MIT IDEAS Competition Slides - The Great Opportunity of Our Generation

I wanted to post my Powerpoint slides from the presentation I gave at MIT for their 2009 IDEAS Competition on Monday night. You can view them on Scribd or below via this blog post.

The topic was “The Great Opportunity of Our Generation”

Some of the formatting is off in Scrib but mostly OK…

MIT IDEAS Social Entrepreneurship Competition, Ryan Allis, The Great Opportunity of Our Generation, May 200…

Here are some notes from the award ceremony following my presentation from Joe Chung. Congratulations to the winners! AquaPort, HeatSource and EGGTech were especially interesting to me.

Opening: Nick Fontaine
Keynote: Ryan Allis

Chancellor introduced
$2.5k IDEAS Award Winners
Aquaport
Oladapo Bakare
Ashley
Mary
Rob
Joonhaeng
Ash
Rebecca
Daniel
(water filtration)

Professor Thomas Byrne introduced
$2.5k winner
Vision Group (seeing machine)
Quinn Smithwick
Brandon Taylor
Yi Fei Wu
(project image directly into eye, bypass distorting part)

Barbara Baker introduced
$5k IDEAS Award winner
sponsored by Baruch Family
Global Citizen Water Initiative
Scott Frank
Stephanie Bachar
(place water in tube for 24 hrs to see if clean)

Allan Powell introduced
$5k IDEAS Award Winner
sponsored by The MIT COOP
BLISS
Saba Gul
Dr. Ishrat Hussain
Nadeem Mazen
Ghanzala Mehmood

Presented by Dean Stephen Lerman
$5k IDEAS Award Winner
sponsored by the office of dean of grad education/Yunus Challenge Winner
EGGTech Blandine Antoine Emmanuel Cassimatis Alla Jezmir
(providing battery for lighting to those in tanzania without electricity)

Yunus Challenge Winner
$7,500 IDEAS Award Winner
Lebone
Alexander Fabry
Aviva Presser
Hugo Van Zuuren
(microbial fuel cell solution for providing electricity)

Presented by Professor Thomas Byrne, MD
$7,500 IDEAS Award Winner
Braille Labeler
Aleksander and Anna Anita Leyfell
Adelaide Calbry-Muzyka
Josh Karges
Karina Pikhart
Maria Prus
Rachel Tatem
(electromechanical braille labeler)

Presented by Professor Michael Cima
Sponsored by the Lemelson - MIT Program
$7,500 IDEAS Award Winner
HeatSource
Amy Qian
Celeste Chudyk
Scot Frank
Allen Lin
Mary Masterman
Catlin Powers
Saad S
(encapsulating solar radiation through textile/material that provides heat during night)

Winner’s Retreat 2 Days at Endicott House

Inside The White House Friday…

On Sunday March 1 I got a voicemail. The call was from Elliott Bisnow. It said, “Come to The White House on Friday.”

Background on The Summit Series

I’ve written about Elliott before. He’s 23 and somehow, with an excellent team, has put together The Summit Series, designed to bring together the top entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, and innovators under 40 in the world. The group started in April 2008 in Utah wanting to bring together cool people. The purpose has evolved and strengthened as the group as grown.

Today, the purpose of The Summit Series is to bring future global leaders together to figure out how to make the world better. They’ve brought together people like Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva, Scott Harrison, the founder of Charity Water, Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry, co-founders of environmentally-friendly soap maker Method, and Blake Mycoskie, CEO of TOM’s Shoes, who has given away tens of thousands of shoes to children in developing countries.

They’re working to build a community of the most influential young entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, and innovators to make a positive impact. It’s the Clinton Global Initiative, Davos, and TED for Generation Y.

At the next Summit Series in April in Aspen, the focus is on philanthropy. They’ll be bringing in Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen (inventor of the LifeStraw) and Elizabeth Gore from Nothing But Nets, Lauren Bush from Feed Projects which sells bags that enable a contribution to feed a child for a year, Bobby Bailey from Invisible Children which works with child soldiers in Uganda, and Ethan Zohn from Grassroots Soccer, who took his $1 million from winning Survivor:Africa to set up soccer leagues in Africa that enable children there to get tested for HIV/AIDS.

In just one year, The Summit Series has grown through hustle, hard work, and word of month to 120 members, including some of the most well-known and respected ‘under-40′ entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs in the world.

