Author: Nicole Glaros

The Value of the Zero (and why community matters)

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I originally posted this for my friends over at BoulderStartup.org & Silicon Flatirons – they’ve been hugely supportive to the Boulder Startup Scene and I’m thrilled to be a resource to them.  Check them out!

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Getting my entrepreneurial start – I was still in college.  I was riddled with student loan debt, I was eating at all-you-can-eat restaurants and stuffing food in ziplock bags in my backpack.  I was working my way through school and remember lying to friends about being unable to join them for a movie because I couldn’t afford the $5 ticket.  I was one of the lucky ones, my parents were paying for my tuition; I just had to pay for everything else.

It was during that time when I started my first company.  It was an online retailer focused on selling to the property management industry, and my dad was my business partner.  My dad was the brains behind the operation, I was the braun.  I didn’t realize this last part until later though; I thought I was the brains.  I spent 1 measely, pathetic day scoping out the market and learned we would be the first online retailer targeting in this space.  I came up with a product set for the online store (2,000 products!).  Then I had to figure out how to build a dynamic, database-driven website when the extent to my tech competence was limited to all-nighters fighting my friends on Doom (which we did on our 2400 baud connection). Then I had to figure out how to market and advertise the site.  I muddled my way through it with a lot of hard work, luck, and encouragement.

I had nothing back then.  Nothing.  No money, no family, no husband, no assets of any sort.  I had to cover my $600/mo in living expenses (rent, food, gas, beer).  Well, I thought I had nothing.  But from an entrepreneurs perspective, I had everything.  When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose.  And when you have nothing to lose, the only thing you have to fear is the fear of failure.  Luckily for me I had a family that never let me be fearful of failure.  They encouraged me to take risks, to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and helped me realize that I could easily start over and wouldn’t really lose anything but would gain experience that was worth more than success could ever garner.

My family was my ‘startup’ community back then.  Boulder has become my startup community now.  Most people here are surprisingly supportive of startups.  Boulder isn’t a place that fears failure.  I’d say it openly embraces it.  You’ll talk to lots of people that are starting something or wish they were.  Successful entrepreneurs, investors, mentors, and peers alike will take your meetings.  People will encourage you, and you need that encouragement to take the first leap.  So if you’re in Boulder and you’re thinking about starting your first company – do it.  But do it wisely.  Here’s my quick action plan for getting started.

  1. Don’t be fearful of failure.  It’s the most crippling, self-inflicted handicap around.
  2. If you have much to lose in the way of assets, just have a backup plan.  What’s the worse case scenario?  What happens if you really do have to declare bankruptcy?  Might be a nice opportunity to wipe away all that debt anyway – could be a blessing in disguise.
  3. Don’t live inside your own head.  Get feedback on everything.  I guarantee one thing in your startup – you will be wrong.  Talk to customers, get yourself an advisory board, talk to experienced entrepreneurs.  They can all help steer you past the obstacles which derail even the smartest of people.
  4. Learn how to accept feedback, even negative feedback.  Don’t take it personally.  Know when to utilize it, when not to, and how to communicate with those whose advice you don’t follow.
  5. Don’t come up with an idea.  Find your areas of passion, then find a problem where people will pay for a solution.  I’m amazed at how many entrepreneurs get this wrong.
  6. Build your team and know everyone’s strengths and weaknesses.  In my opinion, this is the hardest part for the entrepreneur.  It’s like finding your spouse.
  7. When you commit, go all-in.  Stack the odds in your favor by focusing on it 100%.
  8. Love it.

I’m older now, with much more on the line.  But I’m in Boulder, and I’ve surrounded myself with entrepreneurs that are taking risks every day, with much more to lose than I ever had.  Those founders and this town give me the courage and the inspiration to know that I’ll start another company one day.  But not for a while – I love what I’m doing too much to call it quits yet. 🙂

Community Office Hours – get ’em while they’re hot

Nicole Glaros1 Comment

I get tons of meeting requests for individuals looking to pitch their business idea, or introduce themselves, maybe they’re new to town, or looking for a job.  I love meeting with people, and to make sure I can continue to accommodate the growing number of requests, I’ve set up community office hours.

If you want to meet with me for whatever reason, sign yourself up here. Looking forward to meeting you!

Best of luck to TechStars teams today

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Today marks the 2nd Demo Day for the TechStars NYC class.  They have continued to impress us, and I suspect today will be no different given the amount of funding that has already gone into the teams before the program even ended.

If you’re an accredited investor – you can watch the Demo Day Live Webcast.  Tweet at me (@nglaros) and I’ll give you the login info.

