It's a Boyd!

John Boyd has joined the Nimble team and we're happy to have him. John's purview will include parts of marketing and sales. John's extremely bright and talented and we're expecting great things.

For those of you who don't know John, I'll pass along the synopsis. John is one of these young hot-shot short-hairs that I seem to be running into a lot lately. He's interned in the White House and organized and run a gubernatorial campaign in the last primary in the state. John's also a Fight Club member with a wicked jab.

To VC or not VC, that is the question?

There's some internal debate over here about whether tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and build this baby from organic growth.

Actually I'm tired and the thought of organizing my thoughts for the next hour on the cost of capital is rapidly giving way to a few hours on the LoveSac . I like the headline though and rather than throw it away. I'll see if I can't cowboy up tomorrow and finish this post.

Next RSS subscriber makes 100.

Somebody can make history here. The next person to subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog will be number 100. I'd say that's pretty good since this blog is only three weeks old. Granted, being the 100th subscriber to this RSS feed won't make the 'tell the grandkids' list unless we actually do topple Google. But it will make me feel warm and fuzzy inside and that should make you feel good too.

MWI as a think tank.

Joshua Steimle, MWI's Honcho, is offering office space inside his shop to entrepreneurs or small startups. $500 per month will get you an office  with pickles, onions, ketchup, phone and janitorial services.  There are some cubes to house your grunts in too.  Joshua makes it sound a lot better on his blog.

Woot and the power of limited inventory.

Limited supply + large demand = motivation.

For anyone who doesn't know woot.com, now's your chance. Woot is an online business that takes a single product of limited inventory, discounts it heavily, and releases it every day at midnight.  If the products good it sells out pdq so you have to be quick to the button. Steep & Cheap is backcountry.com's like-concept but offers outdoor stuff.

I found out about Woot from Alan Young when he was working with the University Venture Fund. Allan told me that Woot was changing it's users sleeping patterns since they'd stay up 'till midnight to see what the next Woot was.

Of course it's the limited supply. Limited supply + large demand = motivation.

The problem many businesses have is that they don't really have limited supply, they have lots of supply. It's this factor of being able to offer unlimited supply that exerts a downward pressure on perceived value for internet companies. How much will people pay for email? Nada.

What can a business do to decrease the perceived supply of its offering? Depends. If you're direct competitors also have unlimited supply you're in trouble because your customers will switch. It's only if you're offering is unique enough that the opportunity cost is now perceived by the buyer to be lower with your offering.

It's the perceived value and opportunity cost that buyers use to make purchasing decisions. That's it. It would be really simple if all consumers used the same criteria to judge but they don't. There's slop in the decision making process since every individual use their own criteria. But that's also where the opportunity lies for any business.

Women purchasing shoes are using a very different standard of value and opportunity cost than men. (Way different in my wife's case.)

Woot proves the point. Changing the habits of customers is not easy, but if the perceived value of the offing is there it happens without a second thought. 

Fight Club is ready to rumble.

Fight Club's scheduled for Thursday of this week. You can see all of the exact details over at the Fight Club blog.

Seth Purple Cow's Google

Seth Godin talking about Purple Cows at Google. If you like Seth, this is the stuff. Here's the link.

Fight Club is here.

What's Fight Club?

Fight Club is a monthly event (usually dinner) for entrepreneurs and startup CEOs.

Yeah, there are a number of other events around. The Geek Dinner. Corporate Alliance. Chambers. The CTO Breakfast. But Fight club is for startups to network with each other. (At least that's the idea. We'll see where it goes.)

Why Fight Club?

Geek Dinners taken. Besides, it's cooler to tell your wife/staff/buddies that you're going to Fight Club than have to ask strangers directions to the Geek Dinner. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Fight Club is about connecting, not selling

Fight Club Members are entrepreneurs and business owners who understand that people are not the sum of what they can do for you. We're organized to build introductions and relationships between entrepreneurs outside the regular business environment. You can sell again on Monday.

How you fit in

Fight Club is small on purpose. We want to offer an environment where people can get to know the 'person' they're talking to, before the business. Anyone can come, you just have to attend with a member the first time.

Fight Club is not an Old Boys Network

We're just a bunch of similarly situated guys who value semi-inteligent conversation and understand that expanding your network and being of service is also good business.

GBAT (Guy's Bozofication Aptitude Test)

Guy Kawasaki's Bozofication Aptitude Test is now online. As a minor contribution to the blogosphere you'll notice that question number 15 is incredibly insightful.

Fight Club Utah

Fight Club, the Entrepreneur Network is coming to Utah.

I've been kicking around the idea of starting up a startup networking dinner for entrepreneurs. I've attended a number of these networking soirees and think that the founders of young startups might well benefit from a network of  founder who are in, or have been in the same situation. Startups are always in need of a wider network than they have to build a team or find resources. I'm going to contact a few entrepreneurs and see who's interested.

Why Fight Club? Geek Dinners taken. Besides, it's cooler to tell your wife/staff/buddies that you're going to Fight Club than have to ask strangers directions to the Geek Dinner. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Niches more profitable than hits?

I posted about Nimbles Long Tail here.

I've been reading a lot about the Long Tail and came across this post describing how niche markets are actually more profitable than hits.  From the LT Blog:

But in Long Tail markets, where the costs of shelf space are very low, the niches have the same costs as the hits, and potentially the same profit margins. This explains that last profit bar in this graphic, which is the same as the revenue bar that comes before it.

