Question, from an e-mail: When Do I Hire A CEO? It’s a good question, and it comes up a lot, so I want to answer it here. First, the background, from the same e-mail:

I’m an engineering inventor currently working for a big corporation. I have no previous business experience other than what I’ve gained from my current job. My research tells me that my invention has sustainable competitive advantage. I’ve written a business plan that I think supports my idea. I’m ready to try and interest people to fund the project. Probably $1 million initial funding.

Of course nothing is ever as simple as it seems. I don’t know the person who asked that question, or his or her background, so I have to do some guessing. What I end up with is a series of reactions: Choose your answer from the list of possible answers. And I can’t make all the possible answers consistent with each other. Sorry.

1. Are you sure you’re not underestimating yourself? One classic model for the entrepreneurial invention-driven startup is run by the hard-driving passionate inventor-entrepreneur. The investors hope the original founder can accommodate others in the team, listen to advice and step aside as the company grows so big that it requires more management skills than plain passion. Maybe you should rewrite your history to make yourself more like the CEO. Most people who end up as CEO start out like you say you have, with “what I’ve gained from my current job.” Humility is nice, but self-confidence and competence are nice, too.
2. Investors don’t want to invest in ideas without teams to run them. The business plan development period is the time to build a team. If you’re not the CEO, whom do you know that would want to team up with you and enhance that business plan? Do you have somebody who can manage, somebody who can sell and somebody who can produce? A team normally includes several people with different skill sets, but–and this is really important–all of whom believe in the venture and are prepared to jump on board as soon as it is financed. They should join in the plan development and join in the meetings with investors. You don’t hire a CEO at this point; you find a potential CEO to join the team, contribute to the plan and put his or her resumé into the appendices.
3. You might be recruiting CEOs to be hired after funding, but you don’t want to hire anybody before you have money to pay. Get the commitment to join now, then the funding and then do the hiring. Find the people now. If they don’t buy into your idea, keep looking. If they’re not excited by the opportunity, then keep looking.
4. Watch for clues. If you can’t find anybody who really wants to join you, then there’s something wrong here. Why not? Have you overvalued your idea? Is this an early warning that investors won’t want it, either? Better to deal with that now, before you’ve invested too much of your time and energy, than later.
5. There’s a site called partnerup.com that is focused on exactly your problem, finding suitable partners and co-founders and, in your case, that CEO. I’ve dealt with the organization, I like the people, and I’m optimistic about the basic idea. It may not have critical mass yet in all areas, but it’s worth a try.

So there are some possible answers to that question. Take your choice, as many of them as work for you.

Pamela Slim of Escape From Cubicle Nation called it an “Exceptionally rich and juicy post on becoming ‘lifestyle entrepreneur.’ ” I agree, and thanks to Slim for pointing it out.

The post she referred to is “Become a Lifestyle Entrepreneur: Complete Guide and 40+ Resources” by Skellie on Anywired. From the introduction:

The goal of a lifestyle entrepreneur is not to amass a huge fortune, but instead, to achieve certain definable goals and, beyond that point, to ensure business does not interfere too much with the enjoyment of those goals.

In this article, I’ll be outlining the primary steps to becoming a lifestyle entrepreneur, followed by 40+ educational and practical resources you can use to get started.

She defined three types of lifestyle entrepreneurs: Time minimalists, nomadic entrepreneurs and doing it for love. She also gets into how, what tools to use and lots of tips. Like Slim said, it’s very rich.

Sun Microsystems and Mashable.com are teaming up to offer you some early startup publicity on a new site that will feature a series called “The Startup Review.” They plan to feature one startup per day, based on “the same general editorial decision-making process” Mashable typically uses. You submit some standard info plus “CEO’s 100-word description.” Also, you make sure your website is cool and available to the editors.

What will it matter? Honestly, that depends on various factors. It’s too early to tell how much play the posting will get. At the very least, you’ll have an external web reference that you can use to add credibility.

And after all, what do you have to lose?

