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2009-03-26T13:56:00.001-07:00

Putting off the good life

2008-12-14T16:11:00.000-08:00

When I was at Microsoft, I remember how struck I was by the sheer focus and determination of everyone around me. Coming to the company, I was working hard to build a name for myself and gain credibility in the organization - so I worked crazy hours to secure great performance scores each year. Luckily Bobbi and I did not have children yet, and she also was working full time as a newborn intensive care nurse.

One day I was looking through the MicroNews, the Microsoft campus weekly paper, and read an obituary for a man who was about 32 years old, who had died of cancer, leaving a wife and 3 children. As I read further, the most active theme of this obituary was how passionate he was about working at Microsoft. He was well known for keeping long hours. The article even insinuated that he was so focused on work that he failed to get regular medical physicals. Colon cancer had suddenly struck and took his life.

As I read his obituary, I began to weave this persona in with the stereotypical "Microsoftie" of the time. In sum, he worked too hard, spent little time with his family & friends, and died early & tragically of what I can only describe as "self neglect." He must have been putting off the good life, with every intention of getting to it at some point. That point never came.

Today, nearly a decade later, I think about that man a lot. I imagine how his life could have gotten that way, and I am determined not to let it happen to me. The cards are stacked against me a bit though. Not only was my father a workaholic throughout my childhood, but I am also now a business owner, where undoubtedly every hour of effort counts toward your success. I know I can do it, as long as I make a daily priority.

Recently I sat down for coffee with an angel investor who was former Microsoft; he had made a fortune as an early employee of the Redmond giant and now invested in early stage companies. As with any first time meeting, we spent some time talking about family, interests, and the like. His children had long ago grown up and left home for college. They were now scattered across the country. As he told me about them, I could sense that he missed his kids. In as many words, he eventually revealed that he looks back on his children growing up and regrets how quickly it went by.

As I described to him my two young boys and our vacation plans for the holidays, he smiled enviously and commended me for making vacations and recreation with the family a priority. He then recounted many times in his distant past when he could have put his family first, ahead of business and work, but simply kept putting it off. Pretty soon putting things off became easier and easier to do, a habit.

"Once that time with them is gone, Neil, it is gone," he said with conviction as we started to shift gears into a business conversation.

October 20, 2008 - Prosys is Now Acture Consulting.

2008-10-20T23:52:00.000-07:00

(SEATTLE, WASHINGTON) We are pleased to announce two important developments today. The first is that The Prosys Group is now Acture Consulting. Acture is a word that means "Action."

The second and most important development is the addition of James Gallagher as a Managing Director for Acture Consulting. For nearly 2 years, Prosys has focused mostly on Product Management work for emerging companies in the Seattle area. With James joining the team, it puts together a "1-2 punch" in terms of providing value to start-up clients. James will head up the Sales & Customer Strategy practice for Acture.

James brings with him a solid playbook with a focus on sales traction and customer acquisition. Over the last 16 years, James has been responsible for building and accelerating revenue streams for dozens of companies. While at Jobster, I personally witnessed James build a sales engine of systems, process, people that achieved some phenomenal sales numbers for our SaaS products.

As Acture brings year two to a close over the next few months, we are gearing up for a busy 2009, assisting start-ups in the areas of business, product and sales strategy. We believe that 2009 will be an important year for companies, as they find they must do more with less. We look forward to partnering with companies in achieving this goal.

Product Management vs Product Marketing

2008-09-19T14:42:00.000-07:00

The Seattle area is notorious for blending job titles and functions when it comes to the product managers and product marketers. In fact the majority of people I talk to think they are one and the same. In my opinion, they are very different, especially for a company that is truly customer centric.

Product Management = Inbound
Fundamentally, true product managers have a very important job; they are tasked with representing to the company the needs, pains and opportunities in the market.

They conduct research, watch the market, use related products, read between the lines, ask questions, do competitive analysis, ultimately using their "voodoo powers" to assess and size a given market/business opportunity.

If they do their job, not only will their company be able to depend on them to be the ultimate customer advocate at both a tactical and strategic level, but the product's capabilities and long term roadmap will set the company up for great success.

Product Marketing = Outbound
Product marketers represent to the market the products & services a company offers. They deal in the art of mapping the product's current (and future) capabilities into value propositions that resonate in the marketplace.

They handle analyst engagement, positioning, branding, PR, marketing communications, campaigns, lead generation, etc.

If they do their job, the product they bring to market will successfully resonate with current and prospective customers, ultimately propelling their sales against the competition.

Over the last 10 years, I have had the pleasure of working with rock star product people and rock star marketing people. I have yet to find anyone who is a rock star in both. Certainly the tendency is to combine the role for cost and simplicity; the companies that do this will ultimately be picking one talent (product or marketing) over the other.

Why is this important? It is important to understand if you are planning to add marketing or product headcount to your team. It also can help drive the content of the interviews you hold with top candidates. Candidates who are answering the tendency of companies to want an "all-in-one" product marketing manager will bill themselves as such. With the right questions however, you can easily discover which tendency rules the way they think.

NEWS FLASH: My Mom uses Ning

2008-05-16T14:46:00.000-07:00

Back in the day when I was at Microsoft, Jeff Raikes would often use his mother as a proxy for if a user experience hit the mark. "Could my mother do this?" he would ask.

I have borrowed this proxy from Mr. Raikes, now the CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This is how I gauge the pervasiveness a particular website, application or tool.

Most recently my Mom sent me an invitation to a group where art students can upload and share their artwork for comments. I blindly clicked through the invitation, which did a wonderful job of white labeling. When I finally landed on the site, I realized it was Ning. MY MOM IS AN ACTIVE USER OF A NING GROUP.

If I could buy stock in this company, I would. They are doing a great job of building a social community platform that fits any groups requirements and needs. There are so many verticals that once they discover Ning, will fall like dominos. This will be fun to watch!

The right decision vs. making a decision

2008-03-25T14:41:00.000-07:00

Having spent much of my time since Jobster working with early stage companies, I have come to see some striking patterns in the challenges that they face.

One such similarity is in the area of decision making. Start-ups by nature find themselves facing decisions where:
1. There are multiple right answers and multiple wrong answers
2. There is little precedence and no data to easily interpret which is which

In these cases, the worst thing that the organization can do is get stuck in analysis and extended debate. If it truly is a decision that meets these characteristics, then I would ask if there is anything that anyone can provide to enhance the clarity of the choices other than opinion?

Right out of Microsoft facing a decision point like this, you would have found me digging in, debating my point of view with the rest. Not so much anymore.

When an early stage company finds themselves in this situation, the bottom line is that the organization will ultimately lose in the end regardless of the outcome.

It loses because it wasted time (sometimes months) debating and politicking their way to a decision, leaving the door open for a competitor to "out-maneuver" them.

It loses because this extended process not only alienated the participants along the way but may have fractured the cohesiveness of the team.

It loses because there may not have been a wrong answer at all.

If hindsight has taught me anything, it is that oftentimes there is no wrong answer. The right answer is to simply pick one and start actively learning along the way- building the data that will inform future decisions. The wrong answer is to do nothing and forgo any learning at all.

How can young organizations avoid this trap? To tell you the truth, it is really difficult, especially when an early stage company has filled it's senior management ranks with seasoned, big company people. These folks are heavy hitters; they're used to getting their way; they're used to winning debates; their saavy at corporate politics. Their comfort zone is to do exactly what the company cannot afford to do.

This is when the CEO must sometimes play the "I'm in charge" card. She/he must be proactive in curbing these tendencies. They must be willing to proceed without total consensus, especially if it relates to a new product that is outside the organizations comfort zone. They must open the organization to leaning toward decisions that produce opportunities for the organization to learn from the market.

Depending on your industry and product, this approach has varying levels of risks. I think it works best in an Internet, software based technology company, where software and services can be easily iterated, and users/customers can seamlessly and immediately gain the value of the next iteration.

what am I passionate about?

2008-03-20T16:10:00.000-07:00

Nearly one year ago I joined with a former colleague and founded a consulting company. It made complete sense. We both intended to work independently for the foreseeable future and at the very least we would be sharing the operational overhead and costs. We formed our corporation, hired a talented accountant and collections specialist, and selected a law & tax firm. Our 2007 tax year turned out to be a good one, we posted a profit.

In summary, year 1 (2007) was all about building the business and operational infrastructure to do something more.

Now I sit and review the 2008 plan and have been talking to a lot of colleagues and contacts about where opportunities exist in the marketplace. Some interesting and compelling things have surfaced, but they ultimately force an important question that was posed to me indirectly over lunch the other day:

What do I want out of this? What am I passionate about?

My immediate response over my spicy grilled chicken sandwitch was that I am passionate about product strategy and helping early stage companies establish an understanding of their market and the build the plans to address it. My lunchmate was perfectly happy with that answer and so was I. Now, however, I wonder.

Thinking more about it that day, I am most passionate about the freedom of working for myself; building a business that ultimately enables me to acheive my life goals. The most specific life goal is better life-work balance but without the financial sacrifice.

The Product Manager in me is starting to see the roadmap:
- BETA: My departure from Jobster. I was so eager to launch beta that I left without plans of what I might do next. That took some guts and passion.
- v1.0: Sub-contract consulting
- v1.5: Co-founding Prosys Inc. and finding my own work.

Each of these stages have taught me something more about myself and what I want.

The clarity reached just after lunch the other day was that while I am passionate about consulting, I am actually not as passionate about consulting as I am about building a business to reach those life goals I spoke of. Consulting is the answer for now and I am good at it.

What is in store for v2.0 you might ask? Good question.

Blist hits DEMO '08

2008-01-31T15:28:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to friend Kevin Merritt on Blist's recent funding and this weeks BIG SPLASH at DEMO 08.

DEMO's Response:

blist set out to create the “world’s easiest database” and it’s achieved that goal. Sure, you could argue that there are consumer database tools that are simple to use, but you’ll be hard pressed to find one that is simple and highly functional. The blist drag-and-drop user interface lets individuals build complex databases by thinking about their information and how they want to use it. The smart go-to-market strategy -- which turns non-paying consumers into for-fee business customers -- should set blist on course to be the preferred SaaS provider of database application services.

Turning off my cable/dish provider

2008-01-07T16:24:00.000-08:00

This holiday we had a little time to catch up on some of the shows we used to watch. The problem was that we were staying at a house that did not have any TV service, but DID have wireless.

