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Welcome New Staff Jenica Cogdill!

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 | Uncategorized | admin

We’d like to officially welcome Jenica Cogdill as a Strategic Analyst to Portland Ten! We’re happy to have Jenica on board to assist in our work with entrepreneurs here in Portland. Here’s a little more about her background, and you can also follow her on Twitter here.

Jenica Cogdill, Strategic Analyst

cogdill-small21

Jenica Cogdill launched her first successful company, a retail and export business in Eugene, Oregon, at the age of 21. She is currently a business consultant specializing in marketing research and strategic planning. Clients range from local startups gaining momentum to international corporations.

She holds a BS in Journalism/Public Relations from the University of Oregon and an MBA from Willamette University. As a strategic analyst for Portland Ten, she leads weekly Workouts and offers one-on-one Checkups.

 

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Building a Stable, Fundable Startup

Thursday, October 1st, 2009 | Uncategorized | admin

Ever wondered how private equity investors (angels, venture capitalists) evaluate tech startups– and what founders can do about it?

The following presentation outlines 3 types of "unfundable" startup styles, and the 1 "fundable" startup style that attracts investors and is most likely to be stable & grow over time.

There’s a lot that founders can do to affect the current status, opportunities, and future of their projects– if they know what to look for, and are willing to objectively and frequently make changes and tough choices.

Helping founders see clearly and accurately understand where they’re at, is absolutely one of the most rewarding aspects of working with entrepreneurs through the Portland Ten’s "10 at $1MM by 2010" goal.

Building A Stable, Fundable Startup

View more presentations from portlandten.

 

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Next Six Week Sprint: October 12-November 20

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 | Uncategorized | admin

This fall, we began offering the Six Week Sprint, a lightweight version of our $1MM bootcamp, open to freelancers/consultants and small business owners, as well as tech founders.

The participants are loving the program! It has provided the following benefits to them:

  • Jumpstart biz dev/sales efforts
  • Accountability to peers & advisor for weekly progress
  • Peer support in making tough decisions and taking action on critical business tasks
  • Clarity, focus, and accelerated efforts in starting or growing business
  • Increased ability to make strategic decisions based on financial indicators– revenue, cashflow, pricing
  • Emphasis on employing yourself and others at your full market value
  • Expanded network of contacts
  • Fresh ideas, critique, and clarification of your project
  • Opportunities for one-on-one learning and course correction in basic business skills– sales, networking, marketing,

The feedback overall has been tremendously positive, and based on interest from the community, we will hold another Six Week Sprint October 12-November 20.

Attend An Orientation

If you’re interested in participating, please review more information about the program here, and then RSVP for an orientation meeting October 5th or October 8th. You can also contact us with questions or to get more information here.

What Participants Say

"The Portland Ten Six Week Sprint is perfect for any business owner who is overwhelmed, losing focus, or simply wants to increase revenue. As an entrepreneur starting a new business, I didn’t know where to start or what to spend my time on. This program has quickly given me the structure I need to launch, sell, and market this new business."

-Kate Walling

"As a newer business owner, I have found Portland Ten’s Six Week Sprint to be very valuable in building my business. I have made many contacts and leads that I would not have otherwise made without the program. It has been great to be a part of a supportive group that is invested in your success and is eager to help. 

"During our individual weekly meetings, Carolynn has challenged me to become more successful in my marketing efforts and has filled in the gaps where my skills were lacking. I would recommend Portland Ten’s Six Week Sprint to any new entrepreneurs who would like fresh perspective, feedback, and assistance in generating more revenue."
 
-Mandi Ellefson
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Good Links for Tech Startups- Part 2

Sunday, September 27th, 2009 | Uncategorized | admin

More links from our Portland Ten founders’ mailing list– these ones from our summer session. Enjoy!

