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Monday, February 16, 2009
Kelleher Speech - 3rd Time Seeing
I saw Herb Kelleher the founder of Southwest Airlines speak again on the University of Texas campus, this time in front of a huge audience of around 800 people.
If you recall, Herb is the completely out-of-the-ordinary chairman of a very out-of-the-ordinary airline. The last time I saw him I pre-empted taking a funny picture with him with his favorite things: Wild Turkey Whiskey and cigarettes!
Ended up getting this picture with him last time:
He was a great sport about it, and I thought it was a hilarious and completely unique picture! This time for the photo I tried upping the ante and taking a funnier picture, but it was hard to top the last one. I tried dressing like an airline pilot (using a black suit and an old hat) but it didn't work so well....it basically looked like I was wearing a black suit and old hat. So instead I got this picture with him:
Cigar smoking!
If you look closely at the enlarged picture you can see he kept the cigar tube on so he didn't have to put his mouth on the cigar and waste it. He smokes like crazy, but not cigars apparently (Last time I saw him he smoked about 7 cigarettes in one sitting)!
He spoke predominately on the extreme importance of a good company culture, and unfortunately didn't show the absolutely hilarious "Malice In Dallas" video like the last appearance I caught.
Incidentally the Southwest Airlines Archives JUST posted a short YouTube clip of the Malice In Dallas video (I'm actually quite surprised it's not fully up on YouTube already):
It's crazy how precisely the companys attitude reflects its leader. What he seemed to be most proud of was keeping a fun company culture despite being such a large company (something most of his peers said couldn't be done).
I had the opportunity to see Craig Newmark speak at the brand new AT&T Center over here in Austin, TX., and it was an interesting speech. He is the "Craig" of Craigslist.org....one of the largest and most heavily trafficked sites on the planet (roughly 22 billion page views per month).
I've personally used Craigslist to find programmers, sell stuff, find stuff, buy my car, buy my scooter, found an apartment, got feedback on issues and the list goes on...all for free.
Most CEO speeches I've seen say "Work as hard as you can and you might make it to the top" ...something like that. However Craig ended up founder of one of the worlds largest websites through a slightly different...some would say "lucky" story.
Directly from his speech:
In 1994 he was doing IT for the financial firm Charles Schwab, nothing big.
1995 he started regularly sending out an email to about 12 of his friends with a bunch of events around the San Francisco Bay Area.
His friends would forward the email to their friends, and then their friends etc...
Eventually he had 100+ people on the email list, and people would also send him notifications of events they heard about.
It started building some momentum, but he never thought of it as a big deal. Lots of people on the list said, "You should make this into a website."
Since he was a programmer, he made an easy tool that would convert the emails into webpage format and post them on a website.
He was going to call the website "San Francisco Events" or something along those lines, but many people suggested he keep his name in the title to make it personable. So "Craigslist" was born.
The site was hosted on some cheap server, and when it hit 240 users, it broke....so using his own personal funds he got some better web hosting (still very cheap).
Around this time the housing market in San Fran was going through some bad times, so people using Craigslist thought it would be nice to help each other out with apartment listings. So after everyone pushed him to do it, couch potato Craig (his own words) got around to making an apartment listings section.
After this new section, people wanted more sections. So requests for a dating section came in, then more like "For Sale" and "Free Stuff"
Through organic growth and word of mouth the site started getting 1,000,000 page views per month. Not bad!
Microsoft approached him about placing banner ads on the site which would make him money. He didn't like banner ads, and they didn't add to the user experience, so he declined.
In 1998 people wanted to start running the site on a volunteer basis. He let several volunteers take over the site, and the plan failed miserably.
In 1999 he made Craigslist into a real company by incorporating it.
The site is 99.99% free, but in a select few cities people posting job ads must pay $25 per listing. This makes Craigslist plenty of money to keep the rest of the site free, and also eliminates lots of spam and scams in the job listings sections. They are starting to do this in more cities because it increases quality of the postings and brings in needed revenue to keep up with Craigslists massive infrastructure demands. They are also starting to charge on some of the housing sections of certain cities.
He eventually hired Jim Buckmaster to be CEO and run the show, and Craig now only does customer support. He works as a normal customer support representative.
Some interesting facts I picked up from the speech and Q&A:
Craigslist has only 25 employees, and they are looking to hire (just FYI).
When asked about Craigslist's relationship with eBay (They took money from eBay at one point), he simply responded, "You can go on the Craigslist blog and lookup the post called Tainted Love." You can view that post here. He wouldn't comment further.
