Local Search Conference

Sorry for my silence. The rational reason for my absence was that I was speaking at the Kelsey Local Search conference in New Jersey. Gregg Sterling organized the event and did a super job -- I tend to think that industry conferences like this are a bore -- but I found this event worthwhile. It had good speakers, interesting content, some free time, and good networking. I'll go again. Now I just need to decipher all this information into actionable steps....

The emotional reason for my absence was that I've been speechless since the Nov. 2 election. I'm still not sure what to say -- beyond my Nov 3 entry of Ugg.

Newspaper and Blog endorsements influence the presidential election

The unbiased managing editor of A Sack of Seattle has decided to endorse John Kerry as the best candidate for president.

Crawford, TX, has only one paper and it endorsed Bush in 2000 but Kerry in 2004. If reading goat entrails is too smelly and you are looking for a different way to predict the outcome, you could try counting newspaper endorsements. Kerry has 60 so far and Bush has 53, but the circulation of the Kerry endorsers is larger by a factor of 1.5.

If you link or trackback to this blog you'll add to endorsement and circulation factor for Kerry. Please do so.

Competition for early stage companies

The market space has heated up for local search in general and Judy's Book more specifically. As the competition heats up from smart, talented, and funded companies, it raises questions about competitive response and differentiation. There's no right answers to the market -- it's like a chess game with multiple players all making moves at the same time -- one complex tricky game. Well, we're heads down and look forward to the market making its own decisions. Knight to C4.

Terrorism, Diet coke and other items I can not control

I was recently told by a group of friends that I worry too much about stuff that I can't control. You know what -- I think they're right. I do not follow the AA adage: worry about those things that you can control, don't worry about the things that you can't and have the courage/intelligence to know the difference. But I don't know many sober people that follow that sage advice. In the age where only the paranoid survice -- how can you NOT worry about things you can't control. So I thought I'd make a list of my worries today in writing in the hope that in writing them down I'd be able to get better control of them or at least stop worrying about them for a while. In no particular order, my worries of the day are:

* The health of my family and myself

* Terrorism and G.W. Bush Jr. mismanagement of that threat

* The inevitable and current decline of America

* The dumbing down of America through reality TV and shows like "nip and tuck"

* The bad stuff in Diet Coke that causes cancer

* The date of the first nuclear bomb to explode in an American city

* Global environmental decline and global warming and the effect that has on future ski conditions

* The curse of the bambino and the Red Sox ability (or lack thereof) to win a world series in my lifetime

* The end of Six Feet Under and HBO in general

* Nov. 3, 2005

* Biting into an apple and losing my 2 front teeth (they're loose already)

* Wondering if the cell phone companies are the tobacco companies of this century -- and more specifically, wondering whether my Nokia phone is causing a brain tumor and whether I should get a cell phone with a speaker in it

Don't you feel better now. I don't either.

Did Bush wear a wire at the debate?

I was online at cnn.com and saw the photo of Bush questioning whether he wore a wire at the debate. After examing the photo for more than a minute, I came to the conclusion that he may well have worn the wire but would inevitably deny it -- as the article indicates. While talking with my friend Jerry Colonna about this today -- he made the point that whether Bush wore the wire or not doesn't matter....what matters is that enough of the public wonder whether he did wear a wire indicating the widespread lack of trust and belief that other people are pulling the strings to the Bush puppet.

To infinity and beyond and other bedtime rituals

I spoke with my brother Larry today. He had to call me back because he needed to put my nephews to bed. It was 4PM PST (i.e. 7PM EST). When he phoned me back I asked him why my nephews were going to bed so early. He told me that the bed time ritual for Alex and Michael (his children) started at 7PM EST and ended around 8:30 and consisted of the following steps:
i) Larry grabbing Michael by the pajama top and pants and throwing him across the room (figuratively speaking) and into a pile of pillows on his bed as Michael yells "TO INFINITY ....AND BEYOND".
ii) Repeat steps i with Alex
iii) 4 bedtime books read by mom
iv) hugs and kisses, and goodnight

It was the infinity and beyone step that his kids will remember!

