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I was recently introduced to a guy over email who I finally had the chance to speak with yesterday.  Very smart guy who has had a successful career to this point at various big corporations and currently works for one of the most successful consumer electronic companies in the world.  So when the subject of doing market research came up, I was shocked when he basically told me there was no budget for consumer research for any of their many products.  What?  I thought all big companies did this?  Apparently, they don’t allocate money to this so instead of hiring some outside firm to poll a bunch of random people in the product’s target market to hopefully gain insight into buying behavior, useage, etc.  Essentially, he said, they bootstrap it.  They write their own questions, then started sending them out to friends and family over email.  He said they were fortunate enough to have some people who had backgrounds in this so it was a little easier but still, I was in awe.

It just goes to show there is no right way to do things.  If a billion dollar, brand name, B2C company doesn’t spend a dime on consumer research, should your negative cash-flow start-up spend money on this?

Today, it’s easier than ever to start a company, but building a company will always be as hard as it’s ever been.  ~Michael Karnjanaprakorn is the CEO/Co-Founder of Skillshare

This morning I read a piece about how New York Jet’s head coach Rex Ryan is in trouble because the style he implemented has backfired.  The author suggests once this happens, there is no turning back.  An interesting discussion for a different day.  What really caught my eye, because it’s essentially what started this quiet notion that the Jets are in trouble, is what their 4th string, rookie quarterback said on public radio a couple days ago.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever been around extremely selfish individuals . . .’’ he said on 97.3 The Zone. “There were people within our locker room that didn’t care whether we won or lost as long as they … had good games individually.’’

“Quite frankly, if you go down the roster this year, there’s no reason we shouldn’t have made a Super Bowl run.’’

“The disappointing thing is . . . it doesn’t matter how much talent you have. If you don’t come together as a group and just figure things out and kind of withstand difficulties of the season, you’re never going to amount to anything.’’

Wow. Just wow. The guts Greg McElroy had to say this publically about the Jets, a veteran team, is remarkable to me.  He basically just called out everyone on the team, literally all of which are currently ahead of him in job security.  Wow.

So besides having a “brass set”, why would he do this?  I think it’s for two reasons.  He is a QB so by his very nature he is a leader. I think one way to contribute to making your team better from a 4th string QB’s perspective is by doing something brash such as this. I think he wants his team to get better and I think he knew what he was saying.  He was trying to light a fire for change and thus far it is working. Secondly, and more importantly,  McElroy has a case of the “don’t cares”.  He went on that radio program with the attitude that I’m going to do my part and I’m going to say what needs to be said and I don’t care if there are reprocussions.  He figured the worst case is he loses his roster spot on the team….who cares.  (Incidentally, the reason I think this was very calculated and the reason I think he can have the “don’t cares” especially as a rookie is because he was a candidate to be a Rhodes Scholar at one point.  Football is not his only outlet to being successful…and he knows it.)

I say congrats to him. He is the exact type of guy you need to have on your team and in your company.  Why?  Because you get his educated opinion…unfiltered.  There is no office politics, there is no kissing up, there is no hesitation.  That person is going to tell you what they think whether they think its what you want to hear or not.  That doesn’t mean you need to listen.  That doesn’t mean you are going to be happy about it or that the rest of your team is just going to accept it and move on.  But it does mean you know you have at least one person in your camp who is going to challenge you at all times and keep you honest.  He is going to force an conversation to be had.  You say one thing and do another…guess who is going to call you on it.  You made a tactical error in a critical marketing vertical by overriding your Marketing VP and now you are weighing another override?  Wrong, because I’m going to let you know about it.

I say “I” because I I can relate to the “don’t cares” as I try to live this mindset myself.  The longer I’ve applied it, the more powerful I think it is.  If you can go into a situation, work or otherwise, with the “give it your all” attitude and don’t worry about being PC or the amount of panties you are sure to bunch up, your message is more powerful and true.  Most people can’t fathom this and frankly, disagree.  I say, make people think differently, play devil’s advocate…if that makes people uncomfortable then so be it. Comfort is the root of all trouble in companies. You must constantly challenge and reinvent.

The one caveat I have learned along the way is that this maverick way of conducting business ONLY works if you have the company’s best interests at heart at all times.  That must be what’s guiding your thought process.  If you are just a hot air spewer, like to hear yourself talk or are simply trying to impress the boss, it doesn’t work.  Your intentions must be pure.

The best teams are the most diverse teams. I’ve written about championship teams having ”glue” guys to make them better.  Hiring someone for your team who has the “don’t cares” but has your company’s future at heart, is one of the best things you can do.  Resistance to this idea is most likely rooted in comfort….comfort to underachieve.  Just ask Rex Ryan and the Jets.

