After about 2 years of talking about this topic, I thought it best to collect some solid data before doing an official blog about it.

LinkedIn is not a social network.

A thing is defined by it’s major attribute.  While LinkedIn has aspects of a social network, it is actually a social database.

Hey Donato…But they say they are a social network!

In the early days they were.  As the network grew, savvy users realized they needed to grow their networks as large as possible to spread their reach.  In polls done over the last year in live webinars, I’ve asked groups ranging from 200-600 how they use LinkedIn.  Here are the questions and the responses.

1.  I get as many connections as possible and figure out how to contact people directly.

2. I use LinkedIn to as it was meant.  Connect with people through a series of connections.

3.  I don’t use LinkedIn.

69% of people choose option 1. Last year, it was only 50%. The trend is growing and…

LinkedIn is a social database.

Read the rest of this entry »

Eight years ago, getting calls from Venture Capital was exciting.  They came in many flavors.  The most distasteful wanted to bleed me for information.  I was oblivious. Perhaps they funded a competitor to Broadlook and they wanted determine the competitive landscape.  Good business sense, bad moral compass. 

On the other hand I had some great conversations, where, very early in the conversation I was informed that Broadlook did not match their portfolio requirements.  Even though this was the case, they freely spent time giving great advice for a fledgling company.  Some of them are my clients today.  Like every industry, VC has the good and the bad.  A book every VC should read is Blue Ocean Strategy.  Yes, sometimes you must bloody the competition and create the red ocean, however, more often than not, there is a blue ocean potential.  The lack of seeing the Blue Ocean potential is due to lack of desire, creativity, or core philosophy.

To digress a bit, we once had a team member at Broadlook that stated there is no such thing as win-win negotiating and that there always a loser.  Myopic Idiocy.  He left.  We are better for it.  I now ask more philosophical interview questions when adding team members.  One of my mantras when interviewing and coaching other team members to interview is this:  First determine who someone is and then and only then what they know.  Translation: no pricks allowed at Broadlook.

Fast forward to today.  When a Venture Capitalist calls, I am still excited.  When I say VC in this article, I’m lumping in Venture Capital, Private Equity and Investment Banks together.  Each have their place and focus, but the outreach tends to be very similar.  I guess I should set the stage.  Today, Broadlook has steadily grown for 8 years, sometimes a modest 15-20% and sometimes 200-300% in a given year. 

Broadlook started in 2002 and self funded without any outside investment.  Our team members are proud of our accomplishments and we have fun doing our jobs.  We have talented people in all areas and we are continuing our growth path. Broadlook has thousands of clients and is starting to be recognized as the defacto “high bar” (not standard) for company and contact data for sales and recruitment.  (I don’t say “standard” because what is accepted as “standard” from traditional data vendors is Zombie Data*).   Broadlook is not, and will not tie itself to any single CRM vendor (Jigsaw is now salesforce), we are agnostic to all systems that may hold the data our technology provides. 

*Zombie Data is data that is dead, but still making walking around (D&B, InfoUSA, etc)

Over ninety five percent of Broadlook’s sales are from incoming calls, emails or client referrals.  We just hired our person in Marketing.  It’s a good place to be in. We are still very humble and realize that there is much more work to do.   Broadlook is not actively looking for Venture Capital, but we receive many inquires, thus I wrote this article.

Why not take VC?  I didn’t say we would never take it.  The approach we take is this.  We know that there will be a point that there will be a tremendous market opportunity with a limited window to execute; we must scale quickly if we want to capitalize.  The age old question is how much of the company to give up in order to have the investment?   The age old dilemma for the entrepreneur.

Over the last three years, as Broadlook was noticed in the market, we’ve had increased outreach from VC firms.  Along the way, I learned;  somewhere in that journey I realized that VC’s needed our technology for their internal due diligence process.  I learned what research associates at VC firms did.  It was an interesting turning point.  It changed the nature of the conversation from a one way discovery call into a real conversation.   Today, Broadlook powers VC firms with technology that fundamentally changes the due diligence research process.

They have been great clients.  Some of the absolute smartest people coming out of the best Universities and go to work for these firms.  Bright people early in their career who absolutely “get” what Broadlook does.  I like people who get it.

Yes, this is a unique position to be in, but what was the *real* change in how I took those calls? How can someone else that is not in Broadlook’s position get the most out of an outreach from a VC?  Read on.  I am sharing my learning process and my stumbles.

The reality is that a more experienced executive (yes, I consider myself fledgling) would have entered the conversation with a greater level of  equivalence. Venture Capitalists are typically very smart.  They go right for the heart and will chew you up and spit you out to get the information they want. I’m basically a nice guy.  I’m still a nice guy, but now, after many calls that ended up in one-way conversations, I’ve established a set of rules for talking with VC’s. 

