Amidst the preparations for numerous pitch sessions at SXSWi, I saw today some notes from an angel investor meeting where no one admitted to ever having invested in a deal as a result of having seen it presented in a formal venue.  That group thought that perhaps venture capital investors actually responded in such settings.  Of course I had a VC tell me at a major Atlanta-based conference that he would never invest in anything he saw in that format.  He believed that if you hadn’t connected with the right investors ahead of time, you hadn’t done your job.

On the other side of the coin, I have witnessed angel investment commitments made literally on stage in a San Francisco conference.  I’ve certainly seen plenty of serious investors attend session after session like this across the country.  And, I’ve seen some tangible results in events like the Open Funding Forums here in Texas where the deals are a mixture of tech and no-tech; many of the attending investors are not part of the regular tech scene and don’t participate in the established processes of the organized tech angel groups.

So, in my opinion pitch venues do fill a purpose, but some expectation setting is probably appropriate, particularly as we head into March with so many such opportunities.  If you are an entrepreneur gearing up for such a pitch, perhaps these thoughts will be helpful to you.

First, what I will call pitch conferences do have a social component.  Investors like to hang out with each other, compare notes on who’s doing what, get the pulse of the deal flow and technology trends, and generally engage in bonding that leads to future syndications, partnerships, or even exits.  Just being visible in the midst of a group of hungry entrepreneurs keeps them on the list when the really good deals arise from the pack.  And, if they are in a market like the Valley where investors are truly competing for deals, they may want to be on hand just in case there is a surprise moment that compels them to whip out that trusty convertible note terms sheet. 

The better investors who are not in the deal-a-day Valley scene understand the value of getting out of their offices to source the right deals for their portfolios.  They constantly work their feeder networks including incubators, university labs, law and accounting firms, and respected serial entrepreneurs.  And, they probably pay attention to Angel List.  It would almost be an embarrassment for them to show up at a big local venture conference and not have already seen all the deals on stage.  SXSWi uniquely brings together investors and entrepreneurs from all over the world, and for those investors who are comfortable investing over great distances (which usually implies growth stage or fantastically disruptive ideas) there may be some discoveries.   However, those are exceptional situations.   Most investors follow a well-worn annual path through conferences in geographic or technology areas where they are comfortable and which fit their standard criteria.

So, as an entrepreneur who is burning the extra hours getting ready for your moment in the spotlight at the Accelerator or at one of the many other venues at SXSWi, what should you anticipate?

1.  All manner of investors will be on hand.  Pick a growth stage, industry specialty, geographic origin, or any other criterion and both angels and institutional VC’s will be at SXSWi.   Yes, all the gold will be here, or at least represented here.  If you have a deal that truly merits investment and are on your toes, you should at the very least commence relationships with multiple potential investors.  They may not happen to be in the judging group in your formal presentations, but they are probably in the audience, and they’ll be at the parties and even some of the panel sessions.   You’ll be able to ask for and get introductions to the right people.  They may be partying on 6th Street (photo above), but they’re not coming to Austin just to play.  And, don’t be bashful about working your personal connections ahead of time so you don’t leave this process totally to chance.

(One caveat.  Keep in mind that Austin is on Central Time.  I met one investor last year whose office had a well crafted homebrew scheduling system for all his meetings, but it booked them all in Eastern Time.)

2.  There’s no better place to see your venture in context.  You’ll be exposing your plan to potential investors, but also to potential competitors, partners, or acquirers.  If the applications I graded for the Accelerator are any indication, you’ll probably see some ideas very close to yours, and for sure you’ll see plenty of déjà vu product launches.   In an era of lean startup, bootstrapped, 3-day weekend mobile apps created on insta-build platforms, it’s not hard for 500 smart people to be the “first” to have more or less the same idea and come here to launch it at SXSWi.  Stay alert, attend everything your stamina will allow, and make sure you minimize the surprises lurking out there for you.  Investors might fund the same idea 2-3 times, but if you’re the 10^th, you’re out of luck.

3.  SXSWi is just the beginning of your work.  Even if by some stroke of luck you actually get an investor commitment or some other deal done here in Austin, you’ll have an enormous amount of follow-up afterwards.  If you don’t leave with a long list of new connections and new tasks, you are either pursuing the wrong project, aren’t the right “front person” for your venture, or have confused the Interactive event with the subsequent Music portion.  Just like the year-round tech community in Austin, SXSWi is a welcoming setting with a “git ‘er done” attitude.  The right people show up – essentially all of them.  You’ll be well advised to pace yourself and stay focused on making the most of this event.

