Nearly Nicole

Back in March at SXSW, I had the pleasure of an interview with Frank Gruber of TechCocktail.  It’s always fun to talk with him, especially when we chat about my favorite topic, entrepreneurship.  In a little shameless self-promotion, watch the video here!  And Frank –  looking forward to seeing you again at SXSW 2012…

My old (uh, meaning longtime, not age) friend Su Hawk has really transformed the local tech association called Colorado Technology Association.  It’s grown rapidly over the last few years and I’m impressed with what she’s done with it.

They have a group called Women In Technology, and its having throwing its’ first ever holiday and benefit party, Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 at 18th Street Atrium, 1621 18th Street, Denver, from 5:30 – 9:00 PM.

WIT is not only a fantastic opportunity to find new mentors and to network, but this holiday party is also a benefit for the Women’s Bean Project (WBP) – a nonprofit organization that helps break the cycle of poverty and unemployment for women in need by teaching job skills and self-sufficiency.  If you’ve never had a WBP soup mix, grab one the next time you’re at the grocery store (in the dried bean section).  They’re REALLY good, super healthy, make for an excellent quick meal, and are a sustainable way for the WBP to keep revenue up and continue supporting at-risk women.

There is a discount for attending the WIT holiday party, so if you’re considering going, reach out to me and I’ll get you details.

I spent some time talking to my friend Rich Grote, a local entrepreneur, at TechCocktail in Boulder last night.  He mentioned that they’re struggling with pricing options, something that all entrepreneurs struggle with at some point in their lives.  He started throwing out a bunch of ideas and my head began to swim.  I thought WHOA… too many options!

I always struggle with options.  Give me 3-4 options, but definitely no more than 5 or 6, and I’m happy.  Any more than that and I get analysis paralysis and immediately move on to something else.  My brain has a visceral reaction against too many options, it shuts down.  Call it toddler + new baby + full time job + social life + extended family life brain cram and there just isn’t room in my head to be thinking critically about your product.

Having coffee today with Seth Levine reminded me he has some thoughts on this topic, so I went searching his blog and found this post on pricing tiers which warns of too many pricing tiers.  I did a little more research and learned that there is some science behind this.  Turns out that if you offer a a ton of options, you’ll get a lot of people’s attention, but very few will convert into customers.  If you offer fewer options, (4-6 actually), you’ll get less attention but tons more conversion into paying customers.  In fact, more than 10 TIMES the amount of customers than with too many options.  Melikes, less work for more money.

Interestingly, the magic number is somewhere between 4-6 options.  I vaguely remember something from my psych class in college that says when given a random string of numbers or letters, the brain can only remember about 5 -+ 2 items – somewhere between 3 to 7 items easily.  Which is why you can probably remember the new pin code of your ATM card easier than you can remember your new friend’s phone number (not that you would have to remember that anyway these days).  I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

So, I guess the old adage still holds, true.  Keep it simple, stupid so I can avoid analysis paralysis and actually buy something from you instead of moving on to your competition.

I originally posted this for my friends over at BoulderStartup.org & Silicon Flatirons – they’ve been hugely supportive to the Boulder Startup Scene and I’m thrilled to be a resource to them.  Check them out!

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Getting my entrepreneurial start – I was still in college.  I was riddled with student loan debt, I was eating at all-you-can-eat restaurants and stuffing food in ziplock bags in my backpack.  I was working my way through school and remember lying to friends about being unable to join them for a movie because I couldn’t afford the $5 ticket.  I was one of the lucky ones, my parents were paying for my tuition; I just had to pay for everything else.

It was during that time when I started my first company.  It was an online retailer focused on selling to the property management industry, and my dad was my business partner.  My dad was the brains behind the operation, I was the braun.  I didn’t realize this last part until later though; I thought I was the brains.  I spent 1 measely, pathetic day scoping out the market and learned we would be the first online retailer targeting in this space.  I came up with a product set for the online store (2,000 products!).  Then I had to figure out how to build a dynamic, database-driven website when the extent to my tech competence was limited to all-nighters fighting my friends on Doom (which we did on our 2400 baud connection). Then I had to figure out how to market and advertise the site.  I muddled my way through it with a lot of hard work, luck, and encouragement.

I had nothing back then.  Nothing.  No money, no family, no husband, no assets of any sort.  I had to cover my $600/mo in living expenses (rent, food, gas, beer).  Well, I thought I had nothing.  But from an entrepreneurs perspective, I had everything.  When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose.  And when you have nothing to lose, the only thing you have to fear is the fear of failure.  Luckily for me I had a family that never let me be fearful of failure.  They encouraged me to take risks, to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and helped me realize that I could easily start over and wouldn’t really lose anything but would gain experience that was worth more than success could ever garner.

My family was my ‘startup’ community back then.  Boulder has become my startup community now.  Most people here are surprisingly supportive of startups.  Boulder isn’t a place that fears failure.  I’d say it openly embraces it.  You’ll talk to lots of people that are starting something or wish they were.  Successful entrepreneurs, investors, mentors, and peers alike will take your meetings.  People will encourage you, and you need that encouragement to take the first leap.  So if you’re in Boulder and you’re thinking about starting your first company – do it.  But do it wisely.  Here’s my quick action plan for getting started.

