I am a baseball fan and this year, my San Francisco Giant’s team is supposed to be pretty bad. But when spring training comes around, anything is possible. The fans look for the possibilities and scenarios that may take the team to the playoffs.

Well, if the pitching staff performs at or above expectation and we get a above average year from one of the veterans and a breakout season from one of the young rookies, then…

This sort of optimism and, frankly, wishful thinking is both at the heart of the seedround of startup life as well as spring training. Once the season starts, however, the grind of reality take over. But I do love the feeling of spring training and a startup’s seedround.

UPDATE: Found out today that the Giants have Las Vegas 100-1 odds of winning the World Series.  Still optimistic tho!

Photo by StuffEyeSee

I am very metrics- and numbers-driven. Just wanted to share a quick article that put campaign spending into perspective. I think most Americans believe that campaign spending is completely out of control and wasteful. Portfolio Magazine has a terrific and short article about how the presidential campaign spending compares to ad spending by large companies.

• Wendy’s: $315M
• Marketing on Microsoft Vista: $500M
• Presidential Campaign Spending (both parties): $1B
• AT&T: $2.25B
• P&G: $3.3B

The author argues that campaign spending is a bargain:

Given the magnitude of the decision and the cost of any branding campaign, the election industry’s spending of a billion dollars (over a four-year period) hardly seems overblown—especially for candidates who race onto the field with little or no brand identity.

Just like that, a deeply entrenched belief has been shattered. It is a good day.

UPDATE:
In the comments, Dave notes that the Biz360 technology shows that Hillary and Obama each got $1B of media coverage in Jan alone (thanks Dave).  It’s true, Tide does not get that kind of coverage.

I spend a lot of time with entrepreneurs and the Next Big Thing is always on their mind. It’s always on my mind as well. Although I cannot go after every interesting trend, I really do love to read about them. I find the following sites pretty interesting and fun to read. Perhaps you would enjoy as well.

• Springwise: Their current newsletter on new business ideas.
• Trendwatching: One of their monthly briefings are new trends.
• Iconoculture: A sample of their observations

I subscribe to the newsletters and, every so often, I get inspired.  How often can you say that?

This is an installment of the ongoing “Fatherpreneurship Series”, which is defined here.

Scientific American has a terrific article about raising kids, titled The Secret of Raising Smart Kids. The article confirms my own instinct that raising your child to be “hard-working” rather than “smart” leads to success in school and life. I encourage you to read the article; here’s one of many interesting insights:

In studies involving several hundred fifth graders published in 1998, for example, Columbia psychologist Claudia M. Mueller and I gave children questions from a nonverbal IQ test. After the first 10 problems, on which most children did fairly well, we praised them. We praised some of them for their intelligence: “Wow … that’s a really good score. You must be smart at this.” We commended others for their effort: “Wow … that’s a really good score. You must have worked really hard.”

We found that intelligence praise encouraged a fixed mind-set more often than did pats on the back for effort. Those congratulated for their intelligence, for example, shied away from a challenging assignment—they wanted an easy one instead—far more often than the kids applauded for their effort. (Most of those lauded for their hard work wanted the difficult problem set from which they would learn.) When we gave everyone hard problems anyway, those praised for being smart became discouraged, doubting their ability. And their scores, even on an easier problem set we gave them afterward, declined as compared with their previous results on equivalent problems. In contrast, students praised for their effort did not lose confidence when faced with the harder questions, and their performance improved markedly on the easier problems that followed.

When hiring, I try to look for “grinders,” people who will work hard to solve problems. In fact, I will take a grinder over a merely smart employee any day. In the article:

In 1972, when I taught a group of elementary and middle school children who displayed helpless behavior in school that a lack of effort (rather than lack of ability) led to their mistakes on math problems, the kids learned to keep trying when the problems got tough.

I find that putting smart people around the table can lead to interesting (and often long discussions), but put together a bunch of hard-workers, well, progress happens. Now when we can find people who are wicked smart and hard working, well, these people we do anything to keep for life.

I spend a lot of time on my computer and using tons of software. And there are certain software features that make me smile and some that make me grumble bad words (ask Dan who sits a few feet away from me in the office). Here are my current poster children for a terrible flaw and a delightful feature.