1.  Quality outreach

The best outreaches by VC’s that I have seen have come through referrals.  A mutual connection that can attest to the quality of an individual.  An email that looks like a form letter should get ignored.  This is my weak point… while I know I should ignore it, I usually write back and let them know how poor their outreach was.  Since I teach classes on how to use the Internet to make a quality outreach, I can’t help myself.  

2.  Equivilance

When the conversation starts and they only want to know your revenue, remind them that they called you.  Remind them they need to sell you first, and then there is no guarantee that you will be interested.  If if gets to the point of sharing confidential information, if they won’t sign an NDA…stop.  Think.  If they don’t want to sign one because they are making investments in your space, ask them for specifics.  This is all the more reason to sign an NDA.  If they are really interested, they can customize and NDA with specificity to protect both parties.  If they flatly refuse, remember, you are more unique than they are. 

3.  DWYSYWD; Do what you say you will do.  To be a liar you need to have a perfect memory.  If you slow down the process of discussion over several conversations, you have the chance to observe behavior.  If the VC outreach is of the class “Drain you for information”, he will have plenty of rope to hang himself.   The best VC’s will disqualify you openly if you do not meet their criteria.  I have had my share of liars calling.  Conversely, I regularly talk to VC’s that long ago disqualified Broadlook for not being a fit.  

4.  Revenge.  In a fun way.  Keep track of VC’s that were pricks.  Watch which companies they invest in.  When you have the chance, take extra pleasure in winning business from those companies.  If the portfolio tanks, send a nice “thanks for the motivation” card.   Recruit their analysts.  Robin Hood!

Missing an analyst?  Ever wonder why that analyst left?  Does it seem like you keep losing them after they are trained?

Yeah that’s right… it was me  *#&%!

(You should have been nicer.)

Will Broadlook take VC/Private Equity/Investment Capital?  My answer: Absolutely!   Some day.  Will any potential investor run the other way when they read this?  Hopefully not the ones with a sense of humor.  Every industry knows the good and the bad within itself.  I’m trying to kill 2 birds here.  Share a bit, prepare a bit.
This is not a soliciation for capital.  While I may chase away potential future investors, I won’t have to search through my email to send my engagement criteria to reply to the next canned outreach. 

Broadlook’s Venture Capital Engagement Criteria

 1.  Do your homework.  I guarantee I will talk to any VC that takes the time to at least review our website, bad as it is, there is a good deal of information there. Read this blog: 11 rules to sell to me

2.  Don’t have a first year analyst call unless they are brilliant. Remember, I may recruit them.  If they sound like they are going through a checklist when talking to me, they are not ready.  That can be cured for $10,000 and a one day training session. 

3. Demo.  Take a demo of our technology.  If you don’t get it or don’t like it.  We are not a match.  When Broadlook takes capital, there is a high likelyhood it will be from one of our clients.  Include a decision maker on the presentation.  If this is not acceptable, there is not reason for us to talk.

My guarantee(s): 

1. You have no idea what Broadlook does (think iceberg)
2. You have never seen anything like it

4.  Portfolio.  If you invest in grain elevators you probably don’t have the connections, expertise and potential adivsors to help a software company making the transition to SaaS.  Show us high tech.  Show us software that scaled from 5 to 8 to 50 million.

5.  Enthusiasm.  Money is easy.  Thus far we are a lifestyle company where people love coming into work every day.  Show us passion for building great companies.

6.  Contribution.  aka Smart money.  People, people, people.  Who can be brought to the table in stategic positions as well as an advisory capacity?  While a marketing person that ran a billion $ division from IBM may sound like a great idea, it is not…not yet.

7.  Ideas.  What markets can Broadlook’s technology be leveraged…that we haven’t thought of yet?

8.  I don’t work on Isaac Asimov’s Birthday

9.  As long as I work at the company. The dog(s) stay.

What rights does an incoming caller have?  To be more specific, an incoming solicitor calling a place of business?

At home, we have the do-not-call list.  This could never be put into effect for business, nor do I think anyone sane would see it as a good idea.  Business would halt.