Server wise, he said they have several co-locations in different server facilities....and he doesn't even know where they are since he doesn't handle those network aspects. He said, "I know we have several co-location facilities, with about 200 servers in each one."
He said the idea behind Craigslist is , "Giving people a break, people giving other people a break, people helping each other out and treating people well."
He frequently gets invitations to weddings from people who met their spouse through Craigslist.
So the really unique thing about Craig is his ideology of keeping Craigslist mostly free. He said, "Once I made more than enough money to satisfy my current and future needs, I didn't want anymore." Not something you usually hear from the founder of a big company.
Usually companies try to keep expanding their profits, but Craigslist tries to keep them flat.
So anyhow, before and after the speech I got some pictures with him. I made a "Free Stuff" sign signifying my favorite section on Craigslist:
Ihad to bend down because the sign didn't come out because of too much sun exposure.
I'm bending down so the sign could be read, but now I really look like a hobbit.
So finally I got a decent picture with my free stuff sign!
Kind of last minute I heard that Bill Gates was delivering a speech at the University of Texas campus to a crowd of only computer science students. I've already seen Steve Ballmer speak, so now I wanted to see Gates.
Problem was only current computer science students had admission to this speech, which is bad since I'm neither a computer science major nor a student....but there's ALWAYS a way around those little rules.
A little recon showed the admission "ticket" was simply an inch wide, hot pink wristband that CS students stood in line for hours to get. They were making this almost TOO easy! After a quick trip to Office Max for some different shades of pink paper and double-stick tape, I was going to cut the paper to an inch wide and double-tape the ends to make a bracelet. However I quickly realized that two standard-sized wristbands put together looked like the real thing. Even easier.
So a strip of scotch tape plus two hot pink wristbands and voila...
...instant fake Bill Gates admission pass!
So I walk in the Texas Union Ballroom, flash the wristband and they let me in. It was a packed house, and I literally had to sit in the LAST seat at the very back.
One of the first things he did was show the (very well done) "Bill Gates' Last Day at Microsoft" video that's supposed to be a spoof of "The Office" ....in case you haven't seen it:
He then gave his speech which was mostly about how software and philanthropy can help each other, it was pretty interesting stuff.
Some stuff I found interesting:
He was actually a really charismatic and good speaker. I was pleasantly surprised by this.
Instead of water at the podium, he drank a Diet Coke.
He never bashed Apple or Google, and in fact spoke very highly of both.
So of course I wanted a picture with him, unfortunately since this was so last minute I didn't have a great plan to get one. As the richest man in the world, he is probably also the most bothered man in the world, so I knew his security would be really high, and since the Obama/Clinton debate was taking place at UT the following day, the whole campus was on high alert already.
So after the speech I went around the back of the Texas Union where the VIP's leave from, and spotted his entourage. There were two vehicles which looked associated with him: one red Cadillac Escalade and one black Chevy Tahoe.
Three "normal" looking guys were standing around these cars which were obviously positioned for a quick escape out of the building. The guys were obviously his security detail...all looked tough but were dressed to blend in the crowd. It didn't quite work, since it was three strong guys dressed in similar, gray North Face jackets. There were also several police officers positioned by the doors where he would exit from. I tried casually walking through the doors several times just to push my luck but was stopped each time.
It was funny because one of Gates' guards looked a lot like Tim Ferris!
Once his security guys got the word Gates was leaving, they re-positioned the red Escalade right against the stairwell and opened the doors. Right then, Gates and two other guys walked down the stairs together as his security guys stood in a flanked position to block any access to him. I was about 10 feet away from Bill Gates when one of the security guys (who I was chatting up earlier) stopped me. I asked, "Is there any way I could get a quick picture," to which he replied, "Sorry man, not today." By the time he finished his sentence, Gates and the two other men hopped in the backseat of the Escalade.
Two of the security guys jumped in the front driver and passenger seats and drove off with the third security guy trailing them in the black Tahoe. Judging by the tires, windows and side-profile of the opened doors, none of the SUV's looked armored.
I snapped this quick picture right as they were leaving. That's Bill Gates sitting by that window (can't really see him through the tint).
Somehow I forgot to post this, but sometime last year (circa September 2007) I went to go see Al Carey, the CEO of Frito Lay speak on the University of Texas campus.
I go to a lot of these things, and for the most part I don't post anything about them, but this one definitely deserves mention. I say this because he was actually an interesting CEO to listen to! Most big time CEO's that come speak basically give a one hour promotional speech about their company....but it's not entirely their fault.
