Last week’s circuit of events for me began with the Social Media Club Austin and ended with 4 days in Atlanta, partly there in the tech scene and concluding with the Georgia Tech Homecoming scene.

Here are some timely notes from the week:

From the SMCA, moderated by Tim Hayden of 44Doors and featuring Rachel Ouens of Mutual Mobile, Steve Guengerich of Appconomy, Erik McMillan of BestFit Mobile, and Rick Orr of Tabbedout:

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Steve Guengerich has concluded that all the gold in mobile will be in a bank in China and has partnered with Neusoft there to tackle that exploding market with a multi-function platform.  

Rick Orr has claimed the term “Far Field Communications” to describe tabbedout’s ability to let you close out after you’ve gotten into the cab for the ride home.

The group generally agreed there is more collaboration than competition among them because there is so much demand and sharing even of things like code libraries can be to everyone’s benefit.

Phones get higher usage than tablets, but tablets are where the money is spent.

Merchants hold some level of consumer trust and can overcome concerns about mobile payments.  But, there needs to be more transparency about data collection and usage.

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Erik McMillan cited the statistic that only 1% of apps are opened 90 days or later after they are first downloaded.  It’s a hit driven business.  Building an overnight app is likely to result in a hobby more so than a revenue stream.

Rachel Ouens commented on things that are not working:  Blender, Sonar, Bump, etc.   People don’t particularly want to meet strangers.  Too many apps invite users to share things they don’t want to share or that nobody cares about.  QR codes were hot for a while but just aren’t natural in use and may be on the way out.

Many brands that have tried the mobile space are unhappy and turning to new developers for “do-overs.” They have been getting no downloads and no ROI.   They need to view mobile as a source of content creation or to leverage loyalty programs, coupons, etc.

After some discussion about waiting for older consumers to die off so newspapers and magazines could become totally digital, it occurred to me that tabbedout might add an “eternity” feature for those who are permanently departing and will no longer require newsprint.

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I arrived in the ATL on the heels of Venture Atlanta.   Jesse Dyer (relation) covered the first day – startups – and that was followed by a day of A, B and/or C round presentations.

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If you are not a long-time resident of Atlanta and want to see a comprehensive video of the history of its technology community, look at this documentary prepared by John Yates and his team at Morris, Manning & Martin.  As a relative newcomer to Austin, I’d sure like to see something similar here.

At any rate, VA’s startup day was very well received with all the presentations above average.  Women entrepreneurs were present in force and brought some welcome diversity.

I toured the new Flash Point facility in Tech Square, an open room with a well supported YCombinator model (sans the $150K graduation gift), and the energy there was palpable. Word also came of several new funds being raised and readied for deployment to deals that fit the Atlanta style.

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On the other hand, I heard several people say the second day’s presentations at VA by more advanced companies generally weren’t nearly as well done.  Evidently it’s never too late to take advantage of some solid coaching on that all important investor pitch.

I commented in my post last week about Atlanta’s boosterism at VA, and a good friend reminded me of an old line (unattributed) that someone stated in the early 90’s during the run up to the Olympics bid, paraphrased:  “If Atlanta sucked as hard as it blows, the Atlantic would be pulled forward a couple of hundred miles and the town would have beachfront property.”  Hey it worked!

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The Tech-Clemson game was a thriller.  The final was 31-17 Tech, but the suspense was greater than the score suggests.  There was one major moment that is worth noting for its implications to entrepreneurs:

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With Tech leading 31-10 and about to score from the 1-yard line, a Clemson lineman jumped over the Tech line prior to the snap and caused a fumble, which Clemson recovered in its own end zone.  This was a blatant offside penalty, but it was not called and was not reviewed.  (Tech coach Paul Johnson later used the words:  “We got hosed.”)  Clemson got the ball and marched 99+ yards in the ensuing drive to make it 31-17.

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The good news is that the outcome of the game was not affected.  But, the lesson is that not all your competitors will play by the rules, and they may or may not get caught when they don’t, so you have to be prepared to stick with your own game plan and not get thrown mentally off balance.  Many of the rules of business changed during the Recession, and there were plenty of developments in the “life’s not fair” category.   Being a successful entrepreneur has much to do with living with such ambiguity and ever changing circumstances and finding a way to prevail in the end. Paul Johnson did just that by running out the clock with an ever-so-methodical ground game in his basic triple-option.

