Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur

I’m a serial entrepreneur. Every one of my prior attempts has been a high-tech endeavor. Despite having varying degrees of success, one thing has become apparent -- the high-tech world is fundamentally unstable. Things change, change causes disruption, and one cannot be expected to respond successfully to disruption every time.

When a good friend approached me and my wife about a business selling soaps, lotions and lip balm, my first reaction was “finally, a non-high-tech business!” The thought that I wouldn’t need to deal with constantly changing technology had tremendous appeal. The fact that we’re selling soap was...meh. I guess I was more excited about what the business wasn’t.

Fast forward -- we’re making soap. We’re learning about different soap formulas. I’m still roughly in the “meh” camp. The thing about good soap is that it takes up to six weeks to properly cure. So, when you make it, you need to wait awhile to see how you did. During that time, I’ve discovered that there are lots of people out there that are very enthusiastic about soap.

I’ve been using Dial and Irish Spring and various other household brands for my entire life. I’ve never thought twice about it. Recently, I learned that this stuff isn’t even really soap. It turns out that soap is made when you mix fat with lye to create a chemical process called “saponification,” which turns the fats into salts. Different types of fats produce different effects. Okay, that’s probably more than you want to know about soapmaking. Here’s the thing, look at the ingredients of Irish Spring:

INGREDIENTS: SOAP (SODIUM TALLOWATE, SODIUM COCOATE AND/OR SODIUM PALM KERNELATE TYPES) WATER, STEARIC ACID (SKIN CONDITIONER) COCONUT AND/OR PALM KERNEL ACD, GLYCERIN (SKIN CONDITIONER), FRAGRANCE, SODIUM CHLORIDE, PEG-12 POLYSORBATE 20,TITANIUM DIOXIDE, TETRASODIUM EDTA, BHT D&C GREEN NO. 8, FD&C GREEN NO. 3.

I had to look up tallowate and kernelate to figure out what’s going on here. Apparently, these are fats that have somehow already been converted to salts. This undoubtedly eliminates the curing, which means faster to market. By the way, tallowate is made from beef fat, so if you use this, your soap is not vegan. Bottom line: this stuff is designed to be quick to make first and foremost.

Back to me. Finally, I got around to using actual soap. Wow! What a difference. If you’ve never used real soap. You will probably be as surprised as me. It actually makes my skin feel better. Now, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has a lot to say about when you can make claims about what a product can do for your body and as an owner I need to be careful about making “claims.” So, this is just me talking about me. Your results may vary.

If you happen to have actually gotten this far into my post today, I’m going to make it a bit easier for you to try out some real soap. Just go to the Ti LeBlanc website and pick yourself out a bar of soap. Type in “friendsshipfree” (without the quotes) into the coupon code box when you check out and...you guessed it!...we won’t charge you for shipping (Sorry, U.S. customers only -- for now). I’d love to hear what you think. We have a Facebook page and as a new company, every customer gets the sort of attention that as a customer, you live for. As a matter of fact, if you’ve got some ideas for a product, let us know. We might just whip you up a batch!

Wikipedia!

Today, Wikipedia sent me an email asking for money. I gave them some. Probably not as much as I should when I consider the value compared with what I pay for other services. I suspect lots of people won’t pay anything. They use Wikipedia just like I do, but they won’t pay because they don’t have to.

If you’re one of these people, you probably don’t pay for downloaded music either. In your defense, the music industry hasn’t exactly got onboard with the “pay what it’s worth” model. Too bad. I suspect they could get more money if they did. Studies show that people are willing to pay for value. Have you ever received a survey in the mail with a dollar bill? A company has to spend more on mailing expenses to get the same response as they get if they include a dollar in the envelope. For most of us, the time to fill out the survey is probably worth more than a dollar, but we feel the need to reciprocate.