Grrrr…. The Annoying Flaw

I usually try not to negatively comment on irritating features. I’ve been in the software business for many years and I have been associated with my fair share of poorly implemented features and design. But this one really bothers me.

The culprit is Quickbooks 2006. It is generally pretty good but has a few shortcomings, some which seem to be there for the sole reason for you to buy one of their services (I am looking at you, Quickbooks Payroll Service).

So there is data entry in an accounting package, right? OK, there are numbers to be entered, right? And the numbers in an accounting package tend to be currency, right? So what the @#%$^%@*# does Quickbooks considers a number with a dollar sign (like $10) to be invalid???!! This really really slays me. I copy numbers from spreadsheets and online banking pages into Quickbooks all the time and I have to delete the $ sign. Come on, people!

Thoughtful Software Design… ahhhhh…

Just thinking about a well-designed feature will calm me down. Thoughtful software design is very tough and my example for a useful, clever and probably relatively easy to program (great combination here) feature is the ability to click and drag a route in Google Maps to change driving directions.

In my example below, I plot a map from San Mateo to Oakland. It recommends going over the San Mateo Bridge. If I wanted to go up the Peninsula first and then over the Bay Bridge, I merely click on the route and drag it towards the route I wish to go.

The feature is obvious, gives good feedback and is even fun. Try it; I know you will like it. Yahoo Maps also supports the same feature now.

I have been involved in several business intelligence, metrics and content companies.  This means I better love information design.  Luckily, I do.  I am a big fan of typefaces, user interfaces and information design.  A site that I visit regularly to satisfy my interest is information aesthetics.

The site led me to these two Youtube videos, both worth watching if you are a like information design and/or type.

The first video is a New York Times video on an art installation in the lobby of the New York Times of over 500 small screens which display information from the New York Times archive.

[found via information aestehtics]

The other video is a fun music video illustrated with typefaces! Check it out.

[found via information aestehtics]

This is an installment of the ongoing “Fatherpreneurship Series”, which is defined here.

When my son was about 2 years old, I repeated an experiment that my grad-school economics teacher told me about. I offered my 2 year old some candy. Then I gave him a choice. If he chose not to have candy that day, I would give him two candies the next day. He went with getting the candy right away. I upped the offer: three candies. This went on to about 6 candies when he started to think about it seriously. I quickly cut off the experiment then (Mom would have killed me) and we had a nice candy break.

As a father, a real scenario of choice is the act of disciplining a child and suffering short-term grief and trauma with the hope that this is a good long-term life lesson. This can be a very grueling experience and the easy path (giving the kid what they want) is sooooo tempting.

Business is the same way; startups especially so. The pressure to move quickly and keep moving “up and to the right” is very strong. Getting momentum and KEEPING momentum feels paramount above everything. So when a decision to take a short-term hit for a long-term gain comes up, the decision is always harder than it should be. What looks so sensible on paper feels so counterintuitive to an entrepreneur.

But take that deep breath and be like a responsible dad: live with the temporary trauma and headache of a sobbing, pouting, screaming kid so you can have a well-balanced child in the long run.

So what’s the chart? That’s our monthly unique visitors: one of the key currencies for consumer Internet startups. The pressure to grow “uniques” is very strong. Recently at Boxxet, we decided to make some big changes to our site (improved algorithms, new page link styles, moving out certain types of content) to make it stronger and healthier for the long term. But there would be a big short-term hit.

One of the benefits of being experienced entrepreneurs was that we knew we had to do it. So we took a deep breath and took the hit. And so far, we are seeing the gains. Whew.

From the Startup News site, I was led to johnplaceonline.com, where there is a terrific list of life lessons, almost all of which I think are applicable to one’s life, children and startup.  Some of the lessons are below, but go ahead and go to johnplaceonline.com to see the whole article.

2. Evaluating Relationships
3. Conversation
4. Handling Difficult People
8. Giving
10. Saving
13. Debtor Responsibility
15. Practicality
16. Politics of Advancement
18. Positive Thinking
19. Personal Accountability
20. Setting and Achieving Goals

 This is an installment of the ongoing “Fatherpreneurship Series”, which is defined here.

I just finished my first season as coach for my son’s baseball team (6-year olds).  As my wife said about the experience, “it’s like a long vacation; it was very fun and fulfilling, but we are ready for it to be over.”

