Tag: Entrepreneurship

Giving Anonymously

Category : Entrepreneurship
Posted on by

After a three week hiatus, I’m back to blogging.  I just got back from an amazing three weeks traveling in Europe, followed by one of my best friend’s wedding.  I’ll have a few posts about where I went and some observations about the contrasts between Europe, the UK and the United States, but first, I had to write about this because its so cool.

I was driving back from my friend’s wedding today, listening to NPR and heard about Giving Anonymously, a website dedicated to letting people give money to their family and friends, without their knowledge.  From their website:

Giving Anonymously is a non-profit organization facilitating generosity between people. We are a volunteer organization; each of us donates our time without pay to keep Giving Anonymously running.

Giving Anonymously began in 2005 with our website up and running in early 2007. We began with a few goals in mind: We wanted to relationally connect people through giving, to make it fun, and in the process protect relationships from feelings of obligation. Giving to others in need can be full of mixed motivations and our hope is to facilitate Pure giving.

Anyone who enjoys putting cash under a friends door or in their mailbox will often times not know if their friend actually got the gift and they cannot hear what it meant to them. So, we came up with an idea to have a messaging line where recipients could call after receiving their gift. When a recipient doesn’t know who gave the gift to them they are even more free to express their gratitude and we capture this through voice files that we email to the donor.

I think this is an amazing idea with lots of potential, especially in a down economy.  Although the non-profit changes credit card processing fees of 3% for gifts over $500, its still loads more efficient than many charities that take up to 30% of donations in overhead.  The only hitch is that these gifts are not tax deductible.  Since you are choosing who gets the money, it is not deductible.  I understand why the rule exists, but it would be cool to see some sort of exception in this case.  Its good to see innovation coming out of our current downturn to help people in need.

I Trust Google With My Life…Almost

Category : Technology
Posted on by

My internet went out the other day for a few hours when I wanted to get some work done (thanks Charter!). I couldn’t access my email, so I figured I’d do some work on my business plan. I quickly remembered that I store most of my documents on Google Docs, meaning that I couldn’t access them from home either. I spent the next few minutes writing this post on old fashioned college ruled notebook paper.

I trust Google with my life….almost. I have my email, calendar, documents, contacts, advertising campaign, photos and website analytics all in Google’s hands. I use Google maps to find out where I am going (google maps), view business reviews (search), and upload and view videos (youtube). I get my news in part from Google News. I used to use blogger, another Google service, to host my blog, but have since moved to hosting my own site on a wordpress platform. Google is so much more than a search engine and millions of people around the world trust google to protect and store their important data. Google Creep, as I like to call it, is Google’s amazing ability to become useful, if not necessary, to our daily lives.

I’ve never been one to put all of my eggs in one basket, but I realized I pretty much have with google. In the unlikely event of Google’s bankruptcy, failure due to hacking or natural disaster, I would be pretty much screwed. I bet millions of others would be in my shoes, too. Its amazing that we have not only allowed a company to permeate our entire lives as much as Google has, but we have embraced it, always asking for Google to do more.

Google is now pushing into electronic medical records, mobile phones and even renewable energy. It will be interesting to see if there is any backlash in the coming years about how much we depend on Google. As people move from hard drives toward storage on the internet, more and more people will become dependent on Google.

After I got my internet connection back up, I backed up all of my contacts and google docs onto my hard drive, which is backed up by Mozy. This is not an anti-google post and I doubt anything bad will happen to Google, but it was shocking to find how dependent I had become on Google and its services. I probably won’t change anything, but its pretty amazing. I can’t think of any other company that took over like Google has in the history of America.

What do you think? Are you as dependent on Google as I am? Do you have any strategies to combat Google creep as it takes over even more facets of our online lives? Do you think it is a bad thing?

Why Don’t Airplane Black Boxes Transmit to Land?

Category : Technology
Posted on by

Jesse Davis, my friend and another Madison based entrepreneur, asks this question in his post today called Thinking Outside the Black Box.  He says:

Instead of spending billions (literally) of dollars developing black boxes that can resist 5,000 degree heat, impact of the highest magnitudes, and can send radio transponder signals from depths of 12,000 feet below sea level for up to 30 days, someone should have suggested the possibility of a solution that lies outside the black box.

Why can’t black boxes transmit their data in real time to a backup station via the internet or cell phone transponder?  It seems like it would be a fairly simple engineering project, but it has not been done yet.  Hopefully some engineer is working on this project right now and works harder and faster because of the recent Air France crash.  It would seem like this idea would be something that both the government and the airlines would love to have.

How to Get Taken Seriously Running A Startup When You’re Under 25

Category : Entrepreneurship
Posted on by

Of all the lessons I learned running a startup, figuring out how to deal with people who did not take us seriously solely because of our age might have been the most important.  Many times, I could tell that the person on the other end of the telephone or across the desk was thinking “who are these kids and why are they talking to me?”  It was obvious that being young hurt our credibility before we even said a word.  We were confident in our idea and business plan and were  usually able to get past any initial credibility issues, but it was a definite obstacle.  In general, other entrepreneurs, VCs and angels were more likely to take us seriously from the start, compared to professionals or employees of other companies.  After a few shaky meetings and calls, we asked for advice from our lawyer and other successful entrepreneurs who had been through the same process.

We realized that many people who were older than us had an image of young people in their heads that was hard to break.  Many older people thought that young people were lazy, lacked direction and would not follow through on a project.  From the beginning, we always were professional, well dressed, on time and prepared, but we realized we had to overcompensate if we wanted to get through to people more quickly. Here’s what worked for us:

  • Do Your Research – We spent hours researching any possible question someone might have so that we would never be surprised.
  • Cut the Humor – In most cases, older people equate younger people with fooling around and not being serious.  Many times, jokes hurt your credibility
  • Schedule Morning Meetings – Many people were surprised when we would ask for meetings from 7-9am, as it shattered the mold of young people sleeping in.
  • Be Persistent – If you want a meeting, keep calling and leave professional messages.  You will be rewarded for your efforts.
  • Articulate Your Goals – We sent short lists of what we wanted to cover during meetings or calls the day before, as it put the person in a serious frame of mind.
  • Talk Less, Listen More – Young people are stereotyped as know-it-alls.  Talk less and listen more and people will take you more seriously.

While most of these are common sense and can be used with any audience whether they are younger or older, its important to remember your audience.  We used these strategies and success followed.  Have you ever not been taken seriously because of your age?  Do you agree that its necessary to overcompensate for youth for specific audiences?   What other strategies have you used?