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This video was originally posted on TED. In this video, Simon discusses:
Who is Simon Sinek? Simon will be one of our featured speakers for BizTechDay New York 2010. Come join us on September 24 , 2010 at the New York Times Center.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: BizTechDay Seattle 2010 Entrepreneurial Conference Donates Portion Of Ticket Sales To American Cancer Society.
“The American Cancer Society’s dedicate these funds to the fight against cancer and creating a world with more birthdays. It is important as entrepreneurs and members of the business community to give back and support the fight against cancer,” said Edith Yeung, Executive Producer of BizTechDay. BizTechDay is a conference which brings innovative and scalable ideas to business leaders and entrepreneurs. It is an intensive one-day conference where attendees meet to inspire and be inspired by one another. Originated in San Francisco in 2008, BizTechDay had a goal of bringing together amazing entrepreneurs to share their experiences creating and growing businesses. Since its inception, it has grown nationwide to Seattle and New York with the same goal; to connect, inspire and learn from one other. “We are honored by this generosity and excited to be part of the Seattle entrepreneur community,” said Danielle Anderson of The American Cancer Society. Emmy-award winning TV news anchor and reporter, Bill Wixey, who will be one of the speakers for BizTechDay Seattle said, “I am excited to be a part of this event. The lineup of speakers is phenomenal, and the chance to help a great cause like the American Cancer Society, is an added bonus.” BizTechDay conferences attracts business icons, renowned thought leaders, 1,500 inspired business leaders, and entrepreneurs to come together at three separate events across the nation. The events will feature business icons such as Seth Godin, Clay Shirky, Jessica Jackley, Joan Barnes, Colleen McCreary, Megan Casey and many more dynamic leaders. About BizTechDay About The American Cancer Society Contact:
Lisa has been an investor and board member of more than twenty internet and mobile services companies. She is also one of the attending presenters at BizTechDay 2010 New York along with Seth Godin and Clay Shirky. Lisa will also launch her new book ‘The Mesh’ at BizTechDay this year. All attendees of BizTechDay New York will receive a copy of her new book ‘The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing”. In the following short interview, we talked about the growing trend, Lisa’s story, experience and strategies on winning through sharing and building strategic partnership with the right people. Edith: What is your story? Why do you believe in the business of sharing and partnership so much? Lisa: A few things here – I came to The Mesh as part of a personal exploration — imagining that I and we could design and build businesses that would support less stress on ourselves and the planet. I was feeling, as an entrepreneur, that often the businesses we invent drive people to buy more things. My experience working and ‘living’ with the internet and mobile web led me to consider that people and things (goods and services) were more ‘in hand’ and perhaps we didn’t need to own them we could rather access them as we access – reach out to one another. When I dove into the exploration which led me to The Mesh. I discovered that sharing is natural — it’s been a huge part of how people have lived and fundamental to how communities and civilizations have evolved and grown. Technology has made connections possible across physical distances that weren’t there before and this has enabled more sharing of ideas, friends and other types of support – it’s helped fuel a culture of generosity – a culture of sharing. But, businesses have been creating partnerships for centuries. Many of the largest categories or industries of the last century began by creating ecosystems to build their products and/or bring them to market. Think about energy, automotives, appliances, entertainment – they all began as companies who build partnerships or ecosystems and then, over time, they acquired other companies or they themselves made the parts of the value chain they once outsourced. (vertical integration). Edith: Who did you partner with what was your most successful partnership? Lisa: Personally, as an entrepreneur, I have surrounded myself with people who have a very different core competence and perspective than me. At Ofoto, we called this, ‘forming a molecule’ – aligning yourself with Lisa: Openness, candor, clarity of purpose, self-awareness, tenacity and humor – and occasionally, wine. Edith: What would you think about first in initiating a successful partnership? Lisa: See above. And, I would add, it is important that both parties either want the same outcome in or around the same time OR that the respective goals, if they are not the same, are complementary. In the case of two companies forming a partnership, it is often the case for a startup