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Over the course of this year I’ve seen early stage presentation venues ranging from Launch in San Francisco, Startup Riot in Atlanta, Demo Day here in Austin, and many recurring angel forums in between in Austin and Atlanta.  It’s good to see now that Venture Atlanta has added an early stage segment to its agenda.  This fall institution, held in the Georgia Aquarium, is one around which all the local sponsor dollars have coalesced, and it draws investors from across the country.  It’s got that good old-fashioned Georgia boosterism, as you can easily see on the Twitter stream #VA2011.   (Caution, there’s a Fairfax County, VA ballot initiative that seems to be using the same hash tag.)  But, that’s the style that secured the 1996 Olympics and has paid great dividends for the city over many decades.

VA historically has been the showcase for the later stage firms that could have been said to be warming up their IPO roadshows, and the investor mix was a good match for that.  Adding startups to the stage should attract investors who play at that level and should add some pizzazz to the overall event.   I’m not quite sure if it will rise (or sink perhaps) to the level of Launch where a notable on-stage jurist interrupted one presenter with:  “Stop there, I’ll write you a f**king check.”

I was unable to attend due to showing a product myself at the Texas Wireless Summit, but my son Jesse (@jessebdyer), the CEO of NightRaft, graciously volunteered to attend and file a first-hand dispatch for TechDrawl.  Here are his observations as a VA first-timer:

It's 955 miles from Atlanta to Austin but the tech scenes in each city are a world apart.   T-Shirts vs Suits really sums it up.  The laid back, imaginative, vibrant and fun atmosphere of Capital Factory Demo Day showed the Austin tech scene at its best.   The high-brow, high-tech, more regimented and community celebratory atmosphere at Venture Atlanta is a spot-on reflection of Atlanta's tech scene.  You’re in a bigger city, more formal, and one working hard to rebound from an economy overly dependent on real estate and banking.  

Atlanta deals remain purely B2B focused and stocked full of really bright Georgia Tech talent.  (Editor’s biased note: that last clause is a redundancy!) The heavy fingerprint from ISS still touches the start-up scene in Atlanta with data security the big theme of the day.  CodeGuard, which had an excellent demo cartoon, won the audience choice prize for its innovative time machine web security product.  If you want to compete for funding against deals like that in Atlanta you’d better have a SaaS model, some real customers in your pocket, and maybe even a few patents to show for your work.  All the presenting startup companies can be found here.

There was one company that works in social media, Soket, which is a SaaS based web and social relationship manager for small business.  Out of the 20 companies here only two uttered the words Foursquare, Twitter, or Facebook!  Abundant Closet, which allows women shoppers to take their wardrobe everywhere was one of three B2C / B2B hybrids.  One app development company, RappidApp, made an appearance; it is a new entrant in the "design your own app from home in your pajamas” space.  It's Savannah-based team has a lot of personality that came across very well on stage. TripLingo presented a cool travel language app, but otherwise mobile is not on the radar here in the ATL, quite the opposite of the ATX. 

Software solutions carried the day.  There is no shortage of great companies based here solving some interesting & unique niche problems: expense account dining, internal idea sourcing, apartment water metering, smart grid data analysis, & legal document discovery to name a few. They most jaw dropping technology on display was the augmented reality instructional tool presented by Merlin Mobility – a product of Georgia Tech’s world-renowned lab in that specialty. With adequate funding Merlin will definitely be a company to watch.

The Atlanta angels sounded pretty positive today.  In an interactive text poll of the audience 32% of the angel investors present said they planned on investing between $100k - $500k over the next 12 months in Atlanta companies.  Let’s hope that adds up to a big aggregate number.  There is no shortage of solid B2B offerings in Atlanta but “early stage" in this town is bit further down the path than places like San Francisco, and to some extent even Austin and NYC.  Bootstrapping by already seasoned entrepreneurs is definitely the norm.  The big B2C ideas are not at home here, but solid B2B ideas definitely are.  

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The Wall Street Journal Saturday featured an article on the “high beta” rich – those who own multiple mansions and multiple jets one day, nothing the next, and then may well bounce back to the top. I can name a long list of people in this category, perhaps the most notable being the Ted Turner of a few years back. Turner was “all in” on every iteration of his original television empire, but fortunately his major bets always paid off. He is now well beyond the high beta stage of his life.

