Those Who Seek Will Find
Sep 21 2008

Photo by Sandy Blanchard

Yes, the title of this post is another fortune from a fortune cookie I got a few weeks back at PF Changs, and I’ve found it true in many respects in my life and career.  [As an aside, I started this post while listening to Chiquitita by ABBA and after a glass of red wine!  I’m usually not able to write or think while music is on because I’m easily distracted so take that into consideration as you read.]

The title of this post is also in a well known Christian Bible verse in the book of Luke Chapter 11 verse 9 (“And I say to you, ask and it shall be given to you: seek, and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you.“). I believe when you set your intention on something, if it’s with pure intentions, and if it’s meant to be something will happen.  It may not be what you envision but something happens.  I guess it’s sort of a cross between the belief that many people hold like Edward Mills, who writes about the Law of Attraction, and taking destiny in your hands.  You seek but you also pay attention to what people are saying and doing. 

I’ve had people tell me I’m lucky to a) start a company before, b) to get the education I’ve gotten, c) to find the amazing childcare for our kids, for d) having the friends I have, d) to have the things we do, e) etc., etc., etc.  What most people haven’t seen is the hard, dark times in between that I’ve been through.  I’d venture to say that most people who the world perceives as doing something beyond “normal” have struggled through many things. 

I’ve always felt there is a healthy portion of luck involved but also a good portion of seeking, asking questions, and listening involved.   Finding good childcare (gosh we are so lucky with the people we had take care of our kids part time and full time when they were little and where they go to school and pres-school now — knock on wood!) didn’t just happen because I sat on my couch all day.  Finding good jobs or opportunities didn’t happen because I was watching TV or drowning my sorrows (which is tempting!).  Plus, I think I like to see the good in people and expect great things from them so when I do get disappointed, it is pretty deep. 

So just over a month ago, I finally let the realization that I could not continue with Babble Soft with a day job and no funding, and I needed to do something different hit me.  There are many options out there including a) moving on to something else, b) finding a business partner, c) finding a large baby-related company to take the risk early on and buy us.  Given the economy and the hard realization that we are in fact creating a market with Babble Soft, option c) is unlikely.  And I’m not ready to just give up.  So now I’m seeking a business partner (so I’m not just a lone pumpkin by a tree).  Hopefully, the right person will happen across my path…maybe she or he already has! 

I’m wrapping up this post listening to 70s music…for some reason I enjoy listening to 70s music.  I also enjoy 80s music but there is just a deepness to 70s music that resonates with me sometimes.  The song currently on is Piano Man written by Billy Joel.  I was fortunate enough to hear Billy Joel in Concert when I lived in Dallas several years ago and I remember thinking to myself “What a feeling it must be to hear hundreds, nay thousands, of people singing along word for word to a song you’ve written.”  It must be so energizing yet so surreal at the same time.  I wonder if I’ll ever experience that kind of feeling…

When Does Your Day Job Become Your Job?
Sep 16 2008

A friend of mine, Robb Lanum, recently sent me a link to an article on The Onion called Day Job Officially Becomes Job.  For those of you who haven’t heard of The Onion, it’s a hilarious publication that makes fun of everything and everyone.  Most of the articles I’ve read from them make me laugh or say repeatedly “eww, that’s gross!”  Take for instance a recent, funny article called Woman Always Really Excited To Be In Whatever Relationship Status She’s Currently In. 

Robb did an impromptu guest post on my blog a while back about the writer’s strike.   He blogs at The Robblog and has been trying for years (probably over a decade) to make it big in the California screen writing scene.  He’s made progress and slowly but surely moves his writing career forward or at least makes it more visible by blogging about his experiences.  

Robb sent me the link to the article on The Onion because he himself took a day job over four years ago, and he knows the plusses and minuses of having a day job and trying to build your business, your brand, your writing career, etc.  He knew I could relate.  I’ve been at my day job for not yet 3 ½ months (seems longer) and so far overall it has been a good decision for a variety of reasons, one of which being my husband struck it out on his own to consult and someone had to have the stable job with benefits in the family. 🙂  

But this day job article by the Onion is not funny.  It was written back in February 2004 and begins with “Another human dream was crushed by the uncompromising forces of reality Monday, when the restaurant day job of 29-year-old former aspiring cartoonist Mark Seversen officially became his actual job.”  

It then goes on to say “When I was younger, my attitude was ‘Never give in,'” Seversen said. “Nowadays, my attitude is ‘Get real, dumbass.’ If I have any advice for all the young aspiring painters, novelists, and rock musicians out there, it’s probably that they should quit following their dreams before they rack up a lot of credit-card debt. The sooner you accept your real job, the sooner you can start to build up seniority and get on board with the pension plan.” 

I expected to be laughing at the end of the article, but found myself frowning instead.  Then I thought, “Phew, I’m sure glad being an entrepreneur trying to build a web business after hours is not like trying to be a writer, painter, rock musician, or actor on the side! And working for The University of Texas at Austin isn’t like working in a restaurant.”  

