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The Entrepreneurship Chronicle :: September 2008 Issue :: 38 |
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Dear [fname],
I hope you have made progress on your entrepreneurial vision and that you gain value from this issue of The Entrepreneurship Chronicle!
Entrepreneurially Yours,
Ryan P. Allis, CEO
iContact Corp.
2635 Meridian Parkway
Durham, NC
www.iContact.com
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Table of Contents
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Interview with Ryan Allis
Ryan Allis
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Our collegues over at AllBusiness.com had a few questions for Ryan and we wanted to share them with you. Enjoy!
Q: What are the must-have team members? In other words, what makes up the core group that an entrepreneur must assemble to have a chance at success?
There are definitely a few must-have team members that every entrepreneur should surround themselves with to build a successful company.
I recommend that, in the beginning, you find a good business partner who can compliment your skills and who has strengths where you may have weaknesses. Finding a good business partner who will become fully vested in your company can be a long process that takes a lot of research and time, but can often make the difference between your company’s success or failure. My business partner, Aaron Houghton, and I were able to create something greater than either of us could have created separately.
As far as the core group needed for a successful business, I believe you need a few key people to make up your Board of Directors: CEO, company Chairman, CTO, CFO, Marketing and Corporate Communications Directors, a Director of Customer Service and a Human Resources Director. Often when you are starting out, the same people will fill multiple management positions, as was iContact’s case when it began in 2003.
Q: What about growing a business? When is the right time to hire employees and tap the services of outside consultants?
Let me start off by saying that when you are initially creating your business and can afford to bring on your first employee, do so. If not, you will simply be creating a job for yourself rather than building a sustainable business.
Before you launch your company, you may want to bring additional persons onto your Board of Directors. These people could be veterans in your industry or key investors. As your company grows, you will have to add certain professionals and outside consultants to your team. You will want to have a good accountant, attorney, financial advisor, insurance agent, and banker. These advisors can be instrumental in helping your company succeed. Eventually, you may be able to develop a secondary layer of management depending on the needs of your business.
Q: You provide a solid list of questions to ask applicants, but what if your entrepreneurial skills don’t include stellar interviewing skills? How can you get around that? What if interviewing is the last thing you want to do?
If interviewing isn’t your strong point, you must hire a Human Resources Director to screen and possibly interview applicants for your company. Originally, I conducted all employee interviews for building the iContact team. Today, our HR Director screens all applicants, and the manager within a specific department conducts the initial interview. If the manager wishes to submit the applicant as a potential hire, I will then interview them. After the manager ensures that an applicant is qualified and has the necessary experience, I like to interview them to see that they are sane, have a good work ethic, and can communicate well. As the leader of your company, it is your responsibility to grow your team with well-qualified, high-quality people, and you should do whatever it takes to accomplish this goal.
(Read the Rest of this Article Here....)
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Founded in 1991, Heads Up! was established through a start-up grant from the Episcopal Archdiocese of Central North Carolina. Initially, we offered three hours of therapeutic riding a week in the spring and fall and served just five students. Today Heads Up! has a home just 2 miles south of Pittsboro. Heads Up! is a 501(c)3 non-profit serving over 30 people each week. Our staff includes a nationally certified riding instructor and a physical therapist and we are a NARHA (North American Riding for the Handicapped Association) Premier accredited center.
(To learn more or get involved visit: headsuptrp.org )
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Do You Have What It Takes to be an Entrepreneur?
Ryan Allis
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Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. Not everyone can handle the stress, risks, and responsibilities of having dozens or hundreds of persons’ lives depending on your choices or reporting to a board or directors or panel of your investors. An analysis of the traits commonly found among successful entrepreneurs may assist in deciding if you are right to be an entrepreneur.
Here is a list of commonly noted traits of entrepreneurs. Put a check next to each one you believe you have.