This brings us to three weeks ago.

How The Meeting Transpired

On February 22, Elliott met David Washington and Yosi Sergant (the guy who launched the iconic HOPE poster) from the White House Office of Public Liaison at a DC event. Elliot told David and Yosi about Summit Series. They were interested in getting the message out on the Obama Administration’s efforts on job creation, the economy, energy, health care, transparency, and new media and building relationships over time with the attendees.

So it happened. David and Yosi told Elliot to find 30 people from Summit Series to come to a meeting at The White House on March 6th.

When someone calls to tell you to come to a meeting at The White House, you go. The White House has a “strong gravitational pull” as David Sutphen of Brunswick Group put it on Friday morning. And so I went.

Friday At The White House

So on Friday morning I flew to D.C. After getting a last minute haircut at an ‘old-school barbershop’ on 15th and H and running into my NASA-friend Stephanie Fibbs on the walk back, the Summit group met at 12pm at the Hay Adams Hotel for a reception.

At the reception I had a chance to meet Jake Nickell from Threadless, Evan Williams with Twitter, Mark Ecko from Ecko, Michael Chasen from Blackboard, and investor Chris Sacca from Lowercase Capital and reconnect with Tony Hsieh from Zappos, Aaron Patzer from Mint.com, Ben Kauffman from Kluster, and Josh Abramson from College Humor.

Lunch followed. At the table was Jessica Jackley from Kiva, Aaron from Mint, Ivanka Trump and her fiance Jared Kushner of the New York Observer, Catherine Levene of Daily Candy, and David Sutphen of Brunswick Group.

Setting Expectations

Prior to heading to The White House, David Sutphen and Phillipe Lanier of Eastbanc set expectations. We were not there to add on to the endless to-do list of the Administration. We were there to understand what was currently being done, ask questions, and build a long term relationship.

We heard that the Administration members we were about to meet were “drinking from a firehose” currently. They explained that we not there to give lots of ideas, but rather to learn what was happening so that we could be the entrepreneurial implementers and doers in our own communities working toward addressing critical needs. It wasn’t just about one day, but an ongoing relationship that started that day.

They shared that the Obama Administration saw us as one medium to communicate what they were working on to others via new media and as one filter of constituent thoughts and suggestions. With the CEOs of web firms Twitter, Zappos, iContact, Threadless, Mint, and Blackboard in the room we could certainly do that. They wanted to build a long term relationship with us and authentically wanted our contribution and ideas–just not all at once and in a usable ’summarized, bulletted form.’

So we walked over. We got our security passes at The Eisenhower Building and then went inside. We went up three floors and down a hallway to a room with thirty chairs and a table.

The Agenda from The Meeting

The meetings during the 90 minute session went as follows:

2:00pm - David Washington, Ph.D - Assoc. Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison and Michael Strautmanis - Chief of Staff to the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison

2:15pm - Jason Furman - Deputy Director of the National Economic Council

2:30pm - Martha Coven, Special Assistant to the President for Mobility and Opportunity; Greg Nelson, White House Office of Public Liaison; and Heather Zichal, White House Office of Energy and Climate Change

2:50pm to 3:30pm - Macon Phillips, Director of New Media

Notes from The White House Meeting

Here are my rough notes from each session. All quotes are paraphrased and could be incorrectly attributed in some cases due to my sub-par note taking system

David Washington

• We want to know your ideas on how we can make government more transparent.
• We want examples of how the stimulus is helping–anecdotes and stories that you see.
• Our focus is creating jobs–but we need your help in doing this.

Michael Strautmanis

• Some of the stimulus may work. Some may not. We’re here for solutions not banter.
• When I met Michelle Robinson, she treated me as if I had value.
• President Obama challenged us to make government more transparent.
• From transparency comes legitimacy.
• The OMB is more transparent now. Longer explanations. Posting on Recovery.gov.
• As entrepreneurs, I want you to think creatively about the world of making the world a better place for our children.
• Only way to fix economy is to get on a sustainable path with fiscal responsibility.
• We have to create dynamism and energy. It takes heart.
• Other generations have had other challenges. Together we can meet these challenges.
• We are partners for creating a sustainable future.
• In response to question from Chris Sacca on will Obama start Twittering again: That is up to the Secret Service.