So, practice your “Howdy” – and we’ll see you next week.  

<Image from Wikipedia by Larry D. Moore, used under Creative Commons>

There is a blizzard of pitch events coming up in the next few weeks, e.g. in early March the Launch Conference in San Francisco just on the eve of SXSWi in Austin with its many venues.  May I suggest that if you are pitching at one or several of these, you probably will benefit from all the live critiques you can get.

I am personally working with 5 teams that have made the cut for the Accelerator competition at SXSWi; 18 of 48 will survive a round of 2-minute pitches in order to make the stage for the 5-minute finals.  Each presentation is followed by 10 minutes of Q&A, so you’ve got more than 2 or 5 minutes respectively to make all your points.  But, if after your first 2 minutes any of the judges before you doesn’t really get what you do, you’re toast.

Like all the aspects of this gathering, there is an established process in place with the intent of resulting in the best possible presentations.  The coaching role involves a number of individuals working with their assigned companies, all such coaches reporting to a “captain” and submitting grades in 6 categories.  We are charged with having at least two coaching sessions per team, and we have the ability to summon alternates if any of our teams can’t seem to meet the objectives.  My teams are from 5 different cities coast-to-coast, and we’ve been equipped with the infrastructure to allow them to practice their presentations remotely.   It was suggested that we should not be reading any business plans; the pitches have to get the job done, just as they will in the live competition.

You don’t know who will be the assigned judges in your sessions at the Accelerator, and you may or may not get anyone in the mix that has experience relevant to what you are doing.  You have to make your case to people who are qualified as investors, entrepreneurs, or are otherwise well practiced in the area of entrepreneurship.  But if you’re pitching a new use for graphene, don’t expect any carbon chemists in the group.  Probably you wouldn’t be at SXSWi for that anyway, but you get the idea.  And, that’s actually a topic at one session of the Angel Capital Association I am attending on March 6, coincidentally in Austin this year right before SXSWi.  (I hope they are bringing their RV’s!) 

This is an enjoyable process for me, but one thing that has surprised me, with all due respect, is how far some of these companies need to be brought along to be ready for Accelerator.  They all have made previous presentations and have been coached aplenty, and some are in formal incubator programs, but all were pretty light in their first sessions on articulating verbally or showing on slides exactly what they do, how they will make money, and why their team is qualified.  My grades on round one ranged from 60% to 76%, not quite in the desired A range.

Nailing it on first impression was not a requirement for these sessions, and I know all of these companies are crunching on multiple other priorities.   But, I couldn’t help but agree with the wisdom of the SXSWi organizers in mandating these last-minute tune-ups before arrival in Austin.  However many times you’ve told your story, you probably will be surprised at how it comes across to a new reviewer with a particular mission and a defined set of criteria.  The good news is that I think all of mine are deserving and will do fine in the competition.  Maybe I’ve even got some category winners in the group.  I just hope I’m really helping them toward that goal. 

These sorts of projects require presenters who are in fact coachable.   They’re only getting short bursts of my time and no face-to-face contact, but my impression is that all are taking to heart the suggestions I’m making.  I’ll know for sure after the second rounds over the next couple of days.   I often hear investors and mentors talk about whether a particular entrepreneur is teachable or not.  The ones in the latter category are far less likely to get funded.   If you have multiple coaches, odds are you’ll get plenty of conflicting opinions, but just keeping yourself open to the process and making rational choices in these situations will buy you a lot of credibility.

This is all very much analogous to learning golf.  The sport of golf is rather counter intuitive, and it’s not easily learned naturally or from passive reading or watching YouTube clips and Golf Channel instructional shows.  More often than not, all those resources just get you confused and put too many simultaneous swing thoughts into your head.  In my opinion the best and only way to learn golf for a lifetime of enjoyment (accompanied by copious frustration) is to have a personal instructor who knows you well and helps you develop a game that suits your physical and mental skills.   A really good instructor will pick up on the smallest details of your swing and give you creative drills to cure specific problems.   If you follow golf, you hear a lot about the teachers that are gurus to the pros.  We worked with Tom Kite on a project some years ago, and I remember that he called his sports psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella after every tournament round to review the day and get himself ready for the next.  Tom was infinitely coachable and proved it with his many wins including a U.S. Open title.