Or is it?

Adventures in Blogging
Sep 9 2008

I’m sure many of you have noticed that I haven’t been blogging as much recently.  It’s not due to lack of desire, but due to lack of time and mental energy.  I have a full list of topic ideas I want to blog about, but by the end of the day after interesting and bureaucratically taxing events, kids, dinner, husband, baths, teeth brushing, catching up on Babble Soft stuff and personal emails, I feel pretty dazed. 

I have blog posts floating around in my head with rarely enough thoughtful time to get them down in a post.  Fortunately, I have had some timely guest posters who have filled in some of the gaps. 

I can’t say I’ll be able to get to a blogging pace (in the near future) that can keep up with my blogging ideas given my current schedule and life situation, but so far I’ve done a better job at posting than Marc Andreessen, founder of Ning and formerly Netscape, who hasn’t consistently blogged since May 2008!  But he’s running a heavily venture backed company so I’m guessing he has just a few more people breathing down his neck than I do.  

I’m glad I’m not in his shoes right now in this economy, with the news constantly talking about the questionable results of social networks from a business model perspective, and with some of the widget partner issues his company is facing.  But Marc’s a tried and true entrepreneur so I’m sure he and his team will figure something out.  If not, he is a millionaire and married to a millionaire so chances are they won’t be out on the streets any time soon. 

Yep, it’s all relative and I’m thankful for the opportunities I’ve been given and the opportunities yet to come.  Thank you to all of you loyal readers for sticking around!

UPDATE: On an interesting note, Seth Godin, the famous author and blogger on marketing tips & ideas, did a post on September 10 called How often should you publish? and in it he says: “Key assertion: you don’t publish it unless it’s good. You don’t write more blog posts than you can support, don’t ship more variations of that software than your engineers can make marvelous.”  So I guess my haphazard blogging is OK because it fits what I can support!

Entrepreneurship vs. 2008 Summer Olympics
Aug 29 2008

The Summer 2008 Olympics are now over.  The national conventions for the Democrats and Republicans are happening.  Democrats just wrapped up theirs and Barack Obama is the official candidate.  The Republicans are up soon and John McCain just announced his VP, Sarah Palin.  School has started for all kids across the country.  Summer vacations are over.  And life goes on. 

Like many I watched the Olympics when I found the time in the evening and was fortunate enough to see some of the men and women’s gymnastics, swimming, track and field, and volleyball.  I saw the US women’s beach volleyball team win.  I saw the women’s gymnastics team win and saw Nastia Lukin win gold.  I saw Michael Phelps win several of his gold medals for swimming.  One weekend I even caught the Chinese synchronized swimming team.  Wow, that was impressive!  My husband stayed up later and saw the women’s and men’s volleyball teams as well as the men’s basketball team. 

I actually think I was able to watch more of the events during this Olympics than any other Olympics in my life.  I’m not sure why that is given that my life is so much busier than it used to be.  It’s probably because my husband was watching it and it was a nice (often nerve wracking) way to end the day and see several of the events “live.” 

What struck me was how hard all of these athletes have been preparing for the vast majority of their lives for this one shot at gold, fame, and potential sponsorship opportunities from big name brands/companies.  All their preparation comes down to a single point in time to succeed or fail.  The pressure and mental stress must be extreme, and yet they get up every day to prepare for that one moment in time. 

Every individual who competes tries hard, practices hard, prepares hard and only 1 receives the gold medal.  The same is true for entrepreneurs but fortunately there aren’t hundreds of little kids competing to win in one particular business (e.g., selling widget X).  There may be several competitors in a space but it’s doubtful that the leaders of your competitors started practicing to compete to sell “widget X” when they were 10 or even 5 years old!  

However, there seem to be many more factors way out of the control of the entrepreneur that determine their company’s success or failure (e.g., the economy, people issues, product issues, market timing, etc.).  An athlete has much more control on whether they get up and practice every day with the major big unknown being a devastating injury.  They are rarely blindsided by a last minute entry who ends up being a well-funded Superman/Superwoman athlete! 

Building a successful business is extremely hard, costs money, and is time consuming, but after watching the Olympics, my guess is that preparing and then winning a gold medal is harder, requires more discipline, and is more time consuming but with more defined parameters.  Even more so if you happen to be a Chinese Olympic team member who are often taken from their parents at a very young age. 

People expect athletes to take years or even a decade to train to even make it to the Olympic games, but many expect entrepreneurs to make it big in just a few years and in the process they often burn themselves and others out.  I’m guessing that fewer entrepreneurs earn ‘gold medals’ than individuals and teams do every four years in the summer Olympics.

Self Starter – Bart Knaggs, Founder of Capital Sports and Entertainment
Aug 17 2008

I co-write articles for university alumni magazines with my fabulous writing partner Pam Losefsky.  You can also see more of our write-ups on the article page of this blog.

