What are Challenges in Building a Business With Family - J.T. Allen

In Chapter 4 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, education entrepreneur J.T. Allen answers "What Has Been Most Challenging Building a Business With Family?"  Allen shares generational challenges as well as finding separation between personal and professional.  Allen details how working with his mother has impacted how their relationship has developed over time.  J.T. Allen is the CEO and co-founder of myFootpath, a company that provides higher education online resources and call center services to help high school and adult learners choose academic programs in line with career goals.  Before myFootpath, Allen worked in strategy consulting for Ernst & Young.  He earned his BBA and graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.

Why Applying to College is About Fit and Not Rank - J.T. Allen

In Chapter 17 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, education entrepreneur J.T. Allen answers "If You Had to Apply to College Again How Would You Do It?"  Allen, a Michigan graduate, shares that he has learned college is about fit and not just ranking.  He notes that even if he didn't get into his favorite school, he would have had a great college experience.  He notes it is about focusing on who you are and presenting yourself transparently to a prospective university.  J.T. Allen is the CEO and co-founder of myFootpath, a company that provides higher education online resources and call center services to help high school and adult learners choose academic programs in line with career goals.  Before myFootpath, Allen worked in strategy consulting for Ernst & Young.  He earned his BBA and graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.

Transcription: 

Erik Michielsen:  If you had to apply to college again, how would you do it?

J.T. Allen:  That’s an interesting question because I think a lot of people look at competitive colleges and you know the hoops that everybody’s got to jump through these days and you know the favorite phrase that I hear is you know “I never would have got in to fill in the blank you know Harvard, Yale whatever,” wherever they went, right, their alma mater. I wouldn’t get into that. And you know I think what I’ve learned is that you know college really is, for many people it’s about kind of finding the fit you know. 

I mean look I’m the biggest University of Michigan fan around when it comes to college football and fantastic experience and you know wouldn’t trade it for the world.  The reality is if I didn’t get in to the University of Michigan I still would have had fun in college, it still would have been a great experience. 

So you know now when you look back at that you’re like you know you just have a different perspective on it.  You just got to know it’s going to work out and know as I think about applications and you know if there are any advice to tell people to do, really focus on who you are, right?  And if people don’t you know sort of want who you are, you don’t want them, right?  Because you’re going to have a bad experience, you know, you want to go where it’s a good fit for both sides and if you kind of have that in mind I think it makes it easier you know.  It takes the pressure off a little bit and you can just sort of focus on, “Alright, what am I all about?”

Matt Ruby on Finding Inspiration by Interviewing Peers

In Chapter 10 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, standup comedian Matt Ruby answers "Where Have You Found Inspiration Interviewing Others on Your Podcast?"  By interviewing comedians offstage on his "Sandpaper Suit" podcast, Ruby connects with artists in a more personal way.  These experiences motivate him to take a more direct and personal approach to his standup comedy work. 

Matt Ruby is a standup comedian based in New York City.  He co-produces the weekly show "Hot Soup", co-hosts the monthly show "We're All Friends Here", and manages a comedy blog "Sandpaper Suit".  Ruby graduated from Northwestern University. 

How to Make Personal Connections in a Crowded Room - Matt Ruby

In Chapter 14 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, standup comedian Matt Ruby answers "What Have You Learned About Making Better Individual Connections in Crowded Rooms?"  Ruby learns how and when to share something personal to create a more universal element to reach his audience.  Even if sharing something is not a direct match with the audience, by letting his guard down, he finds common ground with individuals in the audience. 

Matt Ruby is a standup comedian based in New York City.  He co-produces the weekly show "Hot Soup", co-hosts the monthly show "We're All Friends Here", and manages a comedy blog "Sandpaper Suit".  Ruby graduated from Northwestern University. 

How to Create Longer Lasting Comedy Material - Matt Ruby

In Chapter 15 of 18 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, standup comedian Matt Ruby answers "What are You Learning About Creating More Sustainable and Durable Comedy Material?"  Ruby prioritizes creating evergreen material that does not get old, contrasting it to temporal material that dies quickly.  As an example, Ruby notes how more personal material has a longer shelf life. 

Matt Ruby is a standup comedian based in New York City.  He co-produces the weekly show "Hot Soup", co-hosts the monthly show "We're All Friends Here", and manages a comedy blog "Sandpaper Suit".  Ruby graduated from Northwestern University. 

