Crunch Mode

Startup founders need less pivot, more personality

2012-01-16T11:08:32.483-05:00

It seems like medias love the word "pivot". They over-use it in articles. A startup is not doing good? Don't worry, a pivot is on the way. Pivoting a business not only seems to be a solution if your product doesn't work, it also seems to be an accepted explanation why you would change direction so quickly.

Some defines "pivot" as "the idea of reinventing or refocusing your business on the fly". Personally, I have another definition for pivot: "prototyping without vision". It's like trying to figure out how to use all those disconnected Lego blocks, without having an idea of the model on the box.

What does it take to become an entrepreneur and start your own company? It takes vision. Vision is a primary ingredient to be a successful entrepreneur. An entrepreneur needs to be a visionary, as only he (she) can see the future the way he will build it.

However, an entrepreneur is nothing without a strong personality. By this, I don’t mean that you must be the kind of entrepreneur that speak loudly in events and that wants to be noticed. No. Strong personality is all about being strong in character. You have to be strong at confronting failure. You must be strong when your ideas are being rejected by others. You must hold on when most would give up. This is what a strong personality is about.

When I started Nimbb at the end of 2008, I had a vision. I knew that I wanted to build a product that would allow others to add webcam recording in their websites. I could see how the product would be used by others, how it would make their life easier and better. In my head, I was already building my path to success.

However, success doesn’t come easily. If I was like many entrepreneurs, I would have pivoted my business. Nimbb’s start was very slow. In May of 2009, I was finally starting to sign up my first paying customers. It was a step in the right direction. But just like a baby, each step looked like eternity. In a startup world, this can appear as discouraging to most entrepreneurs.

However, I didn’t give up. Neither did I give up when people around me told me that my idea would probably fail. This seems to a normal reaction from people around any entrepreneur. You need a very strong personality when you see your friends turning you down. I did believe in my product, so I did continue without a second thought.

Things get also hard once you try to get others interested in your startup. In 2010, in a trip to San Francisco, I gave it a shot. I met numerous entrepreneurs, investors and medias. Medias ignored me, as it’s mostly the case for entrepreneurs without contacts in medias. Other entrepreneurs would listen to my speech, then I would listen to theirs, most of the time without new business relationship. As for investors, they are the first to tell you to pivot your business. Your product is never totally what they have in mind. They are very good at judging your product in matter of minutes, without even trying it. In my case, I even drove one hour from San Francisco to Palo Alto to meet some investors, just to be turned down by them quickly without even a "thanks for dropping by".

When rejection is so strong, most entrepreneurs pivot. They lose their vision and they weaken their personality. They let other diminish themselves.

My trip to San Francisco might have looked like a failure. I wasn’t able to get investors interested in Nimbb. But, instead of feeling down, something else happened in me. "I don’t need investors and I don’t need to pivot. I’ll work even harder." That was my reaction.

Sure enough, without a strong personality, you can’t achieve that. Instead of doing a pivot, I actually gave up my 10-year safe job and went full time on my business. I knew that I had what it takes: a great vision, a strong will to succeed and faith. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you need all of these.

Unfortunately, too many startup founders think that pivoting is a way of succeeding. Your product doesn’t take off the way you want? Pivot. Investors tell you that you won’t succeed with your service? Pivot. You can’t take the pressure anymore? Pivot. Surely enough, this can’t feel right.

Some entrepreneurs are even famous for their pivoting personality. Some even use the word in their LinkedIn profiles as a trendy word. If you think that pivot is cool and you are applying it to your own startup, then maybe it’s time you seriously ask yourself if you should be an entrepreneur. Don’t prototype blindly with hope of finding a great product. Instead, try building a strong personality and following your vision. This will be the start of a great adventure.

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Make your startup a scalable business

2011-12-22T12:23:49.093-05:00

When creating your new business, ask yourself if your business is scalable. In my mind, there are two main points about scalability: technology and revenues.

