LeadsCon is here!

What an amazing event - and a great group of people!

LeadsCon Las Vegas starts on February 28. I have lost much sleep getting it ready, and for a good reason!  The top entrepreneurs, executives and associates of all levels in the lead generation industry have now been introduced to the idea of a social experience on ConnectFu.

The reaction is astonishing.

Here are some comments:

"THIS THING IS AWESOME THANKS" - all-caps to punctuate the sentiment.

"i love that you put search filters , this makes things a lot easier and puts me in contact with the right people." no caps... but a rather nice specific feedback

Praise for the organizer Jay: "Well, Jay has done it again. Good tool ay?"

And a post from the conversation wall: "Wow! Keep those appointments coming please:)Thanks guys!"

OK, one more from the wall: "This is definitely of big help Kate. Two thumbs-up!"

So no question - attendees love it!  The organizer?  Well, he got to remind people that the conference is coming up - with a big bang!  And is fielding questions about discount codes to register friends and colleagues at the last minute.

Actually, the organizer is a very old and dear friend and colleague, Jay Weintraub. After being out of touch for some years, we came back together on this project - and I could not have picked a better client.  Always a visionary, he has helped me define and tighten my vision of ConnectFu.

I read somewhere that startup entrepreneurs are often surprised by how many people come out to help from everywhere - and it is really true. One of my oldest friends, a top-notch sales person volunteered to help train my telemarketing team. Someone else helped define the UI. A fellow developer took several weekends out of an insanely busy schedule to sit side-by-side with me to help finish key features. A friend involved with the Pasadena Angels helped define a better revenue model. I am so grateful for all of these people, and am looking for the opportunity to make their life better too!

And now - two more small development tasks for my special LeadsCon'ers before the night is done....

Free market

Today, I digress from the business of ConnectFu to mouth off just a bit about the free market, price competition, black Friday and my notion of fairness and business contracts.

Do you outsource your development to India? Russia? China? How does your vendor feel about this? Is he grateful for the world free market that the Internet has created for the improved lifestyle? Or does he believe, you are a member of the American Bourgeoisie taking advantage of his inferior position?

I have discovered (honestly, to my own surprise!) that I could not work with the latter. In a conversation that ensued over Skype, we started talking about the Black Friday. My former designer expressed confusion over why prices were low. After my crash course in market competition, he got the idea, but continued to insist that it was bad for business. He began complaining about being paid less because he was not in the US, about the unfairness of it all, his inability to deliver a quality product for the rate he is forced to charge...

After a few rounds of this, two things became clear. First, that I was getting unduly upset and was spending my time trying to educate a random person from Nepal about capitalism instead of getting the much needed work done. Second, that I would never be willing to work with him again.

I believe that people in business must deal fairly, or no business partnership is possible. Any arrangement where one party feels cheated, taken advantage of, will not yield productive result. I cannot trust a man who works for me through perceived coercion of any form, while looking for an opportunity to strike back. Though, it is not just a matter of trust. I don't want to enter into an arrangement where my partner is not fully committed with his mind, energy and enthusiasm to the project, to me and the idea we are building together. The world is full of creative people. Yet, creativity's full potential can be put behind bars just as easily as the man that possesses it. Only when the choice is free, the arrangement is fair, and the future depends on one's actions, can one take advantage of what is inside of him.

Though taken aback initially, I stand behind my reaction now. I will only enter into a contract with a man who is fully free, who chooses his obligations and payment in accordance to his notion of fairness, and I will do the same. I will not accept the much needed investment dollars from a VC if I have any doubt that our partnership is equitable, nor will I accept a deal from another man who believes he deserves better.

So, what are your thoughts? Would you enter into an arrangement with a slave? How about a man that hates you for the audacity to create a contract with him? Or despises you for your western values? Or simply thinks that your payment is unworthy of him? Could your business survive without entering into such an agreement? Could it succeed if it does?

Startup weekend

Startup Weekend OC is coming up in less than two weeks. 

"Startup weekends are 54-hour events where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups!"

Starting on a Friday night with a series of sixty-second pitches, selecting ideas and splitting into teams, startup weekend helps entrepreneurial-minded people to go from concept to prototype over the course of a weekend.

For me, the startup weekend is primarily a personal development experience. With mentors available from every function of the startup culture, customer validation one of the explicit steps in getting to the finish line and hundreds of people passionate about some aspect of business in a single room, it is an experience any entrepreneur should probably go through at least once.