Our most recent article for The University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, The Alcalde, is on Bart Knaggs (gif).  Bart is the founder of Capital Sports and Entertainment which brings us the annual, highly popular Austin City Limits Festival.  Here is an interesting quote from his interview:

“There are ways you want to manage opportunities, but mitigating risk, I think takes you down the wrong path.”  Instead of thinking that you might lose so you’d better prepare for the crash, Knaggs says you must believe you’re going to take off, so you’ll only prepare to fly.  “You have to commit 100 percent to powering the engines and getting up to speed.  You have to rally your people, you just have to know you’re going to fly.”

Bart has two kids.  After getting his undergraduate degree, he became a competitive cyclist – “a form of self-employment in which the sacrifice is monumental and the payoff only accrues to an elite few.”

One more article in the Self-Starter series will be coming out soon, so sign up for free email updates and you won’t miss it!

Building A Web Business After Hours
Aug 14 2008

Earlier this year, I had such a great time at SXSW Interactive 2008, that I submitted a panel idea for SXSW Interactive 2009 called Building A Web Business After Hours and more people than I thought are interested in seeing it happen! 

Panel Description: Many businesses are built after-hours or during odd hours of the day and night. Join us for a panel discussion by entrepreneurs who built (or are building) their Web/E-commerce/Other business while holding a day job, multiple jobs, or who are currently balancing two+ career options. 

For those of you who don’t know, I am attempting to build a web business (Babble Soft) after hours and lets just say it has it’s ups and downs but mostly it’s really hard and challenging with a big upside bejng that in my day job I get to be around other entrepreneurs.

How many of you (or people you know) are building sites and businesses in their spare time (on the side)?  What kind of businesses are they?  Many great businesses start with tinkering on the side…

I’ve started to assemble a great group of panelists including: 

• One of the co-founders of BlogHer, the top female blogging site in the world that has partnerships and customer relationships with some of the top recognized brands in the world!  Elisa Camahort Page, a co-founder, awesomely mentioned my panel in her Time to vote for SXSW panels post.  Check out Elisa’s post to see the other great panels she’s recommending.
   
• Thom Singer is the director of business development for Austin based vcfo.  Additionally he is the author of four books about the power of business relationships and is a professional speaker.  With the support of his employer, he successfully manages his job and his own business, speaking to companies around the country on how to network.  He blogs at Some Assembly Required.  

• Karen Bantuveris, Austin founder & CEO of VolunteerSpot, knows firsthand what ‘juggle’ means.  She’s built VolunteerSpot from the ground up while running a successful management development and executive coaching business, and being active in her daughter’s school PTO Board and Scout troop.  She even manages to sleep, occasionally.�
   
• Jeremy Bencken, co-founder of ApartmentRatings.com, Tenant Market, and PR for Pirates.  Jeremy and his wife, Katie, founded ApartmentRatings.com in 2000 out of their one bedroom apartment in Mountain View.  They bootstrapped the site while attending business school at UT-Austin and then during full-time jobs for 4 years before selling the company to Internet Brands in 2007.  Along the way they grew traffic to over 12M unique visitors per year (without an ad budget), built a base of advertisers, fought off frivolous lawsuits, and got their site featured on NPR Marketplace, and in stories in the NY Times and AP.

• Gretchen Heber is CEO and co-founder of NaturallyCurly.com, a multi-dimensional company for people with curly hair she founded with business partner Michelle Breyer. She and Michelle founded NaturallyCurly while holding full time jobs as a journalist for the Austin daily newspaper.  NaturallyCurly.com is an online magazine, social network and shopping boutique dedicated to curlyheads. The site came about, in part, because of Heber’s having been told as a child: “It looks like you combed your hair with a stick!” among other beauties. She is married, has three boys, and resides in South Austin. She is active in her neighborhood association and not much else because she’s an entrepreneur and has three young boys, and goodness, who has time!?
   

Please, please, please go vote for the panel by clicking on this link: Building A Web Business After Hours.  I believe 30% of the weight on whether a panel is chosen is from people like you voting.  The only downside is that you have to create a log in, but the upside is that you will be in the SXSW system and see all the other cool panels going on and vote for many more! 

Thanks and I look forward to seeing some of you at SXSW next year. 8)

The Trouble With Checking Emails
Aug 12 2008

While out on vacation for almost 11 days, I had to check emails.  I can’t fathom not checking emails at all and coming home to thousands of emails.  I think I would have cried…not that I don’t already feel like crying over the mental draining-ness (not a word I know) of keeping up with day to day emails.  Currently, I actively check 3 different email accounts. 

I know that tons of busy business people get overwhelmed by email and some have even stopped responding altogether to email, but I haven’t reached that point yet.  Companies like NutShell Mail (I met the founders at SXSW here in Austin earlier this year) attempt to solve it by having all of your emails going to one place.  Right now when I’m home two of my email addresses download into one Outlook and the third to another set up of Outlook on a different desktop at my day job.  When I’m on the road, I have to log in to 3 different webmail accounts.  Fortunately, I’m not on the road that often. 