Jason Furman

• We’re working on unfreezing credit, bringing down the cost of health care, energy independence, the climate, education, and fiscal sustainability.
• In response to question on budget deficit from Aaron Patzer of Mint: Right now a fear is deflation. A deflationary spiral is the biggest nightmare for economists. The amount we’re borrowing today is small in comparison to our GDP and needed. Our economy can afford the deficit. We have a path to cut the [annual] deficit by 50% in 5 years. People are lending to the U.S. cheaply at 2.5%.
• We have 12.5M unemployed. Some banks may have negative net worth. Housing was overpriced.

Martha Coven

• We are working on creating green jobs.
• I want the best ideas from the private and social sector to bubble up to Federal Policy making.

Heather Zichal

• In response to question on solar power and home owners selling energy back to grid: We will think about homeowners selling electricity back to the grid.
• We are focused on energy and climate change.
• Administration making a commitment to CAFE standards and reducing dependency on foreign oil
• Cap and trade revenues to start in 2012 according to budget

Greg Nelson

• As business leaders you have a chance to redefine what the role of a business leader is.

Macon Phillips

• Creator of change.gov, whitehouse.gov, and recovery.gov
• We want to work with you on creating a PSA 2.0
• I love free dissemination
• We’ve made time for this because we want you to be empowered.
• Wants abilities to get mass response, but with usable outcomes. 8,000 comments can be unusable sometimes.

What They Asked of Us

Overall, I was very glad to participate. Each of the 30 attendees has been asked to do the following:

1. Act as a filter/community ambassador for the best ideas/suggestions/thoughts on what we can do on the economy, budget, energy, healthcare, education, and new media. Get feedback from your community and send the best to us from time-to-time in summarized, bulleted form.
2. Send any examples/anecdotes/stories that we hear of due to investments from the Stimulus making a positive impact in your community.
3. Send any ideas/suggestions/thoughts on how to make government more transparent and open.

Finally, they asked us to go back to our communities and work entrepreneurially to create positive change, address social needs, and create jobs. They said we must create a true partnership between the public, private, and non-profit sector for it to work.

My Thoughts on The Meeting

I very much appreciated the meeting. It was done with good intentions, and not as a media stunt. They shared with us what they were working on and how we could be part of it to increase the chance of success.

It was clear how smart, busy, and focused these people were. They were glad to meet us and we were certainly glad to meet them. They could be us and we could be them.

They gave us their direct email addresses and encouraged us to act as a filter for them for them on the best ideas. Finally, they invited us to build a long term relationship and explained that as we built trust over time, our influence as a group would grow.

After the Meeting

After the meeting, we all went to a local restaurant to discuss what we had experienced. We broke out into four groups to talk about our ideas and begin to refine them. The groups were:

1. Economy and the stimulus
2. Education and job creation
3. New media and transparency
4. Energy and the environment

I led the group on the economy and the stimulus. I’ll be writing up my notes and posting them soon.

Where It Goes from Here

So we’ve been asked to be one informal filter (of many) for these individuals in the Administration and Office of Public Liaison and help ensure they’re getting the best ideas from the best people filtered to them every few months in summarized form.

I’ll be holding an Entrepreneur & Social Entrepreneur Meetup at my house in Chapel Hill on Friday March 20th at 8pm at which I’ll present what we’ve been asked to do and start the discussion with the group.

We’ll likely hold a separate meetup (date TBA) in early April to discuss and debate ideas and policy proposals on the topics of: economy, budget, energy, healthcare, education, transparency, and new media. We’ll then filter the ideas and present a summarized form to our new contacts in the Obama Administration.

If you have any ideas or thoughts please post them below via the comment section.

The Tweets From The Meeting

Since Evan Williams, the founder of Twitter with 231,000 followers, Tony Hsieh of Zappos with 197,000 followers, and Chris Sacca with 132,000 followers were with us, we may have been in the most tweeted meeting at The White House in the history of the world.

The post-meeting Tweets were positive.

@ev wrote: “Lessons from today: Obama’s team: smart and committed. Learned a lot and was inspired.” and

@saaca wrote: “The folks from the White House are sharp. Obama made it cool once again for awesome people to serve in government.”

@tomsshoes wrote: “Just left the meeting - pretty inspirational. The administration really does want our input, each gave their personal email addresses and encouraged dialogue.

