Cerdafied...startups, people & the variety Hour

More click-to-call

Prominent click-to-call provider Jajah announced 2 millions users this week. I wonder if it's 2 million uses rather than users, but it's traction in any case. They're offering free Jajah connections if you're calling a registered Jajah user, so I'm not sure how strong the revenue base is. I'm no stranger on the topic of arbitrage business models, but hey, maybe they have bigger tricks up their sleeves.

The Techcrunch story on them pointed out a pending online dating site launch. I happen to know the details of which dating site this is. I won't leak it here because there's no upside in that and I'm just not that kind of guy. I will say that daters don't like click-to-call solutions though. I've done the research. The argument for having click-to-call on a dating site, is 'I'm looking at her profile and may as well call her now, while I'm here'. But really...people don't talk as a first step in online dating. They wink or break the ice over e-mail for some time before talking. That's just how online daters have been trained for years now. It's only then that they want to talk. And they don't want to have to log in to their dating provider every time they want to talk to the person. They want a phone number that can dial from a phone from wherever they are at that time. The want privacy, control and convenience. This only gives them privacy.

We're launching into some additional dating environments as well, but can't say which ones just yet. All I can say is they are NOT a click-to-call implementation...for good reasons.

Technorati Tags: Jajah

Click to Call

Andy Abramson is a revered PR guy and VoIP blogger. He does PR work for companies that are either competitors of mine or that might seem like competitors of mine. That's always made it a little more difficult to brief Andy as a 'VoIP blogger'. Generally you'd like to tell a guy like Andy all about how you are about to change the world, but it just can't be.

For those that are clients of his, there are endless plugs and references in his blogs. (There's a proxy to Andy in the online personals business, named Mark Brooks).

This all said, Andy (likewise with Mark), has some good things to say, so I read his blog. Today he posts about how click-to-call has no relevance. About how it's a real old school technique, lacking intelligence. He talks about how he took a Sitfono button off his website, because he was getting calls at unwanted times. He also talks about how client Alec Saunders can help making it relevant (with no other than the relevance engine). I'm sure that's true.

Click-to-call makes sense from a convenience stand point, if you're looking for a restaurant and need to call them, and in the listing it's hyperlinked to launch a call from your phone. That's kind of corner case and lacks seam today for the contemporary consumer unless the site has hooks into VoIP or the consumer does.

Click-to-call makes even more sense when I text GOOGL for a listing from my mobile and get back content with a link to launch a call from my mobile. That's where it's applied practically. It has nothing to do with VoIP, Andy or Alec though. It does have everything to do with contemporary consumers with mobiles.

Point being, click-to-call with social telephony is the wrong implementation. Why should we have to be online to initiate a call every time? And especially without having any knobs to control this beast.

I've got more to say in the next post.

Technorati Tags: andy abramson, mark brooks, jangl, alec saunders

Startup Teams Part III

Here's a team story that ended well.

About six years ago on halloween I was with my wife and 2 kids trick or treating. There's a particular neighborhood party nearby, which we dropped in on. This was one of those functions where my wife knew everybody and I know nobody. I sat around drinking a Sierra Nevada, which I hate by the way (it scratches my throat). Anyway, kids were playing and my wife was talking. A couple new to the area walked up with a toddler and introduced themselves. I'm thinking "Oh great, small talk time." Nice people, but it was an atypical setting for me to get a friendship started.

About four years later, that toddler was in the same class as my son. They became good buddies ever since. We all realized we'd met that prior halloween. Funny how it all works out.

So then just over a year ago, I'm picking up my son from their house. Turns out we had both attended Cal Poly, so had some similar roots. The dad (John) is talking to me about my day job. John asked me if I needed a BD (business development) guy. Hell no. I'm that BD guy right... He said, "No this guy is a numbers guy. A different kind of BD."

me: "Ah ok, I do need a finance guy. What's his background?"

John: "He's former Sprint, Equinix, Teligent."

me: "Too big company. I need a start up guy."

John: "No, he does startups too!"

me: "Wtf?"

John: "He is just wrapping up a startup right now and is starting to look around. You gotta meet this guy."

me: "I'll meet him, but I'm skeptical."

So I get a resume for John's b-school buddy Pradeep Belur. We get on the phone. It goes well so we meet for coffee (I don't drink coffee). He was stiff and white collared, which was to be expected. We hit it off very quickly. This guy wasn't a typical telco head and wasn't a typical numbers guy. He was curious about people who made things happen in business since it was more about intuition than education. I think he thought I might be one of these guys. We'll see. Anyway, not only was I happy to hire him, but co-founder Ben liked him, my marketing person liked him, AND I had the support of my board.