The most challenging part of coaching a team was getting the kids to focus on the drill, lesson or even game.  All the stereotypes of kids staring into space, spinning in circles, playing with the dirt…  all true.  Even my most gung-ho players would lose focus.

I tried to keep the players in check but not let their lapses bother me. 

Leading a company somethings feels like coaching a kids’ baseball team.  How do we stayed focus with all sorts of distractions surrounding us.  Here’s some commonality between coaching and leading a company: 

LONG TERM and SHORT TERM GOALS

For kid’s baseball, the season goal is to keep them interested and learning enough so they want to continue next season.  Weekly goals were focused on things like specific skills (throwing, batting) and game rules and strategies (running through first, covering second). 

In business, I’ve set such long-term goals such as “Making marketing and communications a more accountable department” (Biz360) or “Finding the best content on the web’s most popular subjects” (Boxxet).   Short-term goals would include “Capture 25% of the Fortune 200″ or “Grow web visitors 1% per day every day.”

EXPLAIN | DEMONSTRATE | PRACTICE

The best practice for doing a baseball drill is Explain | Demonstrate | Practice.  I wrote that phrase down on the top of all my practice plans.  It was a not-so-gentle reminder to not rush into drills but to be deliberate. 

The business version of this is probably: EXPLAIN | LEAD | MANAGE.  I posted a while back about Leaders vs Managers, and the best startups have some of both.  Too many times, I hear people not knowing what the goals of the business are.  It is up to the leaders to set the goal and the managers to communicate thoroughly.  In a perfect world, your executive staff have a lot of both leadership and management skills.

Tell them what you’re going to tell them.  Tell them.  Tell them what you’ve told them.

This is the sales and Powerpoint cliche.  SOOOOooooooo true though.  You’re think you’re being boring but repeating yourself.  Nope.  Do it.  True for 6 year olds and 60 year olds.

Until next season…

This is an installment of the ongoing “Fatherpreneurship Series”, which is defined here.

Money gets people all twisted up, both in business and families.  My wife and I got tired of negotiating with our six-year-old son everytime we went to the store to buy something, especially for a birthday gift for a friend’s birthday party.  It was time for an allowance.

Generally, we would think pretty hard about something like this.  We would talk to friends, consult books, ask the ouija board.  But we came to quick conclusion on how to proceed.  We were pretty aligned on the value and purpose of money as well as the responsibilities we wanted our son to have.   We decide that we would try something quickly and make adjustments if needed (for which we made sure we warned our son).

The allowance had the follow attributes:

•  The allowance was not tied to chores or behavior.  He gets his allowance despite behavior and outside chores.  Bad behavior led to lost privileges (GameBoy, sweets, etc).  Chores are part of family life and we all do them without direct monetary compensation.

• The allowance is to pay for all the kid’s discretionary spending.  With few exceptions, we no longer buy him discretionary items.  If he wants to pump quarters in the video arcade at the pizza place, that is his money.  If he wants to buy something at the museum store, he needs to buy it himself.

• We give him $10/week.  We do this on Saturday.

• Of this allowance, he must do the following:

  • 25% of the allowance goes into savings.  I don’t have a great explanation to a kid on the benefits of savings, but he seems to understand the rainy-day and future nature of savings.
  • 10% goes to a charitable fund, which he can dispense to a charity of his choice
  • That leaves $6.50/week for spending.  It seems like a lot to me, but so far, it seems to be working OK.

Some nuances, which I have not yet broken out (and may not break out) include:

• Matching 1:1 any money he moves from spending to savings,
• Adding an interest rate to savings.
• Adding an interest rate to any borrowings. 
• An old friend from college, when she heard about this plan, said that she certainly was taught how to save, but not how to invest.  Good point.  I’ll need to think about that as well.

We’ve put the responsibility on the kid to make decisions on what to buy, which is fascinating to watch.  I hope that he understands the value of savings, the discipline of spending, and the warmth of giving.  So far, it’s been a very positive experiment and, thank goodness, has stemmed the nagging at the store.

Note: we use Google spreadsheet to track the simple calculations.  I’ve put up a template, which you can copy and use yourself:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pyRRMru19_p6OCJ3s7kZcWA