If you’re not an accredited investor, Launch.is is live blogging it here.

Go teams GO!

 

Windows in Mexico

Nicole Glaros2 Comments

I’ve never had a bad experience on CraigsList.  Sure, I’ve had lots of people TRY to change that statistic for me, but it seems pretty obvious when someone is trying to scam me on CL.

But I love selling things on Craigslist.  I always meet the most interesting people.

My husband and I are finishing our basement, and we just swapped out the crappy alumnimum windows for the  slightly less-crappy home-depot-vinyl kind.  We had 4 aluminum windows to sell on Craigslist, and the guy that bought them was awesome.  He and his wife are building a house, in their driveway, on a truck, that they’re planning on transporting to Mexico.  They bought a little piece of land somewhere on the beach for next to nothing and are planning on dropping that house on it.  Saves them the headache from building in Mexico.  Anyway, it’s fun to think that those shitty windows will end up retiring in Mexico much sooner than I will.

So long windows – happy to hear you’re going from my dark, dusty, underground basement to a beachfront view in Mexico somewhere.  And I’m so happy I’m in some stupidly small way enabling that couple’s dream of Mexico!

 

I’m in bank-love

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I’m in the process of switching banks.  My current bank, Compass Bank, was a small community bank that I loved for many reasons, but was recently acquired by BBVA and now they suck.  In the last few months, I bet I’ve accumulated over $250 or $300 in fees simply because I don’t read my mail all that frequently, and I don’t balance my checkbook monthly like I probably should. So in the process of searching for a new bank, I’ve come to learn that I’m a demanding customer.  I want everything, I want it to be free (or at least modest and predictably consistent), and the very last thing I want to do is ever think about or deal with my bank.

For instance, I was shocked at how many banks wanted me to think about my account balances all the time.  If the balance dropped below a certain point, they were going to charge me.  What?  Really?  You’re charging me for the privlidge of having access to my money and loaning it out to others?  I don’t think so.

I was surprised at how many things they wanted to fee me for.  Statement?  Fee.  Overdraft protection.  Fee.  Using another bank’s ATM?  Fee.  Using the ATM at all?  Fee.  Online access?  Fee.  Check images?  Fee.  Quit nickle and diming me to death (what BBVA Compass did to me)

I was surprised at the number of banks that were proud of the # of branches or ATMs they had.  I don’t ever want to visit a branch, ever.  An ATM occasionally is nice, but I’m not driving out of my way for it.  So don’t boast about the # of ATMS you have, but rather boast about the fact that I could use any atm, anywhere, for free.  Now that’s convenient.

I was also shocked to see the number of banks that wouldn’t let me open an account online.  You mean I have to come in?  Really?

And I was shocked to see the number of options I had for various checking and savings and business accounts.  There you go making me think about my account again.  Just give me a checking account and a savings account with some competitive interest. The rest of it I assume should be included (statements, ATMS, online access, transferability, etc)

I’ve recently discovered USAA and am in total bank-love.  I could open the account online, transfer $ from my non-USAA accounts, deposit checks with my iPhone (LOVE THIS!), they pay all my non-USAA ATM fees up to $15/mo, the list goes on and on.  They just understood me.  They made banking a non-issue in my life.  My only hope is they open small business accounts next.  (By the way, what’s the difference?  A checking account should be a checking account.  I want all the same features, who cares what kind of entity owns the account?)

So bravo USAA.  I applaud you for fundamentally understanding your customers – they’re such a passionate group that they take time out of their busy lives to write blog posts about you.

(disclaimer – I’m not being compensated in any way by USAA for writing this.  I’m just that happy I found them).

 

My perfect application video

Nicole Glaros7 Comments

I’ve been looking at TechStars applications basically nonstop for the last couple of days.  I thought I would put together some tips on my dream application video for teams that are still applying – since I know how much effort everyone puts into these!

1.  SHORT.  < 2 minutes short.  Maybe go for 3 minutes, but that’s the max.  A majority of the videos I’ve been watching are +5 minutes – let’s do a little math…  Let’s say I get 500 applicants (expecting much much more), and 85% of them have videos.  That’s 2,125 minutes or nearly 40 hours of just watching videos.  That’s not including the time to read your application, think about what you’ve written, or click through and play with your site.  I tend to not watch longer videos – I skip through to find the important parts and am probably missing some gem of information.