Scaling technology means that as your number of users go up, you need to support those with more hardware/technology. It’s very important not to overlook this, of course. Will your product be able to grow well as your number of users increase? Can your service support more users? These are important questions that need an answer from the start. You must have a plan to scale your technology as needs increase.

I think most entrepreneurs make a mistake by thinking of scalability only from a technology side. The second and very important scalability point is business revenues. If your user base increases, will your revenues increase? Is your revenue stream directly linked to your number of users? Is it proportional as the growth increases? These are mandatory questions that any business must ask itself from the start. You must be able to have more revenues if you handle more users.

Why must those two scalability points be directly linked? Simple: more users means more technology requirements, which means more expenses, which means more revenue needed. If the two curves do not increase in a similar pattern, then your business is not scalable. In that case, you will need to search for other revenue streams, like investors.

Having investors only delays your revenue problem. Yes, you get big money injection, but as you start spending it, now what? How will you take care of your revenue problem? Do you have a plan to convert those users into customers? And there’s always a danger of losing users as you ask them to pay for your service.

Twitter is a great example of a business that is not scalable. They have grown their business to hundreds of millions of users, but they have yet to find a revenue model that scales. They have been relying on investors to continue to grow and support their business. This is a very tricky situation that can lead to a dead-end. What happens if they run out of investors’ money before they find a successful revenue model?

They are thousands of startups out there that follow a similar non-scalable business model like Twitter. They only focus on scalability of technology, but they overlook scalability of revenues. They think that they will figure out how to make money as they grow, but unfortunately, that doesn’t work for most startups. If you want your startup to be successful, make sure that you find your scalable model from the start.

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Industrial Age vs Information Age: Happening right now

2011-12-14T16:02:51.03-05:00

I’m currently reading two books in parallel (when I take a break from work). The first one is a book, Midas Touch, written by both Donald J. Trump and Robert T. Kiyosaki (two successful entrepreneurs). The second is a magazine, a special edition from Entreprendre: L’avenir du Québec – Sortir de la crise (asking how can Quebec get out of the crisis and interviewing 100 personalities from here).

It’s actually quite interesting that I got my hands on both at the same time. Why? Within a few pages of the Midas Touch, the authors are already talking about the Industrial Age and the Information Age. At the same time, happening now in Quebec (and for sure in a lot of other places around the world), there is a lot of questioning about the future and what actions to take to pass through the crisis.

I’m quite at the beginning of the book, but I can already say that I enjoy reading it. They clearly define the Industrial Age as an old economy. Living in Quebec, I can’t agree more.

What did bring the Industrial Age? Job security for life. Pensions. Benefits. Labor union. Need I say more? If you look at how jobs are in Quebec, you will see that the Industrial Age has roots in half of the Belle Province’s work force. I’m thinking here of all those people working for the government and all those part of some labor union. All in all, it’s more than half the Quebec’s employees.

What about the Information Age? It’s happening now, it’s the new economy. Everything is computer oriented, digital, and has no boundaries. “The Information Age has allowed rapid global communications and networking to shape modern society" as defined on Wikipedia. For sure, this means that the level of competition in all markets has increased dramatically. You can’t now think of your market only as your province or country. You need to see the market as the whole world.

Problem is, the Industrial Age brings ideas (of the past) that slow down what the Information Age is trying to accomplish. Quebec is a perfect example of such a combat. On one side, there are people and groups that are trying to keep things like they are: unfit of the modern economy. Those groups have so much exposure and power that they impose their old ways.

In an economy where everything moves fast, where competition comes from all countries, where the future is based on how we can do sacrifice today, I see that something has to be done. That’s why the Entreprendre magazine is trying to bring new ideas. But the "combat" is just starting. People need to wake up here (and elsewhere). We need to ask more from everyone. Work more, work harder. Bring something to your country. Have a purpose and stop being lazy. Don’t let the old way of thinking get in your way; have your own ideas, build your own stuff.