Simply an RGB cable and we were pushing high definition television shows to our 37 inch LCD. It was GREAT.

Ecogeek posted recently on this as well.

The main issue for doing this "all in" is that we would miss out on live sports and have to watch episodes one day delayed. Each day that passes, I am thinking I am willing to live with that.

Looking forward to 2008

2008-01-01T14:45:00.000-08:00

I am really excited for 2008. More than any other year, I feel as though I have made significant progress toward doing work I truly love, helping early stage companies with product vision, strategy and execution. I left Jobster in March, after helping found the company in 2004. I also returned to Microsoft for a short time to support my old team as a consultant.

I will start 2008 working with Verdiem, whose power management software aims to dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of IT devices in organizations of all sizes, while delivering tangible cost savings. Did you know that 15 PCs running for a year is equivilent to a midsize car in terms of CO2 emissions? More on Verdiem in a later post.

From a networking and relationships perspective, I expect this year to be very exciting as I watch many "Jobster alums" continue to make a go of it with their own early stage ventures. By my count, I know of at least 20 and probably close to 25 Jobster alum start-ups. If you broaden the scope to Jobster alums that went on to work for other startups, you easily can add another 15 ventures. What a great thing.

Last, but certainly not least, this year should also be a big year for us on the family front, as our youngest boy moves out of his terrible twos and starts using words to tell us what he needs rather than screaming at the top of his lungs :-)

Goodness all around...

Judy's Book to Close, Lessons Learned

2007-11-14T13:16:00.000-08:00

I really appreciate the willingness of Andy Sack to open up his thoughts about the missteps of Judy's Book over the course of it's existence. This sort of content is so useful and engaging for those of us that are onto the next thing, plugging away, yet need something to pull our head out of the details for a bit.

Judy's Book was a company that I followed closely because of our kindred beginnings in 2004; both funded by Ignition Partners, and both focused on social networking as a key lever in our businesses.

I wanted to add my thoughts to his points in this particular post- perhaps add a layer of perspective from Jobster.

The first mistake: we weren't aggressive enough in customer acquisition.
I remember this coming up several times in our feature meetings, where we had the opportunity to really "grease the wheels" of allowing a common consumer who does not have MS Outlook, and yet the notion was met with hesitation that is was too aggressive. Looking back, this should have been one of the first things we did, which was to make it seamless for a common user to pass on opportunities to contacts regardless of where they were stored (hotmail, gmail, etc.).

"We had the idea of using the address book as a hook into customer acquisition but we never spent the energy and focus to really maximize the use of the address book in growing the social network."

I believe Jobster has implemented this today, after nearly 2 years of considering it. I think in some cases we lost sight of some of the core social user scenarios that could have really changed the game for candidate referrals.

The second mistake: we expanded out of Seattle in August 2005 and went national.

Expansion is something that could be geographic or it could be expanding into another product line, or another market. This is really a fine line for a startup, in that strategically it makes sense to place a few bets, yet too many bets can stretch the focus of the organization too thin.

"At Judy's Book we had a BIG vision -- I think in retrospect, perhaps too big for a
start up and in retrospect I think we didn't take the necessary steps to break
that BIG vision (your friends yellow pages) down into sufficiently small enough
baby steps to prove out the concept before expanding the concept
nationally."

Jobster had a BIG vision as well. Did we break that vision up into digestible pieces? I think we did so early on. Where we maybe did not do that good of job was in setting goals and metrics for each of those pieces, which would have told us when it was time to (1) accelerate our investment due to success, (2) shift focus on other areas due to lack of traction, or (3) create a SWAT team to troubleshoot the problem areas because we saw evidence that we were on to something.

For Judy's, competitive pressures maybe pushed them into making a decision that they truly did not yet need to make? That is a tough one as well; we struggled daily with how to respond to competitive pressures, whether they were subtle or audacious "shots over our bow."

I think a great example of smart expansion is Urbanspoon. Having watched these guys from the beginning, you can tell that they are being very thoughtful about expanding the scope of their restaurant review site. Although I haven't chatted with Adam, Ethan or Patrick much since their departure from Jobster, you can easily tell from the gradual evolution of the site that they only started to add cities once they had figured out what they wanted the site to be. Good stuff.

OpenSocial is here

2007-11-01T15:37:00.000-07:00

I have both joined and created networks on Ning and have found it to be a very compelling platform for organizing a group of people around a common interest. As an early user, I naturally wanted to be able to bring in content from other sources that also had value to the group, such as music and video recommendations or even just a classifieds listing.

As Ning's screencast shows here, Ning is joining the OpenSocial crew and it will enable exactly those types of experiences. The big plus of OpenSocial over the FB platform is that is does not require the apps to run within a specific "wrapper" like FB does. This is another leap forward in openness and should spur the next massive wave of interesting developments.

Find more screencasts like this on Ning Network Creators

Halloween 2.0 style

2007-10-31T14:32:00.000-07:00

I could not resist. Halloween as we know it may never be the same.

As a side note, I was having lunch with a former colleague of mine today and we were comparing notes on the actual usefulness of FB now that the novelty has faded. We have both logged in less than 3 times this month.

While the 30+ crowd are rushing to FB, I am skeptical that there will be anything to keep them there long-term. FB is interesting but yet has not eroded any of the value that I see with my LinkedIn presence, which I gain value from on an almost daily basis as a professional.

If college graduates that frequented FB as the site to "hook up" with girls on campus think they can transition their FB persona to something more grown up AND to something that provides them some social + professional value, then more power to the $15 billion valuation.

While I love watching the evolution of this and other services, I just cannot wrap my head around that number.

Back to Seattle

2007-10-25T11:34:00.000-07:00

After leaving Jobster in March, I took on some projects for companies outside of the downtown area. I have to say that there is something about working in downtown Seattle that I truly miss. It's something to do with all of the vibrant and optimistic activity; it revitalizes me daily. I cannot say that the long quiet hallways of the corporate campus where I work today does much for me - but the top notch people I work with here help make up for it.

It will also be nice to start re-connecting with former Jobster folks, now distributed out among Seattle's best and most exciting companies.

I am fortunate to be working with a start-up client that has a tremendous product with measurable customer successes and a mountain of opportunity ahead of it. I look forward to returning to the small company environment - where I can have a daily and measurable impact on "moving the needle."

Ad Supported Software

2007-10-24T12:35:00.000-07:00

Over the last few weeks I have been watching the developing saga of the not-so-secret-but-possibly-fiction Google phone, the ad support office experiments going on at Microsoft in response to Google Apps, as well as other similar "adware" services.

The Google phone is actually a great example of the questions that I am asking: How viable is the ad supported software play as a business model? At a 50,000 foot level, the generally accepted ARPU (average revenue per user) in the mobile industry is $x (will post this figure as soon as I find a voice + data number). Can Google charge advertisers for niche ads that reach me in a targeted way? If so, does that potential exceed the $125 per month T-mobile milks me for? As my good friend Jason quickly tells me, I am not part of the most interesting or valuable demo anymore, so apply this simple question to 13-25 year olds. People in the know should know this answer and if not they should have asked it years ago.

Step away from phones and look at any software as a service model out there. Is an ad supported strategy viable? Have they asked the question or run the numbers?

Mark Maunder is a guy you would like to know if you are into the start-up and technology scene in Seattle. In addition to building and delivering an online service in record time, he is a serial entrepreneur who has run ad supported businesses before, so I trust he knows what he is talking about. Despite the fact he is too busy to answer my emails anymore, I enjoyed reading his thoughts on the ad supported model as it pertains to Facebook applications.

I am not yet educated enough in this area to make any substantial comments or assertions, but it is so incredibly interesting that I intend to get educated... and fast.

Intuit's Entrepreneurship Contest

2007-10-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are incubating a business idea, this just might be the thing to get you to go for it.

Intuit is holding a promotion called "Just Start" in which it plans to give an entrepreneur $40,000 in cash and $10,000 in products to quit his or her job and start a new business. To apply, entrepreneurs can submit a letter or video describing their business idea to www.IWillJustStart.com. Intuit also plans to hold events promoting the contest at Westlake Center Wednesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Productfoolery

2007-10-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

My mind has always been a meltingpot of business & product ideas. I always have something that I am noodling on in my spare time. The unfortunate reality is that my bandwidth rarely allows me to dive in and develop some of these ideas to a more interesting point - so they literally float around in the ether. For a person like me, this causes me a small dose of stress that I am not doing anything with it. Chain together 3-5 per quarter and they can start to weigh on me.

No more.

Productfoolery is a blog that is meant to give all of these ideas (baked or otherwise) a home. It is becoming a collection of product reviews that suppose there are real businesses behind them. I think the real interesting part of this is that some of these reviews will include actual market research I have completed, as well as conceptual screenshots and graphics. With 4 posts and nearly 15 reviews in draft form, I have found this to be a lot of fun.

I think someone once said, "If you have an idea you love, set it free..." Okay, maybe not.

Fictional Products. Real Reviews. Productfoolery.

Plaxo Sync could be the thing I need

2007-10-05T09:51:00.001-07:00

I was super encouraged to try out Plaxo Sync recently. It seems like the Plaxo team has reconnected with their ability to solve fundamental problems that we have. They seemed to have gotten off track for a few years, wandering aimlessly through the woods barefoot, but are clearly back on track.

In 2006, I was in deep business development discussions with Plaxo as Jobster evaluated the potential to be more distributed across networks. Due to other priorities on our plate at the time, nothing really became of those discussions. In hindsight, Jobster was at that time in a unique position in the recruiting space (both from an industry traction and a PR perspective) to make a product play as the recruiting tool that orchestrated recruiting across distributed networks (social and other). As I see iLike evolving their value prop with new tools for artists to interact with their fan base on multiple networks, I am struck with the parallel.

They started with contacts, and have now moved to calendars, photos, socials networks. For me, this is more powerful and useful than what Facebook offers, because it is an aggregate activity feed across networks, which is much more valuable to me. Take a look...