Feedback from Readers and Friends Prior to the Meeting

I was amazed at the response I got by soliciting feedback prior to and during the meeting on Facebook and Twitter. More comments flowed in than I’ve ever gotten before on a status update or Tweet.

I asked on Thursday night via Facebook and Twitter, “meeting at White House Friday to discuss ways to improve economy. Any suggestions?” I got 29 responses. Note that you’ll have to be my Facebook friend or in the UNC or Raleigh-Durham network to read them I believe.

I also asked on Friday, “just challenged by the Obama Administration to provide idea on how to make govt more transparent and open. Ideas?” I got 17 responses.

Photos from The Day

Here’s a photo of the front of the brochure for the day:

And here is Jeff Rosenthal and I with Jessica Jackley of Kiva inside the Einsenhower Building.

Comments Sought

What are your thoughts/ideas/policy proposals in the areas of economy, budget, energy, healthcare, education, transparency, and new media? Post and get the discussion going…

Video: Speaking at CEO 2008

Speaking in front of 1,500 people can be a little scary. Especially when you’re about to pull your pants off and dance in front of them.

When I was 16, I ran for President of the Manatee High School Key Club, a community service organization. I got up to give my speech. My knees knocked. My hands shook. My voice faltered. I lost to Mark Pinto.

Going into college, I was still a nervous public speaker. I tried to imagine the audience in their underwear but that was just awkward and didn’t help at all.

I didn’t get over the fear until my 2nd year when I had to speak to 60 attendees at the UNC Entrepreneurship Club every Tuesday at 6:30pm.

Finally, I could speak to a group of college students without nerves.

But them came speaking to ‘old people.’ You know, those scary adult-people. I didn’t really get over that fear until early 2006. I spoke to 500 economic developers at the Southern Growth Policies Board Conference in New Orleans and then 400 professors and administrators in Orlando at the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship Educators.

In 2007, I ended up speaking in front of about 3,000 people over the course of many different events. In 2008, I spoke in front of 8,000.

But none larger than the speech on November 8, 2008.

I had already introduced Robert Kiyosaki to the group the day before–one of the great honors of my entrepreneurial life. His book Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing planted the seed in my mind and provided the path at 17 to “build a company and take it public.”

I had been the emcee of the conference along with Gerry Hills for the past two days. It was my 7th time at the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization conference. I knew my audience. I was them–just four years removed.

But it was still scary. 1500 people.

What if I messed up? What if I fell while running onto the stage? What if too many clothes came off while ripping my dress pants off to reveal track pants for the Soulja Boy dance? What if, what if?

After practicing “Finding The Purpose of Your Life in 6 Lessons” all the way through in front of Jenna and some amused caterers, I was fired up and ready to go.

Here’s the video… (The dance to Soulja Boy’s Bird Walk is in part 3 at 1:20)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Review of The Dream by Gurbaksh Chahal

I’m sitting in the corner of the Starbucks at the Southpoint Barnes and Noble in Durham. I’m reading The Dream by Gurbaksh Chalal (nickname ‘G’), a 26 year old internet entrepreneur from India and San Jose, California. G has a compelling writing style in the beginning, writing of the difficulties he encountered growing up as an Sikh Indian-immigrant. Here are my notes from the book.

G dropped out of high school at age 16 to start a performance-based advertising network called Value Click.

Growing Up a Sikh Immigrant Indian in San Jose

Some of the stories in the first part of the book that initially struck me were:

• His father and him day trading on margin in 1997 and doing equity research together. In October 1997 (right before the Asian Market Crisis) the market had a small dip and in fear of the market falling further and not being able to cover his margin sold at the very bottom, which caused his father shame and nearly to lose their new house.
• G being forced to remove his turban at knifepoint when playing basketball in the ‘hood’ of San Jose.
• G taking a public speaking class in high school and having to give a speech as a very traditional Sikh about the randomly assigned topic of Viagra.

Here’s how G. got started…

• Buying the HP.net and Dell.net domain names in 1997 and sending a letter to the companies offering to sell the names back to them for $10,000–and then receiving threatening cease and desist letters and giving the domains back for free.
• Starting to sell printers on eBay, then starting a performance-based advertising network Click Agents
• Setting us his very first deal in a very ‘Elliot Bisnow’ type of way–by getting one ad agency to commit one $30k insertion order (IO) at $1 CPC and only after having it, building his ‘consortium’ of web sites to traffic the ad at a 50/50 rev share, all along using the fake name Gary Singh.