What I found interesting is that I ended up probably deleting about 40% of the email I received (which included newsletters, news updates, blog feeds, friend updates, etc.) while I was gone.  I’m still deleting some even though I’m fairly caught up because if I tried to read them, I wouldn’t get to anything else!  It’s making me wonder if I should even be getting those emails and instead rely on the ‘if it’s really big news, I’ll hear about it from someone’ belief. 

The risk of doing this is looking stupid if something big has happened (especially in your market) and you unknowingly wear a blank stare when someone exclaims ‘Did you hear about xyz?!” 

I guess one always has to take calculated risks in life.  In my current life situation, I have to take the risk that I might not be in-the-know in exchange for paying attention to the rest of my life.

How do the rest of you cope with email overload…or do you?

Self Starter – Gay Gaddis of T3
Jul 26 2008

I co-write articles for university alumni magazines with my fabulous writing partner Pam Losefsky.  You can also see more of our write-ups on the article page! 

One of our latest articles for The University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, The Alcalde, is on Gay Gaddis.  Gay is the founder of T3 – The Think Tank, the largest women-owned advertising agency in the US!

Here is a thought provoking quote from Gay’s interview:

“You get knocked down a couple times and your confidence gets busted and you draw back a little bit,” she says, “but you have to allow yourself the mistakes and the rejection and not let them eat you up.”

I agree with Gay that many entrepreneurs give up is when they let their mistakes eat them up instead of learning from them and moving forward.  I struggle with limiting thoughts often.

Gay has 3 kids and came from a long line of entrepreneurs so she saw the reality of how it is to build a business.  She started helping her mother with her kindergarten program when she was 13 years old after her father died!     

There are more articles to come, so sign up for free email updates to get them right in your inbox!

MBA Class: Mom’s Business Acumen
Jul 15 2008

And now for a very cool guest post from Michelle Yozzo Drake author of a newly released book: “From the Kitchen to the Corner Office:  Mom’s Wisdom on Leadership.”

MBA Class: Mom’s Business Acumen…Or, “How to Take Skills Learned From Mom to Kick Butt at Work” 

As Aruni braves the balancing act that returning to the “formal” workplace brings for a working mom, I was thrilled that she asked me to do a guest post for entrepremusings.com. 

I love to work with women…they just get it, even if they don’t know it!  Generations of women have been successfully running the home-based business that we call “The Family”.  They have had to utilize all of the skills needed to address the same issues that Fortune 500 companies struggle with. And they’ve done it with grace, style and, okay, maybe a few bad hair days here and there! 

My version of an MBA class focuses on “Mom’s Business Acumen”: 

Risk Management-The art of baking bread, taught to me by my Aunt Giovanna Yozzo Fanelli (Aunt Jennie), yielded a surprising class in risk management, crisis management and plan-failure recovery. As I made loaf after loaf of bread (according to Aunt Jennie’s half Italian/half English instructions) and failed every time, I had to learn how to push past my fear of failure and create new plans to minimize my risks of future bread baking failure! Hours of work sometimes yielded sub-par results (a.k.a “lead-bread” – this made Aunt Jennie laugh as she encouraged me to persevere and continue on my quest for the perfect loaf of bread).  My ultimate victory (at least 20 loafs and 80 hours later) was the title of Bread Maker in my family’s eyes.  And after Aunt Jennie died at 96 years old, she passed her pans to me. I had become the bread and the baker, and she would be proud! 

Mergers and Acquisitions-My sister and a few of my sisters-in-law now have new “blended families”.  With divorce rates and remarriages at an all-time high, there are new things today’s mom has learned. Creating a family with kids from previous marriages and new ones with new husbands takes a lot of hard work and effort…no wonder the idea of running a newly merged company is child’s play for the mom that has balanced issues with siblings, half-brothers, step-sisters, etc.! 

Cultivating Strong Teams and Leaders-Lessons learned from the women in my family who are masters in the kitchen – my mother Mimi and my Aunt Marie, specifically – have been priceless in developing my ability to coach my clients on building strong teams and leaders at work.  Have you ever watched two strong women in the kitchen putting out a holiday meal for the family?  Mimi and Marie were masters at leading and following as they consistently put out a quality product (the seven-course Italian holiday meal) for their customers (35 family members and a few stragglers). The big news is, I never remember a moment of tension in either of their kitchens…but always lots of laughter! 

Budget Cuts-My mother-in-law Marty used to take her twelve children (my husband Rich is number NINE) to the beach on the ferry every Wednesday…because kids ride free on Wednesdays when accompanied by their parent! She knows how to work a budget! Examples like that guided me during my family’s lean years – when I was sewing shorts for my two young sons out of my husband’s old shirts – and during the first crucial years of my businesses when breakeven was only a dream. 

Sales and Product Issues-Have you ever negotiated with a four-year-old over why Oreo cookies are not a breakfast food?  Successfully selling those eggs over the Oreos takes a sales master! How easy negotiating with a customer over the price of your products or services is compared to “selling” bedtime to a child! 

