I am not much of a “brand marketer”.  I am a firm believer that the only point of marketing is to expedite the sales process.  Too many marketers think that their job is to build a brand.   But branding is just one minor aspect of marketing, especially technology marketing.   In my opinion, brand is built by every aspect of the customer interaction.   And I saw this demonstrated to me again in an airport meal.

I am a burger fan.  I absolutely love the great American meal of a hamburger.  And one of the better chain places to get a burger is Fuddruckers.  So, when I was in Logan Airport this past week, my wife and I were hungry and stopped at a Fuddruckers.  My darling wife ordered a Caesar salad, and I ordered a big fat burger with a fried egg on top of it.   Unfortunately, the burger did not live up to my expectations as it was overcooked, undermeated, and generally disappointing.

As my wife and I ate, we discussed the fact that Fuddruckers was living dangerously by having a restaurant like this at an airport.  If I had never eaten at a Fuddruckers, I would think this is what they were all like.   Would I come back?  Doubtful.

In my world, this is branding.  Give your customers a great experience, and they will associate that with your brand.  They will tell their friends, and your success will perpetuate itself.  Branding is not a marketing effort.  It is a whole company effort.  You don’t have to spend money to brand, you just have to deliver a great product and service.

The Board of Advisers at Wasabi Ventures has been in this business since the early ’90s.  Therefore, they have a knowledge base that extends over the years.

As a new addition to Tales of the Entrepreneur, “classic” articles written by members of our team will be posted in condensed versions with links to the full articles.

Wasabi Ventures has a friend, Hon, who has been unbelievably successful.  He has built companies and had huge windfall successes and because of these wins, our friend has a hefty bankroll.  But he also is uncommonly frugal — personally frugal and business frugal.  He is also the king of one-liners, so he has self-described his approach with money as being, “deep pockets, short arms.”

The “deep pockets, short arms” approach to start-ups is something to which every entrepreneur should aspire. Having “deep pockets” affords you to have as much flexibility as you can.  You can risk more of your time because you have a personal bankroll.  Salary and personal cash flow are not as important as building an opportunity into a sustainable business.  You also have the luxury of financing ventures yourself.

But you should also keep control of costs.  Being spend-thrift not only preserves cash, but it also forces operations to be efficient.  And it is in this efficiency that breakthroughs usually happen.  You find faster, smarter, better ways to run a business and beat the competition.

Grow your “deep pockets, short arms”, and build your company today.

We are in the midst of one of the great economic meltdowns and revolutions of our lifetime.  The financial markets crisis that has seen Lehman Brothers go bankrupt, AIG on the brink of collapse, and JP Morgan Chase sold at yard sale prices has sent reverberations throughout the business world.  The dollar is weakening on a daily basis, and the credit crunch is hitting main street.  This is an economic ice age.

And like the ice age that brought on the extinction of the dinosaurs and precipitated the rise of the mammal to the top of the food chain (note: this is the WV scientific take on dinosaur extinction), we believe the same thing will happen in this meltdown.  Small start-ups are going to be like the furry rodents that scurried around the jungles of the Jurassic Age.   As the large T-Rexs and other raptors (think large financial behemoths) fail to adopt and adapt to the change in climate, small, more agile creatures do find a way through.  The greatness of start-ups is that they can find holes in the cracks of an economy.  And like the early mammals, they also will evolve and grow into the dominant economic force.

So, as the bad news continues to grow and reverberate on Wall Street, think about the ways you can evolve and adapt.  Start-ups are just the small, furry, agile creatures of this ice age.

All of the general partners at WV are parents of school age children.  And like most parents, we spend a great deal of time with our children.  We take them to their various doctor appoints, swim lessons, gymnastics classes, and every other activity under the sun.  We also cook, clean, and generally care for all of their daily needs. And like most parents, we often wear ourselves out trying to be the best parents we can be.

Parenting also is one of those things that you often cannot see progress on a daily basis.  Your “victories” are clouded in the muck of just doing the job of parenting.  It is often not until years later that all of your efforts are rewarded (think of your child heading off to college, getting married, or finding that first job).  The destructiveness of bad parenting is also not often seen until years later.  Neglectful or ambivalent parenting effort manifests itself years later when the child reaches adulthood.  But either good or bad, you often have a hard time seeing the effects of your actions.

This is where parenting and being a part of a start-up is parallel.  You often work day-in-day out without seeing the huge victories.  You are often so far into the muck of daily operations that you do not see your daily wins and losses.  You often can’t decipher if you are winning or losing.  It is not until years later, that all of those daily victories add up to an acquisition, IPO, or stable cash flow company.

So, the next time you see your child’s smile or satisfy a custom support inquiry, think about the connection between parenting and entrepreneurism.

“Hannibal ante portas” = “Hannibal is before the gates” – from Cicero’s commentary.

The Latin quote above is used often when talking about not wasting time.

At a start-up, the second most valuable commodity behind cash is time.  Technology start-ups have to move fast, and there are only 24 hours in any day.  So every minute wasted is an opportunity lost. And in one of the biggest places time is wasted is in meetings not starting on time.  That usually has a multiplier effect of wasting multiple people’s time all at once.

So I have strict meeting rules:

• If you are going to be more than 5 minutes late, send a note.  I have SMS, IM, email, carrier pigeon available 24 x 7.
• After 5 minutes, the meeting will be closed.  If it is a 1-on-1 meeting, don’t bother coming, I will reschedule.  If it is for a group meeting, don’t bother coming, I will send an update later or you can read it on the company intranet.

The enemy is always at the gates as a start-up.  Save the fiddle playing for when you have won the war. (Sorry for the mixed Latin metaphor.)