Turning your talents into a consulting business

2007-10-02T10:54:00.001-07:00

As Prosys continues to grow, I have found myself talking with a lot of consultants (and would-be consultants) about how they position themselves in the marketplace. I have always been a generalist with a broad range of skills that I can bring to the table, but I have learned recently that I need to settle in on a few key ones. At first this felt like pigeon-holing myself and potentially limiting my project opportunities. In fact, it has done the opposite. When your name comes up in conversations, I think people are better able to quickly define your value proposition as a consultant. If you have heard much about Prosys, you'll know that word-of-mouth is our primary growth strategy, so making sure that the message is crisp and easy to grasp is absolutely important.

All of that being said, I have not completely settled on those key things for myself yet. I am getting close though. Product prototyping for upstarts in the area is probably going to be one of them...

Prosys Consulting Group, Open for Business

2007-09-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

I am happy to announce that a former Jobster colleague and I have launched a consulting services organization, Prosys Consulting Group Inc. The concept for Prosys was born out of our own experiences as independent consultants, building our own businesses during much of 2007.

Prosys in a Nutshell

Business and technology consulting services are a well established economy in the
Pacific Northwest and beyond. Whether the firm is Accenture at the national level or Slalom
Consulting from a multi-region perspective, the typical business model of a consulting firm is to hire and train professionals as full-time employees and staff them to projects, charging the client up to and beyond $300 per hour, depending on the project and skill sets needed. Consultants are typically paid as salaried employees.

In this model, I believe that only the consulting firm truly wins, with rich margins. Clients are left with high consulting rates that climb steadily as the firm becomes more entrenched in the company. Experienced consultants, while they may see a competitive salary, see a low salary relative to the value they provide the client. I consider this to be a large gap in the current model, and a big opportunity for Prosys.

The Prosys Group has developed a consulting co-op business model that aims to change this equation, so that all stakeholders win. Prosys is an alternative to the high margin consulting firm model, empowering experienced professionals to become independent consultants. Prosys then provides member consultants with everything they need to set up and run their own consulting company, and removes the professional’s “fear of the unknown.” Some informal polling of professionals we conducted identified the some of the reasons that people decide not to independently consult - our goal is to "take the edge off" of those issues.

Prosys has put the finances, people and processes in place to handle key shared services for the consultants, including contracts, accounting, invoicing, upfront payment for work completed regardless of when the client pays their invoice. Most importantly, Prosys offers long-term value to member consultants by maintaining a "clearinghouse" of new projects to make finding the next project less daunting.

The result of these services is a win-win model that:

Empowers professionals consultants to be independent, building their own business.

Offer client companies the same consulting talent at lower rates than the large consulting firms.

Consultants enjoy a higher salary, more in-line with the value they provide the client

Growth Strategy: Referrals

Core to our strategy is the way that we intend to grow. Rather than have a sales team pushing consultants out into the market, we are relying on a "pull model." When our member consultants come across new opportunities with their clients, they are relayed to the rest of the member community. On the consultant side, Prosys is very selective about the consultants that join our community, insuring the highest of quality. Recommendations and referrals from those who have personal knowledge of their work is a must to be accepted. We think that this rigorous approach will insure that the referrals continue to flow.

With a solid collection of consultants and opportunities in our pipeline, I am optimistic that Prosys will be a provider of great value to Northwest companies for some time to come.

SMS request-response system up for sale

2007-08-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

If you read my blog from time to time, you know about Paddlespot. Paddlespot is a free service launched in the Fall of 2005, that aims to provide real-time river levels to whitewater kayakers on their mobile phones. We chose SMS as the primary technology, because it was the lowest common denominator- available on all phones.

The user scenario is pretty straight forward: Whitewater enthusiasts (kayakers, rafters, fisherman) simply send a text message to Paddlespot with the first three letters of the river name. Paddlespot responds instantly with the latest USGS river reading (we index that data). Knowing how quickly river levels can change, this information is much more valuable when you are standing next to the river. Previous to this solution, kayakers would check the web up to 2 hours before they would get to the river. Anyone who knows rivers can tell you how much can change in 2 hours, and how the safety factor can change as well.

Today Paddlespot continues to run, with a stable set of mobile users across the country - now indexing about 4300 rivers. Usage sways with the whitewater season, but has continued to grow steadily only by word-of-mouth.

If you know anyone who is looking to build a request-response SMS system as part of their broader offering, please pass this along to them. The Paddlespot code is a great starting point and will get them up & running much more quickly than starting from scratch.

Contact me with any questions neilcrist @ gmail.com.

Last moments at Jobster

2007-08-01T11:25:00.000-07:00

I still remember the first day that Marty and I met at the Ignition Partner offices. As part of the EIR program, we were joining as the first members of Jason Goldberg's team, focused on building a business in the recruiting space. This would start a 3 year partnership (Marty the program manager, me the product manager) to build an a software product for recruiters and sourcers.

As coincidence would have it, nearly 3 years to the day, Marty and I left Jobster to pursue other opportunities. By that time, Jobster had undergone a lot of change (strategy, headcount, etc.) and it was time for those focused on the next chapter of Jobster to take the reigns, and for us to get out of the way.

where have I been!?!?

2007-07-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

I really do not have a good excuse for not posting anything for over a month. Needless to say, I have been wrapped up in a number of projects, too many in fact. About 4 weeks ago I hit a wall and decided there was absolutely no need to be multi-threading at that rate, and a more balanced approach made sense. So.... I made a plan.

My plan is very straight forward:

RULE #1: Family First. I am at a point now where I am truly in control of my schedule. Blocking out as much time as possible to be with my wife and boys has been really fun this summer.

RULE #2: Do not take on a new project, unless I can bump a project (or two). Being at max capacity, I need to be more disciplined about taking on new projects, whether they be my own, or a consulting gig, or whatever.

RULE #3: Evaluate some of my longer term projects to see if it makes sense to keep investing in them. These past weeks I am divesting away from things that are taking me away from more important things.

RULE #4: Simplify. Less is more. This one is the hardest but the most important. I learned this truth as a Product Manager at Microsoft years ago- you can either do 25 things at once of mediocre quality, or you can do 5-7 things at your best. Hmmm, that pretty much translates to life in general.

For those keeping score, I still owe some explanation about the project I was planning to launch in May. Our team hit some barriers in the market that forced us to re-evaluate whether we wanted to play in the space. We chose to put it on hold, which was absolutely the right thing to do.

More later.

when are market conditions ripe for entry?

2007-04-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

This is a question that I am working through today as I look at a short-list of opportunities in front of me. I think the answer depends on the type of business you want to have as well as your ultimate long-term goals.

Here are just a few of the things that we are considering:

In General
a) Do you intend to be privately held or is their some larger plan?
b) Do you want a product or service-based business?
c) Will you self-fund or raise capital or both?
d) What is your exit plan, if you have one?

On the Market
a) Could you be a first mover?
b) If not a first mover, how many players are in the market today?
c) Is there a clear leader in the space?
d) Are those players meeting market need sufficiently? (untapped market potential)
e) Is the market big enough to sustain more than one successful company or is it winner takes all?
f) Is the market stale with lack of innovation? (Jobster saw that in recruiting)
g) Who are the buyers of your product/service - how do they buy? (sales cycle time, type of sales approach required, etc.)
h) Have you interviewed at least 10-15 potential customers in the market to understand their needs and their perspective? (if not, Do not pass go - go straight to jail - do not collect your $200)

There are more. Perhaps when I get further down the path I will publish the ideas that didn't "make the cut" and why.

she was right

2007-04-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

Mind you, I am only a few weeks into my first consulting gig at a former employer of mine based in Redmond. Just as I was leaving Jobster, my wife made a comment regarding her lack of confidence that I could stay out of the start-up arena for very long.

Another friend, who traveled a similar road a few years back, warned me that consulting at a former employer had a massive chance of being instantly boring. I interpreted that as an opportunity to leave some brain power on the table for the "strategery" of developing ideas I had in the hopper.

So, here I am, 2 weeks into my project and my wife's lack of confidence is turning out to be spot on. The nice thing is that while I am adding a lot of value on this project, I have the horsepower after hours to keep developing my next thing.

Speaking of the "next thing" I am ramping up for an unveiling of it sometime in the month of April or May 2007 (if all goes well), so stay tuned. I can tell you a few things about it: it is a technology start-up, I am passionate about it, it is an underserved market with no leader, and it provides a very important service to keep people informed and safe. My v-team is still finalizing market, customer research, and competitive work before we take the next step.

I better shut up now, I might give it away!

Virginia Tech tragedy strikes a chord

2007-04-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

Most people probably don't know that I was a campus safety supervisor and manager while going to Pacific Lutheran University in the 1990's. Having been in US Army Intelligence prior to college, it was a perfect fit for me while I earned my business degree.

It was also eye opening in terms of understanding the fragile nature of safety and security on a college campus. Students at PLU called it the "Lutedome," which was this invisible cloak of safety that we all felt when we were on campus. Certainly having up to 6 safety officers patrolling the campus perimeter and buildings helped to preserve that cloak.

Two years following my graduation from PLU, a person walked onto campus and shot a music professor inside the Lutedome, less than 100 feet from where I had lived my freshman year. It was particularly hard to take given that I knew the professor, safety officers, and students involved. It was even harder knowing that the cloak of safety had been shattered so violently for the students.

I wish the families of the victims, and the broader Virginia Tech family the best as they struggle through the coming months trying to come to grips with what has happened. It has definitely consumed my thoughts this entire week, as it has the PLU Community.

Skip to Part IV - Jobster in the rearview mirror

2007-04-02T11:40:00.000-07:00

Building strong relationships is key.

I have had a multi-part blog entry going on for the past few weeks to complete some thoughts I recently shared to a group of Pacific Lutheran MBAs. At the time of the talk, I had not yet announced my decision to leave Jobster. As my final day at Jobster passed by, it worked out nicely that one of the most important entries yet to be written was about building relationships. I shared my final day with a few other long time colleagues, Jeff and Marty, who are also moving on to some very cool opportunities.

They held a going away party for us on a Thursday night at the J&M Cafe, across the street from our first offices in Pioneer Square, which seemed fitting. As people started flowing in and grabbing a drink, it hit me how great it was to see "Jobster Alumni" in addition to current Jobster employees. Interesting side note: the population of Jobster alumni is now surpassing existing employees.

So, the title of my original entry was, "Relationships above all else." What I was going to talk about was how I try to use this as a guide when navigating through any situation, professional or otherwise. As conflicts arise, which they always do, I tend to handle it best when I keep an eye to maintaining a good relationship with that person (or persons, group, organization, etc). Having worked in some pretty high stress environments over the years, including Army Intelligence, Microsoft, and a start-up, I have plenty of data points that support this belief.

