Up and Running:

I think I know the “content” business. I’ve been a journalist, a columnist, an expert article writer, a speaker, a blogger and an author of books published by Entrepreneur Press, McGraw-Hill, etc.

I had a talk yesterday with a good friend who’s struggling to make it in the content business. She’s a true expert in entrepreneurship and a very good writer. But it’s slow going for her.

Part of the problem is that the content business isn’t always a business. The world is full of experts–me included–willing to write for free, not for money, because they make their money somewhere else. Some provide content in exchange for links, some for visibility, some just because they want a voice. So it’s getting harder to sell what other people give away.

When I was a journalist we were filling the spaces between the ads. Today it’s a lot more complex. Why do major intellectuals and celebrities post for free on Huffington Post? Because they want to, not because they have to. Why do most people blog? Because they want to. It’s a rare blog that actually makes its author money (sure, there are some, and they are well known; but they are also one in a million).

I don’t think the future bodes well for selling content for money. Maybe creative content, but not business content. It seems like the world is full of experts willing to write, speak and blog for free (or maybe for links). They get paid back in visibility and, they hope, eventual sales of whatever it is that they actually sell. And lots of them simply want to write about what they like. They make it about having a voice, and having some visibility. That seems like it permanently changes the business of just selling content.

And I’m one of those experts. So I’m in the middle of this particular wind of change. For me, at least, I love it.

If so, prove it. Get recognition for it. Publicity is good, right? Give it a try.

Go to visit Forbes.com’s America’s Most Promising Entrepreneurs. Take the survey. You may end up on the Forbes.com list, coming later, to be developed using the survey that you just took.

A survey which, by the way, was developed especially for this Forbes.com use by the Venture Alliance, whose CEO Jim Casparie has an excellent article on the same site about getting angel investment. Jim’s post there fits rather neatly with my post here on Up and Running, earlier this week, about questions to ask yourself before you start looking for angel investment.

Words have meanings. Communication has the message, the message sent and the message received. We’re stuck with that. We don’t get to redefine words easily, for convenience. We need to respect the meaning in the other person’s head.

What am I talking about, you ask? (I know–it isn’t obvious.) I’m talking about . . .

• I worked with someone who said “public relations” when he meant what the rest of the world calls customer service. That made business discussions hard, sometimes, because we didn’t share the same definition for that phrase.
• Many people use the accounting term “goodwill” as if it were the ordinary, non-jargon English phrase “good will.” Goodwill in finance and accounting is the difference between the book value of a business and the amount paid by a business to buy that business.
• Many people have trouble distinguishing “assets” as an exact concept in accounting and finance from the general idea of assets as things that are good to have. So, for example, when they pay programmers to develop a website they want to think of that website as an asset. In general terms, it is; but in accounting terms, it isn’t. Website programming was an expense, and it doesn’t generate an asset on the books. That can be very confusing.
• And then there’s the whole problem of “value” and what things are worth. For accounting and finance, an asset is worth purchase price less depreciation. It isn’t worth what you’d sell it for or what you think people would pay for it. It isn’t even worth what it would cost to replace it. It’s worth what you paid for it, less depreciation. Period.

That bothers some people. Particularly in the business plan setting where they’re writing a plan to present the business to others, like a plan for investors, or to back a bank loan. They want to show the value of their website or the software, which has no value in the books (because development is an expense, not a purchase of assets). They want to show that the land and buildings are worth way more than what they paid for them.

In that case, what you need is patience. The extra value comes through to the books when you sell that land and those buildings, when you sell the software you developed, when you sell the website or, better yet, make sales of other stuff because the website is good. There’s a lot of value that goes into the text of the plan, but not the formal numbers, because it hasn’t been realized yet.

This problem of definitions drives some people crazy, and it makes me very uncomfortable. It’s not just trying to make trouble on my part. I seem old-fashioned and inflexible when I fall back on the more established, standard definitions of the words and phrases some people want to give their own special meaning to.

Not my idea, unfortunately, but a nice play on words. We call this blog Up and Running, but what about Startegy, since it’s about starting up. No, sorry, it would always look like a typo.

