College vs. Life's Lessons

It has long been thought that a four year degree, and an added masters, is a guarantee for a high salary job. However, that theory is based on the assumption that college teaches you relevant and essential knowledge for your professional pursuit. With more students turning towards business studies, we must ask ourselves whether those four years really teach you how business is done. It may seem anti-intellectual or counter-intuitive to turn someone away from college, but there certainly is grounding in this idea – especially for young people who are already showing signs of being enterprising and entrepreneurial. 

A study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has shown that about 48 percent of employed U.S. college graduates are in jobs that require less than a four-year college education and five million college graduates are in jobs that the BLS says requrie less than a high-school education. With the average student loan debt approaching $27,000, you ought to think about the opportunity cost of spending 4 additional years in school: practically any investment will yield significantly larger returns than your increased salary when allowed to earn interest for 50 years. Your opportunity cost essentially is pursuing your own idea and being your own boss, something that means more than an interest rate to many.  

Since money is not everything, and with many pursuing a college education for their intellectual development, it boils down to comparing the skills you learn in college to those  you can acquire in a start-up. Thomas Hessler says that "most colleges are focused on theory and not on action and execution. The best way to learn about that is by living the start up life". Hands on experience, whether it's managing your product development or pitching for funding, teaches you the real competencies needed for the business world out there. And if you ever do need theoretical knowledge about the transcendental logarithmic production function, there will be a search engine within reach. 
 
The idea of encouraging young, talented people to choose entrepreneurship instead of college has gained support from high-places. For example, the “20 Under 20 Program,” sponsored by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, provides a $100,000 grant to twenty enterprising young people who have a realistic chance at creating and developing a revolutionary idea in lieu of attending college. This fellowship is highly competitive, but serves as an example for the endless opportunities for bright young entrepreneurs. 

Essentially, it all depends on your personality and the work space you imagine yourself in. If you're a free spirit that is ready to take on the world, you should know that crowdsourcing and crowdfunding can help you succeed - your age doesn't matter. You should not turn to college only to conform with societal standards. If you have a good idea and are dedicated to work for it, we at UFOstart can help by connecting you with experts, customers and investors! 

Join our first "Global Crowd Network" for Lean Startup funding! Connect with facebook on www.ufostart.com and calculate your Startup Value. Interested in how you can leverage the power of the crowd for your startup? Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter!

Three men make a tiger

There's no such thing as 'a' startup founder. Even if you're 11 years old and launching your first lemonade stand, you will feel the intense gaze of your mom's eyeballs beaming all the way from the living room window out to your tablecloth-covered booth on the sidewalk. Like it or not, she is an integral part of your team.

Here at UFOstart, we not only respect the importance of Co-Founders and the dynamics of a successful team, we live it every day. We also get to see other great examples in action, both when people get it right — and when they don't. So, here are a few insights to mull over if you're in startup mode.

Design it before you live in it. What does successful teamwork look like — and produce — in the context of your company? Do you have functional clarity about (first) what needs to be done and (second) which cofounder will do that. In other words, if cofounders serve as the engine of a startup business, which specific cofounder will be the pistons, the fuel, and the sparkplugs, respectively? Figure that out in advance to the extent possible and either write it down or draw a picture or whatever works to see your 'cofoundership' objectively.

Similarly, work 'on' it before you work 'in' it. (If that sounds like something out of Michael Gerber's E-Myth Revisited book, good — go read it.) Once you get the functional clarity about what must be done and who must do it, be clear about the pluses and minuses of your cofounding team from an interpersonal relationship perspective. A 'team of rivals' might have worked for Abraham Lincoln, but we don't recommend it for businesses. Rather than 'Can we work together?' a better question to pose is 'What would working together feel and look like?' Test yourselves with team exercises — a charity project, an Outward Bound-style trek, or at least some rounds of golf. Then ask others to observe you, as individuals and as a team, and get their feedback.

Develop and follow objective criteria. Benchmark your cofoundership. Got the right talents in place? Check. Got the right skills, knowledge and experience in place? Check. Have you proven to one another's satisfaction that you respect the creative and functional tension that must — although it's sometimes stressful — exist in order for the business to run like it needs to? Better to face issues early in your startup phase rather than blind yourself to speedbumps ahead that could disrupt or derail your whole business.

The three Founders of Zanox and Globumbus (UFOstart), Thomas Hessler, Jens Hewald and Heiko Rauch, believe that 3 is the optimal founding size:

• For any small business, there are three vital positions within the executive team: creating the value (product manager), selling the value (sales/marketing) and providing the framework around it (Finance, Legal, HR operations). These are all equally as important and should be staffed with three core team members - ones that will work relentlessly for their project.  
• With a three-member team there won't be a standoff in any voting situation. You will have to convince two other people of your idea, which makes accepting defeat much easier and less personal than when facing a duel.  
• Three men make a tiger, according to an ancient Chinese proverb. Simply put, three Co-Founders leaves you with six hands. That means more execution power, skills, intelligence... more man-power to get things done and to convince people of your idea. 

In our next product update, you will have the opportunity to add Founders to your project (currently named administrators). These will all have administrator status, which makes managing your round much more efficient. Any other features you'd like to see added to our platform? Vote here!