My specific priorities for the weekend, in order are,

• An unparalleled amount of fun
• The experience in fast-paced development of a business 
• The potential of meeting people I want to work with, hell, may be even a co-founder!
• A chance to learn about mobile app development (more on that below)
• Meet some of the investors and thought leaders present at the event

And one more... I am coming with an idea of my own. Check it out. This is the sixty-second pitch I am planning on presenting:

A mobile app available at any event, conference, or gathering, where networking is paramount, helps people do better. After speaking to a person, an attendee enters his encounter's name and jots down comments about the interaction and votes up or down. Within the first few minutes, a critical mass of those present has been entered, the data piles up and the best people to talk to are identified. Soon, one can select whom to approach, look at comments, and prepare for the conversation. The revenue is generated with sponsorship: "brought to you by Samson and Samson Partners, the best in start-up legal advice." To ensure participation, mobile app is introduced by a short speech and a raffle is offered to participants, creating a fun and jovial atmosphere, which encourages friendly manners and breaks the ice in the otherwise difficult experience of business networking.

Getting out of the office: pain and pleasure

The most ubiquitous  advice startups get is: get out of the office, talk to people, get your head out of the product and meet potential customers. Coming from a technology background and having spent the recent years working from my home office, this is a tall order.

First, what do you mean, get my head out of the product? As a true techie, I am never happy with what I've got: missing features, imperfect UI, technological debt that's accumulated - all those and more chain me to my desk in a frantic attempt to force the business to market by furious typing.

Second, talking to people, while extremely comfortable and pleasant in most contexts, can be painful and downright terrifying when your purpose is to convince them your product (you know, the imperfect, desperately underdeveloped, needing just one more feature product) is the next big thing they need.

Finally, each such encounter makes me realize just what a monumental task I have in front of me. The more I look, the more competition I see cropping up around me. I hear successful CEO's tell me that their idea in its infancy was downright unfundable (did you know, there was such a thing as an unfundable idea? Ugh..) And VC's explain that the key element in their looking at the business is a strong executive team... Whatever am I going to do about that? All I've got is me, and while I may be the world's finest flower, I have not made my mark. John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners came out and said, "We do not invest in first time founders."  Eh?

Two weeks ago I walked out of a "meet the VC's" event put on by LAVA and knew that I was one lost ant, separated from its tribe, making my careful way amidst the long-legged grasshoppers. (Read more about the terrifying experience in my last post.)

The surprising result is, the initial pain of such interactions is subsiding and I am starting to get the sense that, unlike in nature, there is a fairly straightforward path in an ant's evolution to the jumping, leaping and musical grasshopper, such as it is. Yesterday, I visited a Tech Coast Angels Mixer right here in Orange County. I'll digress just for a moment and tell you just how much I love it here in OC. Having moved only a few months back, we were delighted to discover this to be the friendliest and most comfortable place we have ever been!

The event was a delight. Organizers did not just offer the trite rhedoric of the form "we are here to help entrepreneurs" (read: "we are so awesome and important, touch us!") but were friendly, helpful, easy-going and infused the atmosphere with a sense of community and collaboration. My personal thanks to Amir Banifatemi for paying me the best compliment a person in the business of investment could: offering critique on my pitch after giving me a full three minutes of interested undivided attention.  Additionally, Jack Tsai, the chairman of the Fast Pitch LA competition , who had remembered ConnectFu for the best possible reason: the name stood out in his memory. (We receive a lot of criticism for our name, and this is comfort!)

Coming out of a series of three events now: LAVA, Caltech/MIT Enterprise forum and now Tech Coast Angels Mixer in OC, my vision is crystallizing. I have a better understanding for which of those "critical features" I need to focus on, what I need to accomplish before taking the company to market and I can see the Old-Green-Grasshopper I aim to be at the end of the tunnel.

LAVA Meet the VCs Review

Several days ago, I attended my first business networking event at LAVA. LAVA is an organization that helps entrepreneurs and investors get together. It is an amazing opportunity for its members and attendees and benefits so many in southern California!

Yet, if you have been to any function where entrepreneurs meet investors, you must be familiar with the emotional discomfort that such a function can induce in a novice. Unlike a social gathering, or an event between peers within an industry, the energy at this type of function bespeaks of a desperation to be heard, make contacts, be remembered.

I found myself standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by small groups of people, engaged in conversation that their literal survival depends on. What do you do? I quickly realized that standing around looking like an idiot was not going to be my thing. Insert myself into a group, disrupting its tense dynamic? The odds seemed in favor of making an ass of myself rather than a favorable impression.

I was not there to raise money, rather to enter the scene and get to know how it worked. So I started looking for familiar faces to try to engage within my comfort zone.  Nil. I turned my attention to people who seemed to be relaxed and enjoying each other's company. That seemed to be a successful recipe. It was not long before I found interesting people, made acquaintances and received much advice and even interest in my business!

Kelly O'Neil, Ryan Gregory and Kyle Slattery of CBIZ MHM & Mayer Hoffman McCann accounting firms just about made my day with their enthusiasm for ConnectFu and a very interesting application model I had never considered. Turns out, they are wishing for a system just like ours to help their college recruiting efforts at career fairs.  "Learn who is coming, put names to faces and continue the conversation long after the event" describes a solution to a profound pain in that business. I will be pursuing the investigation of this idea for weeks to come.