What time has clearly shown me me is that ideas, businesses, organizations, teams, and projects come and go - but strong relationships last far beyond these things. We all have at some point worked with people that clearly do not have this is mind. They burn through co-workers and team members like a chainsaw, or throw them under the "political bus" whenever it suits their agenda. I really believe that this behavior will catch up with them in spades. It may serve them well in the short or even medium-term, but long-term they will find that they are shut out of opportunities.

When I decided to leave Microsoft in March of 2004, I had no idea how small and insular my professional network was at the time. While I knew hundreds of people, they were all at Microsoft, Expedia, or one of the Big 5 firms. Now that I have been at Jobster and bonded with some of the smartest & talented people in the industry, I have a healthy network that spans hundreds of companies, geographies, and industries. That is a nice thing to take with me.

Lessons in Year 1 at Jobster

2007-03-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

As I wrap up my transition from Jobster, I continue to reflect on the experience. I recently found this entry, posted on my 1 year anniversary. Very valid points that echo some of what I have written recently:

Here are just a few of things that I have observed- things I think have distinguished the Jobster story and kept us on track:
1) There are no sacred cows. Always be willing to re-evaluate your plans, assertions, and strategies based on customer learning. Taking a business concept and iterating it over and over leaves room for "over iterated," a.k.a. loosing touch with the fundamentals of the opportunity at hand. Pride, ego, or the love of one's own ideas cannot get in the way of developing a sound business idea. Be okay with the fact that your business concept may iterate to a point of not being recognizable from its source.
2) Implement forcing functions. There are times when a team can get caught in quick sand and not seem to make much progress for a while. It may be a standstill in good ideas, it may be the discovery of a show stopping issue, etc. There are a lot of reasons for the onset of quick sand. A forcing function provides a milestone or deliverable that a team can coalesce around and focus on. Our CEO has been a master of forcing functions on a variety of occasions- maybe I will tell you a story about one some time.
3) Ideas are cheap, people are EVERYTHING. Jobster the concept and Jobster the company was built on this notion. Being in touch with entrepreneurship and the venture scene since the beginning of my career, I have come across many great ideas. In fact, I have stared at what I considered to be great ideas that were huge opportunities. Ultimately though, great ideas are nothing without great people to develop and execute the business plan. I think most opportunities are not beholden to just the first mover, but to the mover who has experience on their side.

Holy mobile widget, Batman!

2007-03-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

This is by far the most interesting mix of mobile and GPS that I have seen. The simplicity of drag n drop onto your handset makes it super consumable - as GPS enabled phones become more prevalent, this service should really find itself.

They even have a Zillow Widget for instant home values based on your location. This is huge for investors, home appraisors, and real estate professionals.

The "yeah but" is that this is only enabled for a subset of mobile phones on the Sprint network, and is by no means open to the masses. Same old story there I guess. I am looking forward to a day when you can run these types of apps across handsets... but I won't hold my breath.

Onward to the next chapter

2007-03-21T10:12:00.000-07:00

This week, after much deliberation, I have decided to move on to the next chapter in my career. This was a tough decision because Jobster has been a very personal journey for me. When I joined 3 years ago, I gave up a promising job at Microsoft, with a firstborn son of only 3 months, and took a leap into the world of a start-up.

At the time Jobster was a powerpoint presentation and a few whiteboard sketches; no employees, no funding, not even a legal entity yet. To be part of the Jobster journey from that moment until now has been rewarding and full of valuable experiences that will shape my perspectives when I decide to build my own company one day (yes, I said when). Sure, I leave the company with much more experience than when I joined, but the thing I leave here with that I treasure most are the relationships with the people that make Jobster go everyday. Some are still here, and some have gone on to other things, but I won't forget their contributions.

Jobster is blessed with a high concentration of really smart people that are continuing to evolve the company with the goal to provide the recruiting industry with valuables tools and resources. I have no doubt there are great things to come.

Many people have asked where I will land. Quite honestly, I am landing in no particular place. I will be doing some independent consulting for a few clients (large and small) over the next six months, as I evaluate my next adventure. I imagine it will be a new business venture, but who knows?

One thing I will continue to do is keep up my blog.

Part II: Push yourself to see the larger context

2007-03-20T13:18:00.000-07:00

I don’t believe this to be a "must have" in order to be an effective contributor in a start-up environment. I do believe, however, that if you want to play a leadership role, that seeing the larger context must become a default perspective for you to take. For some it is a natural thing, while for others, they have to work at it.

When I think about the UW Business Plan Competition that I competed in 3 years running, I see how our team’s inability to see the larger picture was a pivotal part of not placing in the top 3. Being a person who gets excited about new products and services, I took the approach of thinking the larger picture was a generally accepted fact, and that focusing first on the product was the way to go. I understand now that you must get everyone on the same page about the broader context before you can properly convey how big a business opportunity really is.

The winning plans always started by convincing the panel of VC & technology judges that there was a market for their product or service. Some would illustrate a market gap, or an underserved segment of consumers; some would show an industry languishing from a lack of efficiency. Once you convince investors of a certain market dynamic, this paves the way nicely for telling them how your product/service is going to address this need.

When Jobster was a 5 person team working out of Ignition Partner offices, we actually spent much more time refining our view of the industry based on research, both primary and secondary. We understood that having a thorough & accurate snapshot of the market would help us make better decisions about how Jobster could effectively enter it and gain quick traction. Those learnings would set us up for the next 18 to 24 months.

If you don’t look at the larger context today, how can you start?

First, decide which industries you naturally follow. You should not only include markets you are interested in, but also the industry you are in today (whether you like that industry or not!). Stay informed about the current topics, news, trends, and debates going on in those industries. Include the industry in which you work today, so that you can draw connections to your daily work & priorities. For me, I follow social networking, real estate, mobile technology, the start-up scene, and the VC markets.

Secondly, leverage online tools & technologies like RSS readers and content subscriptions to deliver information directly to your desktop. Tools like bloglines or Google Reader will help. This will set you up for a daily routine of scanning current events. Set up some email alerts when certain keywords come up in search rankings.

Lastly, review your news & blog sources on a monthly basis; add newly discovered ones as you find them. Blogs inherently track back to their sources of information, so I oftentimes will follow the news or commentary back three or four layers to see if I can find another solid source of information. About 1/3rd of the time, I find another source to add. If the subject matter is riddled with debate, I will try to find multiple sources that talk about the issues from multiple sides.

Keeping a top level view of what’s going on is enjoyable once you have done it for a while, because you start to see connections or analogous situations across disparate industries, systems and processes. Once you are seeing those relationships, you can start making educated guesses about where are particular market might be going next. Your ability to spot a market gaps & opportunities will sharpen as well, because you will have seen similar conditions in another context.

Entrepreneurs are familiar with the concept of an elevator pitch. These are simply a very concise description of their business opportunity. These are used to easily convey a business idea to an investor roughly in the time it would take to ride the elevator with them. For practical purposes, this is a powerful, 2-3 minute summary of your business idea, plan, and need.

I have found elevator pitches are useful beyond fundraising as well. If you can describe the industries you follow in an elevator style summary, this can become very useful at work, business networking, as well as talking to investors. Not only does this prove to yourself that you are informed, but it easily demonstrates to others that you are a bigger thinker; this can do nothing but build your credibility and “personal stock price.”

Early in my career at Andersen Consulting(Now Accenture), I made a point to make sense of the larger business objectives of the projects I worked on. At the time, I merely wrote code for very small pieces of a much larger CRM system. I remember distinctly having dinner with my colleagues at the time, and casually discussing the project with them, talking about how this software project would positively impact customer experience & sat for the client (who at the time was being hammered in the press for poor customer service). Just months out of school like myself, my co-workers would give me the “deer in the headlights” look. They clearly were not pushing themselves to see the larger purpose of the code we were writing.

PLU Talk, Part I: Know Yourself

2007-03-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

Standing on the outside of the Seattle start-up scene in 2000, I can honestly say that I considered a VC backed start-up as one of THE most exciting opportunities that I could ever hope to be a part of. It would have all of the elements I wanted: Developing a concept into a business plan, partnering with really smart investors, successfully raising funds toward the goal of building a business from scratch. Who would want to do anything else?! Oh yeah, and don't forget the bragging rights.

Now that I have been doing the start-up thing for a while, I have come to some serious realizations about the realities of starting a business. One of them is to KNOW YOURSELF. Be honest with yourself, peers, co-workers and investors about your strengths and weaknesses. Particularly in a funded venture, this is critical in that you have many more stakeholders that are depending on you do great things. This is a critical thing at the earliest of stages, as it will help define the skill sets and talents that you bring into your venture first.

I would say that there are many more people out there that want to do a start-up than there are people who should. Start-ups are not for everyone, despite all of the excitement and interest they draw.

One experience that underlined this truth for me is our hiring practices at Jobster. Being a company that built referral sourcing tools for recruiters, you can imagine that we took great pride in building our company based on referrals. In doing so, I believe that we uncovered and hired some of the most elusive Seattle talent, particularly in engineering, sales and business roles. We found superstars in large companies that would be great additions to the team – both on paper and in person; they had what it took to help drive Jobster’s growth.

What we did not anticipate was the dramatic impact that a person’s workplace environment played in their success or failure on the job. Someone who was a rock star in a large enterprise environment might not have the same success in a small start-up like Jobster, unless they could quickly adapt to their surroundings.

Others found that the infrastructure of a large company provided them with a sense of security, direction and role definition that they needed to sleep soundly at night. In larger companies, you may have a team of people to execute the strategies that you define. You also may have interesting political distractions and enjoy playing Survivor at work. Not so in a start-up.

In a start-up, it is up to each person to define and stay on course, and well as shift their role quickly when needed. Every person is also expected to pick up multiple roles and wear a variety of hats, while swimming in a sea of ambiguity. For some, that environment spells opportunity, while for others, it means waking up in cold sweats at night.

KNOW YOURSELF.

The days leading up to March 25, 2004 were tense for me. After giving notice at Microsoft (a company I had no plans on leaving) two weeks earlier, I was anxious about the unknown ahead of me. Would I make it? What if Jobster did not get funding? Was I comfortable being a contractor with no commitment by Ignition and Jobster? How would it feel to not be an employee anymore? These were all of the things that rang through my head as I walked into my exit interview in Building 6 on Microsoft’s Redmond Campus.