Friday’s edition of the Economist had a thoughtful article on The Art of Selling. I have written frequently of late on the importance of selling skills in ventures from startup through growth stages. The Economist piece reports that three McKinsey consultants have authored a book observing that “the performance of salespeople within a single company typically varies by a factor of three. And the difference between the best and worst companies when it comes to selling is far greater than the difference for functions such as supply chain management, purchasing, or finance.”

The WSJ piece is a bit of a titillating look at ups and downs of the rich (and sometimes famous), and the drift of the Economist article is the notion of the “Chief Sales Officer” (CSO) – something rarely found in the C-suite. However, I can see a link – the notion of a high beta theory as it applies to the important jobs in your business. With no disrespect for any job function, I think it is fair to say that some have more binary results. You either do the task or you don’t, and it’s pretty measurable and pretty obvious. Certain more production-oriented roles, whether in purchasing management or even in technical jobs with clearly defined deliverables deep inside a broad-scope project fall into a low beta category. The employee either has the skills and performs the work as assigned or is miscast in the role. You may have made a hiring mistake if the results are bad, but chances are you are limited in your remedies other than finding a replacement.

(I always enjoyed hearing former Georgia Tech football coach George O’Leary talk about the importance of making “big mistakes.” In his world that meant hiring a 350-pound player was less risky than a 250 pounder. At least the big guy could get in the way of something on the field. I’m not sure that thought process applies to the thesis of this article, but, hey, it’s football season.)

The more a job demands creativity and leadership, the higher its beta. Clearly the CEO is at the top of the list. If there were a way to measure, there might be a factor of 100 between CEO’s of the best and worst companies. It’s indeed a very lonely job riding all the ups and downs of a growing company, rewarding subordinates who over-deliver and coping with those who let you down, making the ultimate decisions from minutiae to “make or break, ”and still maintaining high energy and focus sufficient to accomplish the goals of the firm. You would do well to have a strong support group of advisors or directors to keep you sane in this process.

I would assign a pretty high beta to the CFO function in venturesome companies. Keeping one step ahead of payroll and maintaining decent equity for the founders requires more than a little creativity. I don’t mean creative bookkeeping, but I do mean being very clever at balancing all the constituencies of the company. There’s probably a 10 to 1 differential from top to bottom in this field. In the financial realm I would have previously contrasted this with commercial banking, where heavy regulations historically forced everyone down a narrow path and into more low beta roles, but recent years have shattered that thinking as a point of contrast.

How about the CTO? If you are a tech business, this is another very high beta area. There are lots of overarching choices as to tools, methods, and infrastructure, and the CTO has the distinct privilege of managing one of the most difficult breeds of employee. I have only the highest regard for developers, but there’s a genetic gift associated with their careers, not just training, and even the most well meaning can go down some mighty wrong pathways if not properly supervised. Combine all that with a backdrop of technological change where what used to happen in a year now happens in day, and your CTO could easily deserve to be in the 50 to 1 range.

As to the CSO, more likely the CMO in most companies, I think the McKinsey guys may have underestimated at 3 to 1. There is a huge difference between the contributions of the true rainmaker, or the person who can sell products not quite yet invented, and one who can tote a bag and sell from a pretty well defined catalog. Even in a hardware store (recalling my very early experience in that arena), most customers come in looking for a solution to a problem, perhaps one they can barely describe, and have no wherewithal to ask for a specific item. Problem solving is a key part of that selling process. Good salespeople are those who possess this skillset along with all the creative arts of the true complex sales process. I’d also give this category more of a 50 to 1 beta, the earlier stage of the company the higher.

So what does all this suggest from a practical standpoint? I suppose the more you can design your business to depend on low beta employees, the more the business as a whole will function with stability. If your shop is loaded with the high beta types, then expect to ride the roller coaster and to have a more challenging management role. You can do fabulously well either way, but perhaps it helps to take stock of your company’s rank on this measure and adjust your leadership style accordingly.

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Having been a resident of Austin now for six months, I thought it might be timely to review what I’ve observed here.  I plan to spend the rest of my career in this city, but I will always be mindful of my Georgia roots.  Atlanta and Austin both have their strengths and share many good qualities, so I’m just giving you some of my impressions of Austin now that I’ve gotten fully settled here.