Note:  If your name is Bubba Watson, the previous paragraph does not apply to you, and only you, on the PGA Tour.  Just keep on being the natural and churning out those interesting Tweets.

So, if you are pitching soon or often, don’t be bashful about asking for candid reviews and tips from trusted mentors.   They will make a difference.  

<image from Chateau Elan, a wonderful resort just north of Atlanta>

That was the motivational message given to NASCAR driver Kurt Busch by his team owner for Saturday Night’s Shootout at the Daytona International Speedway.  For those of you who are Formula 1 followers and have observed the highly complex and computerized detachable steering wheels in those machines, please understand that if you bring only the very traditional NASCAR version of that part back to the garage after a race, the rest of the car is scrap.

That was a not too subtle way of saying that the owner expected Busch to push himself and his car to the limits and take whatever risks necessary to earn the checkered flag.  (He didn’t, by the way.)  In this week leading up the to the annual Daytona 500, I thought a racing theme would be a good way to focus on motivational issues for your startup employees and even your cofounders.

Job one is to make sure the founding team is all on the same page with respect to enthusiasm and work ethic.  I’ve seen quite a bit of reshuffling even in the student teams in the 1 Semester Startup class at U Texas Austin as they have learned who can pull his or her weight and who can’t.  Almost inevitably over time as the business comes into being and starts pivoting, founders will rise or fall in importance as new skills are required and old ones wane.  Personalities that match the startup stage also may not translate well to the more structured growth stages that you expect to achieve.  And, if you have a founder who is accustomed to a more highly structured setting, chances are you’ve recruited that person about 10 hires too early.  

The founder group motivation is akin to the combat theory that soldiers under fire are really fighting to protect each other and their unit and not to let their buddies down.  They aren’t focused on God and Country when in the midst of a firefight.  If your team has that esprit de corps and shares a similar work ethic, you’re going to get the immediate jobs done.  You may reorganize later, but for now if functioning well together and taking care of each other fairly, that’s all you can ask.

As to your first round of hires beyond the founding group, the issues become a bit different.  There are libraries full of books on the general topic of motivating employees, so I’m going to confine my thoughts to the peculiarities of a tech startup. 

The hiring decision obviously sets the tone for what will follow.  As you begin adding to your tight-knit founding team, it’s probably best to have potential hires evaluated by the entire group and see what bonding occurs.  You’re not looking for a new friend to hang with, but you are looking for somewhat who “gets it” when you describe the company and the tasks at hand, and who on first meeting can demonstrate some positive insights.  That individual is more likely to be the self-starter you need at the early stage.

What about the money issue?  Good employees do like to get paid, and you’ve got to show the capacity to meet your payrolls.  The better ones look for market salaries and also for some equity participation in the form of stock grants or options.  It is an old saw that money is more of a de-motivator than a motivator.  An employee who feels appropriately compensated is going to be more productive than one who feels short changed.  Excess pay rarely translates into excess motivation.

Far more important than money as the company progresses through product development and launch is recognizing those who perform and making them part of a team victory as each milestone is met.  I’ve been through that cycle many times, and it’s a sweet feeling when, as I mentioned last week, a company transitions from start-up to an actual business and customers actually start using and paying for what you have wrought.  You’ll never see a winning NASCAR driver interviewed without hearing him thank all of his crew members, not to mention all the sponsors, and occasionally even Jesus.  

And, it goes without saying that you need to lead by example.  Far more important at the early stage is leadership, as opposed to management.  If you show that you are willing to give the company your utmost and literally drive the wheels off to beat the competition, your employees will follow you.  All those textbook methods of performance reviews, pay incentives, etc. will come in handy when you get to the 50^th or 100^th employee, but right now you’ve got to be the one out front – with inexhaustible energy, enthusiasm, creativity, and a clearly articulated vision.  That’s better than any 5-hour energy drink, or even the more “stick-like” headline of this post.

<Daytona Action: AP image, Phelan M. Ebenhack, via KNOX>

If you follow professional golfers on Twitter like I do, you’ll recognize Rickie Fowler’s familiar Tweet above.  When it’s his turn on the first tee, count on him always to Tweet #GOTIME.  The game is on.

Today brought a thorough walkthrough on a complex but ingenious mobile platform that is, it appears, now within a few days of that magic moment.  This is not just another product launch from a business with multiple revenue streams, it’s a bet- your-company launch on software that probably well exceeds 30,000 lines of code.  Moreover, it’s multiple startups in specific verticals betting on this one core platform.  Suffice it to say the pressure is on.  It’s Sunday at Augusta.