Results Matter

An excerpt from p. 59:

“All the knew was that Gary Singh delivered, and that’s all they cared about. They had no idea they were dealing with a sixteen-year-old kid because I presented myself as a serious professional. Once again, perception is realty. That’s not a kid on the other end of the line. It’s a guy who delivered on his promises.”

On page 80, G tells a story I can relate to, his servers went down for a week due to a vengeful vendor. His story reminds me of the week in December 2003 our server went down due to hardware failure. An excerpt:

“We were offline for an entire week… A week without the Web. Well that was the lifeblood of my business, and that week almost put us under… Time in the Internet is measured in dog years .For that entire week, Click Agents had ceased to exist.”

Ideas Vs. Execution

Gurbaksh makes a good point about the value of ideas vs. execution on p. 100.

“If you have an idea for a company, that’s just the beginning–that’s your entry point. What really matters is execution. Don’t think about the millions you’re going to make, think instead about creating a company that will be worth millions… The difference is huge. Success is laregely about substance. If your company is about real, tangible assets, and you’re looking the the long term, you are going to be handsomely rewarded for it.”

Struggling With Bureaucracy at ValueClick

On page 117, G laments in an amusing paragraph, working for the slower, bigger, public ValueClick. VCLK had bought Click Agents in November 2000 for $40 million.

He notes, “…in this new environment, I couldn’t move forward without official approval. I had to sell an idea to one guy, then to a second guy, and then to two or three more guys after that, and they all seemed incapable of making a decision. I guess that’s what people mean when they talking about the bureaucracy. It’s a place where absolutely nothing gets done. And the larger the organization, the less one is able to accomplish…I couldn’t understand how corporations actually accomplished anything, since the bureaucracy seemed to be designed solely to steer you into one brick wall after another.”

Getting over The Fake Excitement of Materialism

Around page 136, G. begins to talk of all the Ferraris and Lambourghinis he purchased after selling his ValueClick shares. I was disappointed by the materialistic focus of this part of the book, but I could understand it in my own imperfection. I owned a 350z for two years when I was 21 to 23 before I sold it due to what it was doing to my personality.

On p 139, G writes, “I was breaking one of my own business rules. Need versus necessity. Did I really need that king of luxury.? No. Then again, maybe I’d earned it. So I Lived with it. After all, as they say, all work and no play makes G a dull boy.”

G was close to coming to the conclusion that the two luxurious $240,000 Lambourghini’s he bought was a little over the top but didn’t quite get there. I was disappointed in him at that point.

One of G’s ‘lessons’ later in the book that he shares is “Forget noble motivations.” On this, more than anything else, I disagreed with G.

Blue Lithium

After his three year non-compete agreement with ValueClick was up and after G sued ValueClick for securities fraud, he started BlueLithium in 2004 at the age of 22. He raised $11.5 million from 3i and Walden VC when the company was doing $200,000 per month in sales in February 2005. I’m not sure what G was thinking, but as part of this deal he agreed to a 5 person board, of which 3 were selected by the investors.

In my view, it is not in an entrepreneur’s best interest to let investors pick a majority of the board (and thus effectively control the entire company for a minority investment). It seems like G did not have a choice based on the amount of money raised and the stage but I would have thought he would have had more ability to set terms in the round having had a nice success previously. On p 186, G describes the difficulty he experienced with his Board believing in him when ValueClick sued BlueLithium claiming he had stolen trade secrets.

In the end, BlueLithium did well with its behavioral targeting ad technology that was able to show relevent ads to consumers based on their internet browsing history. They sold the company to Yahoo on September 4, 2007 for $300M when they were about the same size iContact is today. They had good timing and in retrospect sold at a good time, following the DoubleClick/Google, aQuantive/Microsoft, and 24/7 Real Media/WPP Group transactions.

The Secret Millionaire

In Chapter 6,  G describes how he ended up being part of the current Fox show The Secret Millionaire. The premise of the show is that an American millionaire (in this case, G) lives in a distressed community for one week and talks to people and then decides at the end of the week how to allocate $100,000 to non-profit organizations in the area.