Wikipedia is huge. They have numerous data centers and only 200 people to manage all the infrastructure as well as curating the content. Fortunately, they also have many many volunteers that watch over various pages. While it’s important to be on the lookout for inaccurate information, Wikipedia tends to have good information on most topics. It puts the old encyclopedia that I had when I was a kid to shame. I don’t remember what my parents paid for that thing, but it was expensive enough that they paid it off in installments. Further, with each passing year, it got more out of date.

Even history gets updated. New discoveries about our past are made and new perspectives are brought to light. Wikipedia encompasses all of that. Fifty years ago, if someone had said they had one place they could go to search the bulk of human knowledge for answers, you would have thought they lived 500 years in the future. What’s it worth to have that sort of jump on the future? Five dollars? Ten? Maybe even $25?

You could wait for the other people to cover your tab...or you could just pony up yourself. Go ahead, do it. I’ll wait...

Surreal Experience

Yesterday, I had a non-surgical exploratory medical procedure of the non-esophageal variety. You do the math. I don't get sick enough to go see a doctor very often and specialists even less. The few times I've been to see a specialist, I was ready to gnaw my own foot off to escape by the time I got out of there.

For this procedure, I would need to be put under general anesthesia, so my wife had to come with me. I couldn't give you an exact timeline because I wasn't watching the clock too closely, but here's the gist:

• We arrived shortly before 9a for a 10a procedure.
• I was immediately invited to sit at an open intake cubicle. This procedure lasted about 15 minutes and required the exchange of documents, some reading, and some signing.
• I was directed to the patient waiting area, where I read about four pages of my book. This was less than 15 minutes.
• A nurse called my name and escorted me to a scale. I had lost a few pounds while preparing for the procedure. I probably won't keep them off.
• She then led me to the preparation area where I reviewed and signed some consent forms, had vitals taken and changed into my operating room garb. They also provided me with a warm blanket (really! it had been warmed). The nurse also told me about he team that would be working me over and said they would be by for a visit. This all took about another 15 minutes.
• As she left the area, the anesthesiologist arrived right on cue. We discussed the sort of drugs I prefer and he told me what he was planning for me. It all sounded pretty good, so I signed the anesthesia consent form that I had refused to sign prior to talking with him. This took about 5 minutes.
• As he left, Dr. Fine arrived. He's a nice young Jewish doctor just like I wanted. I didn't ask him how many generations of doctors were in his family, but I'd like to imagine that the Fines have been practicing medicine for over a 1200 years. Because he's younger, I know that he's had an updated education and didn't learn modern medicine while on a ski trip in Aspen or on the beaches of Hawaii. We spoke briefly about my last visit and what I could expect this time. The whole visit lasted maybe three minutes.
• As he left, the two lovely OR nurses arrived to wheel me out. I don't remember much of Sara and Tamara as once I got to the OR, I wasn't conscious for long.
• In the OR, I met the nurse anesthetist and saw Dr. Fine briefly before going nighty-night.
• Next thing I know, I'm waking up in the recovery room on the other side of the building from where I started with a new nurse and my wife sitting by (that's like standing by only with a chair). After a few minutes, I was able to get dressed and bail. It was about 11:45.

I'm not sure this sort of machine-like efficiency occurs only within the gastroenterology specialty or just this practice, but there are clearly some lessons to be learned from this operation. That's what I call modern medicine.

On The Road

They say that most people only have one really great, unique and original idea in their whole lives.  Usually, that Idea comes early in life.  Colonel Sanders was in his sixties when he decided to sell his famous chicken recipe.  My story is not as compelling as the colonel’s, but it has taken me a while to get here.

My life has been wrapped around the computer industry.  In recent years, I have tried to shed my direct reliance on it for my livelihood, but it is still and always will be an intrinsic part of my commercial value.  To appreciate this, a brief history is in order.

I began my adult life as a musician and a desire to be a radio personality.  To that end, I went to Specs Howard School of Broadcasting Arts.  With my 3^rd Class License in hand, I set about finding a job in radio, eventually finding said job at WPON in Pontiac.  Meanwhile, I decided to go back to school and get a degree in Communication Arts.