that we partner with bigger, more powerful companies – so, what is promised on both sides needs to be VERY clear – it is typically that the larger company has more money and power but the startup has youthful sexiness on its side. Big companies often partner as a way to put a toe in the icy waters of newness. The partnership helps them imagine a world other than the one which consumes them and the bigger brand brings street cred and often exposure to the startup. This differential of power is very present in these partnerships – I have found it’s best to talk about it. be clear and mutually state and agree on expectations. Edith: What is the best way to connect with the right partners? Especially for startup entrepreneurs with no connections and no budget? Lisa: Reach out to people who know you, your company, your vision == who also see making the introduction as a way for them to be valuable and insightful to their colleague or friend. Some people are ‘power brokers’ – they naturally make introductions and see the power of connecting you to someone you don’t yet know – commerce yentas rock! If you don’t know someone like that – going to conferences (one or two very selectively), meetups and schmoozing events will give you more opportunity to tell your story to someone and make a connection – my pov is that it’s p2p here. Edith: What was the biggest partnership failure? What would you do differentially? Lisa: My biggest have come from being more consumed with the glory of the press release than really embracing the longer term reality of the working partnership. Now I just ask straight ahead – up front – is this a partnership disguised as a press release or something that we’re really going to build and deliver to people who will love it? Neither answer is inherently bad. But, you both better have the same response or … Great partnerships, are increasingly open – the world is moving that way. IMHO and certainly The Mesh thrives in a world of open
BizTechDay Seattle attendee Richard Wood talks about why he is attending BizTechDay Seattle on September 18th at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center.
Slowly but surely, that little meetup group grew and grew. From 5 people to 10, 20, 50, then 100, then more than 300 people. And today, more than 3,000. Out of that group BizTechDay was born! BizTechDay was born because of a conversation with Gary Marshall (of the Small Business Administration). We thought the entrepreneurial community need to learn from the best from both worlds–from the business side and from the technology side. Why not create an event for that? When I didn’t have a good answer to “Why not?” I decided to ask myself instead: “What am I waiting for!” BizTechDay is built on the philosophy that the most important aspect of a successful business is not about what you know or how you do things (though those are obviously important elements). The most important thing is to have great people around you. This isn’t to be confused with just networking or a popularity contest. Instead, it’s about living a life and doing business with people you trust, like, and learn from. Your co-founder, investors, advisors, employees, customers, fans and partners–it is the WHO that will make or break your business. They are the ones who want to see you succeed. They are the ones who will help make our entrepreneurial journey worth all the sweat we put in. With that in mind, BizTechDay is really a conference about people. We of course have amazing speakers and innovative technology demos, but for us the most important thing is to facilitate the connections between you and other attendees, not just from the speakers to the audience. If every single one of us walks away from BizTechDay 2010 with at least one meaningful business connection, a relationship that will truly help and change your business for the life time, we will have done our job. I’m sharing this story now so you can get a look at the spirit behind the conference, and maybe understand why I’m always talking excitedly about it. I truly believe when amazing people get together, magic happens. Imagine 1500 doers and changemakers in Seattle, New York and San Francisco all come together to support you. How cool is that? Meet our amazing attending presenters:
How did you differentiate yourself (Infusionsoft) from all the bigger CRM, email marketing, marketing automation companies when you first started? We focused on solving the problems of small businesses. And when I say, “small businesses” I mean the size of business most vendors won’t touch. We love helping businesses with less than 100 employees. We think that’s where the need, the fun and the opportunity is. Because of the size of business we serve, our solution is different. For example, we combine CRM, Email Marketing and Marketing Automation into one integrated solution, whereas our competitors that serve bigger businesses tend to approach these needs as separate, technological, point solutions. That’s not what our small business customer wants or needs. So, the nature of our