After an hour of chatting with a very attentive & sincere Microsoft HR manager, I surrendered my keycard, my badge, and my parking pass as I walked out the door. WAIT… The world did not implode as I secretly thought it would!! In fact, the world seemed to be the very same place as I walked down the path to my car. As the days/months passed working at Ignition, I realized that I was finding all the same security I had before, with one big exception: My security came not from the company that employed me, but rather from my own skills and abilities. This was an important realization that has empowered me with a great amount of professional freedom. Today, while I continue to contribute to the future of Jobster, I have confidence in myself that I can be a valuable part of any team. I think that the most successful and effective entrepreneurs have come to this realization, and are empowered to charge after their dreams without hesitation.

KNOW YOURSELF.

Thanks to the PLU MBA Class

2007-03-09T07:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking to the incoming MBA Class at Pacific Lutheran University, as part of the Executive Leadership Series. While there, I had the chance to meet MBA students from across industries and levels, which was great.

I wanted to have a more informal format, so I invited questions throughout the talk, hoping that this would steer the direction of the discussion to topics that interested the group most. We hit on some great discussion, mostly about starting a business, fundraising and building a team. Unfortunately I had prepared a number of discussion points to share, but time ran short.

As promised, I will be posting these topics on my blog over the next week or so. The areas include:
Part I: Know yourself
Part II: Push yourself to look at the larger context
Part III: Learn to Embrace change and ambiguity
Part IV: Relationships above all else
Part V: Early stage start-up advice

I will likely expand Part IV, as I understand there are many students getting involved in a business plan competition this Spring. Please let me know if there are any other topics your class might find useful.

99 business ideas to start today!!!

2007-02-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

There have been a few interesting articles over the last few months talking about the next wave of business and technology opportunities that are out there. As an idea guy (they pop in my head constantly) I love reading through these to see if they mesh/compliment stuff I think about and opportunities I see.

Years ago I would say that I considered the "idea" to be the golden nugget. If someone had a great idea for a business, that the idea itself was your advantage. I am SO FAR from that today.

Ideas are cheap, ideas are everywhere. If you think you have an unique idea- there is a slight chance that you might. Chances are, though, that someone is noodling on some similar concept.

What really sets a concept apart is having people behind the idea that are willing to dive in and take action. This is what sets an idea person apart from an entrepreneur. You have to be willing to take the risk for something you feel passionate about. I would argue that if a person cannot bring themselves to commit to their concept in some way, that they must not be as passionate about it as they think they are.

Over my three years helping start up Jobster, we have hired countless GREAT people, many who told me during interviews that they too had the idea for Jobster. My response to them was usually something like, "Why didn't you pursue it?"

In general the answers came down to:
- "I did not know how to take the next step"
- "I did not want to quit my job and give up my salary"
- "I was intimidated by the idea of going it alone"
- "I wanted job security"

These are all perfectly fine answers - everyone has their set of priorities for themselves and their families. What sets the entrepreneur apart is they acknowledge these in their analysis, but the drive & experience within powers their decision to go after it.

Map Mashup Mania

2007-02-12T09:21:00.000-08:00

This is a fun site to visit if you want to see some of the interesting things being done using maps APIs, specifically Google. I am looking for some examples using Microsoft's API as well.

The post "50 things to do with Google Maps Mashups" is pretty interesting.

I can have an iPhone too!

2007-01-31T15:48:00.000-08:00

The moment I saw the iPhone, I thought about how I could get one - but I then was torn because I have been really happy with my new Blackberry.

So here is my middleground. I am downloading right now to see what is what. I will be sure to report back.

iBerry theme from BlackBerryThemeCentral.com

ignition links to yard art blog instead of my blog

2007-01-29T14:53:00.000-08:00

Having been with Jobster from the beginning, I was really fortunate to work onsite with the Ignition team from March to July 2004. What an amazingly talented and experienced group. Even more than their experience is the sense of partnership you have as an entrepreneur with them, and their sincere desire to be a catalyst to great ideas.

I have to laugh at this, though. I was happy to see my blog was listed on Ignition's partner blog role. Someone pointed out to me that when you click on "Neil Crist's Blog," you are directed not to my blog, but to a blog about yard art... as opposed to yarddart.

If anyone links from Ignition, they probably wont think much of what I have been up to in my spare time. LOL.

another funny video from our all company event

2007-01-22T12:21:00.000-08:00

Employees having fun, referring to the past, present and future of recruiting...

Is your resume really who you are?

2007-01-22T12:10:00.000-08:00

This is the question that really describes the basis for Jobster when we started the company 3 years ago. Some folks at Jobster had fun with this notion at a company event last week.

making SMS sexy

2007-01-12T10:23:00.000-08:00

Am I impressed with the iPhone? No doubt yes. As a full package, I think it brings a fresh new approach to the mobile arena, differentiated mostly by design.

What stands out to me the most is the SMS experience. I think that phone stands to make SMS as sexy as IM, if not more. This is just the boost that text messaging needs in the 25 to 35 year old segment.

Check out this interface for text messaging... what an improvement from what users have today.

This means a lot to me because in working on the paddlespot project for nearly 2 years, I have become pretty intimate with SMS, MMS, and how this all fits together across phones. This is the first time SMS doesn't feel to me like the lowest common denominator of mobile communications...

Six hour commute home

2007-01-11T11:26:00.000-08:00

Last week's storm resulted in my worst commute experience ever. This winter I have heard tall tales on the news of people taking 5 or 10 hours to get home in the storms. Of course I was always skeptical of such stories... until now.

At about 445pm I left the office as I saw snow starting to fall. Just 20 minutes earlier, I had watched frozen rain pelt the street below. The sooner I was on the road, the better. By 5pm I had merged onto Interstate 90 near Seahawks stadium - not bad at all, making good time.

Then traffic stopped immediately at the Mt Baker tunnel, just prior to crossing Lake Washington. That was at 510pm. I would later find out that frozen rain had turned the bridge and stretches of I-90 into a skating rink, leading to a 3 hour crossing of the bridge. By this time, snow accumulattions on the East side and Issaquah were building rapidly. Another 3 hours and countless abandoned cars later, I pulled into my driveway - 11:07pm.

The next morning we woke up to 11 inches of snow.

I am having fun with geojoey

2007-01-09T13:34:00.000-08:00

While I miss seeing MarkM on a daily basis here at Jobster, I have been really interested in the what he has been working on since he left several months ago... Geojoey.com.

This site allows users to pin interesting experiences they have had on a map (thanks google!), share it with others, and even post videos. If you have a trail or path you want to record, then use an open pen function to mark your route on the map!

Everyone who knows me knows about paddlespot and my love of anything related to the outdoors... good luck Mark!

Want to check out my experiences posted there? Check out my page!

still here, more focused than ever

2007-01-08T08:42:00.000-08:00

By now, it is already known that Jobster has reorganized in 2007. Many of the reasons that I have not sat down to post anything on my blog are related to how "heads down" we have been over these past months.

Since "d-day" as many of the employees called it, I have been working frantically to endorse and recommend those that have moved on - all top notch. Although this process was an extremely painful and personal process (a company built via referrals), those of us still here are starting to heal and get re-focused on 2007.

What do I think about Jobster in 2007? I posted a comment to Jason's blog over the holiday if you're curious. To give you some context for the opening line, the holiday brought us a large volume of very personal attacks on our CEO over rumors...

I suppose if you are surfing for juicy comments slamming Jason, or looking for someone to valiantly defend him from masked stone throwers, then you should skip on to the next comment... I want to talk about Jobster in the New Year.
About this time 3 years ago, I connected with Jason Goldberg, and he pitched me on joining a new venture he called Jobster. Not too long after, I left a job I loved at Microsoft to join as the first team member- for two simple reasons: First, as a hiring manager myself, I felt the pain that drove the inspiration for Jobster. Secondly, some of the smartest folks in the industry were behind Jason's idea. They believed he was onto something- I could not pass up the opportunity to work with people of this caliber.
Now, fast forward to the end of 2006. The very same reasons I joined Jobster remain true today - and we have been busy. We have assembled the highest concentration of talented people I have ever worked with. We have been working hard to begin to fill the demands of employers and jobseekers, who are asking for something new. Our customer & sales numbers continue to prove to me that the demand & need in this industry are VERY REAL. That said, there is still a lot of work to do.
I believe that these past 3 years have given us a huge amount of information & data about our customers, this industry, and the vast opportunities that exist. The more we learn, the more we will likely adjust to meet those opportunities - that is our responsibility.
Someone very wise once told me that if you take a bunch of really smart and passionate people and get them together to work on tough problems, that special things can happen. From my perspective, that is what Jobster is today and will continue to be in 2007.
Happy New Year to everyone.

Recruiting.com adds to Jobster

2006-06-21T11:18:00.000-07:00

Ever since helping found Jobster in early 2004, I have been drawn to the industry thought leaders, mostly who I have sought out via the blogosphere. Of course, we have a great industry mind in our own Jason Goldberg and Dave Lefkow. Jason Davis at Recruiting.com was one of the first blogs on recruiting that I started following regularly. It actually got me thinking about a blog for myself.

Not surprisingly, Jason was also one of the first blogs we talked to about job feeds and allowing blogs to create their own feeds to put on their sites. He was full of passion and excitement about how it could work. He also has had a multitude of innovative ideas about projects that we should consider taking on.

As of this month, Recruiting.com is part of Jobster, which is an exciting proposition. Now we have a great industry voice & community that is powered and supported by Jobster, but will largely remain the same force it is today. Our goal is to give Jason more resources, leverage, and reach in his efforts to bring together all of the best recruiting content to his readers on a daily basis.

Welcome Jason, the pleasure is all ours.

the best of intentions

2006-06-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

About 3 weeks ago I had a great idea for my project paddlespot. Why not leverage Google RSS feeds on our website and combine it with our river level database?

The experience was simple, when readers came to our website they would see that latest web content about rivers, and next to it they would see the current flow, maybe a chart, and most importantly the SMS code to retrieve the flow on your mobile phone using paddlespot.

So I built a prototype...with the best of intentions.

