Stage Two's blog

For some thoughts on startups and community managers, I recommend reading Jeremiah Owyang’s piece on “Should Startups Have Communtiy Managers” and Marshall Kirkpatrick’s “Do Startup Companies Need Community Managers”. I recommend the read because, like any marketing tactic, there’s no single one-size-fits-all answer. Some companies desperately need them, others will never. But once a company’s made the decision to have one, the next question is who’s best for the role?

First off, being a community manager is not for everyone. When I used to run the SlingCommunity, I used to tell people the right way to do it was to live with a combination of thick- and thin-skinnedness. I had to remain thinskinned enough where I took every piece of negative feedback openly and honestly. It’s never about user error or someone “not getting it”, it’s about doing it better and better until they do “get it,” regardless of how right I was (or wasn’t). That said, it’s also key to be thickskinned enough where not everything is taken personally, it’s important not to get mired down in negativity.

So who’s the right person for this job? Here’s some candidates:

The Leader (president/CEO)
Having the leader of a company be the community manager is a very tricky play. Fundamentally it’s a time-consuming role, and the typical startup CEO just plain shouldn’t have enough free time to do it. As the company is launching a product/service, I do recommend the CEO have a lot of personal visibility within their community. Unfortunately, as the company grows, the CEO will inevitably become too busy to stay active within the community, and depending on their involvement early on, could leave a bit of a bad taste in the mouth for some of the earliest adopters.

VP/Director-level: Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, etc
Having a VP/Director-level person could be perfect, if its at the kind of company where these level people are highly engaged in the product/services, but not overly committed managing people.  Busy-ness is a problem, as managing a community is a time-consuming proposition.  That said, these level people tend to be able to represent the company well, bring senior-level attention to an important job, and lend a lot of credibility.  Definitely a possibility, but probably not the best choice for most firms.

Manager-level: Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, etc.
Now we’re cooking with gas.  I’m a big fan of the same people who have “hands-on” roles with products being the visible advocate externally.  Also, manager-level people can do a great job explaining the vision/thought process of a company to the outside world while simultaneously taking in valuable feedback.  The only concern I’d raise here is for the PM’s who don’t have enough resources internally to give them the spare, regular time intervals to engage in the community (it’s important not to ebb and flow, but to have consistent presence).  This is most likely the best bet for many companies.

“Dedicated Community Manager” (aka Chief Community Officer, Evangelist, etc
I have very mixed feelings here.  It’s certainly a really positive sign to the outside world that a company has gone so far as to hire a dedicated person to run their community.  That said, it also can create some friction as the individual will often have to answer to many different voices.  If the company is ready to have a community manager become the true voice of the product’s customer base, and give him/her the right venue to express and share feedback, then this approach is often a great win.  If the community manager doesn’t have an internal audience, however, this can backfire tremendously.  Also, it’s essential that the community manager have specific tasks, deliverables, etc, and not just “maintain” the community.  Lastly, try not to come up with a goofy title here, it’ll look silly a few years out.

Outsourced Individual/Team
There are some times when outsourcing the community management can be extremely effective.  In my opinion, these times are exactly when there’s also internal resources dedicated as well.  There is no way to completely “hand off” the community to a third party and watch from afar.  I do recommend working with a firm that specifically does community management, and I’d further recommend picking one with domain expertise.  Managing a developer community is radically different from media producers which is in turn different from gadget communities.

Customer Support/Service
While I believe the customer service division of a company must be at least aware of the community, I also think they must be at most involved.  Fundamentally customer service departments have different responsibilities and objectives than the specific needs of a community, and I’ve found it’s a bit more challenging to align those needs.  I’m sure there are some places where this is the perfect fit, but from my experience it should be approached with caution.

Distributed Effort
In truth all employees have a responsibility to the community.  Everyone should be aware of hot topics, trends, themes, etc that are going on for a company’s user base.  It’s also great to have as many employees as possible actually participating, whether its creating content, responding to issues, or otherwise being active.  But I also don’t think it’s sufficient to let things run haphazard.  Without someone being ‘in charge’ it can easily get confusing for the community members themselves, and issues can easily get overlooked (or the flipside, too much attention to a minor/non-issue).

As you assess what your company needs, try to project the needs of your community.  Will they need a lot of technical information?  Will they want to hear human interest stories?  Will they want humor and fun, or seriousness and clarity?  Will they be tolerant of fluctuating response times, or expect posts and comments within minutes?  There are many reasons to have a community, and many ways to run one.  Figure out as much as you can for your products and your customers in advance, and the right individual/group should emerge from the pool.

