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Posts Tagged ‘ZeroDash1’

A New Start in a Time of Opportunity, Risks

Posted in business, entrepreneur, tagged , , , on June 1, 2009 | 5 Comments »

So, it begins anew for me once again.

Last Friday was my last day with Ascentium.  Today is my first day working on what I consider my sixth potential venture.

My experience at Ascentium was wonderful for the most part. Ascentium bought my company, ZeroDash1, in March of last year (2008). We were excited about being part of a larger digital agency, and thought that our expertise in Analytics and Optimization could be a big difference maker in Ascentium’s projected growth.

Reality of integration and change management issues (Ascentium had acquired various companies before us) had slowed our impact a bit at first. However, over time, we became the full analytics arm of Ascentium. Times have hit hard the agency market and there will continue to be adjustments moving forward. I’m convinced, however, that Ascentium will maneuver successfully through the economic environment and emerge someday as a leading voice in the industry.

For me, I’ll have to watch Ascentium’s success from the sidelines.

Having been involved with five previous startups, the prospect of being on my own doesn’t seem  all that daunting. I guess I’m a risk taker at heart. I think that the drastic change in the economy over the last nine months offers up new opportunities. So many companies are struggling to survive with the wrong DNA — one that was born of another time. That opens up opportunities for companies developed for today’s environment to emerge and thrive. Yes, change always equals opportunities for those who can think and move fast.

Who knows where the road of life will lead me now? But somehow, that thought of uncertainty puts a big smile on my face. I’m ready to find out.

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Charmed Suite 504

Posted in business, Entrepreneurs, tagged , , , , , on April 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Meet Suite 504.  It’s in the FX building in Seattle’s historic Pioneer Square. I work there.

At first glance, the sparse space looks rather ordinary and humble, quintessential office loft. It is approximately 2,000 square feet with an open floor plan accented with wooden beams and brick walls.  We thought about removing the commercial ceiling tiles to expose the overhead beams, but worried about what we may find hiding up there.  

gridnetworks1Despite this modest appearance, Suite 504 has a rich history. Prior to our lease, Gridnetworks occupied this space while building its high-quality video distribution technology. Last year, Gridnetworks raised $9.5 million from Comcast, Panorama Capital, and Cisco while working in Suite 504. Soon thereafter, Gridnetworks moved uptown for higher-grade facilities.   Now, there are reports that Gridnetworks has been sold to an unidentified “desktop video environment company” based out of New York.

esurg2Prior to Gridnetworks, the  space was occupied by Esurg, an online medical, surgical, pharmaceutical and office supplies company. In the early 2000′s, this startup’s successes accumulated to its own eventual acquisition by LLS National LLC in 2005. 

My company, ZeroDash1, moved into Suite 504 in September, 2007. We were a small team of 12 trying to build up a web analytics consultancy. We cleaned up the austere space, organized the open spaces and made it home. Five months later, we were acquired by digital marketing agency, Ascentium. Actually, we had two separate offers for aquisition, and ended up selecting the better fit.

Ascentium kept Suite 504 as a small Seattle satellite office. Ascentium’s headquarters is in Bellevue. Most of us split time between the large, premium, well-equipped Bellevue office, and our cozy Seattle office, still with its unique startup feel. Someday, we will vacate Suite 504, and another startup company will move in. Will that company keep the streak going?

Yes, Suite 504 looks pretty plain. It’s like so many other Pioneer Square office spaces that are favored by Seattle technology entrepreneurs. Yet, Suite 504 is anything but ordinary. Some extraordinary ideas have grown out of its rustic walls.

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Relevancy Matters in Email Marketing

Posted in Digital Marketing, tagged , , , , , on November 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Hey, there’s a story about me (well, it’s really about making email marketing more relevant and I’m just a part of the plot) in Anil Batra’s blog.  Anil and I actually work together at ZeroDash1 | Ascentium.  He is one of the most followed experts in web analytics, behavioral targeting, and online marketing.  Here, Anil offers up some good thoughts for successful email marketing.

You will “Meet Anil Batra” in a later post.

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Using Linkedin to Plan Business Events

Posted in Digital Marketing, social media, tagged , , , , , on September 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Ascentium has used Linkedin as an event-registration platform on a couple of occasions.   
The first was the “Light Up Your Brand” conference organized by our Portland office.  This was a highly effective, collaborative event featuring presenters from Intel, Linkedin, Federated Media, as well as Ascentium.   “How to Light Up Your Brand” was particularly focused on leveraging social media platforms to, well, light up your brand.
All registrations for the half-day conference came through Linkedin.  Organizers created a group within Linkedin displaying the “Light Up Your Brand” logo and a summary of the event. Interested people registered by joining this Linkedin group.
  