The Industrial Age was good in the past, when the future seemed so bright. Governments borrowed lots of money, hired people with great salary, promised comfortable pensions and all those incredible benefits. Nothing could stop them. However, the reality is now catching up like a 20% interest rate on your unpaid credit card balance: a total nightmare. If we don’t do collectively something about it, we will fail.

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Book review : The innovation secrets of Steve Jobs

2011-12-08T10:36:49.453-05:00

If you are an entrepreneur, chances are that you enjoy entrepreneur-inspiring books. Reading a book about how and what made an entrepreneur successful is always a great learning experience. I enjoy such books.

This last book I just finished reading is The innovation secrets of Steve Jobs from bestselling author Carmine Gallo. I purchased this book in the first place because I was curious about how Steve Jobs managed his approach to innovation. Take note that this is not an official Steve Jobs book (if you need one, you should get the official biography; this book is on my desk, I didn’t read it yet).

What I enjoy the most about entrepreneur books is that when I read them, they make me have sparks in my eyes (and my head) and I feel like I’m able to change the world with my ideas. You know the feeling: it’s like an excitement that wants to get you moving right now and you won’t be able to sleep because of it. In a lot of ways, The innovation secrets of Steve Jobs is such a book.

The book is split in 7 principles. Those principles should be reflecting the principles that Steve Jobs has… had (he unfortunately passed away on October 5th, 2011 – the book was written before his death). Here are the principles:

Principle 1: Do what you love
Principle 2: Put a dent in the universe
Principle 3: Kick-start your brain
Principle 4: Sell dreams, not products
Principle 5: Say no to 1,000 things
Principle 6: Create insanely great experiences
Principle 7: Master the message

For each principle, the author explains how Steve Jobs approached the issue and faced obstacles. What I really like about the book is that the author didn’t just focus on Steve Jobs; the book is full of real-life entrepreneurs and how they succeeded. Learning about new entrepreneurs that made a difference in the world is always inspiring to me. Often, a half page text will give a short overview of an entrepreneur, his challenges and how he successfully mastered the principle to succeed.

I learned about a lot of entrepreneurs that I didn’t know much about (or even didn’t even know). For example, I vaguely knew about the Dyson vacuum cleaners. What I didn’t know is that the inventor behind it, James Dyson, spent 5 years trying to build a successful vacuum, did 5,126 failing attempts, all with only income his wife’s salary (as an art teacher). Such examples make me want to learn more about those entrepreneurs.

In overall, this is a great book that I highly recommend. It’s packed with entrepreneurs’ names, so when reading the book, be sure to have a pen close-by to note what seems interesting. The only drawback of the book is that it’s written in such an example-based way that sometime it can get a little boring when the examples are not of great quality (it happens). You might want to put the book on the side to take a break from it for a week. But then, you continue reading and eventually you get hooked again. There’s no actual end to this book, so don’t get surprised when you see the Index and say "already ended?!".

My rating: 8/10 (if you enjoy entrepreneur stories, then it’s a 9/10)

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The challenge of creating User Generated Content Videos

2011-12-05T15:20:29.28-05:00

When it comes to video content, displaying videos to your site’s visitors is no longer an issue. You can use an online service like YouTube to share your videos. If you need something professional, then you can use an online video platform like Brightcove. Both platforms make video hosting easy.

The biggest challenge today is with the creation of user generated content (UGC). That is, how can you convert your visitors from passive observers into content generating users? You might have asked your visitors to upload their videos using an upload-file form and hoped to receive hundreds of new videos per month. The reality, however, is that if the process of creating something takes more than a few clicks, the majority of web users will not participate. That’s true no matter the size of your site or how active your community of visitors is.

