then switch it up to talk about the problems you think they have and see if they confirm. If they do then pitch your product and try to get a face to face meeting (or separate phone call with a decision maker) to talk more.

Trust me, this works. I’ve actually had people complain to me about their software in these conversations…talk about a self-identified problem!

Note: This will take time. I’ve found that it generally takes a week to week and a half to get back into scheduled interviews; if you start emailing on Monday, you’re unlikely to have a full plate of interviews until the middle of the following week.

Step 3: Get your customer development questions updated

Now that you’ve started filling up your schedule with more customer development opportunities, you should determine what your goals are to discover in your current round of customer development.

Go back to your Lean Canvas and look at where you stand in testing assumptions. Remember that the goal is to test the riskiest assumptions you’ve made.  If you’ve already verified some, then you should begin testing new assumptions.

Great customer development starts with a good script of questions. It will make you more confident and comfortable in the interviews and make sure you don’t forget to ask something important.  You can (and should) go off script based on where the discussion takes you, but this is your anchor to bring you back to the key things you want to discover.

Step 4: Set a routine for staying on the horse in the future

In the end, the hope is you won’t fall off the horse again. The best way to do that is to set yourself a plan to keep it in your routine.  This can be as simple as carving out a few hours one day a week to review customer development progress and see how many interviews you have upcoming. If you drop below what you find is an acceptable number of pending interviews, go back to Step 2 and try to get a few more in the pipeline.

You can also give yourself an added boost with some external accountability by setting up to regularly update others on your customer development. At oneforty, I sent out bi-monthly reports to the entire team on key takeaways from customer development and updated the management team every 4-5 interviews. This ensured the whole team was up to date and I had extra motivation to try to keep customer development cranking.

—

Getting outside the building is never easy, but if you’re committed to being a lean startup, you have to stay on top of it. It’s easy to get distracted by other responsibilities. When that happens, now you know what to do.

What advice do you have for Lean Startups trying to maintain a routine of customer development?