1.  First of all, I have met many people here, particularly those with corporate careers, who have lived in Atlanta somewhere along the way.  And very many seem to have relatives still in the greater metropolitan area.  All have a favorable impression of Atlanta, except perhaps with respect to making connecting flights at Hartsfield-Jackson.  And, there is certainly a strong group of Georgia Tech alumni in central Texas.

2.  Atlantans are generally less familiar with Austin, but those who are and those whom I’ve gotten out here have thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  I first came here in the late 70’s on Peachtree Software missions when Texas Instruments was creating microcomputers at two separate divisions in this town.  Neither knew about the other, and under my NDA I couldn’t disclose one to the other.   I had to plan my travels carefully.  In the end, however, neither was a market success.  And, our main competitor BPI was based here.   I renewed my connection in 1999 when my son entered the University of Texas, later to be followed by my daughter.

3.  There’s no missing the fact that Austin as a whole is much healthier than Atlanta in terms of general economic conditions.  Yes there are homeless people soliciting at many major intersections, and unemployment outside the tech sector is too high, but the backdrop here is one of growth, vitality, and action.  New houses are being built and sold, and the city seems to have dodged the worst of the national plagues of subprime lending, commercial and residential foreclosures, and bank failures.   

4.  The tech scene, although scattered about the city, has its hub in downtown Austin, and it’s a welcoming community.  Needed introductions are gladly made, and there’s a strong sense of mutual help and respect.  Couple that with an ever expanding list of superstar companies, including some IPO headliners this year, and you just feel the “get ‘er done” mentality. 

5.  The financial support system for technology companies is strong.  The Austin Technology Incubator maintains its core areas of focus and its high success rate of getting significant follow-on funding for its companies.  There are at least eleven organized angel groups in Texas; they have a penchant for sharing deals; and the Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN) alone invested $6M last year.   Austin Ventures and DFJ Mercury (Houston) are very active in the local markets, along with many smaller funds – including institutional, family office-based, and super angel groups.  Many of the prominent West Coast funds have existing deals here and are continually shopping this market.  Add to that the numerous easily identified angels who invest on their own, and every deal has places to be shown.  That doesn’t mean that every one gets funded, or that the rules of gravity are suspended as sometimes seems to be the case in San Francisco and the Valley, but suffice it to say there is money here looking to be put to work.  One caveat: it’s looking for Texas deals; I’ve already centered two companies here for that reason.

6.   In addition to the ATI, institutions like Capital Factory, Austin Tech Ranch, ATI’s 3-Day Startup, and others are helping tech entrepreneurs form their companies, get them “pitch perfect,” and launch them.  Capital Factory is even taking in November a group of local companies to General Assembly to expose prominent NYC investors to the opportunities here.  Atlanta too is blessed with many such resources, particularly the new Flash Point associated with the ATDC and Georgia Tech.

7.  Tech companies here are generally gasping for employees.   There have been recent recruiting missions to the West Coast, and plenty of young engineers are moving in, but new companies and major new offices of companies like Facebook, Evernote, Electronic Arts, Google, Zynga, etc. are creating way more demand than supply for qualified talent.   Local apartment builders are responding feverishly to a shortage of housing so that this needed talent can find a place to live when it arrives.

8.  The University of Texas has a strong focus on helping entrepreneurial students create real companies at both undergraduate and graduate levels.  I have been invited to mentor companies at the ATI, Capital Factory, and other venues, but I’m particularly enjoying the 1 Semester Startup class, which has 77 students attempting to create more than 20 real companies.  These are not lab experiments, but attempts to build plausible ventures, and they range from web/mobile apps to automobiles to a novel method of isotope separation.  I mentor two of the teams in this class taught by Josh Baer, John Butler, and Bob Metcalf and augmented by many interesting guest speakers.  And, I have also come across many fine graduates of and participants in the Texas Venture Labs programs at the McCombs School of Business.

9.  SXSWi has a lot to do with the booming tech scene in Austin.   More than 3200 teams applied for about 500 program slots for the March 2012 edition, and there will be a stepped-up focus on venture deal making.  I suspect most of the money from both Coasts that looks for digital media, consumer Internet, and related deals will be on hand for those days.  Get your ticket now, and, more important, line up a room.  My couch is already booked.