After switching to being the program director of the Oakland University radio station, I found myself a little short of money.  My dad told me about a computer store called Computerland that was opening near campus.  I applied.  To my surprise, I was hired as a retail salesperson.  I didn’t know a thing about computers, but then who did back then?  I learned on the job.  This was in 1978.

The personal computer was just starting to get some notice by the general public.  I was on the cutting edge.  This theme would repeat itself throughout my career.  I don’t know if I’ve been lucky or if I actually have some sense about the next big thing, but I’ve always found my way onto the cutting edge.  After PCs were established, I moved to a company that was experimenting with selling local area networks, they were brand new.  Then, it was groupware like Lotus Notes and email.  Next came wide area communications – the ability to interconnect networks across large geographic distances.  And finally, the Internet.  By the time the Internet rolled around, I had my own company, but there I was, pioneering again.  Being on the cutting edge is messy, but exciting.

My last cutting edge experience was working in a company developing cloud based computing solutions.  We didn’t even know we were in the cloud then.  The term hadn’t been popularized yet.  It has been several years since I’ve been on the cutting edge and I’m starting to get antsy.  Something has to be done about it.

Enter JT. JT is a friend who I have known for eight years.  He is a very focused young man who seems to have a good bead on his direction in life.  He is a software guy; in particular, a Microsoft software development guy.  He loves it.  But, he doesn’t tolerate mediocrity very well.  I can relate.  I suffer from a similar affliction.  He decided that he wants to develop the next big thing on the Internet and retire young and rich.  Seems like a good plan.

As with any plan, the devil is in the details.  First, he had to come up with a good idea.  Every few months, JT would come to me with an idea for the next big thing.  Unfortunately, I quickly shot holes in each of them and JT skulked away dejectedly. 

Recently, we redecorated our bathroom upstairs.  One of the results of this effort was the realization of a lifelong dream to have a tub with jets in my very own home.  I especially enjoy using it in the winter.  A few months back, I was soaking and reading (as I am inclined to do).  I was reminiscing about my life back in high school.  I was a hippie.  I did what hippies did – searched for the next party.  I was pretty good at finding it, too.  Then, in a flash, an idea came to me.  That thought had caused me to hatch an idea of a great new use for the Internet.

Quickly, I began to search for a site that would do what I had conceived.  Nothing.  I told JT about it.  He searched.  Nothing.  I could not believe that if someone had implemented this idea, it would remain obscure enough not to be found.  It just wasn’t there.  JT and I realized that we are about to change the world.  That’s my goal anyway.  JT just wants to get rich.  The work begins…

The Journey

Anyone checking my blog lately has wondered what happened.  Well, I've been on hiatus for want of a compelling story to tell.  Call it the Michigan winter blues.  The important thing is:  I'M BACK!

Life goes through many stages.  Sometimes, it's hard to see the beginnings and ends of these stages while we are in the thick of it.  However, every once in a while there comes along a rare opportunity to chronicle such a stage from the beginning.

I happen to believe that I am embarking on a rather exciting journey.  I will either turn out to be correct or the following posts will prove once again to be the ramblings of delusional mind.

Backfire!

In a small enterprise, the leader can hand select each employee.  If she is a good judge of character, she will select wisely and the enterprise will prosper.    Being prosperous seems like a good thing, but like most good things, it comes at a price.  The price is loss of control.  Prosperity brings growth.  As any of my readers know, I am aware of the Small Giants phenomenon, but most enterprises choose to grow to whatever degree their prosperity will take them.

As long as the right people are selecting the right people, the only thing that prevents the organization from taking care of customers is lack of empowerment.  This leads me to a story of a complete breakdown of both, brought to you by our friends at DirectTV.

To start with, I’ve been a loyal DirecTV customer for many years.  Since I live out in the boonies, I don’t have much choice in the matter.  When it first started out, DirecTV was rough around the edges.  However, I noticed a significant improvement in performance over the years.  The frontline people seemed to have enough empowerment to satisfy a range of situations.