Sun Microsystems is hosting a free startup camp in San Francisco next Sunday and Monday, May 4 and 5, with an open agenda. The press release (yes, I admit, I’m taking this and one post tomorrow from a release) calls it an "un-conference event." The following is from that release:

an un-conference networking event to hear from some Web 2.0 authorities, meet other startups and apply to Sun’s Startup Essentials Program. The event also includes Speed Geeking, where startup founders can compete in the Best Startup Contest by presenting a 5-minute pitch of their business to VC led groups of peers. Confirmed guests include: Pete Cashmore, Jonathan Schwartz, David Berlind, Om Malik, Matt Marshall etc. This event is a great way for startups to network and discuss ideas.

The website for that is http://startupcamp.org/ .

This isn’t mine, but I wish it were because it’s done very well and I agree with all of it. These are the seven deadly sins of business plans, from Stephen Fleming on Academic VC:

1. Insist on a nondisclosure agreement upfront.
2. Focus on the technology—not the market, the competition and the customers.
3. Practice top-down sales forecasting.
4. Use four significant digits everywhere.
5. Position investors as necessary-but-unpleasant “mushrooms.” (He adds: Keep them in the dark and feed them plenty of… um, manure).
6. Fill your plan with typos, errors, “chartjunk,” 3D graphs and repetition.
7. Expect to be acquired by Cisco or Google.

Don’t settle for my quick summary, read the source, which is Academic VC: “Raising Capital: Part 09.” It’s right on point,  on target and well worth reading. Fleming obviously knows this area very well.

And when you read it, you’ll notice that this is part 9 of an 11-part (so far) series on raising capital. It may be the best of the series, but not necessarily; there are some other very good pieces.

If you’re looking to raise capital, read every word in the series.

I had an excellent Friday and Saturday last week at the Rice University 2008 Business Plan Competition, a reminder for me that some scientists and some ideas make great new businesses. I have to say that because I so often state that the idea is an overvalued component of a new business (compared to the implementation), and that wasn’t the case with some of these. More on that some other time.

As part of that competition, in a judges’ meeting before it started, Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship managing director Brad Burke shared the following list of questions to ask about a new venture:

1. Is there a real need? What problem is being solved?
2. Is the market big? Will customers pay for this?
3. Is there sustainable, significant differentiation?
4. Is there IP (patents)? Exclusive license?
5. Are members of the team committed to launch this business?
6. Strong management team? Are gaps understood?
7. Are the timelines, milestones, capital needs and financials realistic? Is there an exit in five to seven years?

The context Friday morning was judges looking at business plans, but I asked Burke for permission to share this because it’s a good list for anybody to use.

And while I seem to be on the theme of business plan competitions–I posted about one here Friday; there are a lot of them in April, and I’ll be judging at the University of Oregon this week and the University of Texas at the end of the month. I posted about the Forbes $100,000 business plan contest for existing companies over at Business in General. Forbes is accepting applications now through the end of May.

I’m going to go out on a limb here today in this post about setting up bookkeeping for your new company. I’m thinking that the process is getting simpler every day. Here’s what you do:

1. Decide which bank has your company’s main checking account.
2. Determine which of the so-called accounting software options the bank works easily with. These days most banks will export data to Quicken, QuickBooks or Microsoft Money, at the very least.
3. Choose which of these you prefer, and get going.

There are other reasonable accounting options for startup companies. NetBooks is very impressive, developed by Ridgely Evers, who was the original developer of the first QuickBooks. Sage Software has strong offerings. I just picked up a useful review of QuickBooks alternatives from Ramon Ray at Small Business Technology, and he’s reminding us as well that there are some other options.

But the data transfer link with your bank is so important that it probably overrides other considerations. If you can export transactions from your bank’s database, that helps enormously. In the end, the real problem of managing the books is mostly a matter of data entry.

If you are running a business involving products and inventory, make sure you take inventory management into account when you decide which system to use. NetBooks seems particularly strong for that, especially compared with QuickBooks, which is more oriented toward service.

If you have business-to-business sales, you probably have to manage accounts receivable, meaning waiting to be paid by your customers. In that case, make sure you take the accounts receivable functions (aging reports, collection days, etc.) into account as well.

None of that, however, changes the basic conclusion: Use something that works with your bank’s data.