Pradeep has turned out to be the perfect compliment to me and the rest of the team. He knows that by now.

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Lesson #1: When building your team, NEVER rule out serendipity. In fact, LOOK FOR IT.

Lesson #2: It takes all kinds to make startups work. The last thing you want is your numbers person to be just like you, especially if you're numbers deficient.

Lesson: #3: Drink things you don't like once and a while, you never know what will come of it;)

Jangl Customers Looking for International Support

The inbox is getting long with folks asking me about Jangl international support. The dealio: it's coming soon, real soon. Like weeks. Europe, Latin America and even some parts in Asia Pac. More later...

Technorati Tags: jangl, international

Casualties of War: Startup Teams Part Deux

Ok here's another diddy. This time it's from a company I didn't start, but that I joined late in a series B stage. I was recruited by the CEO who we can call Jack. Jack and I had a success in our prior company, so we had a personal comfort level. Jack was a sales guy by trade, and this company didn't have a product to sell yet. One thing after another pushed out a release date at this company. Jack wasn't used to managing a company with such heavy duty technology dependencies.

My role was that of the first business development/sales/marketing guy, reporting to Jack. Jill started in business development the same day I did, and she also reported to Jack. It wasn't exactly clear who did what, and it bred natural conflict. Jill wanted to own me, and I wanted to autonomy in owning customers. What's worse, is Jill had no clue what we did. How long would it take for Jack to figure that out? How long would it take for anyone else to notice? How long would it take for anyone else to admit it?

Then there was a contractor named Bruce brought on, also a friend from our past, to help us out on other continents. Who was going to manage that activity, me or Jill? Me for customers and Jill for partners is how it ended up. Except that Bruce figured out Jill was a no-op, and refused to deal with her. Who was going to explain this to Jack?

To make matters more interesting, Pete started in marketing a few months later. I helped him come up to speed and iron out the messaging that had been working for me. Now he wanted to own me too. It was clear to him that Jill was a no-op. It was clear to everyone that Jill was a no-op. Jack even knew it but wouldn't admit it. It wouldn't be long before Pete crossed with Jack, just because he was smart, had opinions and backbone.

Then there was co-founder John, who I had nice rapport with, simply because i was productive and hopefully had integrity. But Jack hated John, and wanted me to be ears to the ground for him. A recipe for disaster...

Another co-founder named Ringo was a bastard at first. He even kicked me and the product team out of my own customer meeting one time, to provide the customer with a bird's eye view into futures, obviously which me and the product team weren't in the loop on. That was obviously embarrassing and took my role right off the table. I called bullshit on Ringo later that day, and we've been friends ever since. Anyway, Ringo seemed to hate John and Jack though. Oh my God.

Jack had a temper and had a lot of politics in play himself, as well as throughout the organization. As you can imagine this took away from productivity. I don't need to tell you how this all ended up.

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Lesson #1: Make sure your team all have clear roles and demarcation. And when that blurs, make it as clear as possible what the engagement rules are. Otherwise you hamper accountability and sponsor in-fighting.

Lesson #2: Fail fast on bad hires. Bad hires perpetuating long-term offer no upside at all, and even increase the chances of failure. (Don't take bad hires too bad, sometimes you didn't see it coming. Just keep your eyes open so you can see it when it is coming).

Lesson #3: A management team needs to challenge another and be accountable, but also needs to be healthy to survive. Oh, and if you sense you're getting caught up in a bizarre hate triangle (especially with a CEO and founders), RUN. That's what I did...

Technorati Tags: startups, teams

VON Exhibit Floor

So I walked the VON floor yesterday in about 10 minutes, and thought to myself "Gee, I'm really glad I don't have to buy any of this stuff." And then I saw my domestic network provider Level 3 booth. Basically the only vendor I have on the show floor. Good people there and we're doing some really new and differentiating things together, which we'll be louder about soon.

And then I went to the Solutions Theater which was a small PA system with some seats on the show floor. I saw Global Crossing do a case study talk featuring my friend Craig Walker from Grand Central. Global Crossing is a good company. We're using them to expand our footprint internationally actually.