Behind the scenes, the management of the firm has decided to play a nasty little game with their value conscious clientele.  Here’s how it works:

1. Customer calls disconnect group and says he’s quiting
2. Customer service rep asks “will you stay if we give you $10 off?”
3. “No.” says the customer.
4. “How about $20/month?"
5. “Throw in six months of Showtime and Skinimax and you got a deal."
6. “Done,” says the rep.

Then, six months slip quietly by with only a $2.35/month rate hike.  BAM! The bill jumps up $20 per month.  So,  this process repeats until someone, in this case – me, gets fed up with the game and just wants the price drop “forever.”

Now, you have some grasp of my state of mind when I began my fateful call.  Oh, one more thing:  It seems that DirecTV really appreciated my patronage, because they not only sent me a postcard offering me a free movie, but they also posted the offer on their website.  The postcard apparently had some mysterious instructions on it, but frankly, when I saw the offer online, I threw the postcard out.  The instructions (condense to the essentials) were as follows:

1. Select a movie from the designated channels
2. Watch the movie
3. Your account will automatically be credited

This seemed pretty straightforward to me, so I watched Invictus (pretty good movie).  Now, it just so happens, this all happened in the same month after the last six months had expired.  So, when I found the charge for the movie on the bill with the post-special deal rates bringing the damages to just under $90 (with no Internet service), I was ticked to say the least.

I start out going through the regular drill.  My objective is to bring my bill back down into the low $50’s.  We were just coming up to step #5, “Jane” offers me a different package that will get my rate where I want it.  

“I’m on the site now, tell me where I can see the channels,” I ask.

“It’s not on the site.  It is a special package for [customers who bitch up a storm],” I paraphrased Jane.

“How can I see what channels this package has,” I asked?

“What channels are you looking for,” she asked?

“Cooking?”

“No.”

“SciFi?”

“No.”

“Comedy Central?”

“No.”

“I want to cancel,” I proclaimed.

“You have a two year contract, so you will need to pay a prorated termination fee for the time between now and Nov. 1^st.”

“Alright, I’ll take the crappy package! But, you need to take the $5.99 charge off my bill for the “free” movie you offered me.

“How did you hear about the movie?  Did you get a postcard, Jane asked?

“Yes.”

“Did you follow the instructions on the card?”

“I used the instructions from offer on your website, which I am looking at right now.  Let me read it to you.  It says watch the movie and you’ll AUTOMATICALLY credit my bill.  Where’s the credit?”

“Yeah, but if you got the postcard, you gotta follow those instructions.”

“Are you authorized to give me a credit?”

“No,” responded Jane.

“I want to speak with your supervisor”

“Sir, you cannot…”

“I’m not talking to you anymore.  Get me your supervisor.”

“I will need to put you on hold for 3-5 minutes.”

“Fine,” I said.  I said it again five minutes later and again five minutes after that.  At the end of the third five minutes, I’d had enough.

“The supervisor is still busy, do you want to wait some more?”

“What if I don’t?”

“You can call back later.  We’re real busy right now.”

“How is that my problem?  You should have enough people to staff your peak periods effectively.”  I don’t think she grasped this aspect call center design.  “Fine, just do what you’ve got to do.”  After I hung up, I immediately called my bank and restricted their access to my bank account, which they had been tapping monthly for many years.

So, this thing is not over, but they will need to call me to settle up.  My guess is, they will turn it over to a collection agency eventually.  They will call and threaten to report me to the credit bureau, but not before I make them leave several messages.  Only then will I negotiate a substantially reduced settlement, which I will have the satisfaction of knowing also cost DirecTV the cost of the collection agency’s fee as well.

If I were consulting with DirecTV, I would charge them $250 per hour to tell them how to avoid this situation.  As a customer, I offered it up for free, but alas, there’s nobody listening.  Well, if DirecTV loses customers one at a time, it will be awhile before they start faltering.  Online options continue to expand.  DirecTV’s failure in both the personnel and empowerment categories will continue to haunt it.  I will be haunting them for a little while longer.