-bmt

Join our first "Global Crowd Network" for Lean Startup funding! Connect with facebook on www.ufostart.com and calculate your Startup Value. Interested in how you can leverage the power of the crowd for your startup? Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter!

Get the Crowd to Play

The liason of crowdsourcing and gamification is extremely powerful and a terrific way to motivate your community through incentives.  

Gamification is a very simple concept; as the name implies, it's making a game out of something that isn't normally played as one.  Odds are you are already familiar with the concept; if you ever received a gold star for a job well done in elementary school, you've experienced gamification.  

And this simple concept is taking the business world by storm.  In an article in the New York Times, they discussed the power of gamification, and even gamified the article itself.  The reader would get badges (e.g. one for reading all the way through the article) and although the badges offered no other reward than having them, and transferred to no other section of the paper, readers were posting comments saying "I'm commenting just to get the badge.". 

But groups aren't only adding gaming elements to their crowdsourcing; some are making games to perform the crowdsourcing itself.  California-based Institute for the Future launched a crowdsourcing game to discuss the future of community hospitals. Their goal is to tap into collective multidisciplinary expertise to encourage and steer change - and making a game out of they easily generated 4500 ideas within their 24-hour competition time-period.

Meanwhile, the University of Washington has "Foldit," a game where players to find stable protein structures.  Amazingly, advances in cures have been discovered thanks to use of the crowd's insight and expertise. And then there's NASA; having launched "Clouds," a game where players identify types of space clouds, NASA now has nearly 250,000 of those stellar objects identified thus far. The lesson here, it appears, is that crowdsourcing becomes a lot easier when the "crowd" gets to play. 

The most powerful gamification feature on UFOstart is the startup value - a badge that measures your individual value to any startup. The more contacts, investment interest and skills you add to your profile, the higher will your startup value and your rank within the community be. Also, every project round runs against the Deal Clock. This gamification allows your project to be measured against time, which will enable you to pivot, integrate feedback and develop as a lean startup. 

We will be adding a review and badge system for people who have completed jobs or who have contributed to needs. Another feature will be a virtual currency (points) for activity on UFOstart - this way track records will be created and active participants rewarded. If you would like to add your voice to the gamification of UFOstart or our general product development, please visit our feature voting site!

-bmt

Join our first "Global Crowd Network" for Lean Startup funding! Connect with facebook on www.ufostart.com and calculate your Startup Value. Interested in how you can leverage the power of the crowd for your startup? Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter!

Add your voice to our product development!

To improve the quality of our product, we would like to know what features YOU think we should add to our platform. You are the expert of our user experience and we would like to give you a voice in our product development! We have added a voting system to our GetSatisfaction community that lets you rank our lineup of ideas. Feel free to add any additional ideas or feedback for voting!

Let us know which features we should give priority by clicking on the stars here! 

Join our first "Global Crowd Network" for Lean Startup funding! Connect with facebook on www.ufostart.com and calculate your Startup Value. Interested in how you can leverage the power of the crowd for your startup? Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter!

"Real Time" Management

As a busy entrepreneur, you know that every minute of your workday is valuable. You've taken time management courses, read all the best books, and purchased all sorts of tools, apps, and gadgets. So how come you never seem to get enough done in a day?

According to this intriguing article, the answer is that all of those tips and strategies you’ve learned don't really work. This is because there are two types of time: “clock time” and “real time.” Time management strategies are usually based on clock time, while humans operate in real time.

In real time, time is relative. It flies by when you are having fun or in that state of mind known as “flow.” On the other hand, time seems to drag on forever when you’re feeling bored.

So while time management systems are designed to measure clock time, you’re living and working in real time. The good news is that you can take control of your time--your real time--and get over the belief that you “don’t have enough hours in the day” to do what needs to get done. 

As an entrepreneur, interruptions are common, problems come up that you need to think about, and you may feel like you’re being pulled in multiple directions all day long. Ultimately, however, it’s up to you to decide how much time you are willing to spend on each thought, conversation or activity. 

The article lists ten techniques that can help you manage your “real time.” Here are some of the most interesting:

Start by keeping track of what you currently do with your time. Spend a week writing down everything you do, including all thoughts, conversations and actions. This can give you tremendous insight into what you actually accomplish in a day, and shine a light on areas where you might be wasting time that could be used more productively. 

Use an appointment book rather than a to-do list. With a list, you don't necessarily know how long each item will take, which can make you feel like you're not getting enough done even if you are using your time efficiently. If you instead schedule a block of time to work on each item, then when the time is up you’ll have to move on to the next task, scheduling a new time to continue the current one if needed. This will give you a much more realistic view of what you can expect to accomplish in a day, and it should help keep you focused.

Take five minutes before a task, meeting or phone call to think about what you are hoping to accomplish. What result are you hoping for from this interaction or activity? Afterward, again take five minutes to decide if you achieved this result. If not, then why not? What was missing? What could you do differently next time to make your meeting or actions more productive?

Proper time management is an immense help for competing in a fast paced startup world. Have a project in mind, yet lack certain ressources - other than time? Join our first "Global Crowd Network" for Lean Startup funding! Connect with facebook on www.ufostart.com and calculate your Startup Value. Interested in how you can leverage the power of the crowd for your startup? Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter!

-bmt