You don’t want to start a new business in an existing industry without having a pretty good idea how things work in that industry. I realize this feels like a catch 22, as in how can you have experience in these things before you start, but I’m saying it’s hard to start without experience.

There are ways. I suggested one way in “The Telephone Tree in Reverse” and another in “It Doesn’t Hurt to Ask.” Both of those posts are about phoning people, finding people and just asking.

At the very least, you should have a sense of what the competition’s like, how many people are out there and what the standard financials are like.

There is plenty of information available–too much, in fact. Your hardest task is sifting through it all. There are websites for business analysis, financial statistics, demographics, trade associations and so on. The main web searchers are your best friend. There are also some of the old-fashioned reference works, just in case you really need them. Remember, though, that websites are always changing. Your most effective tools are good search techniques.

Multiple vendors offer standard financial profiles of thousands of different industries. So at the very least, you ought to know what the standard composite company in some industry close to yours does as a gross margin (sales less cost of sales divided by sales, usually stated as a percent. A 34 percent gross margin means you’re spending 66 cents of every dollar on cost of goods, or direct costs of some sort) and profit before interest and taxes, as a percent of sales.

Don’t worry too much about finding your exact industry. The financial profiles available are based on one or both of two main classification systems, the older SIC codes and the more modern NAICS. Both of them depend on large databases and standard classifications, so your Web 2.0 business won’t be there. Nobody’s business really fits the standard profiles. Find the one that’s closest to you and be ready to think through why you’re different from all the others.

Some of the vendors of financial profiles–and this is just a quick list, by no means thoroughly researched–include Integra Information Systems, JJ Hill Research, Oxxford Information Technology, Bizstats, Bizminer and–the oldest and most respected by bankers–Risk Management Association. There are lots of others, too. Don’t forget trade associations, trade magazines and the knowledgeable journalists who write for trade magazines.

Starting a business is hard enough without having a fairly good idea of how things work. And this information is available, for the most case; you don’t have to just guess numbers out of the air.

If your new business is going to distribute products in the U.S. retail market, that means what people call “the channel.” Also known as channels of distribution or retail channels. As in stores. Big stores or little stores. Macy’s, Office Depot, Staples, Safeway, whatever. I see too many business plans that underestimate the effort, resources and problems involved in selling things through channels.

So you know, my experience with channels started in 1993 and has been almost entirely in stores and chains selling packaged computer software. I’ve talked to a lot of people dealing in other kinds of channels, and it seems to be quite the same. So that’s a disclaimer.

1. Understand tiers. Most of the major retail channels in the U.S. involve two-tiered distribution.
2. The big retailers, which tend to be chains with hundreds of stores, want to buy from distributors, not from you. No offense intended. It’s just that buying from distributors makes their life simple. One bill, one payment and easier administration.
3. Distributors are tough gatekeepers. They aren’t looking for new vendors. New vendors mean more work. And more risk. So they aren’t anxious to change the status quo. Of course there are exceptions, but that’s the rule.
4. Retailers are also tough gatekeepers, for the same reason. Here, too, there are exceptions, but it’s hard to be one.
5. Both tiers are much happier about new products when they come from existing vendors. Major companies that are already selling into the channel have it easier.
6. Packaging is really important for everybody in the channel and more so for new companies. Obviously this is a matter of different products and different industries, but through retail, buyers make choices based on what they see. We vendors would like them to read reviews and make more informed decisions, but most of the time they decide based on what they see.
7. Channels take a big cut of your money. How much varies by industry, but if you are planning a new business and you don’t know, find out. The distributors take a small cut, but they take forever to pay you. The retailers take a larger cut, and they don’t have to pay you because they bought from the distributors. Both tiers take cuts of the money for co-marketing and things like that. You get a much smaller revenue per unit, and it comes several months after you make the sale.
8. Most channels will insist on being able to send unsold goods back to you, the vendor, and have you buy them back at the same price they paid you, without any allowance for all the co-marketing commissions. This makes financial analysis hard.

One of the things I learned early about channels: They don’t care about your problems. If you’re hard to deal with, they’ll find somebody else to sell into the same segment.