To blog or not to blog: Top 3 reasons to write a blog

1) So I can hear what people think about my thoughts and writings
2) So I create a safe record of the morsels that run through my brain
3) So I can understand the movement and experience of blgging

The question of writing online and the underlying motivations is one that I've been doing a lot of thinking about lately. Judy's Book-- my local search company -- www.judysbook.com -- asks users to enter information about their favorite service providers. It also asks people to create people with whom they'd like to share these reviews. This is a high level of interactivity to ask for from users -- no doubt! And yet, it's not much different from writing a blog. I was intrigued with blogging before Judy's Book. Now, I'm intrigued all the more. The fact that my company taps into some of the same motivations and behaviour hopefully is a good thing. I believe there's similarity between one's activity online blogging and a users activity online at Judy's Book-- and with time, I suspect there'll be more similarity.

Blogging has me intrigued. I never truly kept a diary before and now I'm getting pretty regular about writing. What's this all about? What motivates people to write on sites like Amazon reviews, epinions etc. What are your top reasons for writing a blog?

Novice blogger gets 2nd degree burn

I've only been blogging for a short time. And today I got burned. I wrote a post yesterday without thinking too much about it and the post had some unintended consequences. It's amazing the power of this stuff -- I was shocked who found my blog, read it, and reacted to it within hours of the post.

I'm sure there are a lot of blogs about the do's and don'ts of blogging. But in the end, I suspect blogging is like entrepreneurship -- you learn by doing and making mistakes. If you actually find this blog -- I'd welcome feedback and advice about how to make my blog better.

One thing I've been doing is to read other bloggers who are more established. Today I read 2 good blogs:
i) Steven Berlin Johnson
ii) Ross Mayfield

Managing investor expectations after the investment

I recently had the Series A closing dinner for Judy's Book at Wild Ginger. The partners from Ignition Partners and from Ackerley Partners were both there. This was their first meeting. Overall, I think the dinner went well. People had food and drinks and conversation. A standard introductory business dinner.

As the dinner went on I realized that the Ignition folks may be more comfortable with the investment than the Ackerleys. This would make total sense -- Ignition invests in early stage technology companies and Ackerleys typically invest in later stage media companies. I may be wrong -- nobody said anything explicity. And that's what is prompting this blog.

Investors rarely tell you explicity exactly their expectations. As a CEO it's our job to elicit these expectations, or better yet, to set these expectations and manage to them. In an early stage technology company, that's often very difficult to do -- especially during the period of time when you are trying to get a product to market, figure out user behaviour, and try to find a levearage point from which to grow an enterprise. Getting back to the Ackerley's, I think I'm going to need to spend some more time making sure their expactations become explicit and that they're reasonable. I'll do this with a series of email and coffees....and getting to revenue as fast as I can. I've found that the faster one gets to revenue the less one needs to manage investor expectations -- explicit or not.

Predictive abilities lacking

Now that I've lived in Seattle for 5 years. The reality of moving here proved that my ability to predict is non-existent.

1) I'm not really playing tennis now so I don't have much need for tennis partners. I have more friends in seattle than i ever did in boston after 10 years.

2) My inlaws are great. My mother in law judy has passed away but moving close was a great thing. I actually got to know both Marvin and Judy -- and while they're both crazy, I've grown to appreciate and love them.

3) yes it rains in Seattle but coming from Boston it's really just a drizzle. In addition, winters are mild and summers are a blessing.

Things I feared when moving to Seattle

Sept 10, 2004

I went to my daughters’ school picnic this weekend. I came away feeling optimistic that Judy’s Book may actually work. I looked around during the picnic and thought to myself – I would like to know where this community eats out, who does their landscaping, plumbing and whatever else around the house. The idea behind the company is decent enough – people helping people get the best of everything.

I moved from Boston to Seattle 5 years ago (late 1999) and there were 3 things that concerned me about the move.

1) Tennis partners - at the time, I was a big casual tennis player and I was concerned about moving to a new city without any tennis partners. More broadly speaking , this concern was really about not having any friends in Seattle -- my life and my friends had been in Boston.

2) my inlaws - My mother in law Judy was sick with Cancer. We had to move to Seattle to be close to them. However, I must admit I had some trepidation about being within driving distance of my inlaws. I liked them ok -- from a distance and just wasn't too sure about how the whole proximity thing would work. Would we get along? would my wife change / regress by being close to them etc?

3) the weather - supposedly, it rains in seattle. How would I feel about that?