I would describe this development project not as an app but as the creation of an ecosystem for multiple uses.   It’s UI is very attractive, easy on the eyes, and elegant.  (No I’m not talking about the SI swimsuit cover model.)  It enables a lot of action within the confines of your trusty iPhone or Android, including the real business of securely handling your money.  There’s no margin for error in much of what it does.

The purpose of this post is not the story of that product, but it’s an attempt to capture the flavor of that moment in the history of a tech startup.   There’s no way to predict the outcome of a new product when it’s subjected to live customers, large numbers of them, and 24/7 activity.  No doubt there will plenty of iterations along the way as the developers respond to real world users.  But, for now this is the defining stage in the company.

Rickie Fowler spends plenty of time getting ready on the range and the putting green, he does his reconnaissance rounds earlier in the week of a tournament, he consults his cadre of instructors and therapists, he’s got his sponsors all lined up, he’s picked his audacious color to wear for the day, but at #GOTIME he’s all alone in the tee box.  If you’re the CEO of a company coming to this moment, you’re pretty much alone yourself.   You’ve done all the prep you can do, your team has done its job, but you now have to draw the club back and trust your swing from there.

There’s an enormous amount of both pride and hope at this moment.  Your developers know they have given it their all, and you can’t help but catch their enthusiasm and their satisfaction at seeing their finished product put into play.  I use the term “finished” always with a caveat, because every mobile, web, or software product is subject to multitudes of interdependencies in this highly networked world with constantly evolving specs on all fronts.  There will be more to do as those interdependencies create some surprises, but it’s certainly OK for your developers to take a few minutes and just beam at what has been wrought.  

One reason this is such a special time, particularly for software-based products, is that it’s darn hard to tell what is being accomplished along the way.  You can watch an office tower emerge from its foundation and grow taller every day.  But, it’s possible for software to look pretty ugly right up until the moment it is baked for release.   You may be able to see what it’s going to look like and get an idea of how it will function, but you may not have anything close to enough seamless components even to do a demo.  When you try to take an early look, you’re part of the debugging process.   And, you’re slowing down the developers.  I mentioned above trusting your swing, and you absolutely have to trust your development team.  They will miss deadlines, and they’ll get off track from time to time, but the A players will find their way back to the center of the fairway.  (I miss football, so please bear with the golf metaphors for a while.)  

Of course if you’re the CEO and you’re not one of the developers, your life is doubly challenging.   You’ve got to make countless decisions on the supposition that the product will perform as advertised by a certain date.  You may have investors to deal with along the way, and for sure you’ve got to be putting into place your customer acquisition plans and handling all the minutiae that comes with actually going into business, as opposed to just starting up.  There’s a huge difference between the two, and you’re about to lose the luxury of being vague on things like prices, terms, channels, customers, staffing, and all the other details that pesky real customers and real employees bring to your doorstep.

Mistakes can be tolerated, to an extent.  There are about 280 strokes in a typical golf tournament, and you can shank your first drive and still make the cut.  You can miss a few more along the way, but in a tech company you are in just as intense a competition as are the PGA players.  Yes you’re competing for prize money, perhaps a few years and not a few days away, but in the meantime you’re competing hard for eyeballs, revenue dollars, investor support, attention to your company, and retention of your team.  You won’t be around on the payday Sunday if you can’t operate competitively in this tech environment.  #GOTIME is no time to sit back and rest on your laurels.  That’s when you are really getting your first taste of the things that will determine your success.

So, if you and your startup are on the verge of this signal moment in your dreams and your livelihood, all the best to you.  Just remember to Tweet your own #GOTIME.  Someday when you’ve accomplished that big victory, you’ll forget about all the struggles and just relish this one memory.

With the author’s kind permission I am bringing you today a lecture Bob Metcalfe delivered on 2/9/12 to the 1SS class at UT Austin.  His theme is one that I wholeheartedly share, and I believe you will find this enlightening and engaging.  It originated with a 1995 talk he gave at MIT, and here’s the latest iteration for UT students.

You are about to be offered one of the few really big secrets of success. I am not kidding. Don’t let this secret slip through your fingers. Write it down. I just did, below.  OK, no suspense, here is the secret: Writing is essential to startup success.