Minimum Viable Product

Free Online Biz Classes from MIT

Press/Media

Bootstrapping

Market Research

Beta Landing Page Sample

Founder Ego

Open Source

Fundraising/Investors

Pricing

Failure

Guerilla Marketing

Cap Table

Work/Life Balance

Automating Customer Support

Business Plans

  • How to write a business plan* (Wall Street Journal) http://snurl.com/knv4v
  • Truth be told, most business plans fail to make much impression on potential investors. Most aren’t even read in full. Their shortcomings tend to be obvious even in a two-page executive summary, largely because they are written before enough real work has been done to create a solid foundation. http://snurl.com/knv4v

GTD/Productivity

  • Things, built by www.culturedcode.com – runs only on mac and iPhone. Perfect, flexible Get-Things-Done application.
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Good Links for Tech Startups

Sunday, September 27th, 2009 | Uncategorized | admin

During our first round of Portland Ten, our founders shared a lot of links & resources through our internal mailing list– enjoy!

Market Validation

Competition

Revenue Models

GTD/Productivity

Design/Basic Identity/Landing Pages

Google Apps

Iterating

Extreme Programming

Object oriented CSS

Scalability

Wireframe software

Startup Advice

Cofounders

Finance/Accounting

Legal

Webconferencing

SEO

Fundraising 

Pitching

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Announcing Portland Ten Founder’s Coffee

Thursday, September 24th, 2009 | Uncategorized | bfoote

Come join us Tuesdays starting on September 29th at 9am for an hour

Daily Cafe
902 NW 13th Ave at NW Kearney
dailycafe.net

Founder’s Coffee is a low-key, weekly get together for Portland entrepreneurs to connect with each other.  No speakers, no pitches, just business founders gathering together to visit for an hour.

See you Tuesday morning!

RSVP on Upcoming here.

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Two Portland Ten Companies Launching

Monday, September 14th, 2009 | Uncategorized | admin

Quick note of congrats to two of our summer portfolio companies who are launching products this week–

DedicatedMaps.com– http://dedicatedmaps.com/
ShopIgniter– http://shopigniter.com/

Both teams have worked extraordinarily hard the past several months to get things off the ground for launch, and their efforts are paying off in momentum and client interest. Congrats to both teams, and keep up the great work!

Image: DedicatedMaps.com exhibiting at the Clean Pacific Conference & Exhibition on September 14, 2009.

dsc06367

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Join Us At Six Week Sprint Orientation

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 | Uncategorized | admin

We’re getting ready to kick off our Six Week Sprint, and holding an orientation meeting tomorrow night at 6 pm at NedSpace Downtown (920 SW 3rd Ave.)

About Six Week Sprint

The Six Week Sprint is open to tech founders as well as freelancer/consultant/small business owners. It follows the same methodology of the "10 at $1MM by 2010" bootcamp, packaged in a jump-start, lower commitment & lower-cost format.

You can read more about the program here.

Goal:

Jump start each participant’s startup or self-employment efforts– shift the business from your current operating style, to doing things in a way that puts you on track to generate your first (or next) $100K in revenue.

Timeline:

6 weeks: September 14-October 23

Participant Orientation:

Join us Thursday, September 10th, 6-7:30 pm, at NedSpace downtown (920 SW 3rd Ave) to meet others participating in the Six Week Sprint.

RSVP on Upcoming here.

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Announcing the Six Week Sprint!

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 | Uncategorized | admin

Through our "10 at $1MM by 2010" bootcamp, we’ve met with many Portland founders, freelancers, consultants, and small business owners, who love the structure of the bootcamp, but feel hesitant about the 18-month commitment and its tuition requirement.

And understandably so, for a few reasons. First, the 18 month/$1MM commitment is intense. It’s for entrepreneurs who want to train and be supported in running a marathon, and can commit and afford to take that approach. 

Also, what we’re doing at Portland Ten is new, and it’s difficult to describe– we may not yet have landed on the best way to market and package the experience. Yet we’ve had a tremendously positive response from our first 8 companies, both in results and also in founder satisfaction with the experience (read what they say here), and we know that the approach we take in working with founders gets very favorable results in a very short period of time.

