FLY ON THE WALL

First off I have to apologize there was no post for Week 15. Our CEO and Managing Partner moved homes, and it was just a crazy day… the lesson to take away from this is that sometimes, personal moments provide a legitimate reason for us to pause what we’re so busy doing.

That being said, on to Week 16…

Interviews are always fascinating, since matching a personality to a resume that had been previously submitted is always a toss-up. This week, we had the pleasure of hosting two young men looking to come work in Detroit, one of whom is returning to his hometown after a stint away from the Motor City. We asked him to give us a sense of his background, which is a fairly standard question to get the ball rolling in any interview.

After telling us about his childhood growing up in a rough and tumble neighborhood, this candidate explained his seemingly impossible ascent above the surroundings. Although the block where his family lived was mostly abandoned and burnt out, despite the fact that the local hotel was frequented mostly by various prostitutes, even with the crime-riddled, gang-infiltrated community, this person is on the verge of graduating from Yale University. Good for him, but the best part is that he wants to come back to his hometown, to give back.

Most of any interview is then spent with the employer asking a barrage of questions to the potential new hire. At the very end, the time comes for the interviewee to ask some of his own. Today we were stopped in our tracks with the one question our candidate posed to us.

“What does DVP do to give back to the city?”

After a long pause, our red-faced answer was simply, “Not enough.”

It struck a chord with us and it should with you as well. What are YOU doing to improve the community in which you live?

Remember that if you’re able to read this, you’re more fortunate than the nearly 50% of Detroit residents who are illiterate. If you’re checking out this post on your laptop or smart phone, you’re truly among the world’s richest people. If you have a roof over your head and clothes on your back, many people would wish to be in your position. Use that wealth and pay it forward. Take one day a month for volunteering opportunities. Encourage your kids to be hands-on in the community. Bring your team for a day giving back. Imagine the impact with one more set of helping hands. Make an impact.

Our city erupted in pandemonium this week. With the throw of the first pitch – a strike straight down the middle – Detroit’s hopes rose to their fullest height, for a much anticipated baseball team and the heartwarming, collective spirit the Tigers’ success means for the rest of us. With tens of thousands of people swarming the downtown district on Thursday for Opening Day, Grand Circus Park felt like an epicenter of something truly grand, a big city with a thriving populous.

Restaurants were packed with crowds.  Lots were full with cars. Sidewalks were atwitter with activity. Thursday wasn’t just about baseball – it was about a collective celebration. As an unofficial holiday, Opening Day is special every year, but this year brought out the biggest crowd ever in Tigers history. This is a signal of the trend already in motion toward a bustling downtown, one that our city is in the midst of generating.

Business owners, take notice. Thursday wasn’t an anomaly. There is a critical mass downtown – and we’re hungry for things do to, places to shop and venues in which to eat. The time is now. We’re waiting for you.

This season, the Tigers will play 162 games. May the crowd roar as loud as it did for game #1 throughout the remainder of the season, may the city be just as vibrant with fans and may Verlander’s strikes stay just as straight… right down the middle. See you in October for playoffs!

Yesterday was a revered employee’s last day with Detroit Venture Partners, after a long tenure with the firm since its inception and beforehand. Over a celebratory farewell lunch, our CEO and Managing Partner commented on her work ethic, caring nature toward others and the mark she left on the company, not to mention each of its employees. Today, we moved desks and shifted workspaces to take over the spot where she sat – something felt a bit off and the adjustment to the office environment without her here will take some getting used to.

Her exit from DVP prompted thoughts of the value we each bring to our company. When she departed, it became clear that she had made herself indispensable – we had to learn the ins and outs of her roles and responsibilities to ensure nothing fell through the cracks in her absence. On day one, it’s obvious we have more learning to do.

As you climb the corporate ladder, build out your company’s team, or try and make the most out of your current role (whatever that may be), keep this thought in mind – what have you done to leave a mark and make yourself indispensable? Ideally, your company should view you as such. If not, you’re easily replaced and in this economy, that’s dangerous.

Your day should never be ho-hum. If it is, you’re not hustling hard enough. Take on a new project. Improve something. Streamline a process. Fix something that’s broken. Try harder. Get yourself noticed. Your boss will appreciate you going that extra mile and your team will thank you for alleviating their burden. And, if you find yourself in a position where you’re moving on to a different situation, you will be missed.