And then I did this session called "Beyond Cheap Talk". It was basically a bit on how we can do more than long distance arbitrage with VoIP. Afterward there were a couple of questions, one of which came from colleague Jeff Black from TalkPlus. He wanted to know our pricing. The one thing I can say, is it will look nothing like his:). That said I did give Jeff (and Craig) some love in yesterday's contributing Venture Beat story.

-MC

New Jangl Widget

Looky here. The Jangl team has put out another release. This release is mostly about the new Jangl widget. Like the original Jangl button, this widget allows you to post this to your profiles, websites or blogs. Then your people come by and can get a number (not their real number) to call you. These numbers will very soon be text (SMS) capable, which is a first. When your people call, they'll have to introduce themselves the first time, giving you the option to screen the call. If you don't answer, it actually forwards to your voice mail.

I'll actually be showing this at VON during my "Cheap Talk" session at the Solutions Theater at 215PM.

I've got one of the many flavors of widget here on cerdafied. Have a look-->

Technorati Tags: jangl, von, widget

UPDATE: Casualties of War: Building Your Startup Team

I've been at startups for nearly 15 years. I've seen teams come and go, gel and snow, win and blow. In any case, it makes or breaks your startup, often even more so than particular market propositions you might be placing. Generally, what happens is the founding people in early stages like to surround themselves with comfortable, familiar, trustworthy beings. It's easily done when you're using the same formula as your last startup. The challenge is, startups are done differently damn near each time due to market conditions or opportunities. So you tend to need different attributes from people at your new company than you did at your old company.

I'm going to tell tales about some bad team situations and some good team situations. In the voice of the 24 guy, it all starts now.

I had to make a key hire, one that would function as well as it looked on paper. Optics is important early on. I called someone I'll refer to as "Paul" that I almost hired in a prior life to fill the role. I thought Paul would be a great hire. He was saddled in a great opportunity already though, so he was not on the market. So then I called "Amy", also someone I'd considered hiring in a prior life. Amy had a strong background in lots of big name companies. Unfortunately, Amy's skill set did not translate to the nimble needs of a start up. So then I hired "Rick" to tie us over, in a more junior position to Amy's. Rick really had some goods, but Rick couldn't harvest them. And we couldn't harvest them for Rick. It got so bad that Rick leaked some false junk about
the company to the press. This person had to go for obvious reasons. I operated that role myself for a near term. Then I ran back into Paul (after 2 years). Paul was loose in the socket at his job and was hungry for something new. It all worked out in the wash, as Paul's really making a huge impact already. Here's an example of taking 2 years and 2 casualties to find the right fit.

The people business is a funny (not like a clown) thing.

Lesson #1

1. Know what DNA you need. It takes two to make a thing go right
2. Big company people aren't startup people, and usually vice versa.
3. Read "Top Grading".

UPDATE: Paul is in fact Aaron Burcell, formerly of Podshow, Stata Labs and WebTV. This guy rocks.

Technorati Tags: building team, jangl, startups

VON & Jangl

Next week I'll be presenting at Spring VON twice -- first, in a break-out session called, "Beyond Cheap Talk: Jangl Brings Lifestyle Benefits to Consumers and Their Phones". During that talk, I'll also preview our next release, which is due just a few days later (hint: think bloggers and phones).

In addition, I'll join colleagues Graeme Dollar of Yahoo! and Michael Ramacle of Level 3, as well as others I'll be meeting for the first time (Carl Ford, Josh Fraser and George Moore), all for a panel on New Revenue Producing Services.

Ironically, Jangl isn't even in the Pulver 100. The criteria are substantial growth and significant real-world deployments, and we've been fairly vocal about our news to date. So it's a bit of a wonder to us why we didn't make it. Regardless, the VON folks are visionary and have been a superb rallying point for the entire industry. That's why we committed to the Consumer VoIP program prior to CES, and that's why we're doing our thing with Jeff and VON next week.

We're fired up about what we say and do next week, and even more fired up about what we learn. It'll be great. Get to Timmy if you want to stay in touch on this one.

-MC

Technorati Tags: yahoo!, level 3, jangl, pulver 100, VON

Purpose

You ever go to a concert and then find yourself buzzing about it? So much that you buy the records you didn't have and listen to all of them over and over. Weeks go by, and the CDs are still in the car. You almost grow sentimental about ejecting the CDs in favor of something else. How could anything be better listening?

The concert I went to was TED. The first night of TED, I threw a brief slide deck together to organize some thoughts, about how 'what it is that I do' could contribute to a bigger cause. Here's what I came up with:

Technorati Tags: jangl, TED