The results were generally positive. The Linkedin group obviously provided a convenient area for interested parties to share ideas and thoughts before and after the event.  We also found that the group was searched by the Linkedin community at large from persons interested in such topics as brightening up brands within the context of social media.  Since anyone wanting to join the group needed approval by the group’s manager, it has a built-in screening process as well.  
One issue that did arise was that persons outside the greater Portland area tried to sign up to the group and register not realizing this was an “in-person” conference. 
Even today the group remains on Linkedin with 130 members.  Should we want to make this an annual event, for example, this membership could be the foundation used in drumming up community interest again. 
The second event was for the Ascentium|ZeroDash1′s seminar series.  Admittedly, this was not as well organized and we offered other methods of registering.  We found that for a series of events, creating one group for registration does not work — obviously!  Moving forward, however, our Linkedin Group, Ascentium|ZeroDash1 Seminar Series, can continue to function as as a forum for discussing our seminar topics and soliciting feedback from attendees.  
In conclusion, Linkedin does provide interesting possibilities as a social media platform for registering and/or announcing business events.  

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Life in the Transition Lane

Posted in business, management, tagged , , on September 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

When we decided to be acquired by Ascentium, we knew that things would change mostly for the better and some for the worse (from our perspective).

Aided by Ascentium’s large client base and broad offering of services as an interactive agency, our group has found more diversity of interesting work. Our revenues have steadily grown, improving the fundamentals of our business. There definitely has been a good “Ascentium lift” by joining the larger company.

The improved foundation has allowed us to offer interesting career paths around the developing field of web analytics and optimization. So, we’ve brought onboard additional talented, smart people to the team. We’re so fortunate to have an industry thought-leader like Anil Batra, who also is an excellent mentor to the whole team. He’s helped develop an environment of collaboration.

We are now an integrated part of Ascentium, although we will maintain our brand (ZeroDash1) for some transitional time. For all purposes, however, we are Ascentium Analytics & Optimization. It’s very rewarding as the leader of ZeroDash1 to see both pre-acquisition groups benefit from the deal.

Unfortunately, changes benefit many but not all. That’s to be expected, but difficult to see happening. After all, we all had been through so much together. Consequently, a couple of initial key contributors have left and gone onto other opportunities. They are talented people and will be impactful contributors for their new companies. I wish them well. They deserve success. I will miss them.

Meanwhile, however, our current group has grown steadily, adding interesting new perspectives and personalities. We’re really starting to settle into a groove as a business and team. Yes, the office culture has changed with slightly younger employees and the influence of broader Ascentium. I look at this team and it motivates me every day to do my part the best that I can. They are tremendous and all work for the greater success of the team.

After 17 years in the service industry, I’ve seen organizations grow and change many times over and achieve great success. And during those times, key players have left my organizations and achieve incredible success in their own right. I’m proud of each of them, as well as what my teams have always accomplished.

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Build a List of 100

Posted in business, management, tagged , , , on June 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

We’ve all been in ruts. We all would like an effective technique that allows us to look at problems differently. Recently, Josiah Johnson, the Director of Business Development at ZeroDash1, and I decided to use the “List of 100” to brainstorm ideas on how to gain a larger footprint in one of our key accounts.

For those who are not familiar, List of 100 is a technique to generate ideas, clarify thoughts, uncover hidden problems or get solutions to any specific questions. The technique is very simple in principle: State your issue or question in the top of a blank sheet of paper and come up with a list of one hundred answers or solutions about it.

Our question was, “How Do We Build a More Dynamic and Powerful Relationship with Company X?”

Phase I: First 30 entries or so: where you escape circular thinking

We started building the list with the first 27 answers coming relatively easily. Most of these, however, were ideas that we had bantered around for some time. The first really original idea came at number 28, where we wanted to include the results of our work with the customer in some of our industry blogs.

Phase II: Next 40 entries: where patterns emerge

The next 40 ideas were difficult to come by. At times, Josiah and I were staring at each other across the table wondering why we ever started the list. We would ask each other how many ideas we had after every five new ideas or so. “Are we there yet, daddy? Are we there yet?” Haha. My mind started wandering off to what I would cook for dinner this weekend.
According to experts, this phase is the most difficult because we had to let go of the ideas we had in the first phase in order to come up with new, distinct ones. For us, a pattern emerged around ways to extend our support to the company’s affiliate organizations. These were worthwhile ideas that we will pursue.

Phase III: Next 30 entries: where the gems are

The last 30 ideas were definitely our most creative. We came up with possible ways to leverage our own website for the customer. I was most happy with ideas around giving additional incentives to our staff for providing the customer extraordinary service and increasing business.