Tuesday evening, I had the wonderful opportunity to get a massage. Midway through the experience, the massage therapist asked if there was something wrong. When I said no, I answered more questions about the fact that I hadn’t recently been in a car accident or suffered another serious injury. The stress carried in my shoulders was apparently some of the worst he’d seen from anyone, aside from those clients he has who train for bodybuilding competitions. Since this is definitely not me, it was a bit disturbing to know my health had suffered from my pent-up anxiety.

Remember that as crazy as things get, you’ll never function at your fullest potential if you’re not physically and mentally able. Without the proper diet, rest, exercise, sleep and general wellness practices in place, you will perform at a sub-par level.

Don’t forget to breathe – amid the craziness, find pause for at least a few minutes a day. Take yourself for a quick walk around the block. Read a chapter from a novel daily, as you keep your phone in your pocket. Stretch for ten minutes before going to sleep at night. Come up with something that will help slow yourself down, even just for a few minutes. This way, your body has a chance to catch up with your brain, while you relax. Your colleagues, friends and family will thank you, but most importantly, you’ll thank yourself.

We’re quick to criticize. At home, at the office, at the local park, we find flaws in most everything. As consumers, we’ve become cynical and look for flaws subconsciously, sometimes well before we see the good in someone or something. It comes to a point though when one of two things happen:

1.  You become such a “Negative Nancy” that people are afraid to show you something, for fear of your threatening commentary. That’s not a good spot to be in (in case you needed a reminder).

OR

2.  You come across something worth your praise, as it stands so far out from the mundane, ho-hum crowd in a category of one, in all its glory.

This week, we’re sharing a welcome example from category number two. We give you UpTo: it’s a beautiful platform built on top of your existing calendar for iOS.

You can thank us later, but in the meantime, just download the free app at www.upto.com and tell your friends to do the same.

Don’t take our word for it, so check out the nice things The Next Web had to say here: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/03/16/upto-launches-its-beautifully-designed-social-calendar-app-for-ios/

Relish in the few standouts worth celebrating. You’ll be a happier person and the people around you will be excited to share these occurrences with you, too. Cheers!

When I came across a fascinating TED Talk about the power of introverts (above), I couldn’t help but stay glued to the computer monitor. Susan Cain’s deliberately-paced, warm tone contrasted her impassioned, powerful message: “there’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” Because of this oft-overlooked fact, we celebrate extroverts as leaders and ignore introverted achievements or approaches; Cain cautions this prevalent behavior. I couldn’t help but notice the obvious parallelism between her delivery and my joy in receiving a research-based assignment recently. Nearly 900,000 people have viewed this video, comforting the thought that I’m far from alone in my preference for solitude and strength found from working independently.

Her poignant discussion has relevance when thinking about your atmosphere. Obviously collaborative, open office environments are crucial in engaging groups to work together and bring ideas to life. That being said however, some people thrive creatively on their own – only once they’ve developed their ideas and harnessed them a bit in solace do they bring them to the group. That’s OK – it’s your job as an effective leader to cultivate ideas, regardless of method. It doesn’t matter if the “sun” is a bustling open office system or a collection of independent clusters and equally unimportant is whether the “rain” is a constant brainstorm flood or a more introspective philosophy prior to team meetings. What is important is your ability to recognize what elements will most effectively help your team members – and their ideas – to grow, thrive and benefit the company.

At the root of this issue are your team members themselves. Are most extroverted? Introverted? Do you have a seemingly healthy balance between the two types of personalities? As you work on expanding your company’s team, keep Cain’s sentiments in mind. Yes, the “best talker” tends to develop a spotlight around his/her persona and as such, develop a following based on that limelight. People gravitate toward the bubbly person in the room, making us naturally cite them as “leaders.” Take a step back: what about the unassuming “work horse” who purposefully stays out of this limelight? Is this person any less of a leader?

Successful organizations allow the sun to shine and the rain to fall on employees’ ideas, nurturing them to their fullest potential. In order to do so, you have to have the same mentality with the people who have dreamt them up – let them thrive in their own way.