Let me begin the offer, as you should, with a couple of stories.  There is this story about the famous and wealthy writer Jack London (1876-1916), who during his short life wrote much great fiction, like “Call of the Wild.” Read about him on Wikipedia. One day London was asked if there were any other great but unknown storytellers up in the Klondike. Oh yes, said London, but they left their stories at the bar. London wrote his stories down.

Now jump half a century to MIT in 1966. I joined a group of a dozen undergraduates with Professor Jay Forrester as our advisor.  Since Professor Forrester famously led development of early digital computers – Whirlwind and SAGE – he was then, and is to this day, an engineering god at MIT. Forrester invited the dozen of us meet in his office every Friday afternoon.  At our first meeting, much to our surprise, Forrester asked us each to write a short essay on a subject of our choice.  Hmm.  At our second meeting, the group went through each essay, with Forrester leading the commenting and correcting, sometimes reading paragraphs aloud.  Then Forrester asked us to go back and revise our essays based on the feedback.  At our third Friday meeting, we again reviewed our essays and again were asked to revise them. We did the same each Friday for the whole semester, maybe 19 times?  Well, I can’t recall exactly how many times we revised our essays for Forrester.  I can’t even recall what my essay was about.  And I can’t tell you what I learned from Professor Forrester about how to write well.  Alas, no.  What I learned that semester was this one thing: Jay Forrester thinks writing is important.  I got it.  You get it.  That lesson has made all the difference in my careers: student, engineer, scientist, entrepreneur, executive, publisher, pundit, venture capitalist, and now (we hope) professor.

Thanks in large part to my writings, I am now alongside Forrester with the National Medal of Technology and into the Computer History Hall of Fellows.  And I own a huge and beautiful table that was once Jack London‘s desk.  I would like to do for you what Forrester did for me.

 OK, the first step toward learning to write well is to … read. I do not mean read just this essay.  I mean read day in and day out, paying attention to the various words and arrangements of words that work.
 
What you will notice first about writing is that it takes many forms. At top level, there is fiction, like Jack London wrote, and non-fiction, like your weekly 1SS updates are supposed to be.  Here are some forms of fiction and non-fiction: Tweets, Facebook posts, blog posts, PowerPoint decks (notes), idea memos, invention records, academic papers for peer-reviewed publication, papers to be read by more than six people, articles to be read by millions, undergraduate theses (which rhymes with feces), PhD dissertations, business plans, press releases, resumes, speaking notes, to-do lists, strategy, meeting agenda, whiteboard notes, meeting action summaries, trip reports, specifications (requirements, designs, data sheets), debugging logs, software documentation, (and for you non-website startups) hardware documentation, op-ed pieces, commencement addresses, poetry, email rants, and love notes. 

So, why write? Write to organize your thoughts. Ever wonder why TV characters are so much faster on their feet and wittier than you are in real life?  It’s certainly not because the actors are smarter than you.  It’s because their scripts were written and revised after much careful thought -- not really on their feet.  So why write?  Write to give your ideas persistence.  I wrote 400 columns about the Internet during the 1990s, and they are still out there, especially the ones in which I made predictions that didn’t come true.  You write down a to-do list to help you remember your own priorities.

 So why write?  Write to get your ideas out there.  Oftentimes you have a thought that should be shared with a few people in person.  Other times, you cannot possibly afford the time to tell everyone what you’ve got, even if they are willing to listen.  Being able to read you at leisure increases the chances of people listening to you, when it’s convenient to them, just by reading.

I have written many things, but a few stand out in their impact.  I wrote double digit (89) and triple digit (602) posts in the Request For Comments (RFC) series out of which grew the Internet – the latter in 1973 was probably the first to warn about Internet security vulnerabilities (see what good that did).  My Harvard PhD dissertation, “Packet Communication,” was rejected once but got re-written in 1973 and is still available at Amazon.com.  At the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center I wrote a memo defining the Parc Universal Packet (Pup), a forerunner of TCP/IP, and got a team to implement it with me.  I wrote a Xerox memo inventing Ethernet, followed by a patent invention disclosure, and then the first Ethernet paper published.  I wrote the business plan for 3Com Corporation, which looks sort of like a PowerPoint deck seven years before anybody had those.  I wrote weekly updates to our 3Com team as the company was growing from $0B to $500M per year in revenue (eventually hit $5.7B).  I wrote weekly InfoWorld columns for eight years, read toward the end by upwards of a million weekly information technology professionals.  And to keep a long story short, I wrote this essay that you are reading now.