10.  The mobile sector has become a major factor in Austin.  I’ve met the founders of most of the key companies, and they are all growing as fast as they can add capacity and are doing business worldwide.   The early ATI focus in this area certainly helped, but it’s hard to explain how such a bustling industry has mushroomed in this relative small city over the last 3 years or so.  Austin is now the go-to city for mobile.

Finally, it’s hard not to like the lifestyle here.   There’s plenty of entertainment, and it’s relatively inexpensive to live in this city.   But, that’s more a topic for Facebook than for this blog.  Suffice it to say, as pictured above, I’ve checked off one bucket list item – a “Texas Truck” license plate.

If you’re reading this from Atlanta, come out for a visit.  I thoroughly enjoy Texas games, but I’m looking forward to being back your way for GT-Clemson for Homecoming next week. 

Today brought an article in the WSJ about some weakening in angel and follow-on investing in the face of heavy deal flow, and a similar theme by Jason Calacanis in his Launch blog.  Jason’s point #11 suggesting that it’s time for some teams and companies to combine their efforts is consistent with activity I am seeing in my daily travels in the Austin tech community.

The logic behind such combinations may be abundantly clear, the bigger question is how to get them done.  It’s easy to do M&A work on companies with real numbers; you can identify the synergies, cut overlapping expenses, leverage respective strengths, and arrive at a mathematical solution as to how much the respective parties bring to the table.  You can even get fairness opinions to back up your position.  If the social issues between the respective leadership teams can be resolved, then the rest falls into place.

However, if you are combining two companies that have great stories but don’t yet have great numbers, things get more complicated.   (Two, by the way, is the ideal number; 3-ways are nearly impossible to accomplish happily.)  Deals that are meant to be are certainly still doable, but here are some aspects to consider:

1.  Start with the social issues.  If the respective teams genuinely like each other, have the capacity to agree on a shared vision and a more specific product road map, and there is a bona fide complementary role for every key person who wants to continue, you may proceed.  If not, it’s probably time to get back to work on something else.

2.   Examine the idea from the customer perspective.   Beware of unintended consequences where customers and/or distribution channels may not easily be converted to the combined entity for one reason or another.   I got in the middle of a deal which did have real numbers in the 90’s (a rarity for that time), and the mere intimation of that combination frightened off the largest customer we had.  We survived that, but clearly we had a customer who didn’t want to see any changes as to who was in charge. 

3.  Consider carefully the investor perspective.  If one or both entities is still burning cash and reliant on continuing investor support, the Golden Rule comes to the fore.  Whoever is writing the checks has to be sold on the deal and has to agree to keep writing them.  If the companies are being combined with a view to the next round, then particular care needs to be taken toward assuring that the resulting entity is attractive to investors at a valuation that is better for all.  If the companies are, for the moment, fully funded, the existing investors still need to be consulted so that they have a chance to buy into the fairness of the deal and remain happy and supportive.

4.  Agonize over relative valuations.  If the managers, customers, and investors all seem to align, there’s still the hard part of hammering out a deal that makes everyone equally please or equally upset.  Both parties will have hockey stick projections, so forget those.   You can look back at actual cash invested as a starting point, but there can be arguments as to whether that cash was invested to create forward value or not.  Cohesive technical teams have some intrinsic value; just look at how many companies Google buys just for the talent.  Signature customers can add to one side or the other.   Unique management skills can make a difference.  There are many other intangibles to consider, but both parties will come down to reasoning such as: “Am I likely to make more money via this combined path than by staying independent and risking whatever dilution may come from financing that standalone strategy?”

5.  At the end of the day, it boils down to alternatives.  The economic times and the financial markets may force you into decisions that are not exactly what you had scripted in your mind when you hatched your company, but these decisions may be your only lifeline to remain in the game.   Do you want to go back to a real job?  Perhaps, or possibly your significant other is lobbying for that.   Or, can you stay the course and develop an true entrepreneurial career?  You don’t have to retire on your first deal in your 20’s; bunting as part of a bigger game-winning strategy will give you more turns at bat than if you always swing for the fences.   (Excuse the corny metaphors.  Just a bit of homage to the baseball playoffs.)

I’ll keep following this story and watching for successful “storied deals” as opposed to numbers-based deals.  We may indeed have gotten to where lean startup theories are producing too many companies that are just too lean to stand on their own, and a phase of some consolidation may be a healthy thing for all.