The following is from “Forget Strategy” on a blog called Metacool:

An innocuous typo I saw today got me thinking: What if we used a word called “startegy” instead of “strategy”? When faced with a blank sheet of paper, we tend to spend too much time engaged in discussions about strategy, otherwise known as “strategery,” and too little time learning by doing. In this context, talking a lot about what to do and why is inappropriate because we don’t know enough about context and constraints. When you’re getting out into the world and starting things, guiding evidence has a way of surfacing in a way [that] doesn’t happen within the cloistered confines of meeting rooms.

Revolutions don’t just happen, they get started. Startegy.

Interesting thoughts. But no, I’m not renaming anything.

I did it again: early adapter, early adopter, damn! I hate it when that happens. In my last post, I called myself an early adapter but should have written early adopter. So, under the premise that if literate good-speller/good-writer me makes this mistake, then others must, here’s a correction and clarification from Simon Cooke at Accidental Scientist: 

Folks, please, don’t make the mistake that one head of marketing at Sierra I used to know did (and fought me tooth and nail on it, insisting that they were correct), and call the people you’re relying on to buy your product early in the game early adapters. The phrase you are looking for is early adopter.

Note the ‘O’.

This is someone who is part of the first vanguard of people to ever use a new thing. They adopt the thing early on. (Adopt meaning “to take up and practice as one’s own”). An early adapter, however, is someone who takes something early on and, like McGuyver or the A-Team, adapts it to their own nefarious purposes. This usually involves and/or incorporates duct tape somewhere in the process, a pocketknife, and potentially a Sharpie permanent marker. Big difference.

So I stand corrected. Better late than never. Thanks Simon (and Eve, at Entrepreneur.com, who caught it first.)

This is my blog, so I’m deciding to write about startups, not start-ups or start ups. I’m used to the hyphenated version as in “start-up business,” but Google defines startup now, and links to four different sites that define it as what I’m talking about, so that’s good enough for me.

That’s just for the record. FYI.

– Tim

I believe in starting new businesses. I’ve been involved with startups for more than 20 years. I’m president and founder of Palo Alto Software, founder of bplans.com, and a co-founder of Borland International. I built Palo Alto Software from zero to 40 employees and 70% market share without outside investment. I built the management team that now runs it while I’m here with you blogging. I teach starting a business at the University of Oregon. Startups change the world for the better.

I also believe in business planning. I teach (some would say preach) planning with my own company, at the University of Oregon, in published books and software, and in speaking engagements for the likes of Apple Computer, Autodesk, Progress Software, USASBE, Academy of Management, and so on. I wrote Hurdle: the Book on Business Planning and other books on planning published by Harcourt Brace, McGraw-Hill, and Dow Jones-Irwin. I’m the principal author of Business Plan Pro. As a consultant I worked with Apple Computer steadily for 14 years of repeat business — consultant, not an employee — doing (among other things) 14 years of annual plans for Apple Latin America, Apple Pacific, and Apple Japan. Apple Latin America grew from $2 million to $37 million annual sales while I was doing its annual business plans, and Apple Japan grew from $187 million to $1.5 billion in annual sales while I was doing its planning (not that my planning was responsible, but at least it didn’t screw it up). I have a Stanford MBA degree to add credibility (if an MBA degree adds credibility any more). For my recent views on business planning, I like ‘10 Questions with Tim Berry’ on Guy Kawasaki’s blog and my post The not so big business plan on my blog Planning, Startups, Stories.

I like writing. It reminds me of my first career as a journalist. I was night editor for UPI in Mexico City for three years, and McGraw-Hill World News correspondent for Mexico for five years. I wrote regularly for Business Week and other McGraw-Hill publications, and occasionally for Financial Times and others. I even wrote some published fiction — not counting market research — but it wasn’t very good. My first degree (Notre Dame) was in literature, my second (an MA from University of Oregon) was journalism.

I’ve seen startups and small business from multiple views. I’ve had the good years and bad years. My wife and I had three mortgages and $65,000 of credit card debt at one very low point, which we survived, but I really don’t recommend. I’ve landed investment from a Palo Alto venture capital firm and bought them back. I’ve consulted with venture capitalists on software startups, essentially kicking tires. I’ve consulted with startups on bringing in venture capital, and angel investors, and business loans, and friends and family.

I like to think I’ve never lost track of what’s really important. I’d have to give my wife of 40 years credit for us still being married, three companies, five kids, 5 college educations, 2 graduate degrees, 7 jobs, and I forget how many mortgages later.

– Tim