You can learn to write – it’s a good habit to get into – and you can learn to write well. You learn to write well by reading a lot, but also by writing a lot. Write every day if you can. Pretty soon you won’t be able to stop.  There are a million books on how to write better. I suggest you start with the classic, “The Elements of Style,” by Strunk and White. Start by learning to be brief, say for example, by leaving out unnecessary words.  Then there’s the old saw:  Tell ‘em what your going to tell ‘em, then tell ‘em, then tell ‘em what you told ‘em.  Summarize at the beginning, during, and at the end of your writing.

 Writing at the whiteboard is another powerful form of writing. For this you will need good penpersonship. With that, you can stand up and help make a meeting work.  You can write down the agenda, what’s going on, keeping track of what’s been agreed.  When you get good at this, you can influence (in a good way) what gets decided by choosing what and how to write. 

Among the million other things that make for good writing, let me suggest you start all your writing with the word “You.” Never (well, hardly ever) start a paragraph, let alone a whole paper, with the word “I.”  Your first word should always be “You,” except when “Thank you” works better.  The idea here is to start with your audience, and let them know right up front where you are coming from. You are writing for them.  “I” is a bad start.

Another lesson is that everyone needs an editor.  Especially if you are writing for more than ten other people, you should have what you write looked at by another set of eyes.  I didn’t have time to get this piece edited, for which I apologize.  I’ll close with two example paragraphs, one by Jack London and one by me:

London’s, from “Call of the Wild,” is literature:  “All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives men out from the sounding cities to forest and plain to kill things by chemically propelled leaden pellets, the blood lust, the joy to kill—all this was Buck's, only it was infinitely more intimate. He was ranging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, to kill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood.”

Here is the abstract I wrote for the award-winning Ethernet paper, published by Dave Boggs and me in 1976:

”Ethernet is a branching broadcast communication system for carrying digital data packets among locally distributed computing stations. The packet transport mechanism provided by Ethernet has been used to build systems which can be viewed as either local computer networks or loosely coupled multiprocessors. An Ethernet's shared communication facility, its Ether, is a passive broadcast medium with no central control. Coordination of access to the Ether for packet broadcasts is distributed among the contending transmitting stations using controlled statistical arbitration. Switching of packets to their destinations on the Ether is distributed among the receiving stations using packet address recognition. Design principles and implementation are described based on experience with an operating Ethernet of 100 nodes along a kilometer of coaxial cable. A model for estimating performance under heavy loads and a packet protocol for error controlled communication are included for completeness.”

So, writing is important. Start by reading then writing regularly. You can learn to write well. And when you do, you'll be able to “wash your muzzle to the eyes in warm blood.”

<photo from UT website>

As one who has attended SXSWi before but not as an Austin resident, I have come now to appreciate how much thoughtful planning goes into this event and the extent to which the entire regional tech community is involved.  This is very much like Masters Week in Augusta, GA, timed to coincide with spring break so you can either leave town and rent your home or stay around and be a volunteer.

SXSWi is just about as competitive as the Masters.  When you have all the digerati and all their investors from across the planet in Austin for a few days in March, the stakes can be pretty high.  I’ve been recruited over the last 6 months for three projects – grading many hundreds of submissions by hopeful presenters, reviewing 450 business plans for the Accelerator, and now coaching 5 teams that made the Accelerator finals.  The grading and review processes are backed by a solid online infrastructure; my marks are rolled up along with those of others as input to the ultimate decision makers.  The rules are pretty clear, including recusals from any with which I had personal connections, and there is plenty of guidance on how to select the types and variety of programs that should be most appealing to this very knowledgeable and diverse audience.  

The net is that if you have been selected to present, you have achieved something significant.  The best have applied for those coveted slots, and you have prevailed through a very thorough process.  The event organizers know what they are trying to achieve in terms of the overall content and feel of SXSWi and do a great job in conveying that vision to all who participate in the process.  Similarly, the acceptance rate at Accelerator is a rather low percentage, and there are alternates still on deck if you can’t satisfy your coach that you meet the bar.

Of course the formal programs at SXSWi are accompanied by countless tangential events.  One very well known VC mentioned to me last year that he was scheduled for a 1 AM introductory speech at a pitch session.  That’s not to mention all the parties, given the location in Austin’s prime entertainment area.  It’s a 24 X 7 experience suitable only for those with plenty of stamina.

