Stepping Stones

Merry Christmas!

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy upcomming New Year!  Best of luck your entrepreneurial endeavors and I hope that next year will be a tremendous success.  Keep learning, keep fighting for your ideas!

The Typical Venture Captialist

This is a hilarious clip from Blueprint Ventures that gives us a peak into the world of a typical VC.  I've done a few pitches and can only say that its funny because its so true!

Now that's Competitive Advertising!

I came across these great advertisements from BMW, Audi, Subaru and Bentley, I haven't seen them in any US newspapers or magazines so I felt particularly compelled to post this.  It seems like the number of companies openly taking jabs at each other has been growing, and I'm not talking about those tame Pepsi vs. Coke taste test commercials, but hardcore back and fourth bouts like this one:

Personally, I'm with the Bentley guy :)

Keeping a Good Designer (Part 3 of 3)

If finding and working with a good designer wasn't hard enough, try keeping one around.  Its never easy to hold on to good employees, especially creatives such as designers.  Although theres no one size fits all formula for keeping a good designer or any strong employee around upholding some basic principles will help you succeed:

1. Keep Things Interesting - to keep a creative person around you have to give them work that will interest and challenge them.  When it comes to design some jobs/projects are simply more appealing than others.  Try to source your mundane work to someone else and save your top designer's creative energy for the bigger more challenging tasks. As your business grows your relationship should evolve over time to handle more significant work. 
   
2. Make it Personal - Give your designer the freedom and sense of ownership of the work they do.  Those are crucial factors of success, if your designer feels connected to the product or service you're making they will not only produce better work but will also be ready to sacrifice more to help you succeed. 
   
3. Ignore Minor Bumps - its important to work through any problems and conflicts that come up.  Doing so in a positive, constructive way that brings understanding to your relationship is important.  Don't let trivial issues get in the way of a good working relationship.
   
4. Keep in Touch -  If there is a pause in the work you're doing with your designer make sure that you send an email or two just to say hi, like you would with your friends.  This will help build your relationship and is part of "Making it Personal" (see point two).
   
5. Reward Good Work - If someone is making an extra effort they deserve extra compensation.  You may be on a very tight budget that simply won't allow for any bonuses, but if you can fit an extra reward in you should.  If a monetary reward is impossible try to send an extra thank you email, referring a new customer is also a wonderful way to make say thanks and make an indirect monetary contribution.

I hope my three part series on Finding, Keeping and Working with a Good Designer will help you avoid some of the simple mistakes I've made and take the necessary steps to creating beautiful designs for your business. 

Working with a Good Designer (Part 2 of 3)

So now that you found a good designer its time to sit back, relax and watch him/her work! Not so, this is when the real challenge starts because at this point the outcome depends as much on you as it does on your designer.  No matter how brilliant and talented the person you hired is they won't deliver the result you expect without your help and support.  This is especially true for passionate entrepreneurs who have a specific vision for their product and want the design to reflect that vision either stylistically or even more importantly functionally.  The challenge at this point is conveying that vision and having the designer add creative value and dress everything up.  To help achieve the end goal of beautiful and functional design and a strong working relationship with your designer I wrote the following pointers based on my personal trial and error:

General Tips:

1. Spec Everything - Start the project by writing as much as you can about what you want.  If you're creating a website make sure to make a site map, wireframes and send plenty of examples of styles you think will work well.  The process of preparing this information will give you time to filter your ideas and likely generate some new ones.  Be meticulous in your descriptions and if possible let someone else (brother, sister, friend) read what you wrote to check it for clarity.  Sometimes its easy to get lost in your thoughts.
2. Emphasize Creativity - When you send your detailed design spec make sure you make it perfectly clear that you don't want the designer to simply replicate what you wrote in graphic form. Your designer should be a creative force, not an input/output device.  Sure you wrote a detailed spec, but anyone good will only use that as a starting point.
3. Be Patient, Thoughtful - When you see the first comps, don't rush to judge them.  Even if you love what you see take a few hours, maybe even sleep on it before replying with your first comments.  It's usually the case that the first comp won't be  as good as you expected.  That doesn't mean that there aren't good elements in the design it or that theres nothing to work with.  You need to be patient and let everything sink in, after a few hours you'll have a different perspective and be ready to give constructive criticism not an emotional kneejerck response. 
4. Be Respectful and Constructive - Whenever you comment work that has been sent you must be respectful and kind.  Most designers, like any creative person have a difficult time separating themselves from the work they do, so if you're too harsh it will often be treated as a personal attack.  Some designers will take any criticism, even the most kindly worded and constructive, personally, but like I mentioned in part one of this three part series such action should immediately tip you off that this relationship won't work.  Try your best to work things out and find the right tone, if it doesn't work cut your losses.
5. Keep the Lines Open - Once you've exchanged ideas and opinions on the first comp keep  your communication as smooth and open as possible.  The creative process is all about flow.  One of the biggest mistakes I've made is taking too long to respond and comment on work sent to me. Don't delay beyond the time you need to let the ideas sink in, otherwise your designers interest in the project and creativity will drop. 
   
6. It's a Process - Good design doesn't happen overnight.  It will take at least 3-4 iterations to get quality work done.  Don't get discouraged... Fight ON! =)

Extra bit of Advice for the Fiery Entrepreneur:

1. Be Objective and Open - You have a strong vision of what you want from your design and thats fantastic, but its important to remember that you hired a designer to add value to your creative process, so give him/her a chance to show what they can do.  You'll always have time to adjust and get your way later. 

Feel free to add your thoughts and suggestions on improving the client/designer relationship.

Stepping Stones + Mind Petals

I'm proud to report that Stepping Stones has joined the Mind Petals "Young Entrepreneurs Network".  Mind Petals brings together young entrepreneurs who are blogging about their experience in the hope of helping and motivating young people who are thinking about or already on the entrepreneurial path.  Its a great network of people and I hope that I can contribute to the great things they're doing. 

I now proudly display the Mind Petals badge in my sidebar =) you can always click it to see whats new @ Mind Petals.