The general consensus that I have gathered is that callers to your home have no rights.  Hanging up on them is acceptable with a simple “no thank you” is status quo.  This I find fascinating.  When I polled regarding a caller to a business environment, the treatment is different.  Recipients of call to a business environment report that they will listen 1-2 minutes before exiting from a call they don’t want.  Some reasons why at home and office:

At Home

1. Home is sacred, people feel invaded and justified to not give up their home time
2. It’s usually at the end of the day, evening, people want to relax
3. Non equivalence.  You are home, the caller is at work

At the Office

1. Professionalism.  The Golden Rule.
2. Equivalence.  You are both in a work environment
3. You may be calling them tomorrow
4. You really may be interested in their service

In essence, this is a philosophical question.  What is your corporate belief system? What is your personal belief system?  For me, today was back to back  scheduled meetings and three solicitors got past my gatekeeper. Rare.  It inspired this blog and reminded me of one of my beliefs:

“I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.”

Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead.

Of the three in-bound calls, one lied to my gatekeeper to get to me.  This is plain stupid.  Alienate the person who manages my schedule.  The other two reached me while everyone else was at lunch.  Not one of the three had a coherent message.  How much of my time did they get? Less than five seconds.  Did I hang up on them?  No. There is another option!

About three months ago, in talking with our administrative staff, I came up with the idea for line 1300.

If you end up in line 1300, you get a recording that sound something like this:

“Hello. You have have reached line 1300 at Broadlook Technologies because you were either unclear or perhaps rude in your outreach.  This is your chance to get it right.  At the sound of the tone please leave a clear, articulate message detailing how your product or service is right for Broadlook.  We listen to this voicemail box once per week.  If we are interested we will contact you.  Thank you.”

What does line 1300 do?  It empower the people that support me.  They do not have to take crap from rude callers.  It gives your staff an immediate out from a monotonous, unclear, script-reading telemarketer.  In addition, it covers the litmus test of professionalism.  We DO listen to 1300 once per week.

Line 1300 is NOT about being mean.  It is fair.  Personally I give sales a step by step guide on how to sell to me. If they don’t follow it, line 1300.

Try adding a line 1300.  Your staff will love your for it.

There is a new commodity in the high tech world.

Unlimited bandwidth.

Ask any of the iPad user that got one in the early days. Unlimited bandwidth is no longer available on the iPad.   I am one of the lucky users. With a combination of my travel schedule,  high Bandwidth using applications like Netflix and Broadlook’s Profiler, I regularly top 12-15 Gigabytes per month in data transfer.  Data plans today cover 2GB which means I am using 6-8 times the bandwidth that new iPad users get.

I am a bandwidth hog.   I am one of the 2% of people that use the majority of the bandwidth and I’ve got a message for AT&T…I’m keeping my plan…forever.

Why blog about this?  It is a warning for the uninformed.

Guess what?  Very soon you will be a bandwidth hog.  AT&T, Verizon and the other carriers understand this.  It is the nature of technology.  More and more applications, business logic and media rests in the cloud.  Now Apple and Google each want to offer streaming music services.  No longer will you have your iTunes on your desktop, laptop or iPad.  Nope.  They want all your music in the cloud.  Why?   Apple gets a piece of the service fee that you pay AT&T for your iPhone or iPad.  Bandwidth is the new electricity.

This is reminiscent of 2002–2008 when every idiot said that you must make your software offering SaaS (Software as a service).  SaaS is mostly good for service providers since it gives them reoccurring revenue, but it is not always the best solution.  Don’t get me wrong, I am huge believer in SaaS, but it is not a panacea.

Now they (the same smart zealots who want your $$)…are saying that they want all your stuff in the cloud.  Why?  Simple, if you store everything : backups, music, CRM, etc in the cloud then you need bandwidth to access it.

Whose cloud?

At the recent Oracle OpenWorld conference, Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle talked about the cloud NOT being a single set of servers but a flexible appliance.  Thank you Larry!  He gets it. Most don’t.

The Flexible Appliance

What is it?  My iPhone is a flexible appliance.  In a recent talk at the MRI Worldwide conference (The Near and far Future of Recruiting), I demonstrated on stage the advent of the mobile web server.  My laptop connected to a website that was hosted on my iPhone and one person in the front row said “that’s cool!” out loud.  Not the response I was hoping for, but it sunk in to enough  people that had time to think about it.  It inspired some great conversations about the future of recruiting.

I used an iPhone app called ServersMan that makes your iPhone a web server.  Being able to run a web server on a mobile phone has huge implications.

If you want to test the vision of a technical leader ask them this question:

When mobile devices (iPhones, iPads) can act as functional web servers, what does that mean for the technology landscape?”

They should be stunned, they should be wondering, they should be smiling.  If they don’t, then they lack vision.  The advent of the true flexible appliance will bring:

-Massive bandwidth usage.  Via your mobile flexible appliance/personal web server, you will be connected to everything

-Downfall of Facebook.  News to Zuck.  The future social networks will be controlled from the pocket.

-movement from “their” cloud to “my” cloud.