Running American Jewelry and Loan, his 50,000 square foot pawn shop in Detroit, Les Gold has seen it all. Literally. His pawned inventory ranges from Rolexes to cars, boats to electronics, snowblowers to handbags and apparently, the occasional prosthetic limb. Given this diversity, Gold has also dealt and negotiated in pretty much everything. Aside from that, this business vet dominates in an industry whose customer foot traffic serves as an economic barometer – a long loan line coupled with a short redemption queue is a strong indication of terrible conditions for the public, and vice versa for improving markets. Gold’s negotiation skills and seasoned knowledge base made his speech about sales tactics (this Wednesday evening) so intriguing. A few of us from the DVP team had the pleasure to attend and we gleaned a lot of information.

As a sales professional, Gold testified that you must assess customers’ needs and recognize those needs better than they know them internally. This awareness will propel a sale forward and generate intrinsic trust between a client and you as the sales person. He cited an example from his anecdotal arsenal:

A man came in to the pawn shop with his new fiancée to shop for her diamond ring, celebrating their engagement. With her hopes for a certain sized princess cut (square-shaped) diamond and the man’s budget constraint, Gold’s inventory couldn’t meet their needs. However, he realized – brilliantly – that his would-be-upset customer desperately wanted to make his fiancée happy and seize the moment to mark their love. Rather than disappoint them with the news that his inventory wasn’t exactly what they wanted, Gold suggested a diamond slightly-less-than-perfectly suited for them: it was a pear cut (teardrop-shaped), but even larger than what they had in mind. In the end, the woman loved the ring he suggested, the gentleman was thrilled to put it on her hand, and Gold made the sale while keeping a client satisfied. He put his customer first and focused upon a continued sense of mutual trust and respect; without these elements, a marketer comes off as a dreaded, slimy used car salesman.

While Gold’s presentation can be helpful for any sales professional, his story’s true importance came down to something unrelated: belief in oneself is a true driver of success. Having vision, starting something new and propelling your idea forward takes guts and a lot of hard work. Your ability to keep up with a fast-paced, demanding lifestyle rests solely on you; if you’re not fully invested in yourself and that vision, your chances for success are slim to none. Gold explained that his family members, especially his wife, have never wavered in their support of his plan, and he in turn couldn’t feel more blessed to have them at his side. Keep this sentiment in mind daily: while belief in yourself is crucial, it’s much easier to believe in you when you’re following suit, rather than leading the pack. Let others’ belief in your vision spark your belief in yourself. Honor and appreciate the key people in your life who do celebrate your success – family, friends, significant others – and make sure they realize how special they are to you.

When you look back on a time in your life when you had to take a chance, remember that daunting feeling of uncertainty and recall your ability to look past that. Regardless of the outcome, your willingness to do that is a “win” in itself and is worth celebrating. As you move forward, just keep that in the back of your mind, and think to yourself, “How bad do you want it?” The answer should always be, “never bad enough.”

This week, two of the employees here at DVP developed a new program for the company to offer to the outside community.  Before it can be released, it has to be fully cultivated internally and approved. In order to do this, we had to develop a proposal, establish branding assets, and answer the big questions (who/what/where/when/why/how). In any case when starting something new, the “why” should lead: the program, business or product should solve a problem, answer a need or improve upon an existing method. Unless there’s a rationale for beginning something in the first place, it’s not worth doing. Once you’ve figured this out, the “how” is sure to follow.

As a venture capitalist firm, we’re in the business of funding startups. However, we function much like a startup, with an entrepreneurial culture in place: if there’s a way to do something better, just do that instead. If there’s something that will help the business, build it. Actions and processes that are entrepreneurial in nature (self-reliant, agile, evolving) are such regardless of outlet: a century-old, Fortune 500 company can still exhibit these qualities, though they’re far from new. Dangerously, some startups fail to be entrepreneurial, focusing their energy on a short-sighted win, rather than recognizing a larger need for change. Keep these traits on the front burner as you make progress to keep yourself on the forefront of your industry.

By bringing something to life, fresh out of thin air, we experienced the rush of starting over. Our excitement swirled around this new existence, as we added layers of meaning and honed our messaging. The nerves continue to build too, considering our presentation hasn’t happened yet. See you Monday, board room. Get ready for us.