Take for example Amazon. They used to have a link on every product page saying "Add your video review". The process was that someone would record a video with his camera, then copy the file to his computer, then upload the file to Amazon and hopefully get all this right before the user gets bored. The problem? Too many steps, non-intuitive solution, no fun to use. The end result? Amazon pulled the video reviews from their site.

Is it that user generated content videos are not possible or not realistic? No. The problem is that the technology must not block the end result.

Now, for your own site, you will want to make it easy for users to submit videos. Most users have webcam on their computers and it no longer makes sense to ask them to "upload a file". What you need to do is to let them record a video with their webcam, directly from your site. It must be a seamlessly experience for the user. It must be instantaneous. It must be easy. It must be done in a few clicks. Technology must be there to help the user in the process.

The solution is the use a webcam video recording service. Nimbb is a unique service that allows adding video recording seamlessly, instantly, easily and all within 3 clicks. It can’t be easier for the user nor the developer. Once you use Nimbb into your site, creating UGC videos is no longer a challenge; it’s now a question of inviting the users to share their feelings.

Where most sites or people have seen UGC videos as something impossible or too hard to do, I see this as an opportunity when you have the right tools. People are no longer shy to share their image on the web, neither to record videos and discuss to a virtual group on the Net. When you have a great tool to let your visitors create their own content, and that they find your site appealing, then they will dedicate their energy into building great content.

To see how you can easily use Nimbb into your site, have a look at this video tutorial:

Then, visit the site at http://nimbb.com/

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Stratégie québécoise de l'entrepreneuriat : Soyons concrets

2011-12-01T13:36:36.547-05:00

Note: this post is in French, but you are welcomed to try to translate it if you are interested in the way our entrepreneurs are encouraged here in Quebec.

Si vous avez suivi les nouvelles un peu, vous savez que le Gouvernent du Québec a annoncé un « investissement » de 450 millions de dollars sur trois ans pour soutenir l’entreprenariat. La nouvelle est sortie le 15 novembre dernier. Quelques références ici :

Entrepreneuriat: Québec injecte 450 millions $ de plus

Québec injecte 450 millions $ pour soutenir l'entrepreneuriat

Québec débloque 450 millions pour soutenir l'entrepreneuriat

Les premières réactions semblent positives, à lire les commentaires du Regroupement des jeunes chambres de commerce du Québec, du Conseil du patronat et Chambre de commerce du Montréal métropolitain. Le Gouvernement doit être fier : un gros chiffre (450M$), une aide à un marché marginal québécois et un accueil positif par les organismes impliqués. Un gros splash, quoi.

Reste, en tant qu’entrepreneur, quand j’ai vu la nouvelle sortir le 15 novembre, j’ai retenu mon excitation. Ok, le Gouvernement fait du gros bruit avec une annonce ; c’est pas la première fois. Concrètement, c’est quoi au juste que le Gouvernement promet ? J’attendais avec suspense une phrase magique, quelque chose qui serait concret pour un entrepreneur québécois. Après tout, avec 450 millions ($), on peut en faire du concret. Moi, j’en ferais beaucoup. J’ai attendu, mais j’ai rien vu de tel.

C’est comme un épisode de Better Off Ted (« Jabberwocky », saison 1, épisode 12), où Ted, un directeur de création de produit dans une entreprise, se confond dans ses mensonges et que soudainement, tout le monde dans la compagnie pense qu’il a inventé le produit révolutionnaire du siècle. Même si c’est totalement faux (il n’a aucun produit en fait), pour ne pas perdre la face, il doit improviser une présentation devant une salle remplie de ses confrères. En tant que très bon vendeur, il réussit à s’en sortir en annonçant que le produit est « génial », « révolutionnaire » et « futuriste », avec musique techno et effets de lumière, tout ça sans jamais dire ce que c’est. Il finit sa présentation en disant « Coming 2012 ». Les gens dans la salle sont emballés, non par le contenu, mais par les apparences, le rêve qu’il leur a transmis. Personne ne sait de quoi il parle, mais ça l’air génial, c’est ce qui importe, non ? Ted s’en sort sans perdre la face, et un mois plus tard tout le monde a oublié.