The whole exercise took about 1 hour, 15 minutes. Yes, it was difficult at times as we tried to let go of our initial ideas. In the end, however, we both found the exercise beneficial and are excited to implement some of the ideas that came out.

The question can be for business or personal life. Here is a good guide if you want to try it.

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Competition Helps to Drive Performance

Posted in business, management, tagged , , on June 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

How much is $2 really worth these days? Yesterday, the $2 that I received from my golf buddy Jeff Gilles was PRICELESS! After18 holes in pleasant mild weather, at a brisk pace of four hours, he had to hand over those $2 for our skins game.

Now, I don’t want to come across as a bad winner, but please understand that Jeff had been taking my money on a weekly basis for the last two golf seasons. After each round, he would remind me that I was younger, in better shape, and had participated in more sporting activities throughout my life. He would do this in his dry sort of way. Ouch.

So, okay, I’m being ungentlemanly after my one-time unexpected victory. For those who know that I can be competitive at times, this obnoxious behavior is no big surprise. Once when losing to my brother down a ski run, I tried to dive and roll into him so he wouldn’t beat me. Luckily, I’ve mellowed out since then, but still do enjoy a good competition.

Most everyone in their own way enjoys some level of competition. It’s in our nature as human beings. Therefore, bringing well thought-out, productive competition to the work place can be very motivating.

Obviously, sales teams have long used competition to motivate their people. Unfortunately, organized competition is less common outside of sales. In a service company, everyone is involved in sales regardless of titles. So, tapping into people’s desire for some competition can be very productive.

One way is to be transparent with the weekly financial performance and the organizational KPI’s. At ZeroDash1, we put all this information on our intranet Sharpoint site. When hitting certain goals and targets, the team wins and gets rewarded.

If you manage assertive, bright people, leveraging competitive contests can improve financial performance, encourage team-building, and produce accountability and ownership of the group’s overall performance by everyone.

Yes, yes, everyone knows this already, but how many managers really take that “strategic” time to come up with constructive competition that motivates desired results throughout the organization? Not many, I would presume.

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Confessions of My Intervention

Posted in management, personal stories, tagged , , on May 2, 2008 | 4 Comments »

I’ve been known to give constructive feedback every so often, especially at work. It’s probably a lot easier than receiving one. However, receiving constructive feedback is much more beneficial — IF you LET it be.

Almost a year ago, I walked into my own INTERVENTION. It was after a team meeting at ZeroDash1. As I walked out, feeling good about my presentation, Josiah Johnson and Rachel Cascisa asked to have a word with me.

They were nice about it, but basically told me that I was not dressing for success. As the executive representative of ZeroDash1, I needed to present a more professional and fashionable image. Gulp. Totally speechless.

Looking down at my favorite cotton knit sweater (with an awesome fly fisherman on the front), I couldn’t fathom what they were trying to tell me. I’d been wearing this sweater for almost ten years! You couldn’t find sweaters like this anymore. Apparently, that was their point.

After letting me know that the “Bill Cosby” sweaters are out, they moved the intervention to the next stage: A Banana Republic website. Boy, they were prepared.

I realized then that there were age-appropriate business casual attire out there that is more modern than my baggy carry-overs from the 80′s and 90′s. And most of all, if these employees cared enough to have an intervention for me, I needed to make a better effort representing them.

In our industry, business casual sometimes leads to casual to sloppy casual. Now that I’m paying more attention, I can see that appropriate dress codes in the work place can have a real positive impact. It shows respect for oneself as well as for others. A group of well-dressed people have an energy about them.

So again, I’m humbled and learn another valuable lesson from those close to me. But hey, that favorite sweater… it’s still in the closet. Those are going to make a comeback.

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How to Help Kanye West

Posted in People, personal stories, social media, tagged , , on April 17, 2008 | 2 Comments »

Just when I thought I was getting pretty cool for a 40-something business executive and father of two teenagers, I’m humbled yet again.

 

It started with a text from Joe Chang, a ZeroDash1 consultant, asking me to attend Kanye West’s “Glow in the Dark After Party”. Ok, the name sounded vaguely familiar, but did I really have to ask, “Who is Kanye West?” The ridicule lasted for the next two days from my family, co-workers, and friends. You would have thought I didn’t know the name of the pope or something. Wait… nevermind.

 

So, Kanye West, the mega rap star, who’s been on television constantly according to the rest of the world who knew about him, kicked off his “Glow in the Dark” tour in Seattle on Wednesday (April 16, 2008). As part of the promotion, he sponsored an After Party that night to an exclusive list of 400 guests.