Managing Emotions Filming Your Reality TV Show Pilot - Hattie Elliot

In Chapter 16 of 16 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, The Grace List founder and entrepreneur Hattie Elliot answers "How Has Filming Your Own Reality TV Show Pilot Been Different Than You Thought It Would Be?"  Hattie details how she gradually learned to let go and be herself when the cameras rolled.  She credits a supportive and trusting team - agents, stylists, and the production team - for helping get her in the right frame of mind for shooting.  Elliot is the founder and CEO of The Grace List, which is redefining the dating world by creating opportunities for singles to revitalize personal interests and find intriguing people who will influence their lives.  Before founding The Grace List, Elliot worked as a social entrepreneur and business development consultant.  Elliott graduated from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where she studied economics, philosophy, and politics.

How to Develop Trust When Building Relationships - Ben Hallen

In Chapter 14 of 21 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, business school professor Ben Hallen answers "How Do You Establish Trust When Building Relationships?" Hallen notes trust develops in different ways. First, trust develops over escalating and repeating interactions. Second, trust can develop via signals where you have a reason to believer another person is credible. Third, trust can be transferred via a third party. Fourth, Hallen shares how sincerity and transparency can create trust. Hallen is an Assistant Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Management and Organization at University of Maryland. Hallen earned his PhD from Stanford University and its Stanford Technology Venture Program (STVP). He has been a startup CTO and graduated from the University of Virginia with a BS in Electrical Engineering and a Masters in Computer Science.

Joe Stump on Working With Investors as a New Entrepreneur

In Chapter 9 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur and SimpleGeo CTO Joe Stump shares his experiences learning to work with startup company investors. In his 2009 Capture Your Flag interview, Stump shared how he developed a "tell it like it is" approach. He carries this into venture capitalist and investor meetings. Surprisingly, he finds his transparent and honest approach well-received. Stump is the co-founder and CTO at SimpleGeo (www.simplegeo.com), a San Francisco-based mobile location infrastructure services company. Previously Stump was Lead Architect at Digg. He programs in PHP, Python, Django and enjoys scaling websites. He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems from Eastern Michigan University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How has your approach of telling it like it is went over with the investment crowd?  

Joe Stump:  Uh, surprisingly well, actually.  I think that the things that investors hate the most is the unknown.  They’ll talk about the more information that they have the better investment decisions that they can make.  And so I really don’t sugar coat anything, I tell them exactly what is going on and exactly how I feel like I fit in, and it’s resonated pretty well.  They know exactly what they’re getting and they know exactly where they stand on the whole thing and where I stand.  So, it’s gone over a lot better.  It’s a fine line between being overly abrasive and being honest and open.  And as long as I stray more on the open and honest and away from the abrasive, it’s gone mostly fine.

Erik Michielsen: What were you expectations going into those conversations and what has played out in reality?

Joe Stump: It’s really funny, I thought that basically a tattooed, t-shirted asshole who doesn’t filter himself coming into those offices on Sand Hill Road will basically get me thrown in jail and it’s been the direct opposite. I think what really resonates with them and I think actually terrifies them is that I’m okay with things failing because my failure is a lot better than most people’s.  

My failure is to go have a nice, cushy salary at Facebook or Netflix or something like that.  So, I don’t really care and that resonates with them but it also scares them because they know that a lot of other entrepreneurs that don’t have that possibility, particularly younger ones, the investors in part rely on the fact that if they fail that they go back to the ground floor and have to work their way up through the system.  And with me I’m like failing one rung down.  Like, it’s not a big deal.  So, I think that is good and bad for them.

Joe Stump on How CTO Improves Public Speaking and Presentation Skills

In Chapter 13 of 17 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, Internet entrepreneur and SimpleGeo Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Joe Stump shares how his public speaking and presentation skills are improving over time. As his college Interfraternity Council (IFC) president, Stump learns to overcome nervousness and butterflies. As Stump progressively becomes a thought leader, he finds value simplifying his presentation and slides. As his talks become less technical and more about future and innovation topics, including mobile location services, Stump uses more statistics to support his points. Stump is the co-founder and CTO at SimpleGeo (www.simplegeo.com), a San Francisco-based mobile location infrastructure services company. Previously Stump was Lead Architect at Digg. He programs in PHP, Python, Django and enjoys scaling websites. He earned a BBA in Computer Information Systems from Eastern Michigan University.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How has you approach to public speaking changing as you learn and grow as a though leader?