target customer makes it very easy to be different from our competitors. How has Infusionsoft evolved since it first started in 2001? Has your positioning changed over time? Yes. We’ve evolved from a positioning of CRM, to Marketing Automation, to Email Marketing 2.0, which is a suite that combines CRM, Email Marketing and Marketing Automation. One thing that hasn’t changed: we always have and always will serve small businesses that want to grow fast. What are / have been the biggest challenges in building a brand from the ground up & how you did overcome them? To me, the biggest branding challenges revolve around market penetration and positioning. You can’t afford to build your brand to everyone, all at once. If you do that, you’ll waste time and money and you’ll attract a bunch of bad customers you can’t help properly. You have to start by targeting the most narrowly defined sub-target market (niche) and then build out from there to a mass market. My favorite way of thinking through this is to draw an inverted pyramid (or triangle) on the whiteboard, define the entire, broad market you hope to eventually dominate and then define layers of the market, starting with the bottom—the tip of the pyramid. The idea is to nail that tip (niche) and then gradually move up the inverted pyramid. The challenges comes in defining each layer of the market and attacking only that layer. Building a brand from the ground up has everything to do with the way you intelligently move up the inverted pyramid. Do you think your small company size an advantage? How to capitalize on your size to achieve maximum efficiency and impact? Absolutely. We’re more nimble than the bigger guys. We’ve got heart. Our people care because they’re enrolled in a mission rather than simply collecting a paycheck. Plus, our customers like dealing with a small company that really cares about helping small businesses grow. “I am just starting out as an entrepreneur and I see tons of competition out there”, what would be your advice for startup entrepreneurs? What resources are the most valuable to you when you first started? Differentiate, differentiate, differentiate. Focus on what you do well, what you love and what you don’t like. Many people will say you should start with the market and then bring it back to how you can solve a problem in the market. If you’re a one-man shop, don’t do that! Start with what you love. Exclude everything else. And then relentlessly pursue the problem you love to solve. If you take this approach, you won’t make the mistake of chasing bad jobs, bad clients and bad dollars. And you’ll attract the clients who see the problem(s) you solve and want a solution to those problems, which will make your business strong. As for resources, if you’re just starting out, you should read Michael Gerber’s, “E-Myth,” Dan Kennedy’s “Magnetic Marketing” and Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich.” You should also read the book I co-wrote with Infusionsoft co-founder, Scott Martineau. It’s called, “Conquer the Chaos: How to Grow a Successful Small Business Without Going Crazy.” How’s that for a shameless plug?
Yep! These are the top 25 most influential entrepreneurial organizations in Silicon Valley and San Francisco for 2010. We are so lucky to be surrounded by these amazing organizations. They all have their different styles and cultures. We highly encourage all of you to check them out.
If you want to meet some of these most powerful organizations in one place, come join us at BizTechDay
Yohoo! Lily Jang talks about BizTechDay on Q13 Fox News in Seattle! Thanks for the love Lily. You are amazing too! Lily was also recognized as one of the 25 Influential Business Women in Seattle You Should Follow on Twitter for 2010. Follow Lily on Twitter: http://twitter.com/lilyjang Follow BizTechDay on Twitter: http://twitter.com/biztechday Follow our Seattle co-producer Gabe Brown on Twitter: Want to meet everyone influential in Seattle? Join BizTechDay 2010! |
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Seattle, WA – August 30, 2010- BizTechDay and The American Cancer Society are joiningforces to create awareness for the fight against cancer within the entrepreneur community. For each full value ticket sold to BizTechDay Seattle 2010, $100 will be donated to The American Cancer Society.
Lisa Gansky is a serial entrepreneur, author of her latest book – 
3 years ago, I held my first entrepreneur meetup at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco. 5 people attended and I paid $300 for a small room. I felt really silly because I knew 3 out of the 5 people who attended, and why pay that much money to see my friends? Still, that night I realized that I really enjoy the process and the experience of bringing people together. No matter what.
Below is Edith Yeung’s interview with Clate Mask, Cofounder and CEO of Infusionsoft and New York Times Best-selling author, about his passion for small businesses, how he differentiate and compete with the big boys.
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