But I underestimated the effect of lower niche content acquisition costs. The readers were right. The economics of niches turn out to be even better than the hits. Way better, as it happens...

 This Long Tail stuff is killer.

Blog your business & your competition.

Business blogging? Here's my 2 cents.

I've been blogging for a while.

I'm sure I started out the way most bloggers do. I heard about blogging. Clicked a few links. Opened a free account at Blogger which I posted 2-3 sentences and then abandoned. Read a few more blogs. And then I started a blog at a paid service.

The paid part and the sense of familiarity that came with time allowed me to actually start writing.  (I'll leave the decision as to whether it's worth reading to you.) The tipping point came when I realized that I didn't have to write a book, that I was an authority on a number of things that others wanted to know, and that I enjoyed sharing that information and felt rewarded when people would read my stuff. It's not a thesis. It's a blog.

Now I have a total of three blogs, each with a specific focus.

The first blog I posted to was Medical Spas Online. MSO is a community blog that I write for occasionally  focused on non-surgcial cosmetic medicine targeted directly at physicians in that space. It's attracted a loyal redership of around 2000 docs.

Interaction in that space and a growing familiarity with blogging in general has built a sense of 'blog trust' in me. 

So I started two other blogs. (I'm also trying to talk my daughter into starting a blog on 'Three Day Eventing for Young Riders'.)

I've launched an experimental blog for my medical business. The Surface Medical Spas Blog is designed to be an interface between Surface and our patients. Our physicians and staff will post information on our treatments and technology, and answer questions in a format that is available to our existing  and potential patients. I'm excited by this since I haven't seen this kind of format used by any business in the way we're using it.

Then there's this blog of course. Startup venture, startup blog. 

A growing number of great blogs cover much of what I'll be blogging about here. Why would the bloggosphere be in need of anything I might ad? Who knows. I'm hoping to be able to accomplish a number of things. Focus my thoughts and strategy by forcing myself to commit my thoughts to paper (kind of). Interacting with other entrepreneurs. Attracting talent. Instigating a corporate culture. Buiding trust in our small business clints, and potential business partners.

Now before I get too excited, Chris Anderson has some feeling on business blogs; "the natural voice of the boss is fundamentally incompatible with the voice of the blogger, at least as regards their own company affairs."

 But wait, there's still hope. Chris goes on to say "The best business blogs come from the employees, not the bosses. They have more time, and are less prone to marketing gobbledygook and gnomic platitudes. And those kind of blogs are on the rise, not the decline."

In reading that, it seems like my wish list may be a tall order. We'll see what we can do. 

A post worth reading.

Not this post. This one here from Chris Sacca's blog.

Shane sold his business today.

Shane, my nimble partner, closed the sale of his business today.

Shane and his wife Treena started a day spa/salon business 5 1/2 years ago. They built The Brick House Retreat into what is probably the most successful and largest single salon & spa business in the state with gross revenues pushing $2m a year and a staff of 50. Their success and business acumen is what led me to place one of Surface's Medical Clinics in Brick House as a satelite clinic in Salt Lake. It was working with Shane in that capacity that impressed me enough to approach him in partnering on Nimble.

So Shane has sold that business in order to fund Nimble as we launch.

One of my favorite quotes comes from a chapter heading of a book that's popular among creatives, The Artists Way,  "Leap, and the net will appear."

Shane and I both believe deeply that we have the opportunity to use Nimble to build the most valuable and valued tool available to any local business.  I for one have no reason to question Shane's commitment. 

Inventory vs. Capacity - What's in a word?

I attended a Geek Dinner tonight down in Salt Lake. I appreciate what the organizers of these dinners are trying to do in building a network among programmers. Having attended many of these type of networking dinners, the awkwardness of some attendees is apparent.

After the dinner I was talking to Nathan Nelson (Nimble's new mouthpiece) and one of the Junto crew, Ryan Coombs, and a programmer from Provo Labs, (J...?). We were talking about Nimble and I took the opportunity to launch into my elevator pitch. I always try to take advantage someone who's never heard of the company or offering.  I try to stick with what we use as 'sales copy' while I'm talking and then ask for feedback to gauge how effectively I'm communicating and the level of understanding they have. The idea is to build the briefest, most effective terminology to describe exactly what we do.

Tonight I gained feedback that I think will fundamentally change the way we present ourselves to business clients.

I have been describing Nimble as a way for any local business to, 'manage their unused or excess inventory in real time'.  Those are exactly the words I used tonight. Twice.

Immediately after the second turn of this phrase I was met with, 'unused capacity'. Bingo. That is exactly the term I've been searching for.

'Inventory' sounds like old chairs and supply chain management. "Unused capacity" elicits the impression that every possible revenue producing opportunity is being utilized. Inventory sounds like cost savings. 'Sell your unused capacity' sounds like it's generating revenue and cash flow. Just the kind thing you want as a small business owner.

Changing that one term in explaining our business model describes exactly what we're doing in the clearest and most succinct way. Thanks J.

Update on 2006-03-11 17:31 by Jeff Barson

I've since found out that the "J" to which I referred is Jordy from Provo Labs. Thanks Jordy.