Goodbye Ernie

I’m sure there are a lot of folks blogging about Ernie Harwell today. Millions of people knew Ernie. Most of them thought they just knew him from his work because they had never met him in person.  They were wrong.  I started my adult life in the radio business. I did some time at WPON in Pontiac. My desk was at the front door, so I was the person who greeted anyone that showed up.

One day Ernie and George Kell came in as guests for one of our talk shows. While they were waiting to go on the air, Ernie started up a conversation with me. He asked me what I did at the station and how I liked it. He told me a story about his early days in radio. To be honest, I can’t remember the story. I was mesmerized by how exactly like the Ernie Harwell I knew from the Tiger broadcasts he was like in person. I couldn’t believe that a man could project himself so accurately while doing play by play and talking shop about baseball on the air.

If you didn’t meet him, you’ll have to take my word for it – he was the friendliest, kindest man I ever knew for five minutes. Yesterday was the bottom of the ninth of the last game of the last season for Ernie. The planet is a little darker for his passing. So long, Ernie.

Fair Play

Last Sunday, the weather was beautiful and I was committed to taking full advantage of it. Me and my pal Kase decided to take in some sunshine and park scenery while playing some disc golf. In case you didn't know, disc golf is similar to regular golf in strategy. However, instead of clubs and a ball, we use mini Frisbees that serve as both. And, instead of a hole, we use a basket with chains to help the disc fall into the basket. I noticed that the sport seems to be growing every year. Today, the course was quite crowded, so we had to wait out turn at many of the holes. The good news is that we were sitting around at a beautiful county park on a near perfect day.

When I got home, I didn't want to be in the house, so I turned around and headed right back out for a little bicycle ride to the store. In the Summer, I like to ride my bike to the store as much as possible. Sometimes, I even ride to work. Besides being excellent exercise, it uses zero emission green energy – me!

Too many people spend too much time sitting in front of their computer screen. Between McDonald's supersized meals of fat and sugar and home entertainment, it's no wonder we have such a serious obesity problem in this country. Summer is coming! Everyone should eat some fresh fruits and veggies grown right here in Michigan and get out and do something in the beautiful weather. I know I will.

Tom For A Better New Year

It has been a year since my last post. I guess I didn't take blogging very seriously. It's not January yet, but I'm going to make a resolution to be more consistent this year. Starting now.

This year, I'm going to talk about my day job as an attempted savior. I work for the University of Michigan in an institute known as IRLEE (Institute for Research on Labor, Employment and the Economy). It's a big title or an organization with big goals. We try to save people from the abyss of unemployment. In this country, it's not good to be out of work.

I work for a program called MB:S2T (Michigan Business: Surviving To Thriving). The idea is that we will help companies that are already hanging in there to do better. Some might think we should be helping all the businesses that are failing, but we don't have the resources. Our business community is like the animal community in general. The strong push out the weak. Somewhere between the strongest and the weakest, there are companies that have a chance at being stronger. Those are the companies we help.

In my job as an adviser, I believe it is important to have a broad understanding the playing field and the rules of the game. So, I read as much as I can. I read books like "The Squandering of America," "The Coming China Wars," and "Surfing on the Edge of Chaos." And, I read magazines like "Harvard Business Review," The Economist," and "Crains."

All this reading provides me with a different perspective on the world than many people. I am particularly interested in trying to make sense of the global economic playing field. It seems that whereas we once were concerned only about how autocratic governments treated their own people, we now need to consider their political aspirations in the context of global business.

That meas that what the central government in China decides as policy can affect your paycheck and the price of the things you buy. It also means that a President in Nigeria could cause a gas prices to double in Memphis.

So, this is my plan: to try to make regular sense of what is going on out there. More importantly, as a reader, maybe you'll start to question what you hear from Fox News or NPR or MoveOn.org. They all get it right sometimes, but good luck trying to sift through their political agendas.