Article Contributed by Daniel S. Williams
Let’s face it – we live in a world often defined by the norms of many. We aspire to be others. Be the president of a major company. Be an all-star athlete. We rarely place enough value on our own ideas, our own paths. Similarly, we all too oftensettle instead of stretching for “reach” goals. The startup ecosystem is not exempt from such influences, often subject to the “us versus them” demarcation that our daily lives engender.
As part of the newly-minted Accelerate@Shea Accelerator program being cultivated by the Edmund Shea Center for Entrepreneurship of the Carroll School of Management, Mr. Alec Stern of Constant Contact and its InnoLoft (geared for entrepreneurs) helped kick off the start of this new concept for Boston College on January 20th: The growing community of entrepreneurs with ideas ripe to rise from infancy.
Formatted as a presentation featuring lessons geared towards helping startups take ideas and maximize growth potential, Alec discussed everything from customer loyalty to staying in your “channels” as a business. Outstanding customer service is one type of differentiator, it allows companies to rise in the ranks while notably doing something differently than their peers lacking the customer enlightenment.
As part of Xperii, a SaaS startup selected to participate in the Accelerate@Shea Accelerator, what resonated even more strongly through Alec’s talk was the ability to become overly engrossed in the wrong things. The facets of your business idea which should have little attention relative to others. It occurs to me that we frequently are seemingly engineered to press upon the bad – and pass over what is going well. Alec gave the practice of marking new customer sign-ups on a foam football field plastered on the office wall in the early stages of his company as an example, moving a Velcro football at intervals of new customers. Celebrating the “victories” as growth occurs in your venture is crucial; especially heeding the fact that much goes wrong, often.
The victories are not necessarily milestone achievements, not always major accomplishments outfitted for vast celebration. They can be the small ones too, perhaps the acquisition of a few loyal, hard-earned clients, maybe the landing of a partnership with a valued firm. In the startup universe, the entrepreneurial ecosystem often presents the unicorn images of Uber, of Twitter and others. What I mentioned in the opening lines of this post relate back to this notion of needing to be the next Uber, or the next Twitter. The exception startups which become landmarks of our society are definitely worth admiration and are owed their share of credit for the success. But what about the startups never quite reaching “cult” status?
It does not take a mega-startup to “surprise and delight” the customer, as Alec Stern would say. It does not take a strategy encompassing any and all customers in existence. What is takes is the commitment to how your venture uniquely fits into its own space – and carves its own path not yet solved, or solved well today. Sometimes we make inadvertent comparisons where we “wish we were a certain individual” or our idea will be the “next big thing” with seemingly limitless potential.
However, startups are never guaranteed to be a success. In fact, most fail. But, I think the most salient example of why sticking to you “lanes” as a startup is vital comes from another anecdote told by Alec during his presentation. It relates to the beginnings of his company and securing funding to grow when money was tight. Rather than accepting funds from a group wishing to shape the offering to its own needs and therefore changing the startup’s business plans altogether, they passed on the funding. They stuck to their vision. Ultimately today it was the right decision to have made judging by the major success and growth the company has accomplished.
What underpins the ability to walk away from secured funding, a sense of being able to make payroll at week’s end? For me, it is the desire to be different than the rest. We conform many times in our lives, be it in our style of thinking, our choice of organizations. In the community of startups, it is the uniqueness that sets ideas apart from the herd. Not fitting in can be the (pivotal) catalyst. Different is good. And it is never too early to be different, especially as a startup.
About the Author
Daniel S. Williams is a graduating Advanced-Standing Senior at Boston College in the Carroll School of Management majoring in Management, with a concentration in Finance. Daniel has previously worked at several firms and startups fostering client-interactions, handling taxes, banking and filing systems, as well as marketing initiatives. He has been a part of Xperii Corp. since inception and has served in advisory roles with other ventures.