Speaking of pain... How much better this event would have gone for me had there been an opportunity to meet the people who were coming ahead of time! What a difference it would have made to walk into a room with some familiar faces, expecting a warm welcome from those I had engaged with online. Ironically, most of the investors ran out of business cards before the networking portion of the event started - admitting to it at the round table discussion during which I joined the other entrepreneurs and pitched ConnectFu, the "social exprerience platform for networking events such as this one - helping do away with business cards and put names to faces before the event." There were quite a few smiles as I got to repeat the pitch thirteen times over the course of the evening.

Having LAVA under our belt as a client would mean a great deal to ConnectFu. Yet, I am now on a mission to introduce our technology into this event for a much more personal reason: an amazing experience at the next event!

Next steps

While ConnectFu is still in its infancy, I have solidified its mission and short-term goals. I am now ready to publish this information and be accountable to myself (and, of course, to my imagined vast audience of friends and supporters) as I go through and achieve the milestones I have set.
 

Overview. ConnectFu offers a platform that creates a social experience for industry conferences and events that place a premium on attendees’ ability to connect and network.  We help people connect ahead of the event, plan their time, and make the event more effective for attendees and more competitive for organizers.

Our mission is to help do away with a stack of business cards, tired feet and missed opportunities by creating a place where attendees can get to know each other in time to meet on the floor of the event and continue the conversation started after the conference is over.

To move forward, we need to accomplish three basic things: improve the product, launch the sales operation and raise funds. Hah! Don't we all.  :-) Still, I have something more specific than that in mind.

Over the next month, say, by November 15, I would like to launch a critical feature for ConnectFu: a scheduler. After all, if we are going to help our attendees plan their time at the conference, our platform leaves something to be desired without a state-of-the-art scheduler as its centerpiece. Thankfully, I was able to discover that somebody else has done the bulk of the work for us. Dhtmlx.com, a company set in my birth city of St. Petersburg, Russia, has developed this beautiful suite of javascript tools, available for free to be integrated into your website. I've got a developer taking a wack at some customizations. I'll be able to set this milestone's deliverable as soon as I have that piece in my hand.

In the meantime, I am personally working another piece of technology critical to the success of any business in the social media space: integration with major social networks. Starting with LinkedIn, ConnectFu users will be able to log in, post messages, import profiles and invite friends into the network. I plan to have that completed by the end of this month.

Finally, the sales process. Katie Totoonchie, my right hand when it comes to customer development, has suggested that we outsource a sales organization to set up a test. With around a $500 out-of-pocket expense, we are hoping to have them generate leads, develop a script, and set enough appointments for a demo to generate 2,000 conference attendees. That's what - between one and five sales? Surely we can do this - by Xmas.

This is it - with those pieces in place: a reasonably mature product, an existing sales process, known statistics and prospect feedback, we will turn to investors for the Big Launch.

the journey's beginning

It has now been almost a year since I set out to build a product that was going to change the experience of business professionals attending networking conferences. Remember the last one you went to? The one that stands out for me is AdTech, 2005.

The CEO of Oversee.net had asked me to join the team going to San Francisco with an eye toward getting to know one of the vendors and understanding their product. It was a wonderful opportunity - getting away from the office, meeting a bunch of people that cared about the same thing that I did:  effective advertisement. The short flight from LA to San Francisco was enjoyable and by the time I arrived to the conference hall in the downtown SF area, I was all set to take over the world. The rest is kind of a blur.  I wandered the venue, engaged in short conversations, collected a stack of business cards, random materials, trade show goodies. Eventually finding myself starved, exhausted and a little dizzy from everything that was going on, I sat down to eat. I still had not met the vendor I was looking for. The thought of traversing the tradeshow floor was overwhelming. My feet hurt, my throat was dry, and I was mentally tired of small talk. Pulling myself together, I eventually located their booth and asked the questions necessary to report to my boss. Truth is, I was no longer engaged. I only had one agenda: get out of there, get out of my shoes, and find a place where I could deposit my tired body and get the whirl of the day processed.

My plan for ConnectFu, my new venture, was simple: create a more effective experience for other people like me. Help them plan their day, meet whom they want to connect with ahead of time, fill up their schedule and rely on the calendar instead of athletic ability to make the most out of the event.

Today ConnectFu, though not yet a mature competitor in the market place, has nonetheless entered the arena and held its own at several events. We have had a very warm reception and had many people express gratitude for bringing the tools to aid in their experience.

I am now beginning the phase of bringing my product to the broad marketplace. Technology milestones, sales effort, fund raising are all in the works and I would like to tell you my story as I go along. Thanks for visiting.