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. – Michael Jordan

This was not your traditional football hire. You must keep in mind, KU fans tasted a BCS win when it won the Orange Bowl just 4 short years ago. (K-State and Mizzou have yet to win a BCS game.) So our expectations were raised because Mangino proved you could do it. Then came Turner…a guy Lew Perkins felt like he had to hire to ensure no other corruption would take place inside the KU athletic department. Oh, and he seemed to have some upside. Well, obviously that backfired, in a big way. KU set multiple records last year for being one of, if not the, worst team in KU football history and one of the worst in the entire country. Turner was not Zenger’s guy, so he is out. The problem is, KU fans are pissed. They want another Orange Bowl, not to get blown out by your in-state rival two years in a row at home. So what do you do? You certainly can’t hire another coach from DII. Almost nobody hires a coach who has just been fired (ie: Jack Del Rio). There are plenty of re-treads begging for a shot (ie: Gary Barnett) but they’ve been out of the game too long and/or are too old. So what do you do? You’ve got to make a splash…you need a name… and you focus on a hire that brings you the two most important things to be successful in college as a coach. First recruiting and second a great quarterback. Think about it. Think about all the programs who have success. They are the best recruiters (chicken and egg) and all of them have an above average to great quarterback. Well guess what? Old Charlie Weiss can get into any living room of any college senior in the country. You think Sonny Dykes would have that chance or anyone else on our coaching wish list? No way. Second, you cannot argue that everywhere Weiss has been, he has had great quarterback play. Some because he can develop average QBs into above average QBs (ie: Matt Cassell, Brady Quinn) and some because he identifies talent and then knows how to develop it. I’m sold. This hire is solid and the more I analyze it, I’m not sure Leach or Fedora would have been better.

So let’s look at the number one argument from people who hate this hire. “If you can’t do it at Notre Dame, how are you going to do it at Kansas?” I think that is fair statement but let’s take a closer look. I will grant you Notre Dame typically has a top 25 recruiting class coming through the door each year before anyone even leaves South Bend to recruit. That’s the beauty of the Notre Dame job. But have you considered over the last 20 years, they have only 2 ten-win seasons? Same as KU. Weiss was just one of many high profile coaches who have found it more difficult than billed to build back up the tradition rich program. Also consider, they aren’t playing a brutal schedule either…with the service academies annually on their schedule so that’s not an excuse. Personally I think Notre Dame is just a different animal. No other program in the world is like it, for many reasons, and I think that contributes to the lack of success they’ve had. The program has just not adjusted to the current landscape.

The other thing that popped in my mind when I heard Weiss was hired was “recruiting”. Recruiting is a grind, for any coach. It is one of the primary reasons most really successful college coaches jump to the pros…because you don’t have to recruit. It takes a toll on everyone and it seems odd a guy who was last seen walking with a cane or scooting around on a Jazzy would want to jump back into the grind. But the more I think about it, I think this is really a positive. It’s hard to argue Weiss couldn’t have landed an O-Coordinator job in the NFL next year….it’s probably a standing offer from a few teams. But he didn’t do that. He wants college. He wants to clear his name and make sure everyone knows how smart he is and how good of coach he is. He’s been at multiple college programs before and he knows the recruiting grind firsthand, yet he willfully stepped up and accepted the challenge at a university that currently might be one of the hardest places to recruit to. I like it. College is all about hussle and I think Charlie just got his second wind. Plus, make no mistake, he is just the closer…the assistants do all the really tedious recruiting. The key to Charlie’s success will come down to hiring great recruiting assistants and a great D coordinator. The rest he’s already got covered in his bag of tricks.

Last thought…”if he is successful or is not successful, he’s out of here in 3 years.” That’s another common comment I’ve heard. First, that may be true, but that is not the main consideration for KU right now. We have to get this thing turned around. We had to take some risk on who we hired. The “safe” play was already made with Gill and we know how that turned out. If Weiss has success, and wants a ridiculous contract in 3 years to stay, then we cross that bridge but right now we need help. Second, if he does leave, we are in a great position to make another great hire. Third, I don’t think you can assume he leaves. He is getting older and yes I am biased but I can think of only a handful of programs in the country that would be as great of place to put your mark on if you were able to turn this thing around. KU has tradition, they have moxy, they are waiting to crown someone king. It can be done and if you are the one to do it, I think it’s real hard to leave a place that will make you God for the rest of your life. We’ve already proven that the money will be right if you are successful (and even if you are not). People think Weiss has been a quitter every place he’s gone. That’s not true. He was fired once from the program who just a couple years before re-upped his contract big-time in fear he would go back to the NFL or has taken a promotion. Can you blame him for taking a promotion? This is his shot, maybe his last as a head coach. He knows what’s involved and he knows the Kansas program from a close distance.

I like this hire…a lot. Welcome Charlie Weiss and congratulations Zenger…you just made a great hire and I, for one, am once again proud to be a Jayhawk football supporter.