So when I meet a mom getting ready to return to the workplace and she’s fretting over her perceived “resume gap,” I see the opportunity to educate a sister on how to talk about her degree from the “Mommy Management Training University!” 

What have YOU learned from your mom, “mom-figures” in your life, or being a mom yourself? 

Michelle Yozzo Drake is a management consultant who has just released a new book: “From the Kitchen to the Corner Office:  Mom’s Wisdom on Leadership.”  Her Workplace Wisdom Blog is hosting Lipstick Leadership Week -July 14-18 – where Michelle is highlighting other women’s stories about what they have learned from their “moms” or as a mom that helps them succeed at work!  Submit your story (and get a plug for your website!) at LipstickLeadership.com or KitchentoCornerOffice.com 

Contest for Innovative Moms
Jul 13 2008

I recently received the following email from one of Whirlpool’s PR reps.  Although I don’t recall being upset (maybe disappointed) about not knowing about the program (which I can’t recall at the moment) she was referring to, I figured I’d share her email about this contest because it seems like a cool idea.  I do have a vague recollection of commenting on a Washington Post article and if I didn’t, she’s a pretty good PR rep to tell me about this contest, because I like to post about programs that support entrepreneurs! 

The cool thing is that if you win you not only win cash but also appliances!  Also, upon reading their site you cannot submit a company/idea for a new appliance.  Your business idea has to be totally unrelated to Whirlpool’s primary business of appliance creation and manufacturing.  

I also noticed that one of the guest judges is Julie Aigner-Clarke, founder of Baby Einstein! 

I haven’t figured out yet if I can apply for Babble Soft (no issue about us being an appliance 🙂 ) but I haven’t read all of the fine print yet.  The application looks pretty simple and straight forward so chances are I will apply.  I encourage you all to check it out too and tell other mom-inventors out there about the competition. 

Hi Aruni,

I saw that you commented on a Washington Post blog entry about a grant program and that you were upset you didn’t know the program was going on.  Just wanted to share with you another grant program that I thought might be of interest to you and your readers.

Whirlpool brand has recently kicked-off the fourth annual Mother of Invention Grant Program. In the past three years, Whirlpool brand has recognized and helped more than 15 moms turn their innovative ideas into reality.

The Whirlpool brand Mother of Invention Grant Program provides seed money and expert guidance to moms to turn their invention, business or service ideas into full-fledged businesses.  Contest winners receive:

• A $20,000 grant for the grand prize winner
• $24,000 in grant money for the four runners-up
• Appliance prizes
• Invitation to business boot camp where winners will receive guidance from Whirlpool and industry experts

This year, we are greening the program by adding a new category focused on moms who create an environmentally friendly product/service or use natural/recycled materials to create their invention. 

More information and entry forms can be found at www.whirlpool.com/moms. Entries are accepted through July 31, 2008.

Please let me know if you have any questions or would like additional information about the program.  I’d also be happy to share information about our past winners, should you be interested. 

Best,

Laura

Life Always Gets Harder Near The Summit (a.k.a. Brandon and the Homeless Dude)
Jul 8 2008

OK, so I’m still trying to figure out how blogging fits in with my full time day job so I’ll continue on the fortune cookie fortune blogging escapade (they make for good post titles) until I figure it out. 

I’m not sure what’s kosher to blog about since I’m still trying to get my mind around the irony of working for a huge university which is gigantically overburdened with process (e.g., 5 copies of agreements need to be routed after being signed in blue ink but need pre-approval before they get routed, 3 documents to get approval to make often routine purchases, etc.) that at the same time helps start-ups.  A slow moving giant pays the staff (including myself) that supports the nimble, fast moving technology start-ups.  It’s mind boggling to think about so I try not to think about it too much. 

So on to the fortune cookie that produced “Life always gets harder near the summit.”  Along with the Lucky Numbers 2, 10, 7, 31, 54, and 12…too bad I’m no longer playing the lottery. 

I wouldn’t say that life is harder but I would say it’s insanely more a bit more mentally taxing given that after a full day at my day job of running Operations for the Austin Technology Incubator I need to think about and act on activities to promote Babble Soft.  Thankfully, I have an intellectually smart husband who helps out and is currently giving the kids a bath while I type up this blog post, drink red wine, and respond to press queries.  He has to be smart because his current career choice is one of the reasons I now have a day job!

So on to life being hard for Brandon and the Homeless Dude which made the title of this blog post way too long!  Over at IttyBiz, they are running a ‘who can come up with the craziest story about Brandon and the Homeless Dude’ competition as a break from their regularly scheduled home business tips.  So the challenge is to come up with the ‘next step of the journey’ for Brandon and the Homeless Dude.  If selected, my name, company, blog, and dirty laundry will be featured on the ever so popular IttyBiz blog that is normally written by Naomi with an occasional guest appearance by her husband, Jamie.  It’s highly unlikely that I’ll get picked because I’m not following their directions of discreetly emailing Jamie my story but instead I’m writing it on my blog.  I’m not one to regularly follow directions, which makes my day job extra mentally taxing.  So here it goes: 

Brandon and the Homeless Dude woke up under a bridge one day.  They wondered to themselves firstly why the bridge had not fallen on them while they slept given their notorious luck.  Soon after they wondered what they should do for the day.   