De retour dans notre réalité, voilà déjà plus de 2 semaines que l’annonce de la stratégie entrepreneuriale québécoise a été faite. J’attendais toujours dans les médias un article « follow-up », qui résumerait concrètement de quoi on parle. Puisqu’il n’y a rien, ce matin j’ai décidé de faire des recherches approfondies et lire plus en détail ce qu’on nous promet.

Je réussis (non sans un peu de difficulté) de trouver le lien vers le site du programme :

www.mdeie.gouv.qc.ca/entrepreneuriat

La page du site nous accueille avec un « Foncez! Tout le Québec vous admire ». Déjà, pas trop bon signe. Pourquoi pas plutôt « Fonçons ! Tout le Québec se prend en main » ? C’est une mentalité ici au Québec, que l’entreprenariat est quelque chose qu’on doit dédier aux autres. On est bien content au Québec de voir qu’ils y a des gens qui « foncent », mais tant que c’est pas nous, c’est mieux. Comme toujours, on ne s’implique pas.

Ensuite, encore rien de concret dans la page officielle. On nous endort avec les « cinqs axes d’intervention » et on nous promet que l’on « place l’entrepreneur au cœur de la toile entrepreneuriale du Québec ». Et dans les faits, ca veut dire quoi tout ca ? Parce qu’ils ont pas pensés à écrire leur texte pour ceux que ca intéresse vraiment : les entrepreneurs. Mais les tous entrepreneurs ont une particularité commune : ils n’ont pas de temps à perdre. Chaque minute à décortiquer un site du gouvernement, c’est une minute de moins passée sur leur business. Mais ca, pour le comprendre, il faut être en affaires.

Je suis quand même prêt à donner le bénéfice du doute, alors je m’attaque aux 2 fichiers PDF : le « Sommaire » et le « Document complet ». Non sans surprise, le sommaire reprend les mêmes termes de la page web, mais avec des couleurs flash et un petit graphique avec le mot « Entrepreneur » bien au centre. On peut aussi voir quelques éléments grossièrement détaillés, avec les mots « campagne », « promotion » et « programmes » bien présent. En effet, j’avais déjà lu dans un article que le Gouvernement veut développer la fibre entrepreneuriale, même l’enseigner dans les écoles. J’en apprends pas beaucoup plus.

Alors, je regarde le document complet. Encore un fois, un gros « Foncez » à l’ouverture du document. Ensuite, des messages du Premier Ministre et ministres. Puis, des titres comme « Le temps d’agir » et « soutien majeur à l’entrepreneuriat ». Vient enfin les sections avec le détails en chiffres, de 2011-2014. Après tout, il faut dépenser les 450 millions. Tout ca, pour des « cibles réalistes pour 2020 ». Oui, car il faut penser à l’avenir. Alors comment penser pour l’avenir ? C’est simple : par la création de nouveaux programmes pour supporter les entrepreneurs.

Plus de programmes. Voilà la concrétisation des 450 millions. En vrac, le Gouverment veut : créer des campagnes de promotion, enseigner l’entreprenariat, soutenir les entrepreneurs par des programmes et organismes, simplifier les programmes gouvernementaux et dynamiser l’action sur le terrain. Bref, pas surprenant que le site web officiel n’affiche rien de clair.

Dans les faits, l’entrepreneuriat, c’est comme la créativité : tu l’as ou tu ne l’as pas. Les deux vont de pair, un bon entrepreneur est créatif. Pourquoi est-ce si important d’être créatif ? Car se partir en affaires est un roller-coaster de problèmes et de solutions. Sans créativité, tu ne peux poursuivre ton chemin.