As an aside, relevant to the premise of The Secret Millioniare, last night at Crunkleton’s (bar in Chapel Hill), I had an in-depth passionate debate with my friend Jess last night about Easterly’s The White Man’s Burden and whether any benefactor or philanthropist, including myself, can legitimately and morally go into a distressed community for just one week and then appropriately contribute funds without knowing fully how they will be used and whether the impact will in fact be positive or sustainable.

I made the point to Jess (who spent 2 months in Uganda at the Sachs’ Millennium Village Project in Ruhiira last summer) that I had visited Uganda in July to see the impact of the small funds I’d already contributed and to see with my own eyes how the funds were being used and whether the organizations could efficiently and and positively utilize more in the future. I argued that some BHNs like education, healthcare, and clean water were simply fundamental to humanity and that the core issue with aid that Easterly described were mainly caused by bi-lateral government to government aid that was not reaching the people. Instead, providing aid directly to grassroots organizations run by locals in which you could see the impact yourself was qualitatively a better method. The show has gotten some criticism here and here and of course on ValleyWag multiple times, but I’ll hold my view until I can catch an episode.

G’s Entrepreneurship Lessons

Finally, G ends the book with 27 lessons on entrepreneurship. They are:

1. Listen to your heart.
2. Forget noble motivations (one I disagree with)
3. Adjust your attitude
4. Figure out what you’re good at
5. Trust your gut
6. Do your homework
7. Be frugal
8. But don’t be frugal with hiring
9. Hire smart people
10. Don’t expect perfection, but strive for it
11. Learn to listen
12. Own your mistakes
13. Never compromise your morality
14. Never lose sign of the competition
15. Watch your back
16. Don’t procastinate
17. Don’t do anything by half-measures
18. Be nice to people
19. Negotiate from a position of strength
20. Expect the unexpected
21. Perception is reality
22. Don’t get emotional
23. Be fearless
24. Pick your battles
25. Grow a think skin
26. Take chances
27. When you commit, you really have to commit.

Overall, I would recommend the book as for me it was good to understand the process of professional and personal development of a similarly aged internet entrepreneur. It did not provide much how-to and was more biographical in nature.

I’m sure I’ll meet Gurbaksh soon enough at one of Elliot Bisnow’s get-togethers for young technology entrepreneurs sooner or later, and I look forward to the day. I could relate to much of the bananas G went through including being bullied when young for being different, sacrificing other opportunities to build a business, raising venture capital at 21, and finding flow every day by being immersed in a company.

Under 30 CEO Summit This Weekend in Utah

I’m out in Alta, Utah this weekend near Salt Lake City for the Under 30 CEO Summit being put on by Elliot Bisnow.

We’ve been skiing at Snowbird, heard from Ted Alemayhu from U.S. Doctors for Africa, chatted with Scott Fredrick from Valhalla Partners, and talked a lot about business, entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, and how we can work together to make a difference in the world.

Blake from Tom’s Shoes (which donates 1 pair of shoes to children in developing countries for every pair they sell) debuted his video “No Polo Window” announcing the launch of his leather boots campaign to reduce a foot disease called Podo in Ethiopia. Blake gave us each a pair and I’m quite happy to report they are awesome for breakdancing.

The people that are here include Dan Melinger (Socialight), Cristina Miller (Store Adore),
Sean Belnick (Bizchairs.com), Ben Lerer (Thrillist), Blake Mycoskie (Tom’s Shoes), Cameron Johnson (The Big Give), Ben Kauffman, (Kluster), Josh Abramson (CollegeHumor/BustedTees), Rob Jewell (Gratis Internet), Joel Holland (Footage Firm),
Lin Miao (Tatto Media), Ricky Van Veen (CollegeHumor/BustedTees), Jud Bowman (Motricity), Sam Altman (Loopt), Anthony Adams (CreditCovers), Nathan Stevens (Yodle), and Jeff Fissel (KZO Networks).

Yesterday I skied for the second time and went from extreme beginner to beginner. It’s been a great time so far and I’m looking forward to tonight.

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh Presents on “The Path to a Billion”

Tony Hsieh, the 34 year old CEO of Zappos is giving a talk at the Underground web marketing seminar in Los Angeles. He sold LinkExchange to Microsoft for $265 million in 1998.