The Homeless Dude then asked Brandon why he was sleeping under the bridge with him given that he was not homeless and Brandon mumbled a reply about being a prick (Naomi’s word not mine) to his wife.  As an aside to those who don’t know Brandon, his wife pays the bills for his extravagant lifestyle which includes trying to build an online business. 

After that meaningful brief discussion, they headed toward the closest lemonade stand and asked the kids if they planned to attend SEO school.  The kids stared blankly at them and asked them what SEO meant and oh by the way if they wanted lemonade they would have to give them $2.00 for a tall, refreshing glass of fresh squeezed lemonade with a spoonful of organic brown sugar.  A twist of vodka would cost them $1.00 extra. 

Brandon told the kids that SEO stood for Seeking Extra Opportunities and their eyes opened wide.  Of course they were ‘seeking extra opportunities’ to sell their lemonade because the more money they made the more they could spend on impressing their teenage friends with highly perishable, bad-for-the-environment, alcoholic, dumbass crap. 

The Homeless Dude then told them they were in luck because if they wanted to turn their lemonade stand into an online successful business all they had to do was do what he did which was spend time and money on SEO only to discover that most people did not want to buy lemonade online but oddly preferred to get it from their local grocery store, kid-friendly restaurant, or nearby pre-teen managed stand. 

They immediately realized The Homeless Dude was wise in his homelessness and decided that after they made some cash from their lemonade stand from joggers, bicyclists, parents who thought they were cute, other teenage friends, and old people who felt nostalgic and proud that teenagers actually attempted to do an honest day’s work, they would then open an online business telling other kids how to set up a successful lemonade stand. 

The End.

On the chance you want to read about my attempts to build an online business, while at the same time working at a place that helps other technology start-ups, you can painlessly get free email updates about the continuing saga of a blogging entrepreneur (moi!).

Look Forward to a Great Fortune and a New Lease on Life!
Jun 25 2008

Photo by: Unknown – could not find link to original creator

So continuing on the fortune cookie blogging escapade, I recently got a fortune (for some reason I eat at a lot of Chinese restaurants) that said “Look forward to great fortune and a new lease on life!”  Of course I saved that one.  I still have a few others on my home office desk that are a little more realistic, but who’s to say a great fortune and a new lease on life isn’t around the corner for me! 

I can definitely say that a new lease on life is definitely in the process of happening just by the sheer fact I’m doing something different day-to-day than I have before.  Whether it’s a good lease or a bad lease depends a lot on my landlords. 😉

The Austin American Statesman (the main newspaper for Austin) mentioned my new position today in their Up The Ladder are in the business section.  They happened to use a picture of me that’s probably 7 or 8 years old which was when I weighed 10 to 12 lbs more than I do now.  (Of all my New Year’s resolution goals, I have achieved the ‘lose 5 lbs’ goal and ‘take yoga classes’ goal but I’m still working on all of the rest – Sigh). For a more recent picture of me, you can check out the page where I show the articles I’ve co-written on the topic of success and entrepreneurship or even the About page. 

If you were too lazy busy to click through the Up The Ladder link above, my new day job is running Operations for the Austin Technology Incubator (ATI).  I am acting as the COO/CFO of this small organization (5 to 6 full time employees) that is part of the University of Texas at Austin (and yes subject to the positives of great HR benefits yet at the same time monumental bureaucracy).  It’s a very unique initiative in the university because it supports 15 or so technology companies by helping them get to market, find funding, and build their professional support network. 

The companies get access to student help, consulting support from the directors, flexible space allocation, senior advisors/talent, discounts from ‘incubator friends,’ etc.  ATI is supported by rent and membership fees it collects from the companies as well as grants it receives from various government related entities that are interested in creating companies (thereby jobs) and furthering technology related initiatives in the Austin area related to Wireless, IT, Biotechnology, and Clean Energy. 

My job duties are varied but include helping make sure operations run smoothly internally, the companies are supported, and we have enough money to continue providing a great service to Austin technology companies and the Austin community in general.  I’m most excited about the potential to help entrepreneurs – it can be a lonely/tough job and having been there, done that, and doing it, I believe I can at least share my experience and contacts. 

Now working for the University does not lead to great fortune, but I’m open to it offering a ‘new (and different) lease on life!’

Blog Transition Time Period And Fortune Cookies
Jun 19 2008

Now that I took a day job, I’ve been wondering what I should post about.  Should I post about my new job or other stuff?  It also takes time to write meaningful posts and time is harder to come by now.  My new job has a lot to do with helping entrepreneurs or I should say it will once I get past the administrative day-to-day stuff of getting up to speed.

So in the meantime until I figure it all out, I’ve thought about posting about the fortune cookies I get when I go to Chinese restaurants or other restaurants who for some reason hand out fortune cookies. 

