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I spent some time at North American Headquarters waiting for AT&T to install our DSL. The picture to the right shows my office -- you can see my chair, desk, and filing cabinet.
Because of the surprise installation appointment, we also got started on demolition a little early. To the left you can see what's left of the kitchen.
We weren't entirely unprepared, however.
More shots once construction beings
Almost every blog I read has linked to Marc Andreessen's Why Not To Do A Startup post. After reading it twice and thinking about it for most of the day I've decided that it's the best I've ever read on the subject of startups.
One of the things that I feel is missing from the post, however, is this rarely discussed fact:
Founders fight . . . a lot.
I would be shocked to find an exception to this rule. Starting a company takes a certain amount of ego: you are, in effect, saying, "I can do something better than anyone else". That's the reason that you're going to market, right? When you have multiple founders, you're essentially creating an egotistical powder keg by putting a couple (or several) of those egos into a confined space.
This is one of the reasons that having a partner you trust is so critical. You need to be able to fight and trust that no matter what happens, things will be okay. If that's not the case and a severe fight with hurt feelings and bruised egos has the potential to shut you down, then you'll avoid fighting. If you don't fight, it's probably an indication that not everything is getting said. This will cause your product to suffer, which means your company will suffer.
So go ahead and throw down, just make sure that it's with someone you trust and respect.
Finally, a job where I get a parking space!
(click any image for a larger version)
The picture to the left is the inside of our new North American Headquarters . . . aka, "the warehouse". The space is large (3500 sqft), raw, and pregnant with possibility. 
The picture to the right shows the "kitchen". Legend has it that the previous tenant made slushy mix in there. Personally, I hope not because it's kind of disgusting. 
You can see the inside of this part of the space in the picture on the left. The plan is for us to get a dumpster (delivery scheduled for Thursday) and tear the roof off the sucker -- literally. Once the ceiling is gone and everything else is removed from inside, we'll put a new ceiling on, put FRP on the walls, move some fixtures to suit us, 
and then coat the floor with a special kitchen floor sealant. That 400 square foot box will become the lab where we finish up recipe development and will then be our first commissary.
The other side of the building houses the corporate office (seen through the kitchen window here on the left). At first I had some misgivings about how small it is, but after firing up the air conditioner and dropping the temperature from 94 to 74 in 10 minutes I realized that compactness has some advantages.
More pictures later in the week as demolition begins.
Maybe its an old pattern we've just been paying attention to lately? Aghhh... Hyperbole -- or the "art of the fish story". This weekend I though quite a bit about why I enjoy this useful language tool so much. Its like my DeWalt Screw Gun -- when not sure what tool to grab -- grab it. It rarely disappoints!
However, I think hyperbole is a useful tool beyond exaggeration for entertainment sake (my usual use for it). If in doubt by what I mean, what your favorite comic -- Hyperbole is the essence of most skits. Hyperbole allows one to exaggerate details in a manner that crystallizes and idea or concept into its essential form. When its used well, it allows someone to walk away with a crisp idea -- because you have raised the idea above the norm -- thrown away its banality and pushed it near its ideal representation.
Hyperbole is also useful for setting future way points. Maybes its so far beyond where you would ever realistically go -- but we need those crisp ideals to light the way.
Push your ideas and goals to the limit. Boil them down to their essential oil and farthest out point -- try hyperbole. (At least they'll be entertaining!)
I just realized that it's been 2 weeks since I left my corporate gig to start Tribal Pizza with my partner, Webb. It's been almost that long since my last blog post as well. To me it seems like yesterday because every day we attack large, interesting, useful tasks. Big chunks of time simply fly by as we work down our lists . . . I'm guessing it's that way due to the fact that we're doing something we believe in and working on things that we truly enjoy.
Having said that, it's time for the generalized, theoretical, "applies to any business" posts to end. From here on out it's all about Tribal.
Today we're going to sign a lease on warehouse space that will give us the room to build out our first commissary kitchen. This kitchen will also have a pizza oven so that we can finish recipe development. The space is . . . uh . . . "full of potential". We looked at it last week and decided to do a 1 year as-is lease since we're not exactly sure what we need. I'll post some "before pictures" a little later. Interior construction will begin next week.
If you're starting a company, get ready to start selling. Whether you realize it or not, selling will be your #1 job for quite a while. You may think, "not to worry, I'll hire salespeople!", but that's not the type of selling you'll be involved with in the beginning.
The first type of selling will be pitching. It will probably start with pitching to potential partners/founders. If you can't convince someone to join you, you need to work on your idea, your pitch, or both. Next you'll pitch to investors. You're trying to sell them on your idea and on yourself. They need to buy into both in order to hand over their money. Next, you'll probably pitch to employees. Why would they want to work with and for you? After all that pitching, you'll finally be in a position to sell to customers.
Here's the catch: Your sales pitches for all of the above mentioned audiences have to be done before you start with the first one. After all, your partners/founders will want to know how you'll sell the idea to investors, employees, and customers. Your investors want to know how you'll sell to employees and customers. Your employees will want to know how to sell to customers. After you have your various pitches ready, there's one more to work on: the elevator pitch. This is a 30 - 60 second explanation of your idea designed to get people excited to hear more.
I recently had the opportunity to work on my elevator pitch -- literally. I had announced my departure from my current employer and lots of people wanted to know "where I was going". My office was on the 23rd floor of our building, so I had between 45 and 60 seconds to tell my story. I finally got it down to about 30 seconds and found myself getting lots of follow-up questions, even after the doors opened. That's one of the signs of a successful pitch, the last thing you want is for someone to say, "sounds nice", and then stand there silently.
If you're working on a pitch I recommend being able to answer the question, "What makes you different?" That's the #1 question I got after telling people that I was starting a new pizza chain. After you can answer that question, get it down to a 30 second answer. As a final step, throw in one example of your differentiator in use . . . the lights come on after your audience can picture your idea in action.