So, we’re opening up a program this fall called Six Week Sprint– an open enrollment, short-term, low commitment, modified version of the $1MM bootcamp. Everything that’s good about the experience of Portland Ten, but in a format that’s more accessible to founders.

If you love what we’re doing with Portland Ten and feel that we can work together with you to maximize your efforts, the Six Week Sprint may be just right for you. You can read about the details of the program and register here, or direct questions to cduncan@portlandten.com or ncottle@portlandten.com.

We’ll kick off the Six Week Sprint on September 14th, with orientation for participants on September 10th, 6 pm at NedSpace downtown. See you then!

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Ten Problems Founders Have– And How To Solve Them

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 | Uncategorized | admin

In Portland Ten, we have the opportunity to work hands on with founders for a period of three months, and with a cross-section of projects at the same time. It’s a really cool experience to have an in-depth view on several startups getting off the ground at the same time!

Overall, managing multiple startup projects at the same time makes it easy to spot common problems & patterns that high-energy, multi-talented, Type A, hardworking founders have– and to come up with ways to solve these in simple ways, to keep the founders & their projects on track.

Here are some common problems we see among early-stage tech founders– and some quick & simple ideas on how to solve them.

#1. No funds/money.

So, the most simple solution to this problem is to shift the way you think about starting or running a project, and remove "funds" or "money" from your perception as a barrier to the project’s progress. 

Start by itemizing the "things" you need in order to get and keep the business going– stuff, people, arrangements, momentum, a compelling value prop, customers, equipment, skillsets. Then generate alternate ways of acquiring/bartering/trading things you do currently have (assets) or can do (skills) in exchange.

In terms of assets, sell or rent things you currently own; in terms of skills, do consulting or part-time work to generate income, or barter your skills in exchange for someone else’s, that are needed for your project.

It’s less effort to think, "I need $X00,000 dollars to get this product off the ground, so meanwhile I can’t get much done, until I find an investor", but, it’s also much less likely to generate results and open up doors.

As literary character Violet Baudelaire says, "There’s always something." As an entrepreneur, it’s your job to find the "something" that will make things work. Always.

#2. No sales, or insufficient sales.

Some common reasons for no sales, or insufficient sales, include:

  • No formal sales process in place
  • Lack of consistent follow up sufficient to close the deal
  • A product that doesn’t match user’s needs
  • A product that’s not currently usable for customers
  • The product doesn’t appeal to the customer
  • Lack of sales skills or understanding of the sales process overall
  • "Bootstrapper’s desperation" bleeding into the sales efforts & scaring off customers

Many founders are disinterested by the sales side of running the business. They feel like making money is not as noble as inventing or creating the product, or solving the problem users have, and so many highly talented people end up short-changing themselves through underemployment or running a "not-quite-for-profit" organization.

But the reality is that sales is an integral part of delivering a solution or product that users are willing to value and commit to. Sales is merely a process of demonstrating the value to the client and asking them for a commitment. It can actually be an exciting and interesting process to manage, and is critically necessary to the operations of a viable company. Tech founders in particular can shy away from sales because of the social/people component required, it sort of chafes against their natural skill set and preference for more technical, specifically intellectual activities like coding or product engineering.

One of the easiest ways to get a quick grasp on sales is to begin by analyzing a comparable "sales" process you’ve mastered in the past– finding a job, hiring someone, applying and being accepted to college, dating & marrying a spouse, or even just the way in which you make purchasing decisions as a consumer.

Then chart out a simple 4-5 step "sales process" through which you contact the client, download their needs & specific product feature requests, demonstrate the value of the product, and then ask for a commitment in the way of a business transaction, i.e. purchase, letter of intent, or contract. Commit to taking 20-30 users/clients through the process, and find out what they are or are not willing to purchase, and then revise your sales process from there.