Hey, the last time I blogged about fortune cookies, I almost got mentioned in the New York Times!  It started with Comments and Fortune Cookies, went on to Those Darn Fortune Cookies, and ended up with Portuguese Fortune Cookies.

So, a couple of weeks ago I was having lunch with one of my business advisors at a Chinese restaurant in this place in Austin called Davenport village, and I got the following fortune:

“You can’t ride in all directions at one time.”

We both thought it was appropriate considering what was going on in my life.  Of course, I then thought to myself ‘well all directions isn’t the same as two three directions’ and ‘there’s no point in going no direction.’ 🙂

So here I go (the multi-tasker that I am) attempting to go one direction with a few detours here and there along the way…

Opportunity Knocked. I Opened The Door.
Jun 15 2008

You’ve probably seen those Nationwide insurance commercials that go something like “Life comes at you fast. That’s why there’s Nationwide.” And they show people whose car gets hit by a garage door, a leaf blower or some other random, humorous, or shocking thing.  Check out some of their video ads on their site.

Photo by Sandy Blanchard
Well in every entrepreneurial journey things can happen fast and often there appears a fork in the road.  I decided to pick one of the paths that will have quite an impact on my ability to spend time on Babble Soft.  The opportunity presented itself when I wasn’t looking and I had to take a cold, hard look at it.  The difference between success and failure can often come down to being open to opportunities that seem to randomly present themselves.

The decision on which path to take was not an easy one.  It was not made without much thought, stress, doubt, questions, frustration, etc., but I believe it is the right decision for me, my family, and yes even for Babble Soft.

I  worked part-time on Babble Soft for a while and started full time in late 2007.  As some of you know, I went out to raise funds in early February 2008.  By end of March and early April (because I’ve raised funds before and could see the writing on the wall) it became clear to me this was not going to happen right now for a variety of reasons including: 

1. We are too early.  In other words, we don’t yet have enough users or market traction to make investors comfortable enough to take the bet given they have started losing money on many of their Web 2.0 companies that they invested in at the concept or early beta stage.  It’s become clearer to me that we are trying to “create a market” which is often quite painful and takes a long time.  Therefore, I cannot yet prove that the market is HUGE for what we were trying to do.  By the way, what you see on the site is just a fraction of what I envision as a site for new parents.  It also did not help that we continue to struggle to find a good SEO rhythm due to a variety of reasons including the fact we are, as I mentioned, for all intents and purposes making a market.
    
2. I need a business partner.  It’s tough going it alone without someone to bounce ideas off of on a daily basis.  What I need is a strong technical co-founder and/or an expert consumer marketing partner.  I remember meeting with another Austin entrepreneur, Chris Justice of Sparksight, a while back and he shared with me a sound bite from one of his mentors: “People fund teams, not individuals.”  My husband helps me a lot, but he has a full time job and isn’t really into the business concept the same way I am.
    
3. The economy is in flux.  Investors and consumers alike are concerned about the economy, high gas prices, home foreclosures, job losses, the presidential election, impending tax increases, etc. and their behavior and outlooks have changed.  I won’t freak you out with links to all the articles about the demise of Web 2.0/social networks and people losing their money and their jobs but suffice it to say there are many.  There’s also a lot of good stuff happening but uncertainty is definitely in the air.
    
4. Other personal stuff I can’t blog about yet but which is probably the biggest driving force for choosing this path right now.

So, not being one to continue banging bang her head against a brick wall, I took a J-O-B (another form of insurance that I don’t think Nationwide or any other insurance company offers) to support my entrepreneurial addiction!

I wasn’t looking, but the opportunity arose for an interesting, most likely fun, hopefully low stress job working with people I like.   My boss (who has been a long time subscriber to my blog) is a very cool guy who I’m sure I’ll enjoy working with.  He knows I will continue working on Babble Soft and is very supportive of my doing so.  He also knows I’m a mom to two great kids and wife to a pretty good guy. 😉

I’m excited about the potential of this job combined with what’s going on in the rest of my life.  Of course, I will have to become a guru in time management to make it all work.

The entrepreneurial lifestyle is not made up of beautifully paved, straight roads.  There are often detours and roundabouts.  Right now I’m crossing my fingers that this path I’ve chosen will lead to bigger and better things for me, my family, and my company.  A friend of mine, who is a screen writer trying to make it big in Los Angeles, CA (probably similar odds to building a successful company), wrote an excellent post about his decision four years ago to do the same thing I’m doing now when he took a job.  He reflects on how its been both a good and bad decision for his goal to become a recognized, well-paid screen writer.

I’ll continue to blog and will eventually tell you more about my new ‘day job’ so Sign up for free email updates so you can see a) how I make it work or b) a train wreck in action.  If you see a train wreck about to happen, please leave comments and maybe if I read enough of them, I can find a way to build another track or jump off the train beforehand!