One flaw in my analysis. Little did I realize that a large % of the news and content that comes up on the web regarding "rivers" unfortunately has to do with drownings and dead bodies being found...

ugh.

welcome Jobby team to Jobster

2006-05-31T11:55:00.000-07:00

In classic Jobster fashion, we have found a great addition of people, technology and just plain smarts in an Alaska based company call Jobby.

Welcome to the team, I look forward to working with Tony and Brian both.

Speaking at PLU

2006-05-12T00:30:00.000-07:00

I had a great opportunity to speak with business student leaders at Pacific Lutheran University tonight. What a great bunch of kids. I really enjoyed reflecting on the past and pulling out some of what I have learned- hopefully it was helpful to them.

Tonight I realized that I need to get more involved with students. Washington Business Week, here I come.

point...click...bling with Typepad

2006-04-03T09:46:00.000-07:00

last week typepad launched blog widgets to their bloggers. widgets are a cool way to add features to your blog. These could be things like games, photoviewers, or - HEY, look at that, Jobs!

Not only can you add a search widget, but also a listing of jobs from the jobster network based on keywords that you specify. This is really powerful for someone to shows jobs that are relevant to the content of their blog or website.

my hobby: paddlespot

2006-03-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

It is no secret my excitement about the mobility space. There is so much going on in the industry, however so much misses the mark.

Introducing a project my buddy and I do in our "spare time," that is focused on highly valuable & useful information that outdoor enthusiasts need on the go... Paddlespot is our first stab at it.

A core principle we are committed to (in addition to being free for everyone always) is we will not economically discriminate by requiring people to buy crazy expensive phones to use our services. Just simple text messaging.

congrats to a friend

2006-03-22T21:33:00.000-08:00

My former neighbor and good friend, officially launched his company, Retail Entertainment Design yesterday.

With a year of work under their belt, his team has landed some big name, national clients. They are building a smart business.

Read Brian's blog for the inside scoop on what they are up to.

Go Brian!

client innovation...

2006-01-27T13:21:00.000-08:00

So as of today I have a new role & title: Director of Client Innovation. I am super excited about the role, because it is made up of all the things I LOVE to do, and do naturally with customers.

Some cool stuff I am working on right now that you'll likely hear about:
- Diversity Connections Website for Starbucks
- Microsoft Talent Outreach (will add link soon)
- Re-engineering Samsung's ERP
- Engaging Nike's Internal Affinity & Diversity Organizations

If I have a moment I will post our current vision for the Jobster powered ERP site...

5-minute Jobbing Event

2005-11-28T14:46:00.000-08:00

I am working with 4 local seattle tech start-ups that are banding together to try a new way of recruiting. I will post the RSVP link when it is ready... but this should wet your appetite.

jobster groups launches today

2005-11-21T11:31:00.000-08:00

today is a big day for me. today our team will release jobster groups, which will allow the first "professional to professional" networking functionality on jobster. there is definitely more to come in this area, thanks to the addition of a dedicated consumer pm a few weeks ago.

from the beginning of jobster, i have been super passionate about this piece of the networking puzzle.

i am just now completing the creation of a plu alumni jobs group and inviting about 6000 alumns from my directory. this will be a valuable tool for alumns to locate and network their way to positions at leading companies.

I'm back, renewed and ready

2005-10-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a 2 week vacation that coincided with the birth of my son, Carson. Two weeks of family time gave me a chance to reformat & defragment the old hard drive (brain) and prepare for a great winter, driving into 2006 with Jobster Customers.

There is alot of customer momentum and break out companies that are taking advantage of the flexibility of Jobster to execute some very creative and effective recruiting/sourcing initiatives, and that is great to see. I will be posting some of these for the good of anyone interested in the coming weeks.

Landed.fm, On-Demand Internet Radio

2005-10-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

Re-published audio from our CEO's keynote at ERE last week. Also some customers talking about it: Landed.fm, On-Demand Internet Radio - The Voice of Career Success - Home

targeting diversity

2005-09-29T23:13:00.000-07:00

I have been really lucky in the past few weeks to be working with Starbucks on diversity sourcing- my customer there, Craig, is doing some very good work there.

Check out http://www.diversityconnections.com where you will find a link to join Starbuck's diversity talent network. This has only been live a short time and is creating a massive talent network of diverse professionals AND prospects for specific opportunities.

Jobster Search Unveiled in Boston today

2005-09-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

The launch of Jobster Search is happening today, which brings back similar feelings I had when we launched Jobster. http://yarddart.blogspot.com/2005/03/scene-to-remember.html.

This is another step toward driving some big change (good change) in the industry. Imagine a path of pre-qualification and verification of skills when jobseekers find your jobs on the Internet. Once pre-qualified, they become a future source for hiring and referring other great people. Using Jobster's relationship management capabilities, companies are building pipelines RIGHT NOW.

I explain Jobster Search as the employee referral program in reverse. Instead of a recruiting team initiating the process with employees, jobseekers can now initiate the process through people they know at the company. In the end, the employee continues to be a critical piece of this... they have to decide whether to vouch for the jobseeker. If they decide to, then the job seeker is forward directly to the hiring team.

our professional service is live!

2005-09-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

Kudos to our dev, test and product teams, who valiantly stayed up most of Friday night and Saturday morning to release our September bits. Now professionals who have contacts in companies can leverage their contacts to get in touch with & referred directly to hiring teams in those companies- really really powerful stuff.

CHECK IT OUT!! http://www.jobster.com

Torrefazione no longer

2005-09-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

I was really sad to find out thatTorrefazione, the Italian coffee shop that quickly gained my patronage when Jobster moved to downtown Seattle, is closing its doors today permanently.

Starbucks bought the 17 cafe chain back in 2003, and it looked like the brand was going to remain untouched for a while. The reason cited by corporate was that the chain "...failed to meet corporate goals."

My daily treat will be missed.

two things

2005-09-22T00:07:00.000-07:00

Other than the fact that my mind is consumed with a hugely important release in our company's history next week, I CANNOT shake two things out of my brain...

1) Podcasting is going somewhere fast. I have SO many questions, ideas, and concepts that apply to this new and phenomenally efficient form of distributing content to personal devices on a massive scale. I am watching closely... would love to have a hobby site that helped others learn how to take advantage of this new medium... but that is a project for another day.

2) Microsoft and recent news about them losing the war on talent. That combined with what I consider to be the most viable threat (and widely loved) Google; who is on a rampage, delivering very compelling and useful products in a very rapid & iterative model. The big question in my mind is will Google take their desktop beginnings and introduce an open source OS or Office competitor? Do they have secret teams already working on early versions of these? I know MS is watching them like a hawk competitively...

should be a historic battle with good results for consumers.

btw: I started using audio blogging on jack and carson's site. I also researched and bought some podcasting production gear to start goofing around.

jack and carson

2005-09-08T12:39:00.000-07:00

This week I decided to start breaking up the content of my blog into some distinct spaces. I think yarddart is ALL OVER THE PLACE in terms of content, so I plan to tighten it up and talk more about Jobster and industry related things.

My favorite thing to blog about right now is my son, Jackson, and about our baby boy on the way. Carson is due to join our family in the next few weeks!! Exciting, scarey and emotional... but I am ready.

A blog about two boys starts this week.

welcome back carter

2005-08-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

J and I met as housemates in college. It was funny that his jaw was wired shut for the first few weeks I knew him, but once he could talk we hit it off & have been good friends ever since. He was a year ahead of me in school, so when he graduated and took a position with a big 5 firm, he spent the next year helping me network my way to a job with them. Beyond the career stuff, we have had a blast over the years going on trips, kayaking, windsurfing or just hanging out having a cold one.

About 3 years ago, he and his wife moved to Portland so he could pursue his law degree. At the time, it was tough to see them go. I even bet him $50 that they would stay in Portland permanent.

Last week, they returned to the Puget Sound, even getting a place in our neighborhood. What fun to have such good friends back in the mix! Bobbi said I have been acting like a kid who's best friend has moved in next door. Not so far off I guess.

That reminds me- I need to stop by the ATM and get him that $50 bucks.

a little behind the ball

2005-08-23T22:53:00.000-07:00

I have known for a LONG TIME that I was missing out on something, not having an iPod. Everytime I came close to purchasing one, something else came up.

Yesterday was my 32nd birthday and my wife gave me an iPod Photo as a present. It has only been 24 hours and I am having so much fun exploring what I can do with it.

I am now subscribed to some interesting weekly podcasts that will automatically load, I have a small library of songs that I plan to grow over time.

This is truly music on my terms, and that is what makes it so compelling. I wonder if there is a recruiting product/service equivilent?? If there is, Jobster is going to find it.

looking up

2005-08-07T22:25:00.000-07:00

I think the Seattle market is heating up in terms of new ventures. I can count about 7 ventures at various stages that friends and colleagues have embarked on, of which 2 have landed some funding (the others are more early stage). This is huge!

Having weathered the downturn at Microsoft, I am very excited to see how these next few years develop. The investment community, entrepreneurs, and start-up employees are smarter, more saavy than '99. There is a solid focus on real business fundamentals- not the funny money days of searching for a revenue model while burning $1.2 mill a month -- OK WAIT, maybe I know of one firm doing that...

I am just happy to be affiliated with these people and the pursuit of their passions. Perhaps I will write about some of these ventures here... but there won't be much I can say... but there is still a lot to glean even if you do not know the industry, the opportunity, or who it is chasing it.

winning over the masses

2005-08-04T22:04:00.000-07:00

There is a wind of change that we are witnessing real time in the recruiting industry. Whether I am in Dallas at a Jobster Strategy Session with sales prospects, or meeting with the division recruiting lead of a Fortune100 client, the message is clear: "Something in this industry needs to change." The other consistent thing I hear from those same decision makers is that many companies are talking like us, even though their actual product does nothing of the kind - they see right through it.

Jobster is one of the agents of change in an industry that needs it badly- what a unique and exciting place to be. I will look back at this years from now and say remember when...

The S4 is making me rethink my A4

2005-07-26T22:28:00.000-07:00

I have been super happy with my 2003 Audi A4. In fact, it is the most enjoyable car I have had since my 67 Chevelle in high school. The same weekend I purchased the car, we found out we were pregnant with our first son, so I hesitated a little and opted out of the "S" version. Mostly this was in an effort to prove to my wife that as a father to be, that I could make reasonably mature decisions...