#3. Frequent team conflicts.

This one comes down to two basic scenarios–

a. You have a high achieving A team, but you are managing them like a C manager

b. You are a high achiever playing an A game, matched with an underachieving C team

The stress level of a startup can be excruciating, and it brings out the best & worst in founders & early employees. If your team is underperforming, first check yourself and look at your management style– what can you do on your end to buffer the high stress scenarios, and get them to raise their game?

If you modify your management style to create an optimal work environment, but the team or specific members of the team continue to underperform, it’s time to address each situation individually to determine if the project or the role that employee is in, is the best fit for both parties.

#4. Not enough manpower or resources to get the project done.

First, look at the queue of projects and sub-projects you are working on. Founders are infamous for having a portfolio of interests and projects– hobbies, side projects, etc. It sounds exciting, until you realize that 1 hour of effort on 20 projects each, will never be able to get the results that 5 hours of effort on 4 projects can, or better yet, that 20 hours of effort on 1 project does.

It’s very likely that you have just the right amount of resources to hit a home run on 1 project, if you focus your efforts. If you narrow the project list down and commit to taking a project through to its full realization, and find you continue to lack sufficient manpower or resources, you may be adding features, functionality, or "side projects" in the main project which are sucking resources away from the core tasks needed to get the job done. We love the concept of "Minimum Viable", and each quarter it becomes a popular buzzword among our founder team– "minimum viable cofounder"… "minimum viable sales process". When you cut down to the least amount possible, taking a minimum viable approach applies what you do have on hand to get mission critical things done, and frees up your time and energy to run the project in a more sane way.

#5. Things aren’t happening fast enough

If founders had their way, things would happen as soon as they thought them up. But in the business world, things don’t happen that way. Major departments take their time making purchasing decisions, customers require 6 or 7 interactions before buying the product, manufacturing requires long intervals of wait time, etc.

When founders are out of resources and the fate of the project is seemingly waiting on critical purchasing or funding decisions to move forward, it becomes imperative that the founder wait it out, if waiting is the necessary element. Sometimes things simply require time, in between steps in the process, and it’s critical for founders to recognize when waiting is the best action step you can take.

#6. Founder burnout.

After a certain level of high stress/low reward interactions or problem scenarios, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the high-intensity momentum and energy required to make it through the startup phase, after which things calm down and the project stabilizes.

Founders are typically achievement-oriented, workhorse, high-energy people, who can forget their human limitations in pursuit of opportunity and challenge. In just the right quantities, these traits will sustain a project through extremes that make high achievement possible. But without the buffers of down time, rest, and reward, founders are susceptible to burning out, just like anyone else.

Immediate solutions are a day off, vacation time, spending time with friends or family, sleep, and doing activities that are completely unrelated to work.

Long term solutions include decreasing the high-stress operating mode (it’s not actually necessary for getting things done!), bringing on a cofounder, meeting regularly with an advisor who can provide outside perspective, and setting up a work environment in which stress is moderated and burnout is consistently buffered against.

#7. Can’t find a good cofounder.

This problem can seem daunting– a startup project is "your baby", how can you find the right person to trust to share decision-making and control of the project’s future?

That is actually the real problem behind not being able to locate a cofounder– deciding to bring someone on, and being willing to give up complete control of the project’s direction.

There are plenty of talented, skilled people located in your city, or available within your industry. The task at hand is to a) define the role you need filled, b) locate 3-5 potential candidates you are serious about and c) give up enough control of the project, in an incrementally-staged, low-risk/low-commitment hiring process, so that you can bring a heavyweight cofounder on to help share the burden and opportunity of the project.

#8. Too wide a gap between what you currently have, and what you need to move forward.

Entrepreneurship requires getting comfortable with the unknown, with gaps & half-baked ideas and beta versions. It’s up to the founder to look as far down the path as you can visibly see and take action on as many situations as you can based on the resources you have available. Along the way, there are gaps and barriers that present themselves, and things can get uncomfortable.