Joe Stump: I don’t get nervous anymore, obviously I’ve been speaking in front of a lot of people a lot, so that’s gotten a lot better.

Erik Michielsen: When did that stop?

Joe Stump:  Um… That actually stopped a while ago.  I did a lot of – I mean you were in B school and you know that everything is a group project and everything ends with a presentation.  And every class that I had I had group presentations or single presentations, I had to take speech in college because of business school as well and ended up on IFC as the IFC president, so I had to give like a speech in front of the whole Greek organizations on campus.  So, I think I got over a lot of that in college.  

The big thing that has changed as I’ve grown as a leader- well as I’ve attempted to grow as a leader in the tech space, is when I first started giving talks I felt that it was really important to put as much shit on a slide as humanly possible, right?  And it was literally like twelve-point font, all code, monotone, you know it looked terrible. Everybody is like “Ehhh” Everybody in the back is like, “I don’t even know what he’s talking about.”  And now if you look at my slides, they’re literally just like a funny picture background and one or two words, and that’s it.  

Everything that I talk about when I talk is off the cuff.  I don’t actually plan what I’m going to say other than I have my slides as an outline.  And the reason why I do that - a really good buddy of mine in New York, Eric Kassner, I use to when I was doing really heavy technical talks I would have him review my slides.  He’s a friendly nerd of mine.  And he was like, “Why are you putting all of this crap on slides?”  And I was like, “Well, I like to have something for them to read and I want to give them as much information as humanly possible and…”  

And he was like, “Dude.  You can bullshit about this stuff ad nauseum. You don’t need to worry about putting a bunch of crap on slides.” He’s like, “Get up there, be yourself and just talk as if you and I are having a conversation.”  That’s probably the best speaking advice that I’ve ever gotten.  And that’s – the biggest fundamental shift is I get up, I talk ad hoc, just from the cuff about what I know and what I’m passionate about and it either resonates with people or they think I’m an idiot, which is fine too.

Erik Michielsen: Now, how has that changed as you’ve talked less about tech and more about ideas and innovation?

Joe Stump:  I actually just recently learned a lesson on this one. Now that I’ve gotten away from more technical talks and getting into more of the “what does it all mean and where are we all going” kind of talks is that I use a lot more statistics and a lot more kind of metrics to get my message across.  Like one of the current things – there are a couple of things that I think are really interesting about mobile location kind of stuff.  

One is that there’s about 1.5, 1.8 billion people on Internet.  There are 5.8 billion mobile subscribers.  We have a four billion person gap that’s going to be closed – those four billion people will be on the Internet probably in the next year or two.  So, if we thought the Internet is growing quickly before, we haven’t seen anything because those mobile subscribers are just waiting for the Internet to come on to the network.  So, I use a lot of numbers to talk about that and to back that up.  

And recently a lesson that I learned from that was that I have sources for all that stuff but I don’t generally put them on slides, and I recently quoted a report from Africa that said that students in Uganda and Kenya spend fifty percent of their disposable income on mobile communications.  And this woman who was from Kenya got up and was like, “That is absolutely false!” Like she went off to me with the microphone in front of the whole thing and I’m like, “Clearly I need to cite my sources.”

When to Be a Less Controlling Manager - Dan Street

In Chapter 8 of 20 of his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, software entrepreneur and Loku founder and CEO Dan Street shares how he has adapted his management style to be less controlling. A self proclaimed "control freak", Street learns the amount of control varies between working on later stage and early stage companies. Working in private equity, Street works with later stage firms where control is welcome. As a startup entrepreneur with Borrowed Sugar, Street learns to be less controlling and call on team members to help him through the transition. Street is the founder and CEO of Loku (previously named Borrowed Sugar) which develops Internet software to strengthen local communities. Previously, Street worked in private equity at Kohlberg, Kravis, and Roberts (KKR) and management consulting at Bain & Co. He earned a BA in music and business from Rice University.

How to Manage Digital Marketing Campaign Expectations - Mike Germano

In Chapter 12 of 16 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, social media expert and Carrot Creative president Mike Germano shares what he is learning about executing on creative marketing campaigns. Building team and client trust is important to set expectations with both. As trust in the relationship and process - rather than the outcome - builds, Germano sees his company shift from a launch early, launch often approach and to a more account management centric philosophy. Germano is co-founder and president of DUMBO, Brooklyn based new media agency Carrot Creative. Before Carrot Creative, Germano ran for and was elected to public office in Connecticut. He is a graduate of Quinnipiac University.