His speech is titled The Path to $1 Billion as they are on track to hit $1B in sales this year as a private company that started in 1999, did $8.6 million in 2000 and $32 million in 2001. They have 1,600 employees today and a 500 person call center.

Tony is emphasizing the importance of ‘above and beyond’ great customer service more or less regardless of cost. 75% of his orders are from repeat customers. He talks of ’surprise upgrades.’

Tony shared that they orient new team members with 4 weeks of customer loyalty training at their headquarters in Las Vegas plus week in Kentucky for warehouse training for every single employee. He tells the story of when a customer ordered pizza from their customer service line at 3am and the customer rep found the nearest pizza places in Santa Monica that were still open.

He encourages entrepreneurs to train great people if you want the company to scale as ‘you can’t do everything yourself.’ He provides a culture book to their team members each year. Every single team member writes a couple employee on what the culture means to them.

Their core company values are:

1. Deliver WOW through service
2. Embrace and drive change
3. Create fun and little weirdness
4. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded
5. Pursue growth and learning
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication
7. Build a positive team and family spirit
8. Do more with less
9. Be passionate and determined
10. Be humble

I am wondering what their customer acquisition cost and customer lifetime value is and what their monthly CPM and CPC spend is and what networks they use to acquire customers via CPA.

Breakdancing in Denver With The Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour

Last Thursday afternoon in Denver at Metro State College we decided to break it down in the quad in front of the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour Bus with Doug Fath, Arel Moodie, Sheena Lindahl, and Michael Simmons. After falling underneath Carla the Metro State professor we recover and finish with the avante garde high-five of our generation–the ‘pound explosion.’ Can’t I get a Ye-Ah?

Soundtrack: Crush by Paramore

From The 7th Floor of the RDU Parking Deck

I’m blogging from my phone sitting in the back of my suv about to take a 3 hour nap before a 7am flight to D.C.I’ve learned the hard way that me, sleeping at home, and 7am Monday morning flights don’t mix well, so I figured I’d spend the night out here. It’s truly beautiful up here–it’s one of the highest outside points in the Triangle.

I’ll be speaking at Howard University at 10am and George Washington University school of business at 1pm on monday. Then I’ll be riding in the back of the Extreme Entrepreneuship Tour Bus to Fairfield, West virginia to speak on tuesday. I’ll be talking about how to find and follow your passion as an entrepreneur and social entrepreneur and how to build a company.

Hopefully ill be able to promote the book, evangelize the power of online communication through iContact, and inspire a few early stage entrepreneurs and change agents to follow their dreams.

In seven short hours from now the music starts playing and I start freesyling from the back of the room.

Stand up, and turn around. For today my friends is a special day. Our paths have merged and our lives have converged.Today is a day of creativity, a day of prosperity and limitless opportunity. There is nothing that stands in your way other than mental poverty, for there is no disparity between he and she, you and me. Faith in yourself is the only thing I ask you to bring. And in return a great potential will spring. So, my friends, let me ask you just one question. Look, if you had, just one shot, one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted, one moment, would you capture it, or just let it slip???

The Chapel Hill Trivia Game

Here’s a cool entrepreneurial venture in the Triangle. My business partner at iContact Aaron Houghton and three other UNC alums have spent the past few months creating The Chapel Hill Trivia Game. They just got their first shipment of 1000 games this week. If you’re from Chapel Hill or went to UNC, or know someone special that did it’s a perfect gift for the holidays.

“Along the way we’ve had a lot of fun, dug up and verified thousands of facts about Chapel Hill, and turned the best of the best into The Chapel Hill Trivia Game. We now have the first 1,000 games in stock and are eager to get them into the hands of UNC fans, alums, students, etc in time for the holidays. The Chapel Hill Trivia Game makes the perfect gift for anyone who loves Chapel Hill or UNC. ”

Check out the game at http://www.chapelhilltriviagame.com.

CEO Keynote: Want to See Me Dance to Soulja Boy in Front of 800 People in Chicago?

Here’s an excerpt video clip from my keynote speech at the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization Annual Conference in Chicago. Enjoy!

“Entrepreneur Ryan Allis dances to Crank That Soulja Boy during the middle of the Collegiate Entrepreneur Organization keynote speech, Finding The Purpose of Your Life in Six Lessons, presented November 3, 2007 at the McCormick Conference Center in Chicago in front of 800 college entrepreneurs.”

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