I’ve read post after post from bloggers and entrepreneurs on how the best way to market your company is by being the uber-evangelist and making relationships with all the key influencers. It’s great in theory, and for the very lucky few who can pull it off, I say mazel tov.  The unfortunate reality with this kind of advice is it just doesn’t apply to most entrepreneurs or CEOs, and is over-the-top idealistic.

Reason #1: Introverts.  There are plenty of amazingly intelligent people out there who are, simply put, bad with people.  This doesn’t make them any less qualified to start a business, but it sure makes evangelizing it a challenge.  So telling the less socially inclined entrepreneurs that the only way for them to market their business is through relationship-building and going to techie meetups isn’t necessarily the best advice.

Reason #2: The Geographically Challenged.  Carnegie said it best, but we all know that location matters.  But that shouldn’t be the only way to build a successful business. Not everyone feels like uprooting their entire personal life just to go to San Francisco or New York or another hub.  I’ve known extremely successful entrepreneurs in Boise, Montreal (Go Habs!), Indianapolis, not to mention internationally run businesses.  In fact, it’s highly ironic that location should matter so much with the modern capabilities of remote working.

Reason #3: Busy People. Many startup CEOs need to spend their time on the core business.  Whether it’s technical in nature or out there closing deals, it’s actually quite rare to find a CEO with enough free time to spend it meeting and greeting.  I’m not suggesting they not be well-networked, but it takes a lot of time to properly maintain media/influencer relationships.

Reason #4: It’s a Ponzi Scheme. I’ll switch tacks for a second here – let’s now assume that everyone is socially inclined, centrally-located, and has enough free time to go to every feedup, tweetup, blogup, and yawnup they can possibly find.  We all do not have the capacity to make sufficient relationships in the end.  Think of the “Top 10 Influencers” in your given field.  Now imagine the burden on them to build relationships with all the other entrepreneurs like you.  The numbers just don’t add up.

So where does this leave the, say, 90+% of entrepreneurs who need to take advantage of personal relationships, yet for one reason or another just aren’t able to make that work for them individually?  Well, I think it pretty well paints the case for relationship-oriented firms.  My only advice on how to pick them is to check those relationships!  There’s a big difference between a rolodex entry and a friendly, trusted relationship.

We’d like to congratulate our favorite social media center company, boxee.tv, for being selected as one of 15 finalists for the CES 2009 I-Stage event.  I-Stage is a new event for CES, which they’ve labeled with “Think you’ve got America’s next top gadget? Prove it. “  The event is being judged by Kevin Kelly (Wired), Ryan Block (Engadget/gdgt), Jeff Pulver, and Molly Wood.

The 15 finalists will unveil their products before a live audience on Monday, October 20, at CEA’s 2008 Industry Forum, scheduled October 19-22, 2008, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas, NV.
Good luck Avner and the rest of Team Boxee!

While I’ve blogged about my discomfort with the conflicting startup launch conferences (TechCrunch50 and DEMOfall), I still believe there’s plenty of opportunity on the table for the companies presenting. By now a handful of startups have already begun their presentations, a few on deck, and a bunch prepping themselves. I read a good post by Brian Solis on TechCrunch about “How to Stand Out from the Crowd” and thought I’d add some additional advice.

In no particular priority order:

1. Set Realistic Goals: Are you there to meet VCs or to meet press? Or maybe to meet potential business partners? There’s only so many hours in the day, and as you’ve by now noticed, there’s lots of people you could meet. Pick some specific, achievable goals, and put all your energy toward that. It’s easy to get distracted at an event like this, so focus is important.
2. Watch Presentations Before Your Own: If you are demoing this afternoon, or tomorrow, you have plenty of time to watch some other presenters. Get a feel for the room and the crowd. See what’s working well, and what’s not. Even if you’ve spent months creating a good demo script, you are getting more useful data right now than you can possibly have prepared for. Be nimble, don’t be rigid.
3. Have FUN up there: I’m a natural windbag, so I always enjoy being on a stage. But not everyone feels so comfortable in front of a large audience. That’s understandable, but the only advice I have is: “get over it!” This is the time to shine, not retreat. It’s just a few minutes, and while they may be extremely important minutes, don’t get so serious that you can’t enjoy your time. Your audience will know if you are comfortable or sweating bullets, and if you are trying your best, and smiling and (gasp) joking around, they’ll be on your side. Nothing wrong with being nervous, but people are going to want to like you, just make it easy for them!
4. Have your 10 second pitch ready: You only have a few minutes on stage, but you’re going to spend hours in the halls networking. Let’s face it, with all the “power players” around, everybody’s in a rush. You need to give a quick, compelling pitch, and don’t be offended when someone doesn’t want to know more. But if you take 2 minutes just to explain your story, they probably won’t be around to hear it all. Be fast and to the point.
5. Share the VIPs: There are some crazy bigwig type folks hanging around at these events. If you are lucky enough to get a few minutes with someone uber-important, please remember they are busy too, and there are many others like yourself who are just trying to meet them at all. There’s nothing more frustrating than standing behind someone giving their life story to a guy you’ve been dying to meet and exchange cards with. Give your pitch, swap cards, be friendly, and then, move on. It’s just good karma
6. Plan to Follow-up: This might sound obvious, but if you don’t plan to follow-up, don’t bother taking cards. Your window is 1 week, no more.
7. Wear Schwag: Let’s be honest, your goal is some amount of attention-getting. Might as well throw on a shirt (make one at Zazzle if need be), it’ll help people who are trying to find you. It may be gimmicky, but wouldn’t you rather be found than… not found?
8. Have a Tie-In: It’s always good to be able to say something like “Yeah, I was the guy on stage with the picture of the 5-foot-tall mouse” (or some other, more relevant idea). You don’t have to go crazy, just something that the audience will remember if you bring it up.
9. Don’t Get Drunk: Yes, we’ve all seen it. The people at the launch parties/events that have one too many drinks, and no pal to get them out of sight. Don’t be that guy.

Good luck at the show everyone!

UPDATE: I’m going to add one more from Robert Scoble (paraphrased): Don’t launch at a major conference with a “sucky” Web site!

Next week the TechCrunch50 and DEMOfall conferences will see the launch of some 122 new startups (my estimate based on the 70 presentations at DEMO and 52 at TC50 – the number may be wrong). Beyond all debate about which conference to attend, I must say I’m amazed at the numbers, especially considering how many were rejected (rumored to be many hundreds more). While some companies will do well at the events (my prediction is less than 10 brands will be memorable within 2 weeks of the shows), most will not.

I typically advice clients against launching at events like these (though attending is a completely different story). I think they are losing propositions for most really good companies. Being forced onto a stage to present your entire vision in 6 minutes and then be judged and scrutinized in front of the media isn’t quite a comfortable scenario. So many things can go wrong regardless of your product, technology, rehearsing, etc. Further, anyone with a really good technology or product and a decent marketing/PR team can line up the necessary press at their own schedule with a good demo environment.

That said, I can see a few reasons/benefits and thought I’d share some strategies.

• The Unknown Players. Let’s face it, there’s most certainly an advantage to the well-networked entrepreneurs (which is why people like Jason Calacanis and Loic Lemeur think PR is so worthless – they are already so well networked they can get the press and meetings just by asking friends). If you are from outside the Valley, or this is your first startup and you can’t afford a PR firm, events like these will let you build up a rolodex in just a couple of days. Your goal: networking.
• Almost Ready Products. Maybe you’ve been working on your tech for a long while (or not-so-long) and you aren’t quite ready for “real” launch yet. But there’s a huge conference happening just around the corner, let’s say a few weeks prior to your readiness. This could be a clever way to generate some buzz around your vision. BTW – your vision better be good! Your goal: build buzz.
• Amazing Presenters. If you are an over-the-top good presenter, the shows could be good venues for you. Let’s face it, most presenters are not good, they don’t listen/react/engage with their audience, they aren’t compelling, show too many dull slides, etc. If you are an A+ presenter, this is a fun time to shine out amongst the dullards. Your goal: wow em, win some kind of recognition.
• Me-Too Trendy Tech. Following/chasing a bandwagon? Building in the moment? These conferences are often breeding grounds for follow-the-leader companies, and could be a good place to network for a future acquisition. Please note: I’m certainly not encouraging everyone to go out and build the same stuff, but let’s face it – it happens, and if you find yourself in a sea of similar products, you’ll need all the networking help you can get. Your goal: standing out from the crowd.

Will the shows be full of interesting companies? Absolutely. Are there other reasons to demo/launch? Probably a few I can’t think of. Will new companies launch in the third week of September, thus moving on to new shinier toys for us to all play with? Yes. Will 100+ companies launch and nearly vanish moments thereafter? Yup.

Don’t believe me? Name 10 companies (without googling) who launched at DEMOspring or TechCrunch40 last year. I’ll get you started: Xobni, Mint, … uh… hmm…