1. Don’t be fearful of failure.  It’s the most crippling, self-inflicted handicap around.
2. If you have much to lose in the way of assets, just have a backup plan.  What’s the worse case scenario?  What happens if you really do have to declare bankruptcy?  Might be a nice opportunity to wipe away all that debt anyway – could be a blessing in disguise.
3. Don’t live inside your own head.  Get feedback on everything.  I guarantee one thing in your startup – you will be wrong.  Talk to customers, get yourself an advisory board, talk to experienced entrepreneurs.  They can all help steer you past the obstacles which derail even the smartest of people.
4. Learn how to accept feedback, even negative feedback.  Don’t take it personally.  Know when to utilize it, when not to, and how to communicate with those whose advice you don’t follow.
5. Don’t come up with an idea.  Find your areas of passion, then find a problem where people will pay for a solution.  I’m amazed at how many entrepreneurs get this wrong.
6. Build your team and know everyone’s strengths and weaknesses.  In my opinion, this is the hardest part for the entrepreneur.  It’s like finding your spouse.
7. When you commit, go all-in.  Stack the odds in your favor by focusing on it 100%.
8. Love it.

I’m older now, with much more on the line.  But I’m in Boulder, and I’ve surrounded myself with entrepreneurs that are taking risks every day, with much more to lose than I ever had.  Those founders and this town give me the courage and the inspiration to know that I’ll start another company one day.  But not for a while – I love what I’m doing too much to call it quits yet.

I get tons of meeting requests for individuals looking to pitch their business idea, or introduce themselves, maybe they’re new to town, or looking for a job.  I love meeting with people, and to make sure I can continue to accommodate the growing number of requests, I’ve set up community office hours.

If you want to meet with me for whatever reason, sign yourself up here. Looking forward to meeting you!

This cracks me up because I find it so incredibly sad, and so incredibly true.

Today marks the 2nd Demo Day for the TechStars NYC class.  They have continued to impress us, and I suspect today will be no different given the amount of funding that has already gone into the teams before the program even ended.

If you’re an accredited investor – you can watch the Demo Day Live Webcast.  Tweet at me (@nglaros) and I’ll give you the login info.

If you’re not an accredited investor, Launch.is is live blogging it here.

Go teams GO!

I’ve never had a bad experience on CraigsList.  Sure, I’ve had lots of people TRY to change that statistic for me, but it seems pretty obvious when someone is trying to scam me on CL.

But I love selling things on Craigslist.  I always meet the most interesting people.

My husband and I are finishing our basement, and we just swapped out the crappy alumnimum windows for the  slightly less-crappy home-depot-vinyl kind.  We had 4 aluminum windows to sell on Craigslist, and the guy that bought them was awesome.  He and his wife are building a house, in their driveway, on a truck, that they’re planning on transporting to Mexico.  They bought a little piece of land somewhere on the beach for next to nothing and are planning on dropping that house on it.  Saves them the headache from building in Mexico.  Anyway, it’s fun to think that those shitty windows will end up retiring in Mexico much sooner than I will.

So long windows – happy to hear you’re going from my dark, dusty, underground basement to a beachfront view in Mexico somewhere.  And I’m so happy I’m in some stupidly small way enabling that couple’s dream of Mexico!

I’m in the process of switching banks.  My current bank, Compass Bank, was a small community bank that I loved for many reasons, but was recently acquired by BBVA and now they suck.  In the last few months, I bet I’ve accumulated over $250 or $300 in fees simply because I don’t read my mail all that frequently, and I don’t balance my checkbook monthly like I probably should. So in the process of searching for a new bank, I’ve come to learn that I’m a demanding customer.  I want everything, I want it to be free (or at least modest and predictably consistent), and the very last thing I want to do is ever think about or deal with my bank.

For instance, I was shocked at how many banks wanted me to think about my account balances all the time.  If the balance dropped below a certain point, they were going to charge me.  What?  Really?  You’re charging me for the privlidge of having access to my money and loaning it out to others?  I don’t think so.

I was surprised at how many things they wanted to fee me for.  Statement?  Fee.  Overdraft protection.  Fee.  Using another bank’s ATM?  Fee.  Using the ATM at all?  Fee.  Online access?  Fee.  Check images?  Fee.  Quit nickle and diming me to death (what BBVA Compass did to me)

I was surprised at the number of banks that were proud of the # of branches or ATMs they had.  I don’t ever want to visit a branch, ever.  An ATM occasionally is nice, but I’m not driving out of my way for it.  So don’t boast about the # of ATMS you have, but rather boast about the fact that I could use any atm, anywhere, for free.  Now that’s convenient.

I was also shocked to see the number of banks that wouldn’t let me open an account online.  You mean I have to come in?  Really?

And I was shocked to see the number of options I had for various checking and savings and business accounts.  There you go making me think about my account again.  Just give me a checking account and a savings account with some competitive interest. The rest of it I assume should be included (statements, ATMS, online access, transferability, etc)

I’ve recently discovered USAA and am in total bank-love.  I could open the account online, transfer $ from my non-USAA accounts, deposit checks with my iPhone (LOVE THIS!), they pay all my non-USAA ATM fees up to $15/mo, the list goes on and on.  They just understood me.  They made banking a non-issue in my life.  My only hope is they open small business accounts next.  (By the way, what’s the difference?  A checking account should be a checking account.  I want all the same features, who cares what kind of entity owns the account?)

So bravo USAA.  I applaud you for fundamentally understanding your customers – they’re such a passionate group that they take time out of their busy lives to write blog posts about you.

(disclaimer – I’m not being compensated in any way by USAA for writing this.  I’m just that happy I found them).

For those that haven’t followed along yet, TechStars partnered with Bloomberg to launch a documentary on what it’s like to be a founder going through the TechStars program.  The show was filmed in NYC (no, I’m not in it) and offers a glimpse of startup life in the program.  The show airs weekly on Tuesdays at 9pm ET/7pm MT on Bloomberg.  So join in and watch!