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Peter Drucker famously said: “the purpose of a business is to create a customer.”  However, in my travels through the investor scene I believe today the emphasis is more on retaining that customer.  The era of lean startups and easy 3-day creation of businesses whose sole product is an app is flooding the market with shiny new objects that can capture a customer’s attention.  It’s very easy to see why yesterday’s toy can get discarded in favor of today’s, and why apps can easily get displaced to that 20^th screen on your iPhone and forgotten.  I’m familiar with numerous examples of roaring successes at launch only to be followed by a quick demise.

This issue is not unique to the app market but applies to many types of Internet-based businesses and more traditional companies as well (think fashion).  I’ve come up with a list of some ways to address this issue:

1.  If your product is to be used in events that occur sporadically, make sure there is some way to replenish your customer base in the interims.   I can think of the Capital Factory’s StoryMix Media, which serves the wedding video marketplace.  The end customers may repeat, but not that many times and not too frequently.  However, there are tens of thousands of wedding planners, caterers, DJ’s, bridal shops, and other businesses that make their livings from this market every single day.  StoryMix has multiple natural distribution channels for which their product can remain top of mind.  So, the lesson is to create and retain sales partners who in their own self-interest will be sure your product gets used when the moment is there.

2.  Go deep in your product design and your marketing so you are providing continual and measureable value to your end customer.   Sink roots where use of your offering is a natural reflex and provides some positive reinforcement.  Foursquare has 10M+ users, but where are they?  I’ve been experimenting again with that product after some period of lapse, and I’m finding myself after 2-3 visits to be the mayor of popular entertainment venues like Threadgill’s and consistently used meeting spots like the ATT conference center right in front of the Texas Tower.  I have yet to get a single tangible benefit from a check-in.  In fact, I’ve had to take care to prevent Foursquare from polluting my Twitter and Facebook streams with routine check-ins and mayorships.  Nobody cares, and some even complain.  To me, Foursquare might be valuable if it had a very deep user base in Austin and helped me get tickets to the UT-OSU game next week.  I know they have made some deals with credit card companies, and they may in fact be accomplishing this notion of going deep in the Union Square area of NYC, but not here.

3.  Make it hard to switch.  There are some apps and many software products that I use that would be would be have to be pried from my “cold, dead fingers.”   My workflow is pretty comfortable.  I even hung in with Evernote during their recent bum release for the iPad which introduced a long delay between key touch and letter appearance on the screen.   I already had hundreds of notes archived, and the product installed and synchronized on 4 devices.  I figured Evernote would fix that issue fairly quickly, and perhaps the latest release of the last few days accomplished that.  To me the time to switch to another platform and learn its nuances was a bad bet versus just being patient.   If you have an enterprise product, the Holy Grail is getting that integrated with other systems on a SaaS model where you are just clipping coupons for many, many years.  You’ve no doubt studied switching costs if you’ve taken any business courses in college, so this is just a gentle reminder.  If you have high switching costs, you may have accomplished your goal just be creating the customer.

4.  Make sure you provide continuous value to the check writer.  Your business model may include a free offering the ultimate end user, but if someone else, say a sponsor, is providing the revenue, then you need to think in terms of campaigns that have breadth, depth, and continuity.   Ongoing creative engagement with the customer paying the bills is a good way to keep stoking consumer interest and retaining all levels of your value chain.

5.  “Love on” your customers.   Products that have sporadic check points, e. g. auto insurance where it’s either a premium due or a claim, require special attention to customer service when there is one of those interactions.  I have Progressive insurance (but no bobble-head of their TV spokeswoman).  One of those phantom parking lot accidents damaged my vehicle last week while I was inside a store, and I have found Progressive’s online claims site and their on-the-ground “concierge” center to be first-rate.  Not that I want to be a return visitor, but I’d certainly recommend them to anyone considering automobile insurance carriers.  And, I drive in a city and have come to expect occasional mishaps like this; it’s comforting to know that my carrier has figured out how to provide top-notch customer service.

6.  Innovate your way into your customers’ hearts.  MailChimp is a prime example of this.  They have mastered the freemium model, and they certainly enjoy the advantages of switching costs, but they have done an extraordinary job of continuous innovation in product features and product support, combined with really cool marketing.  If you just follow their blogs and Tweets, you can’t help but form a very positive impression of the company and get a sense of the culture that backs up that impression.  MailChimp has an “Apple-like” attention to detail and the customer experience, and I’m sure their retention rate is extraordinarily high.