If you don’t have a room reserved, forget it.  Airbnb has appeared on every Facebook page view of mine for the last month.  They are probably by now renting out the last few doghouses in Austin, Houston, and San Antonio.  My couch was long ago claimed, but I do have a rather spacious garage.  Perhaps if you rent a car large enough to sleep in, I could make that available.

It was rather appropriate last year that Apple began selling the iPad 2 during the event and opened a downtown temporary store to supply the masses.   Now this morning I’ve read that the iPad 3 is about to be announced, and perhaps we’ll see that in March here in Austin.  It’s already embarrassing enough to be carrying an original iPad, but I still vividly remember the young man next to me at a seminar last year who actually apologized to me for his showing up with a pen and spiral notebook, when all others around us already had their new iPad 2’s. 

This is an aside, but I had a visitor from the Southeast last week who connected through DFW on a small commuter plane.  At the end of the flight as the passengers were waiting for their luggage to be handed to them, the attendant announced she had found an iPad in a seat pocket.  After about a minute’s hesitation, one business-dressed gentleman said it was his, but then mysteriously he couldn’t remember his seat number, and then he couldn’t find his boarding pass.  He rather sheepishly dug through his briefcase and did produce an iPad that gave him some cover for his story, but that was a pretty lame attempt to get a freebie.  If you’re carrying one, best to keep a close eye on it.

Back to the point, the moral to this post is that we are all operating in a very highly competitive tech world inhabited by lots of smart people.  I often get questions like:  “Why can’t I get my deal funded, look at that other guy with no revenue and a dumb idea.”  When you observe the full story behind the vetting and honing of deals and appearances in a venue as massive as SXSWi, you quickly realize that you are not alone in your quest for that investment or that strategic deal or that recognition.   Startup leaders must summon up boldness and a killer instinct at the appropriate moments.  It’s not necessarily the best product that wins, it’s the best leadership in a competitive firefight.

So, pack your six-shooters and head this way in March.

<image - aerial trade show view from SXSW site>

Standing starts by one person with very deep domain knowledge are the topic of this post.  I’ve spent some time in the last couple of weeks with several entrepreneurs in this category.   They know their fields inside and out and have defined a need.   They know the players, can identify potential customers, and can get to them.   They are inspired and brilliant.  Those factors are all good.

However, and there’s always a however, there’s often a very big leap between that state and actually launching a business.   I’ve taken to creating spreadsheets with week-by-week columns and with rows for each task showing assigned responsibilities, anticipated delivery times, and with dollar costs, if known, associated with each of those milestones.  This is a very granular approach, and it often reveals a lot.  For example:

Exactly how much money is it going to take me to launch this idea?

What the heck am I selling, and for how much?  Creating a price list is no simple job in situations at this stage.  It’s got to appear on that timeline pretty early.

For the tasks that are not my forte, exactly how and when do I hire individuals to fulfill them?  How do I train those people?

How do I find and evaluate the automated tools that are already built for me, and how and when do I insert them into my workflow? 

How do I design and execute all the bits and pieces of collateral (online or physical) that enable me to explain my offerings and convince the buyer to sign up?  For that matter, exactly what does the buyer sign to protect all parties?

When will I actually be able to close deals and confidently deliver my product and service? 

When will those sales translate into cash receipts?

If I need to raise some money, where do I start?  What are the legal steps?  Who should I approach?

Is there any hair that needs to be trimmed – former partners, conflicts of interest, partially conceived predecessor products, or other loose ends that might turn into problems when I’m successful?

When will I be ready to jump into this full-time and therefore be sufficiently motivated to insure that it works? More important, when will my significant other agree with me on this point?

How do I handle all the administrative details, like payrolls, taxes, licenses, banking, legal, and accounting?  Why do none of these interest me in the slightest?

Where am I going to get the help I need to answer all the questions above, and how much is that help going to cost?

Where are the best sources of advice – mentors, online services, books for dummies, TechDrawl?

Am I really starting a business or just pursuing an idea?  There’s a big difference.

Have I done a sanity check on my plan with friends, colleagues, and potential customers?   Have I really scrubbed all the information I can find on competition?

Where should I work?  There’s much to be said for being in an incubator or co-working space where you hang around and learn from other smart people in your peer group.   Working in a social and intellectual vacuum leads to bad outcomes more often than not.