When you’re staring at a situation that seems unsolvable, and you know clearly that you lack what is needed, you’ve just run into a gap. Here are a few options–

a. Generate alternative options

b. Identify someone who does have the resource or solution necessary, and approach them about a win-win value exchange

c. Ignore the gap for the present, move forward with what you can do until you have the resources or solution required to fill in that space

#9. Struggling to successfully accomplish the variety of tasks needed in the project.

This is a tricky situation– founders are expected to be jack-of-all-trades, willing and able to do any job the business requires, from CEO to janitor, and everything in between.

Yet, as multi-talented as founders are, it’s unlikely that they are good at, or even sufficiently skilled enough, to tackle all of the various departments of the business successfully. There’s a difference between doing something for the first time, and doing it right, and many entrepreneurs fail to perceive this difference.

Maybe you’re good at the technical skills, and can hack your way through finance and marketing collateral, but you completely fail at running a sales process. Unfortunately, the intuitive thing– to increase your skills in that area, or give it the old college try– isn’t necessarily the best option. 

Consider outsourcing things to others– having an intern run your books for you, or partnering with another entrepreneur to trade (I’ll set up your sales process, if you write my marketing content). It’s also likely that your peer entrepreneurs in the startup community are currently struggling with tasks you do well, and vice versa– why not trade tasks until you can bring on more manpower?

#10. Major progress in one or two areas of the project, lacking momentum in other critical areas.

This is related to #9, but different. By default, founders in high-stress scenarios will fall back on their strengths. So for a technical founder, they’re likely to code or work on product development, and to shy away from putting time & effort into the sales or biz dev end of the business. And vice versa for a biz dev founder.

The problem with this situation is that a business that is functioning on all cylinders, requires at least a triad of skills– biz, tech, and project management. Related to biz, the project requires consistently flowing revenue or funds, and constant business development. Related to tech, the project requires iterations, user testing, product development, specs from users regarding what they need/will pay for, etc. And project management requires tracking the time, team, resources, and overall milestones that keep the business above water and delivering value to customers on a regular basis.

If a founder hasn’t yet transitioned from a 1-man show to having a cofounder, or building out a full team, this problem becomes more compounded. The founder is likely to have a lot of progress in product development and almost none in business development. The first thing to do is to take a snapshot of where the project is at across all levels, and even out the pace, so that business development efforts are brought up to a relatively matched level of progress, and to grow the business forward across all categories at the same pace.

The Sum-Up

The interesting thing about entrepreneurship is that it’s such a fuzzy, intangible occupation. Most of the challenges listed above, and the daily grind of getting a business up & running, or getting a product to market, can’t be seen visibly or measured conclusively, and it requires a specialized skillset of relationship abilities, stress/crisis management, team/project management, business savvy, salesmanship, and a huge willingness to experiment and change.

A core need that founders have is to internalize a "playbook" of business, to have a mirror of reality in which they can see themselves and their projects clearly, and to identify landmines and critical decision points as they happen, and safeguard the project from dead end routes.

This is one of the most exciting things about the work we do in Portland Ten– working with founders to navigate through these problem situations more quickly, and to take the simplest, most effective path to launch & grow their projects.

What’s On Queue for Fall 2009

We’re looking forward to the next round of Portland Ten, starting September 21. We’re also excited to announce an open-enrollment, low-commitment, modified version of the full 18 month program, called Six Week Sprint, which you can read more about here.

Both the "10 at $1MM Program", and Six Week Sprint, have been specifically engineered to help founders get results and to make life in a startup a little bit easier. If you find yourself resonating with the challenges above and would enjoy being part of either of our fall teams, it’s not too late to apply– start by filling out the application for the $1MM by 2010 bootcamp here, or register for the Six Week Sprint here.

See you this fall!

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