Aruni

How To Recover From A Scathing Blog Post
Jun 5 2008

Just over a year ago, we officially launched Babble Soft’s first web and mobile application (then called Baby Manager, now called Baby Insights).  A prominent blogger, Jennifer Laycock, whose personal blog is called The Lactivist, a popular blog on breastfeeding, saw the release and created a post that made me feel shocked, anxious, depressed, angry, and misunderstood at the same time.  Jennifer also happens to be the founder, editor, and a writer for Search Engine Guide, a widely read blog on all things search. 

Fortunately, soon after discovering Jennifer’s post, I contacted Connie Reece who blogs at Every Dot Connects.  Connie helped me set up the first incarnation of this blog and gave me advice on how to get started blogging.  She is a veteran blogger and a social media guru.  I took several deep breaths, typed up something that I felt would be a good comment to Jennifer’s post and sent it to Connie for a sanity check.  She gave me a few recommendations and I posted it. 

Turns out that comment led to a few other comments and then an amicable online relationship with Jennifer when we both realized that we were supporters and donators to our local Mother’s Milk Banks.  Jennifer and I now follow each other on twitter and read each other’s blogs.  [As an aside, we offer all eligible milk bank donors a free subscription to Babble Soft applications to help them keep track of their pumped milk!]

Last week, Connie decided to create a case study on the incident and did a post called Case Study: Engagement Turns Critics into Allies.  Where she outlines what happens:

Company
Babble Soft, provider of Web and mobile software for parents of newborns

Challenge
A press release for a new product launch was picked up by an influential blogger who wrote a very negative review.

Solution
Every Dot Connects worked with Babble Soft on a strategy to engage the blogger in constructive conversation.

Success
The blogger apologized for the tone of the review and continued to interact with Babble Soft founder via her blog, email and, later, on Twitter and other social networks.

Well soon after, Mack Collier who blogs at The Viral Garden and Marketing Profs did a post about it too called Worried About Bloggers Dissing Your Company? Read This and he starts with:

“Babblesoft founder Aruni Gunasegaram found herself in a position that any company would dread. She had launched a new product that she had hoped would be well-received by her target audience, mothers who breastfeed their children. Unfortunately, the product was immediately reviewed, and shredded, by Jennifer Laycock, a very popular mommy-blogger who blogs at The Lactivist. What happened next is a great lesson for companies wanting to handle crisis-management in the blogosphere.”

Then, Jennifer decided to write her own post about it. I was just beside myself with 3 blog mentions from 3 prominent bloggers within the span of a few days!   Jennifer called her post Bloggers Need To Accept Responsibility Too and she says:

“Last year Aruni was launching her new parenting software. I happened to pick up the press release right as it went across the wires and had some pretty harsh words for the idea on my Lactivist blog.

‘Apparently, the company feels that there’s an untapped market in parents with extreme breastfeeding OCD issues, so they’ve made available some snazzy (I use the word loosely) new software that will allow these Ezzo-wannabes the absolute, total scheduling control that they long for.’

It got worse though. In fact, rereading that post I made more than a year ago I found myself chuckling and wincing at the same time. Chuckling because some lines in my post were really funny, but wincing as I realized just how biting and scathing my critique was. I’m generally a pretty easy going and nice person. I don’t tend to like to rely on snark, and yet there I was, throwing out snark like I was Perez Hilton.”

And continues:

“Ultimately, many of my readers ended up checking out the software and seeing the value in it for certain situations and while I still think the software’s a little on the anal side for the average mom, I fully recognize how helpful it could be for moms who DO need to track things.

Even more important to the story is the relationship that developed because of the way Aruni responded. Aruni became a regular reader of my blog and I became a reader of hers. We follow each other on Twitter and we’ve exchanged quite a few emails over the past year. Not long after the incident, I ended up sending her an email to share how refreshed I was at the way she handled things.

‘I want to compliment you on the way you handled your response to my blog post. I was pretty hard on you guys and you came in with class and style and really did a great job of turning the situation around to make yourself look good. I work in online reputation management and it’s rare to see a company respond so well. Just thought you should know that you gained my respect with that.’“

So needless to say, I am honored at their mentions and I have learned a lot in the past year.  I hope I have at least become a better press release writer. 😉

Personally, I think the biggest lesson that I have learned over the year is that although Jennifer’s choice of words were hard to read, her sentiments are reflective of what most new moms and parents think.  It’s not easy to introduce a new way of doing and looking at things to the truly oldest and arguably the most important profession in the world: parenthood! 

I think our applications can help a new mom having trouble with breastfeeding reach the other side of the breastfeeding bridge.  It can help her and her family understand patterns, positions, pumping schedules, etc.  But at first blush, most people don’t think of what we do that way.  The reasons why that’s the case would be a good topic for another case study! It always takes longer and costs more money to build a business than anyone ever thinks when they first start out.  Hence, my recent Fork In The Road post.

I just read a quote I can definitely relate to by James Cherkoff left in the comment section of a blog post that Fred Wilson of A VC did about sharing information on your company:

“Or in the words of Howard Aiken: “Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.””

I saw it as I was finishing up this post and it made me smile  laugh out loud!