The post-financing phenomena

Sept. 9, 2004
Once the deal was done, anxiety crept in. I found myself more stressed and not abole to really sleep for about a week. I know this is counter-intuitive….but I recall some of this from abuzz. There are some post-financing phenomena that many people don’t talk about – that I’ve come to identify and would like to share with all those other entrepreneurs seeking financing out there.

Phenomenon #1: holy shit
This occurs when entrepreneurs wake up and realize that people actually believe in the business idea they’ve been working on and are willing to invest millions of dollars in their idea with them as CEO.

Phenomenon #2: holy shit, gotta make it work
This phenomenon occurs particularly in early stage financings. The earlier the company is in its life cycle the more likely it is that the entrepreneur – me in this case – raises the question after raising all the money -- is this really all going to work? The stress comes in from realizing that making it work is up to ME.

Phenomenon #3: holy post financing blues
This is commonly known as the post financing blues. This is the most well known of the post financing phenomena I’m writing about. It’s the most well known because it’s inevitable and can often hit entrepreneurs as well as their companies (staff) with a wallop. It is easy to attribute this phenomenon to the emotional roller coaster of doing a venture capital financing. Inevitably after the anticipation associated with raising millions with VCs, there’s an emotional let down.

Phenomenon #4: holy re-engagment, Batman
This typically just hits the CEO (KAPOW) who has been mostly disengaged during the fund raising process. There’s a real process of trying to figure out what to focus on and what to do – because the last 3 to 6 months have all been about financing. This can also hit the COO (SPLAT@!) who has been running things at the company while the CEO has been out raising money.

It’s important to remember when fund raising that the real work starts after the financing. These phenomena take about 30 days to overcome.

The decision to partner with Ignition Partners

Date: 7/13/04
Got a phone call from Ignition partner John Ludwig. He called to give me a status report and to say they needed another week in order to get the term sheet finalized. I had spoke with Rich Tong (another ignition partner) on Saturday and gave him some feedback on the term sheet -- he indicated that we were in the same zone to proceed with doing a deal. So when John called me after returning from a 1 month vacation in Europe to say they needed more time – I got frustrated. Was this a case of venture capitalist jerking me around? Was Ignition Ventures waffling or back tracking? These are questions that come up in every deal. They are questions that are important to ask– and while I wasn’t sure of the answers – in my gut, I was sure. As I talked with John Ludwig and he accepted responsibility for the hiccupped process and for not reconnecting with Rich earlier – it became clear to me – in my gut I believe these guys are honest good guys and I know I’m supposed to do this deal with them. I’m not sure why I feel this way – I have other funding alternatives – but the chemistry is just right with these guys and I feel like my company will be bigger with them than without them. And even if it’s not bigger with them – I’m ready to have John Ludwig and Rich Tong as my partners. We’ll see if they feel the same way -- I’m writing in my journal today that we’ll get a deal done Ignition– and it will be done before Aug 11.

Positioning questions

Date:7/12/04
I've been thinking about modifying the positioning of Judy's Book -- to something that includes our blogging roots. One thought is to position the company as the world's largest blog on local services -- (this wasn't totally my idea but came from something that Rich Tong -- my smart and wise future investor said) -- my other related thought is to actively pursue the group blogging space. This is a space that will clearly accelerate and evolve over the next five years. I think it's important to partner with bloggers of all types because these are the people that today are actively publishing on a daily basis....and as I have said previously, I'm concerned that Judy's Book doesn't yet solve a problem that needs to be solved everyday -- or more accurately, that it isn't yet a solution that engages sticky membership (return visitors).

The entrepreneur's roller coaster

Date: 7/9/04
Woke up at 3AM -- not sure why I can't sleep. I didn't have any coffee last night. I live in Seattle and don't drink coffee. Kind of an oxymoron. I guess it must be start-up stress. Tonight I'm worried our product doesn't provide consumers with enough of a reason to come back regularly. Blogging is best when it becomes habitual ....I'd like to see Judy's Book move from it's occasional utilitarian value to the regular habit. The concern I have is -- how frequently will people actually wake up and look for a local service provider? If we're lucky that's once a month -- and then if you take that number and slice it by the number of people that think to use Judy's Book. Well, then....that's my concern this dark 3AM. I'm clearly in start-up mode. Working hard. Not sure if any of it will work.