This is why I’m an entrepreneur.
What was old is new again
March 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment
It seems we’ve come full circle when it comes to communicating with our prospects and clients. I noticed recently that I’ve been paying a lot less attention to online newsletters and those pretty HTML announcements that arrive in my in-box every day. There are a few exceptions of course. But for the most part I’m interested in the CONTENT of what is being delivered, not the design or graphics. When given the choice I no longer ask for the HTML version of anything – instead I choose the text-only version.
There was a time when it was unusual to receive anything but plain text into your email box. Then we moved to designing branded newsletters and “postcard-like” invitations that would capture the attention of our readers. Now, thanks to ever-improving SPAM filters a lot of those fancy invitations, announcements and emails aren’t even making it to our desktop. And for those that do get through the fire-wall, we’ve become jaded and tired of looking at all those designs. We just want the information – short, sweet and simple.
Playing on this hunch we recently experimented with a client that has been holding a series of seminars. As is typical, invitations had been sent out using HTML and branded design. But registrations were down and we were looking for a way to drive attendance. So we sent out another announcement about the event, except this was a simple text email. [Read more...]
Lessons Learned in Failing
February 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment
As a serial entrepreneur, Zephyr isn’t the first company I’ve started. Recently, I was interviewed by Tom Heath, a columnist with the Washington Post. He wanted to talk about another company I launched 2 years ago and recently had to shut down. Tom writes about successful entrepreneurs every week in his “Value Added” column. I wanted to take a different approach. I’ve learned a lot from projects that failed, and this was no exception. Any entrepreneur worth her salt has a couple of great mistakes under her belt, and this is one of mine. So I thought that his readers could learn from this story and take away some valuable lessons (just like I did).
I think he did a great job on the article, and I still think the business was a great idea. The problem is I fell in love with
the idea instead of the viability of the company. And I didn’t think through the aspects of fulfillment. In retrospect, I did all the things I tell my clients to avoid every day! It is common for tech companies to fall in love with the idea of the new technology and its capabilities without spending enough time evaluating whether there is a customer need and enough budget for the delivery, sales and marketing of the technology.
I have a lot more ideas perculating and I suspect there are several more startups in my future. At least I hope so! Every experience builds on the next. The lessons learned can be applied not just to how I run Zephyr, but also to my clients (present and future) who sometimes become enamoured of the idea instead of the business viability. At least now I can say “Been there, done that.”
