Grouvia Alpha 1 Is Here!

I’m so excited, today is the launch of the first release of Grouvia.com. My small team and I have been working on this site for seven months now, and I am thrilled that this day has come at last. This is the first step in what I’m certain will be a long and successful series of great releases for Grouvia.com.

The past several months have seen many long days, sleepless nights, and seven-day workweeks. The Internet changes at lightning speed and for an Internet application such as Grouvia to succeed we have to keep up the pace. Working on a tight budget has not hampered us, it has honed our efforts to almost razor sharp precision. Our focus is tight and our tactics are relentless.

The Social Media PR campaign is starting to show some great results, as Grouvia is seen more and more in the online universe. Thank you to Grouvia’s amazing PR man, Karl Schmieder at MessagingLab, who has also become my friend and marketing mentor.

The developers have done a nice job of implementing Grouvia’s preliminary set of features. And it’s no surprise because they have a very thorough and clear set of requirements to work with, thanks to the incredible talents of Regina Rubeo, an IT consultant and great friend who has tenaciously stuck with me through the ups and downs of the last six months. Regina, I could not have made it this far without you and I am oh so grateful for your help and strong shoulders.

Dad, Mom, Brenda, Karamjit, Deepak, Tajinder, Vishal, David, Vicki, Pie, Johnny, Patty, thank you all for the various roles you’ve played in making this day happen, whether that was offering time, understanding, support, friendship, great work, or helping to spread the word.

And while I’m at it I might as well thank David Meerman Scott, Norm Brodsky, Joel Spolsky, Timothy Ferriss, Guy Kawasaki, Robert Kiyosaki, Jacob Nielsen, Steve Krug, Michael Gerber, Dan Kennedy, and Markus Frind for sharing your knowledge and stories in the form of books, blogs, articles, and even personal assistance in some cases. The knowledge I have gained from these materials has been incredible.

And most important of all — I have to thank my loving husband Gus, who has supported me like a rock through it all. You’re the best, baby.

See you all next week!

[BTW, if you haven’t signed up to be on Grouvia’s mailing list, you should do that now :-).]

How (Not) to Become a Business

Here in lower Northern Virginia, we live amidst a sea of chains and franchise businesses. Every once in a while a unique little place opens up and sometimes they stick. And sometimes they don’t.

Last year Don opened Blackstone Coffee, a delightful but tiny place in a good location, at a light, in a little strip mall across the street from a big strip mall. Don is a coffee roaster and he is very good at his job; his coffee blends are delicious. He also sells a small assortment of pastries, but people come there for the coffee. And people come to see Don.

Don *is* Blackstone Coffee. He’s not just the master roaster, he’s gregarious and happy and funny and remembers everyone’s name and what they like and how they like it. There are a couple of stools at the end of the counter, and they are always occupied. My only problem with Blackstone is that if I am in a hurry I won’t stop there because I know it will take at least 10 minutes to get my cuppa joe. When not in a hurry, this is a fun way to spend 10 minutes, as the place is so small you can’t help but feel intimate with every stranger in there with you. When two people are having a conversation, the whole place is involved.

Last Spring, it seemed that Don got really busy for a couple of weeks or so and couldn’t always be at his store any more. He hired a couple of nice college-age kids to work the counter for him when he was out. These kids could have been plucked right out of the Starbucks a mile down the road. Perky, pretty, chatty girls. One of them had a nice boyfriend who sat on one of the stools while she was working.

Can you guess what happened? Blackstone was completely, and I mean *completely* a different place. Suddenly the place was quiet, and people didn’t hang around any more. The girls were nice but they didn’t know anybody, or what they wanted or how they liked it. They were 19 or 20 years old and didn’t have the conversational skills to engage the 30- or 40-something customers. They weren’t Don.

So, within a week or so, the business seemed to sag. I’m sure Don knew (how could he not know?) although I never said anything. Eventually, after a few weeks or maybe a month or so, Don came back, the business came back, the crowds and conversations came back. I stopped in there this morning for my $2 cup of “Zimbabwe Blend” or whatever it was. It didn’t actually take 10 minutes, I think it only took eight. There were at least six customers inside (including two police officers — regulars) and two more customers sitting outside having a business meeting, paper coffee cups in hand. Everyone was lively and chatty and Don and his teenage son were working the crowd from behind the counter.

I love Blackstone Coffee, but I feel a little sad for Don, because his business can’t survive without him. The business is built around his personality, his friends, his personal brand. If he wanted to take some time off or even retire someday, how will he turn over his business to someone else? It couldn’t survive under different ownership, e.g. “non-Don” ownership.

In the meantime, Don loves his business and we, his customers, love him.