You might not have known that last week was Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW).  That’s okay because I think it will become a bigger and bigger deal in the next decade as our economies rely more heavily on start-up job creation and innovation.  As part of GEW, I attended a first time event held here in Kansas City where 3 entrepreneurs from much different walks of life talked about how to get your first customer and start-up life in general.  It was a great discussion but there was one guy I went specifically to hear…Bo Fishback.  If you don’t know of him, Google him, he has done a lot in the entrepreneurial space including heading up some Kauffman Foundation initiatives and he currently runs Zaarly, a peer-to-peer commerce play, who just raised $14.1M in the Valley and added Meg Whitman (formerly eBay, currently HP CEO) to their Board.  Essentially he has a unique opinion as he has been on “both sides of the table”.  As you can imagine, he said a bunch of interesting things but one that has really stuck with me are these two words.  “Nobody knows”.  Your investors don’t know.  Your mentors don’t know.  Your advisors don’t know.  Nobody knows.  Nobody knows if your product or service will be successful.  Nobody knows.

I seriously think this might be the best statement to remember as an entrepreneur.  Nobody knows.  You can be the smartest person in the world, with the most experience in a space, with all the capital you need and unlimited resources at your disposal but nobody knows if your idea will be successful.

Nobody knows…until you are.

Lifted from Jason Crawford’s blog HERE.

From a post titled The 10,000 Hour Rule by Steven Pressfield:

To speak in one’s own voice means to let go of all the other voices in our heads. Whose voices? The voices of what is expected of us. Yes, that means the voices of our parents, teachers, mentors. But it means something more elusive too. It means our own expectations of what we should be doing or ought to be thinking—what is “normal” or “right” or “the way it ought to be.” …

In terms of the aspiring writer, we sit down and try to write the way we think writers write. If we’re painting, we paint like painters paint—or dance like dancers dance. What this means of course is that we’re writing like somebody else writes and painting like somebody else paints and dancing like somebody else dances. …

How does the actor get past his own excruciating self-consciousness? How does the entrepreneur come up with an idea that’s really new? The answer is they both beat their heads against the wall over and over and over until finally, from pure exhaustion, they can’t “try” any more and they just “do.”

Google was late to search.

Facebook was late to social networking.

Apple was late to the MP3 player.

Where would we be if they listened to everyone who said they were too late?

It’s never too late.

Just do it better.

~compliments of http://nxtgn.tumblr.com/post/11899180329/never-too-late

Like most, I am a strong believer that “local” is the ultimate.  The more personalized, relevant information you can provide me as a consumer, the more I’m paying attention.  With that being said, some “local” ideas are bad…really bad.  Lately, I’ve seen multiple start-ups trying to solve the local retailer/ consumer shopping experience equation.  That is, when you enter a grocery store for instance, what do you do?  What is your shopping pattern?  Why did you pick the Heinz 57 Ketchup instead of the Hunt’s ketchup?  Did you not see the Hunt’s?  Would you have picked the Hunt’s instead if you got a mobile coupon sent to your phone as you were standing in front of them comparing prices?  What did you buy after ketchup…mustard, then hotdogs?

All interesting questions and yes the reatailers would love to know this information.  The manucturers too.  And believe me the companies developing these location-based tracking serives would love to sell it to them.  There is just one problem.  The vast majority of consumers don’t want this.  I don’t want to receive mobile coupons as I shop!  There, I said it. Can you imagine how this would work?  Your phone would be pinging you every 5 steps with new offers.  Talk about annoying.  No thanks.  Some things are better left as they are and retail shopping is one of them.  Sure I’m all for innovation and maybe someone will solve it in a non-obtrusive manner but I can tell you for sure, non of the companies out there right now have given much credit to what the consumer wants. Just a minor detail.

I am done with it.  Seriously, I don’t want to give you customer feedback.  I don’t have any complaints or else I would give you feedback.  What is the point of giving feedback anyway when the service rep I spoke with asks me to rate them a 10 on everything?  It is a joke.  I have UnitedHealthcare calling my cell multiple times per day trying to reach my wife about her stay in the maternity ward.  I have Sprint taking up more time than it took to answer my question by essentially asking me to promise them positive reviews if I get called and now I have Quickbooks doing the same thing.  Just stop.  Step back…that is not the customer experience you are looking for.  You are wasting my time.  If you want feedback, you need to give me something.  Money-back, extra minutes, discounts.  Quit wasting my time for your benefit.  Telling me the reward is excellent customer service is B.S.  Look what it has led to.  Do something different and quit wasting time.  Make it easy for customers to provide feedback BUT ONLY IF THEY PRO-ACTIVELY WANT TO!  Thank you for letting me vent, now would you kindly take the time to answer some questions about your experience while reading my blog post today?  It will only take a couple minutes and will help us provide you better service in the future.