The S4 is haunting me each morning on my way to work. We usually meet up around Fall City, both of us creatures of habit. He usually shows me a few moves as we drop down into Issaquah, demonstrating superior accelleration. Did I say haunting??

websites of past

2005-07-25T18:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

This site allowed me to view old Internet projects of mine that are long gone. How nostalgic...

etonomy, paddlepoint, yarddart...

"D" is for dog, Da Da

2005-07-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

Twenty two months old and he starts naming letters on my shirt as I am changing his diaper... T - I - O - S - E - L - O. The "L" was particularly fun, he starts with the sound of an "A" and then rolls his tongue.

It is times like this that make me thankful that we have read more than 10 books a day to this boy religiously. He has an amazing vocabulary, about 50 to 75 words.

Still, Jackson continues to amaze me each and every day... although yesterday when he discovered the power of the word "NOW" when demanding things from his parents was a little disturbing!

He always charms his way back with a triumphant, "I DID it!" at even the smallest accomplishment.

what does it all mean?

2005-07-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

Every so often I need to take a small step back and take a deep breath. The work we are doing at Jobster is a lot of fun- we are making solid progress with customers and I am constantly amazed at this team that we have assembled. Having spent some time with our WorkZoo founders makes me realize what a GREAT addition they will make to the team. I hear Mark will be running the Jobster Search team, a perfect place for him to continue on his WorkZoo vision within the context of the larger Jobster vision.

These last few weeks we saw record PR levels for our company based on a solid combination of events. More than progress in the space, I think the coverage showed our customers, partners, competitors, and professionals in general, that

1) Jobster is for real
2) Jobster is here for the long hall, not going anywhere
3) Jobster is quick to make moves when it makes sense for customers
4) Jobster will boldly help move this industry to the next evolution

If you have a chance to hear our CEO speak in the future- take the opportunity while you can.

Welcome Workzoo to Jobster!

2005-07-12T13:10:00.000-07:00

It is official today and the company & newswire is buzzing. Great addition to our company...

in good company

2005-07-06T22:58:00.000-07:00

a few weeks back i had an entry about my buddy B and his new company that had just received funding.

How funny that our breaking news today was coupled with news about his company, who is tightly linked the PlayNetwork? He has taken his future by the horns these last months and is making it happen on every front. Good for him.

great progress, great news

2005-07-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

We are firing on all cylinders here at Jobster, poised for another Q of major feature releases to customers, signing some new companies, and showing them the Jobster vision.

Had to pinch myself today. My former boss's boss's boss joined our board today. John Conners, formerly CFO & CIO at Microsoft, has joined the Jobster team. Read more about it in Business Week.

Audio interview of our CEO

2005-06-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

Jason was interviewed recently about Jobster's place in the market- it was posted today. Have a listen http://www.landed.fm/

Welcome Colby

2005-06-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the world Colby. Your parents have been anxiously awaiting your arrival. You have many fun and exciting times ahead of you - with family, friends and your dog of course.

We can't wait to meet you in person.

get my feed on

2005-06-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

So, I just added a new feature to my blog. It is a job feed that will display the most recent 5 jobs that I have received in my job network. You will notice that over time these will change, based on the more recent jobs that are published to me by recruiters across a variety of companies and industries.

Tell me what you think of this new feature- one of our developers put this together in his spare time. Needless to say, that earned him a "get scrappy" t-shirt.

back on campus

2005-06-16T17:20:00.000-07:00

I spent some time back on the Microsoft Campus this week, working with the recruiting team. Having spent nearly 5 years there, it was surprisingly comfortable and familiar to be roaming the halls.

Also being a hiring manager at Microsoft, I am very familiar with the challenges that recruiting faces. That is what has made coming back so fun. Just so you understand, I left on really good terms- I had GREAT boss, a great team firing on all cylinders- my career trajectory was on track. In fact, I remember telling many friends that MS was my last tech job because there was no better place to be....

Well ALMOST no better place to be :-) When you then get a call from a startup backed by the legendary Microsoft Alumns like Brad Silverberg, Jon Anderson & company at Ignition Partners- you want to pay careful attention.

Anyway- glad to have them aboard as customers... btw if want to see some Jobster blog features in action, check out Heather's blog.

keep moving forward

2005-06-15T09:23:00.000-07:00

Tell me a story about a new company that, in its first quarter of a product launch, is hitting it's revenue targets... Do any come to mind?

How about Jobster?!? Yahoo News on Jobster, June 8th

Week of relaxation in the sun (and rain)

2005-06-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

After nearly 2 years of "start-up vacations;" you know, where you take your laptop and have at least 2 hours of conference calls booked per day, I promised my family and myself that Kauai would be different- and it was.

Complete and utter disconnection from daily work was relaxing. I did, however, think about work in a broader sense, but it was more reflective in tone.

- I thought about the day I packed up my office of almost 5 years at Microsoft to join a company and wasn't really a company yet.
- I thought about my newborn son and wanting to show him to follow your gut when it feels right (not sure he will understand for a few more years though...)
- I thought about the countless meetings (in borrowed offices, no less) pouring over our product plan, or customer data, and formulating a compelling customer experience and the "guts" of our business plan.

Then I fast forward more than a year, 50 employees, 10,000 sq feet of Pioneer Square loft space, 80+ customers using, and the nearly tens of thousands of professionals that have been involved in Jobster campaigns. Wow.

No matter what anyone here at Jobster says, it has been a sprint nearly the entire time, but no doubt exhilarating at the same time. Have we got it all right every time? No, but we don't let that fact get in the way; rather we course correct quickly, validate with customers, and move on to the next big improvement on our evolving roadmap.

Go Jobster go.

no compromises

2005-05-26T22:39:00.000-07:00

As I step away for a week to spend with my extended family in Hawaii, I am reminded that Jobster is the experience that I will talk about for years and years to come. We are not here to fit into a square hole that has been pre-defined in the industry. There is true opportunity to blow the doors off of the norm and improve the economics of the recruiting industry; I am more optimistic than ever!

Bucking the norm takes absolute discipline on the part of our leadership; and our team of 50+ was assembled with this in mind.

Pinch me- the shift has begun.

What may not have worked, may work today

2005-05-14T11:17:00.000-07:00

A lot has changed since the go go boom that went bust. Many of the ideas and businesses that saw a flood of money in the mid to late 90s seemed great at the time. There was a model, and in most cases, at least a distant concept of how money would be made- eventually.

We have said good bye to most of these defunct businesses.

I think it makes sense to go back and re-examine a few of them. Back then, the "last mile" had not penetrated enough households. Today that is a very different story. Wireless had certainly helped broadband become a key part of anyones day at home- even remote places like my hometown of Anaconda, Montana now have broadband providers.

Maybe some of these have a prayer if rekindled?

Great news close to home

2005-05-10T23:14:00.000-07:00

Even though we just recently moved down the street in the same Snoqualmie, Washington neighborhood, I still stay in touch with my old neighbor, "B". He and I have now known each other for about 3 years- he is the National Sales Director for a B2B media distribution company.

We have the best time on the weekends talking about concepts or ideas that we have thought up over a beer or bottle of wine...

Great news that one of the concepts he was incubating locked in some angel money today (multi-million dollar deal). Now it is time to set up operations and get rolling.

Go B go.

ideas, ideas, ideas

2005-05-03T22:33:00.000-07:00

I LOVE talking about ideas. Ask anyone who has known me since high school, and they will tell you stories about ideas I was cooking up back then. Into college and the Army, I incubated ideas, built the young entrepreneurship organization at PLU, and spent countless hours preparing for business plan competitions.

Tonight my sister ran a brilliant business idea by me as we sat after dinner, visiting. Brilliantly simple, and a perfect match for her. Immediately my juices were flowing; mind racing through the possibilities. I also found myself steering conversation back to her idea even as it naturally moved on to other subjects.

I am a lucky person in that we at Jobster are now defining the next versions of the service, and I am playing a part in that. Having spent so much time focusing on other parts of the business while our development team built version 1, I nearly forgot how much fun this is.

George Carlan?!?!

2005-04-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

Thomas & Friends has been forever tainted for me. Of all the people in the world that are narrating the stories, George Carlan. Why does it seem reasonable that one of the most profane comedians I know of is also reading stories to small children?!? THAT BUGS ME!!

I may have to slowly move Jack away from Thomas given this new information...

another amazing day with my son

2005-04-25T08:23:00.000-07:00

Jackson loves books. At the earliest of ages, we would read him 3 or 4 books in the morning, a book or two when I got home from work, and of course the marathon book reading session just before bedtime.

It has also been fun to watch the progression of the books he loves. At first, books like Red Hat, Green Hat were fun for him; he giggled with each punch line of "Oops!" Now we are reading books with more complex storylines, like Thomas the Train and Winnie the Pooh; he just soaks it up.

The reason for reading to kids from infancy came into clear focus this weekend. As Bobbi and I were making dinner, we overheard Jackson talking. He was standing, using the couch as a book stand, reading Thomas the Train to himself. Can you believe it??

What great fun this is...

New Project

2005-04-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

One reality exists for most all of our customers to date:
If you use Jobster as we recommend, you will find success.

Another reality also exists:
New technologies take time to be adopted and every customer has a different path & speed of acceptance.
I have a new mission at Jobster for the next 60-90 days.. I have been tasked, with 2 other colleagues, to assess this speed & path of acceptance and figure out how to help companies roll Jobster out to their organizations in a more seamless & effective way.

The goal of this is to get all of our customers successful - and I am all about that!

the flu is running amuck at Jobster

2005-04-15T10:48:00.000-07:00

Most of our company is out of the office today with the flu. Unfortunately when you have so many driven individuals who refuse to let a little sickness stop them from coming to work, you end up with an office-wide epidemic.

Somehow I am still standing, which is funny- I am usually the first to go.

I am doing some covert analysis to figure out who is "patient zero," just for fun.

data'ster

2005-04-13T17:44:00.000-07:00

It is really fascinating to watch the rollout and adoption of new technology in the marketplace. I have the luxury of being on the front lines facing customers. We are continually looking at our customers at both an account and user level, collecting metrics-metrics-metrics, tracking usage, understanding behaviors, and constantly iterating and improving our approach. It is working, but I have to say that helping recruiting organizations make the strategic shift away from inbox recruiting to a more proactive Jobster approach is challenging at times.