7.  Take the money and run.  Heck, I’ve seen some companies that made so much money so quickly that retention is only an academic question.  The founders and investors made their returns and could afford to go to the beach.  That’s not all bad.  

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In memory of Steve Jobs it's well worth our time viewing again this moving address he gave at Stanford graduation in 2005.

Last week brought a range of experiences including two days at the ATI’s Clean Energy Venture Summit.  This event was rich in content and included the expected array of science-based projects but also a surprising amount of discussion about connected devices and their role in energy conservation.  Others more focused on energy than I Tweeted a running transcript of the event (#CEVS2011), and I direct your attention there for more information.  It was good to see Ben Hill (and his wife Sharon) in town from Atlanta for that occasion.  Ben is Georgia Tech’s Venture Lab Principal who pursues energy related opportunities, and there were plenty to pursue at this meeting.

Of more relevance to my general readership was a class presentation at 1 Semester Startup by John Price, CEO of Vast and one of the Trilogy veterans who made such an impact on the Austin tech scene.   He reminded the students that one can make a list of all the steps in building a company and easily begin each one with the word “sell.”  You may have the $Billion idea in your head, but you‘ll go nowhere unless you can sell the idea to others who will join your team, your vendors from whom you need support, financiers who will provide you capital, your significant other who will be sacrificing family time and money while you chase your dream, and obviously those who will eventually become your customers.

Of particular interest to me was his Top Ten list for the sales process in a tech company, one that he originally produced more than ten years ago and is still on the mark, paraphrased and annotated a bit here:

10.  Know your product.  You may have to have some sales support from your uber-techs for some types of products, but make sure either you or you and your sales team thoroughly understand the capabilities, and shortcomings, or your product line.  To many “I’ll get back to you on that” statements will not instill confidence and certainly won’t keep the deal moving at the pace you and your pocketbook desire.

9. Dress appropriately.  It has been said that overdressing never hurts, but Price recommended trying to match the dress code of your audience.  I’ve found that in Austin, even in church, it’s hard to underdress, particular during this hottest of summers, but my take on this is that you don’t want dress to distract from your mission.  Blending in with a tendency to err on the high side is probably the best guide.

8. Know how to do a great demo.  In the early Peachtree days when all the underlying hardware and software was inherently unreliable, our marketing genius Julian Puckett created a cardboard microcomputer which could be unfolded from a briefcase, screen shots inserted, and which worked flawlessly and at maximum speed every time.  This was the greatest demo I have ever had the pleasure to use.  Your demo needs to be technologically ready for prime time, with no start-up glitches, and polished enough to leave nothing to the imagination.

7. Know how to do a great presentation.  It’s one thing to show a product, yet quite another to put that product in context and prove its merit to your listener.  Skip the fancy effects, make every word count, build to a climax, and hold the attention of your viewer. 

6. Sell value.  You may or may not have the lowest price, but you want to sell on the notion that you create the highest value for a customer, and you want to have all the numbers and facts at your command to back that up.

5. Be a lounge lizard evangelist.  Whether you realize it our not, you’re always selling.  You never know who will appear in the next seat at any meeting or event or a bar and be a ripe candidate to hear your enthusiasm for your company and product.   If you’re constantly on your message in any appropriate setting, good things will surprise you.

4. Know everything about your customer.  In the age of Google, there’s no excuse on this one; it’s easy to do the homework and not waste your valuable face time asking things you should already know.

3. Position your case correctly.  Make sure your audience knows in what box your company and your product belong so a buyer can tap the right budgets, square you up against the right problems and alternative solutions, and put you in a frame of reference that gives you the best chance of making the sale.

2. Be an expert listener.  If you are good at this, customers will always tell you how best to sell them.  Know when to talk and when not, and you’ll find the most direct path to success.

1. Ask great questions.  When it’s your turn to talk, ask the direct questions that tell you where the customer’s pain is and how it can best be treated.  Try to ask opened ended questions that get the customer talking, rather than anything that can be answered with a simple yes or no.  Great questioning is a great way to engage the customer and move him or her along the path you are seeking to accomplish.

Several of my recent posts have touched on the sales topic, and there are millions of resources online and offline that you can tap on this subject.  But, it never hurts to be reminded again of some of the basics.  Thanks to John Price for that.

<Image of John Price from Vast website>