So if you can sell direct, count your blessings. Channels offer volume and branding, and that’s attractive. But direct sales have some very attractive advantages, too.

It started late last week with Jason Calacanis’ post “How to save money running a startup (17 really good tips).” He’s the founder of the search engine Mahalo and a Silicon Valley veteran. Read it. Think about it. The “really good” description in his headline is Calacanis’, not mine. Just so you know, “Fire everybody who isn’t a workaholic,” tip No. 11, doesn’t strike me as a really good tip.

That post set off fireworks. Michael Arrington summarized on TechCrunch. Follow his links for good reading.

Boy was he attacked. Bloggers lined up to take their shots at him. Examples are here, here, here and, especially, here.

He goes on, however, to agree with Calacanis. You should read his post, but read the others, also, and read the comments. Read Duncan Riley’s post on the same TechCrunch blog (interesting that Arrington, founder, owner and head knocker, handles that disagreement disarmingly well, by the way). Read the comments to that one, too.

Read also the related 37 Signals commentary, titled “Fire the Workaholics.”

My own experience argues against what Calacanis, Arrington and others say. I would hate to have a company full of workaholics. I don’t think that works. People burn out. Furthermore, I think that the founders making the big money forget–so easily, and so quickly–that the rest of the company has a few odd shares in options and won’t be making tens of millions of dollars if the company makes it. I think that the best company environments are built with people who have lives that they value, by companies that value their employees as people and respect the rest of their lives.

But that’s just me. You get to decide for yourself. Read about it, think about it, and make it work the way you believe it will work best.

Danger: Don’t confuse not having a business plan event with not needing or wanting a business plan.

The business plan event forces you to present a plan. It might be that you’re seeking outside investment, applying for business financing from a bank or other lender, taking a business class that requires a business plan or entering a venture contest that requires a business plan.

It’s because of these business plan events that people confuse the idea of needing a business plan with wanting business planning. Suddenly experts can make themselves feel good by advising people not to do the formal business plan because they don’t have a business plan event. It sounds like they are saying don’t plan, when what they mean is more like don’t bother to do the big ponderous formal plan document.

This potential confusion is dangerous. Don’t deprive yourself of planning just because you don’t have to present a formal plan to outsiders. Plan your business regardless. That’s why I’m suggesting that you plan as you go.

One of the big conceptual foundations of strategy is what I like to call your business identity.

This is what makes your business different from all others: what you want, what you do well, how you do things and what makes you unique.

What You Want

It starts with what you (as the owner of the business) want for your company. Define success for yourself. It isn’t always a matter of market share, sales growth, profitability and return on investment, although those concepts are always nice. In many cases it’s about living well, or living better. Having more time with the kids. Coaching soccer. And sometimes it’s about being right. Showing that something can be done. A lot of times it’s about doing what you want and making money at it. It helps to think this through. You can’t get to your destination if you aren’t sure where you’re going.

There are several levels of goals in business planning. Use one or more of them to define your identity:

1. The mantra: This is a simple sentence or phrase describing what you do. Guy Kawasaki has a nice treatment of mantra in his book The Art of The Start, and he’s made an excerpt of that available for download.
2. The mission statement: Too bad it’s usually just empty hype. A good mission statement actually defines what your company wants to do for its customers, for its employees and for its owners. That can be useful.
3. Business objectives: These are specific, concrete, measurable goals, like sales levels, growth rates, units, profit percentage, gross margin percentages, customers served and so on. If it isn’t measurable, then it shouldn’t be there.
4. The vision: This is a dream for the future. Project yourself forward into time, say three or five years, and describe what you want to see for your company.

What You Are

Then there is that sense of looking in the mirror, as a company, recognizing what your company really is. This includes:

1. Core competencies: What are you really good at? What do you do better than anybody else?
2. Keys to success: They are different for every company. It doesn’t really go by industry, either; one company’s key to success is better parking, another’s is better food, another’s is better service. Or lowering costs. Or more repeat business. Or better marketing.
3. Strengths and weaknesses: The top part of a good SWOT analysis, the nature of your company. Be honest. First identify strengths and weaknesses, and later you can build strategy based on them: Work toward the strengths and away from the weaknesses.