- Initiative
- Bias toward action
- Vision
- Determination
- Courage
- Creativity
- Perseverance and persistence
- Drive to achieve
- Orientation toward opportunity
- Ability to deal with the abstract and ambiguity
- Ability to prioritize
- Drive toward efficiency
- Ability to take feedback
- Tolerance for stress
- Decisiveness
- Ability to deal with failure
- Ability to learn from mistakes
- Ability to delay gratification
- Ability to plan
- Ability to build a team
- Ability to inspire and lead people
Do you have these attributes? If you checked more than half, you may have what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur.
As part of a series of interviews I conducted with six successful entrepreneurs in the North Carolina region, I asked the question, "What traits are most important for an aspiring entrepreneur to have." I gave the entrepreneurs fifteen options and asked them to number their choices 1 through 15 in order of importance. The results were very interesting. The most important trait for aspiring entrepreneurs to have, according to these five successful entrepreneurs, was...
(Read the Rest of this Article Here....)
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Are You Working Yourself Out of Your Business?
Michele Pariza Wacek
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I admit it.
I'm a recovering workaholic/perfectionist, not to mention having delusions of superhero syndrome.
I know I'll never be cured. But I can at least work on controlling it.
I also know I'm not alone. Plenty of entrepreneurs and small business owners suffer from this same condition. (In fact, it's so prevalent I'm thinking about starting a recovery group for this.)
Do you suffer from workaholic/perfectionism/superhero syndrome? Take this short quiz to find out.
1. You think working all the time, including nights and weekends, is a sign of:
A. Success
B. Insanity
C. Just one of the sacrifices you have to make when you own your own business
2. Your to-do list resembles:
A. War and Peace (actually, War and Peace might be shorter)
B. No more then 5 tasks per day
C. It's pretty long, but that's okay. You know if you buckle down and REALLY focus, you can get everything done. (Of course, you never have, but that's besides the point.)
3. The last time you took a vacation was:
A. Vacation? Who needs a vacation? Vacations are for wussies.
B. A couple of months ago and it was fabulous.
C. You're too afraid to be gone for more then a couple of days, especially if you don't have your laptop and can check in every day. What if something happens? A new client calls? You could lose the business. Or some crisis might come up and there wouldn't be anyone to take care of it. It's just too risky to leave, better to stick around.
4. You believe:
A. People who don't work very hard yet still are making money are pretty lucky (and also pretty lazy).
B. Being successful also means having a life (and having time to enjoy it).
C. The only way to be successful is to work longer and harder then anyone else. (After all, when you're not working you're not making money. So how can you be successful if you're not working?)
5. Taking time for yourself is:
A. A luxury for only rich (or lazy) people.
B. Something you make a priority each and every day.
C. Nice in theory but unrealistic in practice. After all, your clients have to come first. They're the ones paying the bills.
Scoring: Well, let's just say you know who you are.
As entrepreneurs and small business owners, I think one of our biggest challenges is balance. How much time to spend on our business? With our families? Ourselves? And how do we fit it all into the only 24 hours we have?
(Read the Rest of this Article Here....)
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Do you have a Facebook account?
If so, Ryan's on Facebook too. Just look up Ryan
Allis (the one at UNC-Chapel Hill). Send
Ryan a message or a friend request. |  | Ryan
also uses LinkedIn. If you want to connect to Ryan
on Linked in just look him up and send a connection
request to allisr [at] icontact.com.
Don't
have Facebook or LinkedIn but still want to ask Ryan
a question? Feel free to email Ryan at allisr [at]
icontact.com. Thank you!
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This concludes issue #38 of The Entrepreneurship Chronicle. If you are not subscribed and would like to subscribe, please visit http://www.zeromillion.com. If you would like to contribute content, become involved with the zeromillion.com team, make suggestions, or provide feedback please feel free to contact us at info@virante.com.
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"I studied the lives of great men and famous women, and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work"
- Harry Truman, former U.S. President
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