Je suis totalement « pour » l’enseignement de l’entrepreneuriat. Ou du moins, montrer aux jeunes qu’il est possible de se lancer en affaires. J’ai jadis assisté à des témoignages d’entrepreneurs à l’école et ca m’a fait rêver. Ceci dit, j’avais déjà la flamme en moi bien avant ca.

Comme toujours, avec ce nouveau programme, le gouvernement ne semble pas s’attaquer au besoin réel des entrepreneurs, aujourd'hui. Le besoin est simple : rendre la fiscalisation intéressante. Le gouvernement ne devrait pas essayer de créer plus d’organisme pour aider les entrepreneurs. Je n’ai pas besoin que quelqu’un me dise comment rouler ma business. Ce qui m’importe, c’est combien d’argent j’aurai cette année, combien je dois en donner à l’impôt et si les états financiers de mon entreprise sont bons pour continuer l’aventure. Si le gouvernement pouvait consacrer les 450 millions dans des réductions d’impôt automatiques et sans complication de paperasse administrative, alors il aurait compris le réel besoin de l’entrepreneur. Et c’est garanti : s’il y a une diminution des frais, il y aura une augmentation d’entrepreneurs. De plus, il faut agir maintenant, car les entrepreneurs d'aujoud'hui ont besoin de support réel.

Puisque je ne peux pas lire tout le document complet sans m’endormir, j’ai fait une recherche de mots-clés importants pour moi : « réduction », « diminution » et « crédit ». Jamais on ne mentionne une réduction d’impôt ou un crédit. C’est pourtant au coeur même de toute « startup ».

Quand on regarde comment on fait les choses ici, c’est pas surprenant que le nombre d’entrepreneurs est si petit. Après tout, pourquoi quelqu’un voudrait prendre des risques incroyables pour démarrer son entreprise, alors qu’il peut avoir une job stable avec tous les coussins dorés imaginables dans l’appareil gouvernemental ? J’ai la plus grande estime de toute personne qui se lance en affaires au Québec, car ça prend beaucoup de courage. Beaucoup d’entrepreneurs hypothèques leur futur et se retrouve sans le sou. Pendant ce temps, on nous dit « Foncez ».

Qu’on me donne du concret. Et pas demain; aujourd'hui.

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Be creative and think outside the box

2011-11-25T10:30:03.25-05:00

This is no secret: to be an entrepreneur, you need to be creative. First, you need an idea. Often, your idea implies research so that you can find a way to build your product. I’ve been through an uncountable amount of months in research. This is a hard part in the process of building a product, and a lot of entrepreneurs lose focus and often fail there.

Sometimes, I will read an article on the Web not related to what I’m looking for. Surprisingly, a few days or weeks later, I’ll be searching back for this article, as it sparked an idea in my mind. I could not expect it at first read of the article, but later I see a purpose. I did a connection.

Problem is, a lot of entrepreneurs are close-minded when it comes to connections. For example, I received an email not long ago from a developer saying that the way we do our Flash integration with Nimbb is not right (in his mind). Question is, what is right and what is not right, in a technology world, when it works?

To be able to make Nimbb work correctly by embedding it into a Flash application, we had to go through a hard R&D process, as somehow Flash is lacking this functionality. Or should I say, Flash is too secure and doesn’t allow the embedding process in an easy way. After a lot of trying, we finally found the way that not only makes Nimbb work perfectly with all its features (events, methods and parameters), but also with a minimum of modification of the code of our player, keeping it 100% cross-platform for Web and Flash at the same time.

Of course, if you think of Flash and components, Adobe would not offer our solution as a way to do it. Why? Well, probably they didn’t think about it in the first place. To achieve our goal of embedding Nimbb into Flash, we had to think outside of the box that Adobe provides. We had to go a step further and ask ourselves: "okay, there’s no way to do it with the current examples on the web provided by the Flash community. How can we hack our programming to make this still work?"