This list may seem pretty obvious to those of you who have been through a few startups, but I have had just about every one of these questions posed to me by very bright but newly minted entrepreneurs in recent weeks.   Just knowing what questions to ask is a big part of the battle, and being a good listener is equally important.  Startups always seem to result in a lot of OJT, but the mere act of assembling a detailed timeline in advance can get you to market faster, cheaper, and better – yes all three. 

<Classic PERT chart image from Wikipedia>

Now that we’ve rapidly clicked off one month of 2012, what lies ahead for the remainder of the year?   SXSWi fever is already building here in Austin; there will be too much to see and do, no matter what your particular interest, and it’s not too soon to be strategizing your schedule.

Many deals continue to flow my way, and I’ve come up with a list of story lines that I believe will rise in the months ahead:

1.  It’s all about Facebook.   The looming IPO will only add more thrust to the rocket ship that is Facebook.   I’ve come to appreciate how effective it has developed as an advertising platform; every ad I see is very much on target, and Fb clearly knows how to use all the information it has on me.   I’ve also come to appreciate the value of groups.  The 1SS class where I mentor at the University of Texas is essentially coordinated from a Fb group.  If you’re not yet a Fb user, you will be.  And, if you’ve got a business that participates in that ecosystem, you should have a really great year.

2.  Facebook security will become a bigger issue.  My password was recently hacked, and Fb did a great job detecting that I was not the person in Brazil trying to log in with my credentials.  No harm done thanks to quick action; but the opportunity for evil will always follow the opportunity for good, and we’ll see ever more creative ways for hackers to misbehave in this medium.

3.   In general this will be a year where mobile security becomes a major concern. Articles I have read of late imply that it’s pretty easy for the wrong people to listen to your calls and grab data from your smart phone actions.  I’ve seen a number of business plans specifically addressing this problem, and they could not be more timely.

4.   This should also be the moment for the mobile wallet to get wrapped in pigskin and achieve critical mass.   I’m not sure which technology will prevail, or which mobile provider, or which tech company specializing in this area, but I have to think we’ll be transacting more with our mobile devices than with our Benjamins or cards when the next Holiday shopping season is upon us.

5.  Visual information will continue to blossom.  I am intrigued by the rapid rise of Instagram and Pinterest and how much they can convey about your interests and the depth of the impressions you can gather from those sites.   And, think of the advancing technology of digital photography.  Not only are your smart phones getting more and more powerful camera features, but look a the rise of the new micro 4/3 cameras from Sony, Nikon and Olympus where a big chip sits behind interchangeable lenses and gives you much of the oomph of a full-scale DSLR in a pocket-able form factor.   Smile, you’ll always be on camera from some angle.

6.   Government actions and legal issues in general will become more and more important for players in our industry.   “Slim” Dotcom (Wouldn’t that be an even more ironic name?) and his Megaupload mark just the beginning of the criminal sanctions to come as governments ratchet up enforcement of intellectual property rules.   We’ll see plenty of action of the privacy front as well; I saw a post today by Brent C. J. Britton on new social media guidelines imposed on its members by the Florida bar.   What’s impermissible advertising and what’s just plain social?  And, activity on the patent front should get even livelier as we have seen the biggest companies in our industry take up their swords in this respect.  The ROI for graduating from law school may soon start to climb again thanks to the technology industry.  I for one am hoping the US government will not cripple the tech industry with regulations like it ruined Detroit with emissions and safety rules in the 80’s.  Those rules were perhaps for good reason, but the unintended consequences were severe.  (You may recall that the very entertaining Can Am racing series was ended when the sanctioning body was compelled to impose a 3 mpg minimum and put those magnificent 1500 hp Porsche 917’s out of business.  Or you may not, but I needed a cool photo for this post.)

7.  There could be some really big wins and losses this year.  There may well be some “Kodak moments” where newer but already somewhat iconic brands prove vulnerable.  Very few tech companies are too big to be displaced, and very nimble competitors are plentiful.

8.  Finally, there will always be room for originality.  I commented in a previous post about seeing 75 nearly identical plans in one batch of 450 I graded for a competition.   Of late I’ve seen some “out of the way” and totally unsexy ideas that actually address very big problems.   They may be remarkable investments because it’s so unlikely anyone else will pursue these markets until these first-movers are very far down their roads.

<image from Sports Car Digest, Mark Donohue, Porsche 917/30, 1973>