Once they see the value, though, it is clear that they cannot get enough!

I am on the front lines because I want to be... I cannot say there is as much glory here as in Product Marketing or Product Management- but I need to be here. I need to follow this through. Being the one who interviewed countless star recruiters to help understand what the first version of Jobster should be over the last year, I feel like i need to be right there with the recruiters when they first log in.

No matter what titles or organizations may exist or are tbd at Jobster, I will remain a focused customer advocate to the rest of the team.

this is why I do it

2005-04-12T10:26:00.000-07:00

These two, Bobbi & Jackson, are why I am here, doing the work that I do.

At 6 months of age, Jackson actually had a profound influence on me when I decided to walk away from Microsoft & join Jobster- more on that later...

dirt is good

2005-04-03T09:52:00.000-07:00

This morning we took advantage the dry morning and went for a walk. My mom always comments about how as a kid and even now I am a clean freak. I wouldn't even play with kids in sandboxes because it was dirty. Well, I am doing my best to make sure Jackson knows that getting dirty can be fun...

April fools

2005-04-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

I have good friends at Microsoft. Not only did I spend 4 exciting years tooling the sales & marketing teams with systems to help them execute on their quarterly sales goals, I also made some great friends. Part of being a great friend is supporting a decision they have made even when you are skeptical.

Two of my closest friends from Microsoft, both former bosses there, we're very supportive when I was contemplating leaving. I knew that they were highly skeptical of such a move, but yet understood how a career move to an early start-up was important to me.

So, on Friday, I played a little joke on them. I left a voicemail with Brett, now a senior director in World Wide Marketing, telling him I have been let go from Jobster. Then, I had a mutual friend, a group manager in Microsoft's US Subsidiary, email him: "...I just talked to Neil and he is in pieces... what are we going to do??"

Within minutes, I noticed that Brett had signed into instant messenger and asked me, "Are you okay?" In the time since I had left him a voicemail, he had already lined up some opportunities in his organization for me to investigate. As soon as he told me this, I HAD TO FESS UP!!

I felt very badly that he had gone through the trouble of doing this so immediately. But I have to admit, though, that it felt pretty good to know that I have friends & colleagues like this.

Now, if I could just convince Brett to join Jobster ;-)

Jobster Launch Video

2005-04-02T22:09:00.000-08:00

The video from our launch event on March 30th is now up on the web for anyone to view at their leisure. Click here.

Year 1 at Jobster: what I've learned about building a company from scratch

2005-04-01T12:30:00.000-08:00

Exactly one year ago today, I started as the first employee of Jobster. Although I was the first hire, Marty and I started together on April 1st. I remember the day pretty clearly.

Had you told me that one year later we would be 42 employees and just days passed the wildly successful commercial launch of our service and staring at a tidal wave of F1000 demand, I would not have believed it. There goes Jobster again, exceeding even my most optimistic expectations.

Here are just a few of things that I have observed- things I think have distinguished the Jobster story and kept us on track:

There are no sacred cows. Always be willing to re-evaluate your plans, assertions, and strategies based on customer learning. Taking a business concept and iterating it over and over leaves room for "over iterated," a.k.a. loosing touch with the fundamentals of the opportunity at hand. Pride, ego, or the love of one's own ideas cannot get in the way of developing a sound business idea. Be okay with the fact that your business concept may iterate to a point of not being recognizable from its source.
Implement forcing functions. There are times when a team can get caught in quick sand and not seem to make much progress for a while. It may be a standstill in good ideas, it may be the discovery of a show stopping issue, etc. There are a lot of reasons for the onset of quick sand. A forcing function provides a milestone or deliverable that a team can coalesce around and focus on. Our CEO has been a master of forcing functions on a variety of occasions- maybe I will tell you a story about one some time...
Ideas are cheap, people are EVERYTHING. Jobster the concept and Jobster the company was built on this notion. Being in touch with entrepreneurship and the venture scene since the beginning of my career, I have come across many great ideas. In fact, I have stared at what I considered to be great ideas that were huge opportunities. Ultimately though, great ideas are nothing without great people to develop and execute the business plan. I think most opportunities are not beholden to just the first mover, but to the mover who has experience on their side.

I will add more later... I have to get back to work!

news blast

2005-03-30T11:54:00.000-08:00

Buzz is building... news links below:

a scene to remember

2005-03-30T11:23:00.000-08:00

This morning most of our 42 employees huddled together in our Pioneer Square offices (Seattle) to watch the webcast of our commercial launch in San Diego. Our CEO, VP of Marketing, and VP of Sales introduced Jobster to the industry with a lot of excitement.

We all sat and watched our company leaders forge us as an agent of change in the industry today. We watched them introduce our passion of the last year- to create a new service that will reinvent how Internet recruiting should work. It was pretty flipping cool to look at the faces of each Jobster employee as they saw their part of the service mentioned- PRIDE, EXCITEMENT, OPTIMISM.

Being the first employee of the company, this was extra special to me. I joined this company with nothing but a ppt deck and an impressive entrepreneur- now CEO, Jason Goldberg. Every hire, every milestone we have achieved has been personal for me. I took such a leap because I had faith in Jason's story- as a hiring manager at Microsoft, I also believed in the industry gaps, and was convinced there had to be another way. That better way is now...

The most powerful thing they talked about was our more than 40 enterprise customers already using the service. Not only that, this message was driven home masterfully by video testimonials from Boeing, T-Mobile, and Expedia- and also an in-person visit from Sean Huurman of BearingPoint- all talking about how Jobster is changing their recruiting landscape for the better. Sean talked about actual results that the company is experiencing with their first campaigns.

Jobster is for real, and this industry will never be the same. I will post the recorded webcast when it is ready.

what is the deal?

2005-03-23T21:40:00.000-08:00

when I first signed up with Netflix so long ago, I thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread. Our entire neighborhood in Snoqualmie Ridge had Netflix and the subscriber base was growing exponentially. I didn;t buy stock, but as I watched it grow 10 fold & more, I wished that I had.

One thing that I CANNOT understand is how it took Blockbuster nearly 2 years to respond to Netflix competitively?? It seems that it is too little too late.

goal realized

2005-03-23T19:36:00.000-08:00

Doing the start-up thing has had a few short-term negative effects on my personal life. Aside from missing time at home, I have also found that I go longer in between catching up with my pals. One of my pals is Poppe. He and his wife Jenn live in Kirkland with their beautiful 2 year old daughter, Natalie.

Tonight we spoke on the phone, after nearly 3 months. He had some great news- he was promoted to an 8 state territory sales manager for his franchise finance organization. His team is one of only a handful of financiers in the United States that back franchise chains like Quiznos, Applebees and the like. Great great news for him and his family.

More than anyone else in our circle of friends, Poppe has been chasing his career goal with maniacal focus for nearly 7 years. I remember driving up the Green River valley on our way to go kayaking and he was talking about the role he was working toward. That was before I graduated from college (he was a year ahead of me).

He may not say it, but it may have been frustrating to see some of us in technology industry move up quickly- continually adding a new job title to our resume and often changing jobs more frequently than most would be comfortable with. Unlike high tech, the finance world has a very structured career path; you put in your time in the trenches for a long time. For those that do their time, the payoff is big for them and their career, and can surpass the level of any tech person with the same time in service. Poppe is living that now.

Good on ya Poppe, good on ya.

true customer centricity

2005-03-23T17:35:00.000-08:00

I have had the pleasure of working for a handful of companies over the course of my career, all of which at some level claimed to be "connected" to their customer. What I also know is that unfortunately the louder a company shouts about being customer centric, usually the less they really are.

Customer centricity is not the VP or CEO visiting a customer's management team or taking them out to lunch on occasion - although that can be part of it. I also think that true customer centricity is REALLY, REALLY hard to implement from the top down. It can and has been done, but it can oftentimes feel very superficial and "fake" from the customer's perspective.

Jobster has this one right so far. We continue to learn how to do this better. Here are some reasons why I think we are on track:

Our roots. The Jobster story started with recruiters and leaders in the recruiting industry. While in the concept stage, our CEO Jason Goldberg spent a lot of time understanding the gaps that existed in the industry from people that were living it. As we grew and began to define a sourcing solution, we spent months upon months sitting with recruiters at their desks and living their day with them. My job was to work with recruiters every day as we defined and refined our ideas.
Our service. Still working with customers today, I often say that Jobster was built for recruiters, by recruiters- and I believe that firmly. If we ever showed a prototype to a recruiter or recruiter manager and saw blank stares, we took it to heart and went back to the drawing board. When you look at recruiters in the industry that are great networkers, the Jobster service was architected to help ALL recruiters reach that level.
Our track record. Since late Sept 2004, some version of Jobster has been in use by customers and partners. In that time, feedback has poured into our team about how to make the service better. As the person who passed that feedback to the product team, I can say that all of the most important feedback will be introduced in version 1. We don't say we listen to customers, WE JUST DO IT.
Our people. We have had the luxury of hiring the best and the brightest in the Seattle area. Part of it was based on our buzz. Part of it was based on our customer traction. A lot was based on the story. The bottom line is that we have hired and continue to hire people that are passionate about doing the right thing and making sure we delight customers with our service. Everyone here takes it personally when a bug is found. This team cares- top to bottom.

just finished the letter last night

2005-03-22T11:04:00.000-08:00

Finally finished & sent the letter of rec for Griffith today. I wish him well.

always been that type of person

2005-03-20T16:17:00.000-08:00

Ever since I can remember, I have loved making lists and checking off things as I complete them. There is some great feeling of accomplishment that comes with it.

Yesterday and today, I spent most of my time installing 2 closet organizers, a pantry organizer, a under sink pull out system, and a permanent baby gate. What a great feeling!

the reflection of a week

2005-03-19T20:15:00.000-08:00

This week was unlike most in my recent memory. While my 18 month old son continues to amaze Bobbi and I will his daily advances & discoveries, it was also a week when she was as sick as I have ever seen her. The first 13 weeks of pregnancy are rumored to be tough, but this took the cake for me. I spent most of my time home - writing off a work week for all intents and purposes.

It was also a tough week because as my time and focus was required at home, the collective time and focus of my company was rallying toward a goal of launching our service commercially. It is hard to watch the company go one way and you go the other, especially after being such an integral part of every step up until now.

It is only short-term- my family needs me now and they come first. I will get back in it when the coast is clear.