* * *

Ten Reasons Why Baby Boomers Make Great Entrepreneurs

I read both Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazines every month, cover to cover. I also keep up with several popular startup-related online discussions and blogs. Clearly a new “age of entrepreneurism” has been gaining strength for about a year, primarily in reaction to the lack of available employment. The word on the street is “this is a good time to start a new business” and for the most part I’ve found this to be true.

The focus on these entrepreneurs, however, has been highly skewed to a young generation of 20-somethings. For example, I read an article in Inc. recently about a company called Y Combinator which is essentially an aggressive startup incubator in (where else) Silicon Valley. It provides seed money, office space, equipment, and mentoring to about 40 new businesses a year. This is an interesting, even admirable, mission for a company to have. Y Combinator takes a small equity stake in the startup, and ultimately gets it to the point where it has something to sell. It then helps get VC money, or leads for possible acquisition. Some of these startups have been purchased for millions within a year after launch. There was a two-page spread containing a photo of the Y Combinator founder, Paul Graham, and a dozen or so of his “favorite” past startup founders, all young men. Not a single woman and not a single entrepreneur over 30 (Ok maybe there was one). I won’t even mention the somewhat-creepy similarity to a certain famous painting about a supper from 2,000 years ago.

Until this morning I had no idea what my post today would be about, since nothing that happened this week was really worthy of an even remotely interesting blog post. And then I read this article in the Baltimore Sun about Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs. I so enjoyed reading this article, that I decided to develop a list of reasons why a more senior, experienced person would have a good chance of succeeding at a startup.

Top Ten Reasons Why Baby Boomers Make Great Entrepreneurs

1. Baby boomers have solid business-related skills, honed over many years of performing increasingly complex tasks, probably in several different companies.
2. They have good coping skills and have developed thicker skins and better strategies for dealing with difficult people and situations.
3. They have good credit, having owned a few homes, several cars, and put kids through college. This will make it somewhat easier for them to get a business loan if needed.
4. Baby boomers have more personal financial resources, having built up cash reserves, investment accounts, pension funds, and possibly real estate equity. All these assets can be used or borrowed against.
5. Many of these folks are either retired or facing retirement from their current jobs, but they don’t want to stop working. They have time and the ability to pay their living expenses independent of their business profits (or initial lack thereof).
6. They have a large circle of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances among whom they can either find investors or get referrals for potential investors.
7. That same network will help spread the word about the new business and generate prospects.
8. Baby boomers generally have well-developed communication skills and can articulate their business goals and objectives better, both verbally and in writing.
9. They are generally well-read and well-informed, giving them a good sense of current trends and economics. This provides a good stage from which to launch a viable product or service.
10. People with more experience have a better understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses, how to leverage their skills, and where to go to fill in the gaps.
11. (Bonus Reason: They can get their kids to work for free, and they have access to an endless supply of interns with their friends’ kids.)

Personally I’m on the younger end of the baby boomer train, having been born at the end of 1960. I started my first business in 1998 when I was 38. Now, 10+ years later, I am starting my second full-time business, and have since compounded my experience to such a degree that I feel well-equipped to handle the upcoming bumps and bruises I am sure to get with this new venture. Imagine where I’ll be in *another* 10 years.

* * *

16 hour days? No problem!

As I was winding down my last project at Verizon this past March, in preparation for starting my new company I was doing a lot of research on startups. I was reading books, magazines, blogs, anything I could get my hands on. This helped me get geared up and stay motivated at the same time I was feeling a little sad as I was leaving a great group of people I had worked with for many years.

One thing that kept coming up in my reading was that successful entrepreneurs work a LOT of hours and don’t get much sleep. A 60-80 hour workweek seemed to be the norm, with 4-6 hours of sleep each night. I thought to myself, “I can’t work that many hours, that’s crazy, I would burn out. And I need more sleep…” Etc. With all the things I had to worry about, that was one of the thoughts that really scared me. How can I make this project successful without having to put in ultra-long days for months and months on end with barely enough sleep?

Now it’s four months later, and I’ve been working 12-16 hours a day during the week, and at least 10+ hours on the weekends. I am not burned out, nowhere near it. I’m loving it. Every night I go to bed with a smile, thinking about all the things I accomplished that day. I get about 6 hours of sleep (I get in some extra on weekends), and every morning I wake up and immediately start thinking about what I’m going to do that day to keep the momentum going. Every problem I solve, every item I cross off the to do list, every page of requirements documentation I write, gives me an incredible sense of accomplishment. I am building something unique and valuable and worthy of my time. The sense of pride and achievement I feel every day gives me enough energy and optimism to keep me going and make me want to get up and do it again the next day, and the next. And the next.

* * *