Jeff Bezos, chief executive officer and founder of Amazon, is a proponent of a Japanese philosophy called kaizen — which loosely translated means continuous improvement. As part of this belief, he has been working alongside folks at his company’s distribution centers in Lexington, Ky., perhaps to find out what else can he do to make Amazon better. This news was widely covered in blogs. What caught my eye was the comments in response to Saul Hansell’s piece in The New York Times blog.

Some of them pointed out the difference between Bezos and Bailout CEOs, who are good at offering excuses. Or others, like Auto Industry executives, who are often compared to lazy, brainless lumps. As someone points out, the bailout money is going to companies that are big, not necessarily the best. The best companies wouldn’t need to be bailed out because they would be good at what they do. Part of running a good company is knowing how each little part works and recognizing the importance of every person who contributes to the effort. Bezos clearly gets that. The bailout CEOs don’t.

Photo courtesy of Etech via Flickr

Ed Mallen, President and CEO, TimeDriver

One of the key sales criteria in the enterprise application space -– and one of the greatest development challenges -– is the ability to scale. At TimeTrade Systems we have met that challenge, creating a successful business selling SaaS-based applications that enable very large organizations and businesses to schedule and manage millions of appointments.

So, when we saw an opportunity to leverage our technology and deep scheduling knowledge to help individual web workers, it was a no-brainer. From a development standpoint, we’d already solved the scalability problem, and we felt designing a web-based personal appointment scheduler should be easy – and tailor-made for viral distribution. Through the process of designing, supporting and marketing TimeDriver, a Web-enabled personal scheduling solution, we’ve learned some interesting lessons. Here are our recommendations for any company looking at similar opportunities for growth. Continue »

At South by Southwest Interactive today, panelists from the Bay Area; Madison, Wisc.; Beijing; and Austin, Texas, debated the value of building your startup in the Valley, and the corrupting influence of venture capital on technology startups. The panel came to the conclusion that, if you want to build big and build fast, then you need to go to the Valley. However, few companies need to build big and fast. Continue »

This Innovation Heat Map crafted by McKinsey and the World Economic Forum maps innovation across the planet. Clearly Silicon Valley is in a class of its own and perhaps that is why others want to imitate its success. Paul Graham recently offered up a recipe to replicate Silicon Valley, but even with that I am not sure anyone can pull it off. Why? Because, there are so many intangibles that cannot be quantified and replicated outside of Silicon Valley.

Nowhere else on the planet you will find a grown man who is crazy enough to fund a web site that essentially shows cat videos and expects his investment to pay off big time. YouTube, anyone!? Nowhere but in Silicon Valley is it OK to fail. More importantly, nowhere on the planet can you actually find a place to think as “freely” as Silicon Valley. I speak from personal experience, and you might disagree. I think Silicon Valley is un-replicable.

Two-thousand eight will be remembered as a watershed year for many reasons, but two are of special interest to the startup community: the meltdown in the financial markets and the emergence of cloud computing.  Tighter capital means investors will be more cautious, and startups can expect lower valuations. However, the growth of cloud computing provides a possible opportunity for both investors and startups: cheap and easy experimentation. Continue »

We’ve read a few articles lately claiming that survival is not a strategy. The arguments in Anand Rajaraman’s article on GigaOM last month are sound, and if we understand them correctly include not prolonging a business that will never likely “win” or be healthy or have an exit resulting in wealth creation for the shareholders. It’s hard, or more appropriately put, impossible to argue with that logic. A quick death of a company that would otherwise die is a good thing for shareholders and employees.

That said, we think it is very hard in these times to look into a crystal ball and figure out if your company will survive beyond the current economic downturn. If you were growing aggressively before the downturn and are either moving sideways or down slightly, then there is a good chance that you can continue to grow once the economy turns around. If you have such a company (rapid growth followed by flat to down coincident with the economic downturn), then investing your capital in additional growth might be suicidal.

Surviving the economic downturn is a requirement for you to grow after the economic downturn. Capital, including both debt and equity, is not likely to be easy to come by for some time and even if you can get it, it will come at a premium (debt) or discount (equity) to what you would like to have in a more nurturing economic environment. As such, creating a “healthy” business defined by positive cash flow is paramount to survival. Being able to live off what you kill and grow for the coming months will ensure that you have a chance to thrive in the next economic boom. Moreover, you may exit the downturn with fewer competitors and a better opportunity for the “home run.”

Here are our recommendations on what you can do NOW to survive and thrive. Continue »

Finding the right business partner is probably the most important business decision you can make. Do it wrong and life is miserable. Do it right and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In my first technology startup, I found a great partner while getting my MBA. He handled the technology, and I handled the business (fundraising, hiring, board and investor management, etc.). It worked out well — so well that we ended up getting married and now have two kids (human ventures)! We’re 7 years into marriage, so we’ll see how that turns out.

I’ve been going at it mostly alone in my current business, Babble Soft, with sideline help from my husband. And, although I’d made progress, it was tough and tiring. I didn’t have someone I could bounce around ideas with. I needed a partner. I found my first business partner in business school, so how would I find a partner working from my home office? How could I find someone who shared the same vision I did: to help new parents navigate the world of parenting in a digital age? I ended up finding her — where else? — online. Continue »