2.  I want to see the team, get a feeling for the personality of the founders, and see a demo of the product.  This is hard to do in 2 minutes, but you can do it.  I’ve seen lots of great videos accomplish this;  the time makes you focus on what matters.  Take a look at TechStars Boulder 2010 company, ScriptPad’s video.  While you can’t see the founders in this video, it didn’t matter because they were renting space from the Bunker at the time, so I saw them nearly every day.

3.  Use humor!  Well, unless you don’t have a sense of humor.  Don’t be something that you’re not.  But I’m looking at a lot of videos, help me enjoy yours.  My favorites include founders showing their personalities.

4.  If you password protect the video, please include the password in the app.  Seems like common sense, but it’s amazing how many people forget, and it makes me do one extra step.

5.  Don’t spend time on things like advanced animation and fancy screens.  Sure, it makes it look pretty, but all that tells me is that you know how to do video.  Spend time where it matters, on the team and on the product.  🙂

6.  A small pet peeve of mine – please don’t demo your login screen unless its something other than username/password.  I’m going to watch 500 videos and every single login process is identical (unless of course you’re doing some fancy retinal scan with your webcam, THAT would be sweet!)  Save me the 10 seconds.

7.  Have fun doing it!

A perfect day in Boulder

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Today is one of those perfect Boulder days.  I got the chance to take my 11 month old daughter to swim class this morning, my first time really swimming with her.  I'll be shocked if she's not doggie paddling by the summer.  She's a total natural in the water and absolutely loves it.  

Now, I'm sitting outside, getting through my to-do list, enjoying a large cup of coffee, in the 65+ degree weather (in mid-february!).  Breezy, views of the mountains from my backyard, sun is warm on my back.

I love it.  No better place on earth.

Design is the new black

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I attended BDNT last night in Boulder. It was my first time in a while, given my 10 month old daughter. It’s good to get out because often I’m so laser focused, I forget to look around once in a while.

At the start, Robert Reich gave some predictions for 2011, one of which was Design is the New Black (he got this from somewhere, I cannot remember where). I’m not designer, but I’m fanatical about usability and design, and I wonder why more companies don’t do this. I think there are two big companies in the US that are arguably the best at it. TiVO, and Apple.  My mom regularly breaks electronics, she still doesn’t know what copy/paste is on a computer, and doesn’t know how to create a folder.  But she loves her iPhone and her TiVO. I love them too because my mom never calls me to help her figure out how to do something on either device.

This morning, I opened up my December 2010 copy of Wired Magazine (yes, behind on reading too).  And there it was – another fantastic lesson in design and usability.  Wired took it upon themselves to update a blood test report from a lab.  By quickly reading their re-design, you could see what was concerning, where your results fell in comparison to normal, and actions to take to bring the items of concern back to normal.  The design took it from just data, to knowledge and insight.  I love it.  I’m not relying on my doctor to interpret the results (or to tell me everything on the chart), I’m not relying on my memory to remember what the hell I’m supposed to look out for.  I’m pretty sure I would get more tests and more blood workups, just to get this kind of knowledge about my body.  Look at that, design breeds spending.

I really wish someone (uhem, GOVERNMENT) would do this for our taxes.  Granted, there would have to be some visibility into what the hell the government spends our money on.  But still.  I would love to see it.  Here’s one company that got close to doing this.

I also wish the TV/BlueRay/cablebox/receiver/xbox/DVR/ guys would get their stuff together and put some usability into making all of those devices play nice.  My dad has the Harmony remote, which was a valiant effort, but not even close to getting there.  I don’t blame them, they’re trying.  I still need 4 remotes to either watch TV, play a movie, or play xbox.  Look people, it’s not hard.  On.  Off.  Volume up down.  Channel forward/back.  Play, stop, FF, RW.   Select Device.  Really.  I can’t even mention trying to set it all up.  You should see the insane mess of cables hiding behind the TV.  At some point, I just gave up and started pluging things in to any slot.  Eventually it worked.

I tried to heat up some food at my folks house over the holidays in their microwave.  I literally couldn’t figure out how to turn it on.  WTF?  My mom (oh the irony) had to show me how to turn on the microwave for 15 seconds.  All you need is Time, Power Level, Start, Stop.  Speed cook, slow cook, defrost meat vs defrost veggies vs convection, fan high, fan low.  Seriously people.  Over-engineered.

This all brings me to my point.  I agree.  Design is the new black.  I think people will pay for less features but easier usability and cleaner designs.  LESS features people.  I think if you need to include a manual, it’s already too complicated.  I think UI/UX developers will be the superstars of the software world.  So as we’re moving into TechStars Boulder Season #5, I’d love to see some teams that get how important design and usability will be.  The key?  Don’t think you know how to design.  Let your users tell you.