Have your Ark Ready

As I was reading one of my favorite business/leadership books, The Bible (seriously, you’d be amazed how much relevant and insightful stuff there is for entrepreneurs), the story of Noah struck me as particularly relevant today.

There is no shortage of articles out there today about what Millennials are looking for in work/life, so let me summarize it for you: they want to do stuff that matters. This statistic from a CNN Money article is pretty telling: “A full 60% of 2015 grads — and 69% of 2013 and 2014 grads, who were also surveyed — said they’d rather work for a company that has a “positive social atmosphere” even if it means lower pay.”

Running a Tech Company without the Tech

My job is to help entrepreneurs.  The majority of businesses I encounter have technology-based solutions in the form of a consumer app or SaaS (software as a service) product.  It’s not surprising that we see a lot of founders of tech startups given the media attention and big payoffs. What is surprising is the number of founders that aren’t technology people.  This led me to ask the question, what’s it like to run a tech company without the tech? In the context of this article I consider tech to be a team member with developer skills that includes coding and infrastructure knowledge.  Instead of pulling solely from my own experiences, I decided to reach out to a few entrepreneurs to get their thoughts.  Here’s what I learned:

“How do I find good tech for my team?” You can never start looking early enough for tech on your team.  It can be a lengthy process that involves a lot of networking, referrals, dead ends and reboots. The difficulty is finding someone who has the skills, reputation and equal or greater passion for your business.  Amanda Kranias (Hello Parent) highly recommends, “talk to other companies/teams and listen to what others experienced using the developer.”  Casey Williams (Linkedü) offers another opinion, “I got burned by hiring someone based on a recommendation.  The two developers I’ve hired from within my own network have worked out well.”  Moral: You need to do your homework, meet a lot of people, trust your gut and move on when it doesn’t work out.

When Bee Met Evan and “Loyalty Capital”

Meet Bee Roll, entrepreneur, founder and owner of Beezy’s Café, a small, growing and community-oriented business in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Now meet Evan Malter, entrepreneur, founder and CEO of ZipCap, an innovative San Diego-based lender of low-interest loans to small, growing and community-oriented business owners that are financed by the customers who choose to patronize those businesses.

This emphasis on local businesses is reflected in the fact that ZipCap is actually the abbreviated version of the company’s more formal name, Zip Code Capital, Inc.

Bee and Evan met when she wanted to expand Beezy’s by offering more products and services to her customers and her community yet couldn’t secure a loan from traditional banks because she didn’t have sufficient collateral. Evan’s business model, based on the concept of what he calls “loyalty capital,” seemed to be an ideal fit for both of them.

Patience and Perseverance Still Matters

A few weeks ago, I was fortunate to cross paths with an older, delightfully engaging woman while having my car serviced.  As we were conversing, I sensed a major event was about to happen in her life.  Since 1996, she had been driving the same small, four door sedan. She claimed to have logged 245,000 miles on it. “It has been my goal for years to purchase a brand new, beautiful automobile.   I have been saving and investing a few dollars every month for the last 15 years.  Every month was a challenge.  I am now about to drive away in my brand new car.”  With a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye, she shared, “This is one of the most important days of my life.”   Her pride and sense of self-worth was overwhelming.  She had come to the end of a seemingly endless journey with numerous detours and had achieved what she set out to accomplish.  The victory was hers – completing the journey by driving away in a new car.