Why to Tell Stories People Can Identify as Their Own - Michael Margolis

In Chapter 9 of 13 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with Erik Michielsen, storyteller and entrepreneur Michael Margolis shares why successful stories are sincere and worth telling.  Ultimately, it is about telling a story others can believe in and identify as their own.  Margolis is the founder and president of Get Storied (http://www.getstoried.com), an education and publishing platform dedicated to teaching the world how to think in narrative.  As a consultant, educator and writer he uses storytelling to create more effective branding, innovation and culture change.  Margolis earned a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Tufts University. 

How Social Media Transparency Increases Fan and Follower Loyalty - Mark Graham

In Chapter 6 of 19 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, pop culture writer and editor Mark Graham shares how transparent writing and blogging styles are becoming more prevalent in big media, including at Viacom where he works. Corporate media and publishing companies are realizing the value of engaging audiences as individuals. Readers and fans are progressively demanding personalized interaction on Twitter exchanges, Facebook posts, and blog comments. By showcasing the people behind the corporate responses, Graham finds companies develop closer bonds with audiences and build more loyal customer bases. He provides examples from his experiences connecting to the Twilight fan community via the VH1 show "The Fab Life." Graham is currently a senior editor at MTV Networks. Previously he worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.

How Transparency Improves Writing and Blogging - Mark Graham

In Chapter 5 of 19 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, pop culture writer and editor Mark Graham shares how his blogging and writing experience has taught him to be more transparent. Graham's online and offline personas are the same. Over time, his online personal has become the same voice as his everyday one, instead of a fictional character or persona. This allows him to better interact with his audience via exchanging feedback and comments. Graham is currently a senior editor at MTV Networks. Previously he worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.

How Owning Your Business Changes How Decisions Are Made - Jason Anello

In Chapter 12 of 15 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, entrepreneur, creative director, and experience marketer Jason Anello highlights how decision and communication processes change when fully committing to start a business. Anello contrasts his partner driven approach to how he made decisions in corporate environments and also working on part-time side projects. Anello is the co-founder of non-traditional marketing agency Manifold Partners - www.wearemanifold.com . He is the co-founder of Brooklyn-based supper club Forking Tasty - www.forkingtasty.com . Previously he held creative leadership positions as an Ideologist at Yahoo's Buzz Marketing team and as an associate creative director at Ogilvy & Mather - www.ogilvy.com . Anello is an alumnus of the University at Albany - www.albany.edu .

Why Respect Matters to Small Business Success - Phil McKenzie

In Chapter 3 of 12 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, media and publishing entrepreneur Phil McKenzie shares why respect matters in a small business environment. McKenzie notes relationships cannot work unless mutual respect exists across parties. He draws comparison to corporate organizational charts and their purpose to systematically define success. In entrepreneurial environments, McKenzie also believes structure is critical and works with partners to define roles and responsibilities in a way that are mindful, transparent, and sincere. The result is greater trust across the team and improved performance. Phil McKenzie graduated from Howard University and earned an MBA from the Duke University Fuqua School of Business. Before starting FREE DMC and the Influencer Conference, McKenzie worked for eight years in sales and trading at Goldman Sachs.

What Separates a Good Job Candidate from a Great One - James McCormick

In Chapter 12 of 12 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, legal career advisor James McCormick details what separates a good job candidate from an outstanding one. He highlights the cultural and personal fit that complement individual goals and job responsibilities. McCormick highlights one company's outstanding candidate may be another company's less than optimal one. James McCormick is a Vice President at Empire Search Partners - http://www.empiresearchpartners.com - in New York City. Before transitioning into legal career advisory services, McCormick practiced law as an employee benefits and executive compensation attorney for both Proskauer Rose - http://www.proskauer.com- and Jones Day - http://www.jonesday.com . He holds a JD from Tulane University Law School - http://www.law.tulane.edu - and a BA in History from the University of Michigan - http://www.umich.edu .

How to Do Business in a Non-Business Setting - Josep Oriol

In Chapter 6 of 11 in his 2010 interview with Capture Your Flag host Erik Michielsen, East African venture capitalist and conservation investor Josep Oriol shares his approach to doing business around non-business professionals. Oriol finds it key to identify what matters to the local population, including respecting their time, energy, and passion, as well as to be sensitive when using business language. By taking this approach, Oriol builds business relationships with initially hesitant non-business people.