 

Shortly after the text, an invitation email came with a very nice creative design, and cool flash. I RSVP’ed, but later found out that I had given the wrong email address for my wife, Shari. Since this was an “exclusive” event, I wanted to make sure that she was on the guest list, and considered just forwarding her the invite. Then, it hit me. Hum, how many others would forward this email? Did the organizers have a way of deciphering those on the original invitation list versus other respondents?

 

The answer came from another text from Joe, encouraging us to show up early because the invites had been redistributed to the masses. Starbucks had a more infamous such incident in 2006, when it emailed a free iced coffee coupon to a few of its partners (employees) in the Southeast region of the US. These partners were supposed to forward to only a few friends and family. Well, the latter recipients had their own friends and family, including people outside Southeast US. When the redistributions got out of hand, Starbucks stopped honoring the coupons, causing a public relations nightmare. Viral marketing can be too successful. These campaigns need to be well thought out.

 

Being that this was the tour’s kickoff event, I’m sure the organizers will tweak the campaign for other cities. They will have to develop a plan for matching responding emails to the original invitation email addresses (perhaps through a landing page setup). Another option could have been requiring the printout of the invite and matching the names on the printed invite at the door. Tools such as e-vite has the capability of restricting redistributions, but would also restrict the use of the campaign’s creative design.

 

Had ZeroDash1 been involved in this campaign, we could have helped avoid such oversights. Additionally, ZeroDash1 could have come up with productive ways to re-leverage the list of qualified respondents. These are very segmented and targeted list of people with obvious interest in music, and in particular, Kanye West.

 

As for the event, we showed up early and had no problem getting in. They did check the invite list for everyone. The crowd was young, attractive and enjoying the free product from sponsor Absolut. Ok, I must say that the young women were very fashionably dressed, but not so appropriately for the evening’s cold weather. As a parent… blah, blah, blah. Darn! I’m sounding old again!

 

Mr. West’s concert at the Key Arena had rave reviews by the local press. One of my friends who went to the show, said, “Awesome! He’s the sh*t!” Jiawen Shi, a wealth management consultant, had joined us after the concert. That was a big Kanye West night for her. She obviously knew who he was.

 

The problem for me was that the concert didn’t end until around 11:30 pm. So, while Shari was having more and more fun on the dance floor with her friends as the night went on, I started thinking about the pending work day coming up. Finally at 12:45 am, I high-jacked her from the dance floor and headed out. Just then, Mr. West made his appearance stepping out of a white Hummer limo, which made me very unpopular at home the rest of that night… uh, I meant morning. I was once again labeled, “old and lame”. Such a geezer.

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How to Sell a Service Company

Posted in business, entrepreneur, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 8, 2008 | 1 Comment »

ZeroDash1 was acquired by Ascentium March 1. How did the deal happen?
The genesis of ZeroDash1 came about last May when a few of us realized that measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns was an area of tremendous potential. We quickly formed a talented team, and launched with a big party at Hotel 1000 in September. The event attracted more than 400 people as the Northwest Internet Advertising Group (NWIAG) co-sponsored the launch.
Yet, building credibility from scratch was no easy task, and while ZeroDash1 created good buzz, finding paying customers was another matter. Regardless, we focused on building brand. Our people, in particular Anil Batra, went on the speaking circuit. As a result, ZeroDash1 even made it on Forrester’s report, “Where to get help with Web Analytics”.
By December, we realized that the fragmented nature of the Web Analytics sector gave a unique window of opportunity to some company to develop market dominance. However, ZeroDash1 didn’t have the capital and reach to do this without joining forces with a larger firm.
By January, we had a serious suitor from the Bay area. We had gone through weeks of due diligence when Ascentium contacted us. The two potential deals took their course until all parties involved realized that Ascentium was the better match.
Many people wonder how to go about selling a service company. Here are some of my takeaways:

  1. You have to have an attractive business plan. We focused on talented people in a highly desirable, up-and-coming field. We had picked the right business.
  2. With a service company, you must have a stellar reputation. Build brand and not just resumes. We continued to do this even when cash became tight.
  3. Must be able to articulate your value from the potential acquirer’s perspective. It matters little what you think of your value.
  4. Be reasonable in determining valuation. It has to be a win-win.
  5. Be open as possible from the beginning. Eventually, all truths will come out anyway.
  6. Keep liabilities to a minimum. No complex corporate structure.
  7. Don’t want it TOO much, but want it bad enough.
  8. Negotiate for the team, not just the shareholders.
  9. Realize luck is involved. Be humble.

 

Looking ahead, I’m very excited about what ZeroDash1 can do as part of Ascentium. It truly seems to be a tremendous match. And the web analytics space still remains fragmented, and ready for some market leaders to emerge. Our vision remains to become one of those leaders.

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