The Flash developer that contacted us was unhappy because it seemed that we didn’t follow the "normal" component development process. Maybe to his eyes, but not to ours. Creating a successful product is all about "thinking differently" (Apple/Steve Jobs). If you are close-minded and you think that you should always follow the rules, you will fail as an entrepreneur. Innovation comes from those who bend the rules a little.

Today, I’m also proud to say that once again, we thought outside of the box, with the release of a new feature. You can now add the Nimbb Player into an Adobe Air application. Again, this was a hard process to achieve to the final solution, but I’m glad that we did and now our customers have one more way to use our technology into their products.

Enjoy!

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Get rid of Bad customers, before they become one

2011-11-24T10:46:11.187-05:00

Not all customers are equal. In fact, I can define customers in 3 groups.

Group 1: The Great customer

That’s the customer that cares about your product or service. They care about paying you on time. Those customers spread good words about you. When they have to renew your service, they call you to make sure that they will be all set for the payment. They are fun to talk to and are friendly when you do a follow-up with them. They are the customers that will stay a long time with you. That’s the customer you want to focus on.

Group 2: The Regular customer

That’s a customer that is just using your product because it fulfills a need. They are happy with your service, but they won’t go outside and shout it out loud. As long as you continue offering your product, they are fine with you. If their payment fails, those customers must be reminded to pay and you go on a hunt to send them a reminder. Most of the time they will fix the issue, but something they will simply do nothing and you might lose them as a customer. However, usually there is no hard feeling between you, it’s just business. Having this customer is a good thing.

Group 3: The bad customer

There are a few cases where you will find a bad customer. Hopefully, you can count them on your hand, as you will not want them as customer in the first place. They are easy to spot: even before buying your product, they will be concerned about your service, that they have very unique needs that they are not sure that you can fulfill. For some reasons, you reply kindly and somehow they become customers. But then, they start causing you trouble, saying that you product doesn’t work (even though they didn’t try it; you check their account), they want you to add non-sense functionalities and finally they want to cancel and be refunded. And the refund process is a pain: they call you to be totally refunded or else they will contact their credit card company and cancel transactions that passed 3 months ago (yes, some CC companies allow that). You refund, and you think to yourself: get the hell out of my life! Stay away from this customer.

There are so many sign of a future Bad customer that the question is: why try to get this person as a customer in the first place? Sometimes, we think that we need more customers to make more money. But that’s not always right. Having a bad customer costs you money. It costs you time, your precious time. It costs you your sanity (some time). Having a bad customer is always a story that you remember (not in a good way).

The solution? Read the signs before it’s too late. You feel that something’s wrong with a potential customer? Just kindly say "no" to his requests, and move on. Bad customer will simply ignore you and go bother some other company. And that’s exactly what you want.

Since offering our service Nimbb, we had some Bad customers. However, I’m glad to say that we got rid of them (in a passive way, but usually expensive in energy). We thrive ourselves at offering a great service. We always answer in a timely manner and with a positive attitude. This has a great advantage: it attracts Great customers and pushes away Bad ones.

By the way, nobody forces you to get a customer. The same way you can decide not to purchase from a store offering bad service, you have the right not to accept a customer that feels like trouble. Think about it next time that you spend your time arguing why your product is so great and that the person in front of you is just trying to find what is wrong with your product. Be proud enough to say: "I see that our product is not what you are looking for. I wish you good luck with your search".

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Stop attending conferences and start building your product

2011-11-22T12:30:22.39-05:00

You are looking for product exposure, right? So you are attending dozens of conferences per year, probably spending quite a lot of money in the process. It feels great: meeting people in these networking events, doing your product pitch to them, exchanging business cards and maybe having a drink with a few at the end of the day with a feeling of mission accomplished. You did it: you probably have a dozen of people that will turn into customer. Good job.

