Notes from the Nexus

Startup spirit

I had the good fortune to be at a client's offices today when they rang the bell - the "we closed another major sale!" bell. 

This is a very successful company, with about 50 people on staff now.  It's a great feeling to be around a group like this, especially when they're celebrating a success as they were today.  The entire company gathered near the foosball table (yes, they still have foosball tables here in Silicon Valley), and cheered the salesperson who was on the speakerphone calling in from Dallas.

Everyone went back to work right away (there's so much to do!), and you could feel the energy and excitement continue the rest of the day.

How to treat customers

A good read on how to treat customers was recently posted on Bankstocks.com, a website with "independent insights on the financial industry."  This post, by David M Martin, Chief Training Consultant, NCBS goes well beyond financial services - it's applicable to all businesses.  All of his examples, in fact, are from the airline industry. 

I like one of David's final remarks:  "Customers have a tendency to become like the kind of customers you treat them."  Treat them well, they'll be good customers.  Treat them poorly

Thanks to Scott Loftesness for pointing out this post!

Entrepreneurial Environment

Intriguing article in yesterday's Wall St. Journal (subscription required) on the barriers to entrepreneurship in many countries. What we take for granted as straightforward tasks here in the US are difficult and costly in other locales.  An example cited (below) is that in the Philippines it takes 11 days to go through the 50 procedures to legally start a business, at a cost equal to 19.5% of the average annual income.  Here in California it takes less than a day, and that includes dealing with both the Secretary of State and the Federal tax authorities.

The concept of the article is reminiscent of Hernando de Soto's great book:  The Mystery of Capital, where he explains in great detail the difficulty in most of the world (outside of Western Europe and the US) in creating a legal status for ownership of capital.

Makes one realize how lucky we are to be residents of a society with a deep network of laws supporting capital and easy processes to being an entrepreneur.

Innovation is Alive and Well!

I had the pleasure and honor last week of serving as a judge for the University of San Francisco International Business Plan Competition.  This is truly an international competition, with over 100 submissions from around the world.  All twenty of the teams selected came to San Francisco, from Singapore, the UK, the Philippines, India and all over the US.

The first event was the classic "elevator pitch" competition, where each team had 90 seconds to explain their business to the judges.  The San Francisco Chronicle had a great article on this part of the competition.  The next day the teams were split into groups of five and gave a much longer presentation, with a Q&A session with the judges.  The top teams from this stage, along with the highest ranked team from the elevator pitch, competed for the top prize on Saturday morning at USF's beautiful Lone Mountain campus. 

The creativity, energy and intelligence of the competitors was fantastic.  The experience was invigorating for me, and shows that there continues to be a strong entrepreneurial spirit  - not just here in the Bay area, but worldwide.

Congratulations to the winners, Harmonic Devices from UC Berkeley  who have developed the technology to allow a number of components cell phones to be made smaller and more cheaply.  Some other exciting submissions were an RFID-based toll system for parking lots (Spark Parking from  Northwestern), an "almost forever" battery replacement (Perpetua from University of Oregon, and the audience's favorite demo - the hibernating fish (Buhi Marine Supply from Silliman University, in the Philippines).

Actually, all the competitors warrant a hearty congratulations!