When I have proposed the above, among tech folks, they remind me that some sort of middleware needs to facilitate one mobile web server finding and connecting to another.  This already exists, it is called dynamic DNS and their are a bunch of companies that offer this.   With DynamicDNS, my iPhone web server could very quickly connect to 200 of my friends and update my status on their mobile devices.   No cloud, no Facebook needed.   The only limitation is bandwidth and mobile processing speed.

The above scenario will happen once people realize they don’t want Facebook storing everything about them.  Due to the nature of the beast, they will continue to violate the privacy of their users.  Eventually it will go away.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Facebook.  It gives me a way to connect with grandma and show pictures of the kids.  Facebook may change and become the king of the middle, middleware the ties everything consumer together.  But do you trust them?  I don’t.

It’s all about the middleware.

As I look at SaaS (Software as a Service) and then PaaS (Platform as a Service) combined with the advent of the flexible appliance, I realize that my previous thinking was limited.  In the mobile future,  the mobile is the cloud, the flexible appliance.  For consumer apps like Facebook, people will eventually prefer to keep their personal data in a place they control it.  However, for business applications like CRM and ATS (Applicant Tracking), I see a new class of business.  Middleware as a service (MaaS).

Middleware as a service will balance the load between the cloud and the flexible appliance.  Unlike the limited browser-based applications today, MaaS systems will balance the rich interface and local power of flexible appliance with the security, flexible business logic and data storage in the cloud.  It will be interesting to watch it evolve.

With all this stuff in the works… if you get an unlimited bandwidth package, read the contract and if you can, never give it up.  Providers will offer unlimited bandwidth as a promotion and then like AT&T/Apple, try to get you to downgrade from $30 per month to $25 per month to relinquish your unlimited package.

Did I mention that once you get it, never give it up?

I’ve recently received a flood of strange emails.  They were regarding the Fast Company’s Influence Project (check it out).  At first, it seemed like a great noble endeavor.  An experiment in discovery.

Here is the premise:  You get invited to the project and the person that invites you gets points.  They can then create their own link and get points, etc, etc.   In a perfect world, the person with the most influence would yield the most points.  The fun part of the project is a very well done user interface that visually shows you all the people involved.  You can navigate through connections and influence points.

I want to thank John Sumser for creating the post that influenced me to review the Project.

After I clicked on John’s influence link I had a blast reviewing the site and then went back to my work.  Enjoyable experience.

Then the mob took over.

Emails, Twitter direct messages, even a phone call.  People were asking me to use *my* influence to help promote them so they could be near the top of the list.  Influence?  It is no secret that Broadlook, the company that I founded, develops list generation technology.  People wanted “my list”.  One individual even offered to purchase a list on behalf of their chief executive.

If you are reading this and you are one of the people on LinkedIn or Twitter or some other social disaster and you want be at the top of the list, (1) you can’t have my list and (2) think about what Edgar Allan Poe said:

The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
-Edgar Allan Poe

In reality, the Fast Company Influence Project will not come near to predicting real influence online.  What it will do is spotlight some people who desperately want to be leading the mob. Guy Kawasaki, while well respected, also seems to want to be at the top of the mob. He talks about it in this article.  I think it would be more fun to pick a person of total obscurity and put them at the top.  Similar to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) initiative that pointed the search for “Miserable Failure” to George W Bush.

I would welcome human suggestions as to the most influential person online. How about the web master at Google?  What if Google posted a single link on their home page “Vote for Sergey”?

Overall, I am disappointed, it would be nice to have seen a scientific study.  I’m somewhere on that list, but shouldn’t be.  Thanks John ;(

Caveat: My friend, John Sumser did influence me, but did not ask.  Big distinction from the “help me be influential” contingent.

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More mob quotes

The nineteenth century lynching mob cuts off ears, toes, and fingers, strips off flesh, and distributes portions of the body as souvenirs among the crowd.
Ida B. Wells

The vision that the founding fathers had of rule of law and equality before the law and no one above the law, that is a very viable vision, but instead of that, we have quasi mob rule.
James Bovard

There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions to an individual, but permitted to a mob.
Ayn Rand

There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence.
Rebecca West

There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.
Oscar Wilde

There is nothing more foolish, nothing more given to outrage than a useless mob.
Herodotus

We grew up as kids watching those movies and we were exposed to themes of civil rights, unfairness, bigotry and fathers struggling against the kind of mob of the town, so you remember how you felt as a kid being taken seriously, that you are part of the human drama.
Rachel Griffiths

When the theater gates open, a mob pours inside, and it is the poet’s task to turn it into an audience.
Franz Grillparzer