Curious Office

The math can get kind of tricky.

It is only coincidence that I am writing about Apple twice in one day. But, this news which was released today from BrandChannel.com shows that in many respects, Apple may be the most influential brand on the planet.

The results of their recent survey show some interesting questions and a familiar name most common:

What brand would you most like to sit next to at a dinner party?

Apple.

What brand, if sent back 100 years, would have the biggest impact on the course of history?

Apple.

Which brand inspires you the most?

Apple.

If you were to describe yourself as being a brand, what brand would you be?

Apple.

What brand can you not live without?

Apple.

What brand is most likely to revolutionize the branding industry in the next five years?

Apple.

The company you would most like to argue with?

Microsoft.

No. I am not making this up.

My friend Mika Salmi reminded me of this post the other day because we were talking about the VC firm that backed him at AtomFilms back in the late 90’s. Sequoia Capital is a heavy hitter in the VC industry and I think this list of what makes a “sustainable” company is a great bullet list to internalize.

Elements of Sustainable Companies
Start-ups with these characteristics often foretells the success of a business and the likelihood of it becoming a sustainable, enduring company. We like to partner with companies that have:

Clarity of Purpose
Summarize the company’s business on the back of a business card.

Large Markets
Address existing markets poised for rapid growth or change. A market on the path to a $1B potential allows for error and time for real margins to develop.

Rich Customers
Target customers who will move fast and pay a premium for a unique offering.

Focus
Customers will only buy a simple product with a singular value proposition.

Pain Killers
Pick the one thing that is of burning importance to the customer then delight them with a compelling solution.

Think Differently
Constantly challenge conventional wisdom. Take the contrarian route. Create novel solutions. Outwit the competition.

Team DNA
A company’s DNA is set in the first 90 days. All team members are the smartest or most clever in their domain. “A” level founders attract an “A” level team.

Agility
Stealth and speed will usually help beat-out large companies.

Frugality
Focus spending on what’s critical. Spend only on the priorities and maximize profitability.

Inferno
Start with only a little money. It forces discipline and focus. A huge market with customers yearning for a product developed by great engineers requires very little firepower.

Appeal to the person on the opposite side of the table with PERSONAL INCENTIVE. Not reason. What’s good for their company is one thing. What’s good for the being is another thing entirely.

FYI. This is not the same thing as a bribe. It’s more about being sensitive to their own motivations.

I was sitting on the plane the other day next to a mid level marketing manager at Microsoft. This person was pretty proud of the fact that they read all the blogs to keep up with what is going on within the Seattle start-up community. I was given all manner of explanations as to why Redfin will never work and why Pluggd needs to add more differentiation to their product offering. As I listened, this conversation made me think about a broader phenomenon…

When you start companies, there will always be a lot of people who don’t want to see you succeed.

While they’ll rarely say it out loud, these will be former co-workers and other “pundits” who are secretly jealous by the very decision you’ve made. As I thought more about corporate America, I remembered what the game used to be like for me. 50% of your expended energy is invested on internal politics. The other 50% is spent trying to actually make a measurable and noticeable impact on anything. It seems funny to me now, but looking back I remembered all the actions and behaviors of most everyone. They spend a lot of time doing “work” and then spend a lot more time shopping around the results of their “work” to try to convince someone more important than them (e.g. upper management) how useful and important their work product is. They have to spend time and energy doing this hand waving because in reality, the work most people do within larger companies really isn’t that impactful to the overall business anyway.

My smartest of friends who work for large companies don’t kid themselves. They know that a lot of the trips they take and things they do are as much boondoggles as they are useful. Or, they know that they can’t really get done as much as they like but they are hamstrung by the big paycheck and nice perks. I can relate to that. It’s not an easy thing to walk away from and in most cases it isn’t a good idea to do so!

But the arm chair quarterbacks will be the ones who get under your skin. They are drawing paychecks from a company somebody else started. They have never raised money against their own ideas. The have never put themselves out for others to put under the microscope. They will never be need to be judged against their true abilities because their faults are hidden within the infrastructure of something much larger than they are. So, entrepreneurs I hope you pat yourselves on the back today. You live and die on how you do. That earns you the right to say whatever the hell you want about things because now you don’t have to appear politically correct in meetings so you’ll get that holiday bonus or that promotion. You are not perfect and the armchair quarterbacks will be sure and remind you of that fact. But you have courage in spades because what you do is too scary for most people to try.