The really is not quite that. A few days pass and if you’re lucky, you receive an email from one of the person you gave your business card to. But this person doesn’t want to purchase your product; instead he wants you to purchase his. It’s fair; after all, you also listened to this person’s product pitch. You might also turn out to be a customer for him. Unfortunately for him, you couldn’t care less about this product.

And there you go: nobody cares about anybody’s product. Doing networking in conferences is like trying to pitch your product to investors in 3 minutes: it will fail. And most of the time, when we attend conferences, it’s for the networking opportunities. We think there will be a reward of spending a few hundred bucks on a conference. We think we will sell our product to many potential customers. We think the time spent in conferences is an investment.

I was thinking like that at the beginning. I spent thousands of dollars for attending multiple conferences in San Francisco. After all, the Bay Area is the place to be if you want to sell your product or service. I spent hours trying to sell my service to potential buyers, listening to them in the process, and gathering business cards in hope to find more customers. Heck, I even gave conferences myself to crowds interested in startups. All this time, all this energy invested could not be wrong. It felt right, like I could feel the immediate success coming to me.

Weeks passed, and then I realized what happened: nothing. Yes, I added people on my LinkedIn and made some contacts that I will continue talking to once in a while, but that’s about it. For all this marketing energy that I put up, I can count on a few fingers actual business opportunities that came from attending those conferences. Outch.

I thought that if I was paid based on my performances, I would be fired right away. That’s when I understood that attending conferences would not make me rich; in fact, it would only make rich those people organizing the conferences.

Then, I did something that seems counter-logical in the startup world: I stopped attending conferences and started actually spending all my time developing my service (Nimbb). I worked so much without the distraction caused by conferences that I added dozens of new features to my service. Amazingly, in return, it also attracted new customers to my service. Building my product was in fact a great marketing strategy and a very useful one: improving a product makes customers come to it.

Yes, listening to conferences and meeting people can be fun once in a while. But putting too much emphasis on those events will bring you nowhere. Unless you are a conference organizer!

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Add webcam video recording into Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

2011-11-17T11:37:12.687-05:00

We all create presentations. Sometimes, we would like to receive feedback about the presentation. However, most people will not go through a feedback website after watching the presentation, as this is an extra step for the user. Also, it would be much easier for the user to explain himself with video instead of text right after watching your presentation.

How about we add webcam video recording at the end of the presentation? This would be so simple for the user; he just records its comment directly within the presentation. But how can we do it? We use Nimbb!

Thanks to the "Insert video from a website" function of Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, we are able to embed the Nimbb Player directly into a slide and let our users record videos with their webcams. It’s very simple: the user record the video, then Nimbb gives a unique URL that the user copy and paste into an email to you.

Try it now by downloading the following presentation (in a Zip file). Make sure to Activate the content (to enable Nimbb) and then test in Slide Show mode. Note: if on the first run the Nimbb Player says that it can’t run from the current location, restart the slide show again and it will be fixed.

Embed Nimbb in PowerPoint (download)

Here are the steps for you to embed Nimbb into PowerPoint 2010.

Step 1: Click the Insert tab and click the "Insert video from web site" option.

Step 2: Copy the following HTML code into the textbox:

<object id="nimbb" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="320" height="240" codebase= "http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/swflash.cab">
<param name="movie" value="http://player.nimbb.com/nimbb.swf?mode=record&lang=en" />
<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" />
<embed name="nimbb" src="http://player.nimbb.com/nimbb.swf?mode=record&lang=en" width="320" height="240" allowScriptAccess="always" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer">
</embed>
</object>

Step 3: try recording a video by watching your presentation in Slide Show mode.

That’s it! Now, make sure to use Nimbb at the end of your presentations to ask your viewers for video feedback. Take note that in our testing, we have found that the picture might be a bit slow in framerate (this seems to be a problem of recording within PowerPoint). However, the audio is perfect.

Enjoy this little hack! :)

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Record a video using webcam

2011-11-15T12:31:49.72-05:00

This is an example of using Nimbb on your site.

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