The student groups that bring the speakers say, "Hey (insert name here), come to the University of Texas and say words for an hour." If I had to speak for an hour given such a vague subject matter, I'd probably talk about something uninteresting for an hour also. They also select a HUGE auditorium where the front row of the audience is at least 25 feet away from the speaker. This causes the whole thing to seem very un-personal.
I thought that's what this speech would be also, but was pleasantly surprised to find otherwise. For the speech, I wanted a more memorable picture with Mr. Carey, like the one with me and the CEO of Gibson Guitars, or the Herb Kelleher with booze & cigarettes picture. While I wasn't dressed very well, I did come prepared with a big bag of Fritos so I could get an interesting picture. Long story short, I lost my camera a few days before, so I was using an old camera with a crushed screen...so I couldn't see the pictures as they were taken. I ended up getting two awkward looking pictures:
Me eating out of the Fritos bag:
HA! He was more than happy to take the photos, and even re-do them due to technical difficulties. I was also happy to hear him give a pretty good speech which the audience ate up! Unlike a lot of other CEO's who end up inadvertently boring the crowd with information about how great their company is, he knew he was speaking primarily to college students, and therefore tailored his speech to what he thought college students were interested in. It worked great, and the audience enthusiastically asked questions all throughout.
He also just seemed down to earth and interesting. He spoke confidently, looked like he was having fun up there, didn't hide behind the podium and usually walked right at the edge of stage, close as possible to the audience.
Like many CEO's I've seen speak, he never came into the company with the intentions of going all the way to the top. He just did his job and did his job well. He also spoke very highly of several bosses who simply gave him a chance and challenges when he first started. In fact that was a big part of his speech....simply give the new blood in the company A LOT of responsibility and creative leeway (if they want it) and see what happens. He says more often then not they exceed all expectations.
He gave a great example of how a small group of brand new, young marketing employees wanted to take control of the entire Frito Lay Superbowl campaign (their largest, most expensive and important campaigns). He let them "do their thing" which was an interactive internet campaign where users submit homemade commercials for Fritos, and the winning video would be aired live at the SuperBowl plus a bunch of other prizes. The winning video had a budget of $8.00 and was featured on a $1.5 million SuperBowl ad. Frito Lay product sales went up 18% as a direct result of the campaign! When you consider that sales are in the BILLIONS of dollars, an 18% increase is massive....all because of some young marketing kids who took a risk.
Woke up at 11:00am (I went to bed late last night)
Sent out HouseOfRave & BodyMonkey orders + handled existing customer issues.
Created a new section of Neon Signs to HouseOfRave. Added the section + all the products. Went faster than normal because everything in this section is priced the same.
Created the banner for the above Neon Signs page.
Created the copy, screenshots and other images for my upcoming sale of PalmReport.com.
Rode bike to gym. 4.6 Miles.
Rock climbed for one hour at rock gym + weights. My fingers and forearms are starting to get re-acclimated to the large stresses placed on them when climbing. I'm getting to the point where I can complete level 3 tracks decently well.
Rode bike back from gym. 4.6 Miles. Going back is was so much easier after a good workout gets you pumped.
I've started eating a whole lot more fruit recently. Today I ate 4 bananas, 8 clementines and 2 tomatos.
Read several chapters in the book I'm currently reading: 'CIA, Inc. Espionage and the Craft of Business Intelligence'
Wrote out this list of things I did.
Timed everything I did.
One of my New Year's resolutions was to keep time of the things I do so I can speed everything up and do more work. As the old saying goes, "Anything that is measured and watched, improves." Actually, that's from What Would Bob Do.
So about a week ago so I could start timing all the little tasks I do. So whenever I start handling the HouseOfRave.com orders for the day, I start the clock and try to beat my estimated time.
One of the scary things about timing yourself is seeing how LITTLE work you actually do. Whenever I have a boring task to complete, it feels like an hour, but unless my $12 Wal-Mart stopwatch is wrong, it only took me 18 minutes. Instead of going downstairs to get a quick snack after the task, I'll realize it only took a few minutes and keep working on something else.
On the flip side it also keeps me from spending too much time on something. For example as I was making the Disco Ball section banner for HouseOfRave I had to stop myself and just upload what I had as the clock started ticking past 10 then 15 minutes. I usually have fun doing those kinds of Photoshop tasks, but tinkering around with different backgrounds and fonts for an hour doesn't increase productivity.
Of course there's a bunch of stuff I don't document here, but I like looking back to see what I was doing at a similar date the previous year. This at least gives me a little snapshot.
I went to see Barry Salzberg, CEO of the giant accounting firm Deloitte & Touche speak on the University of Texas campus. He spoke to a surprisingly packed house about the company etc. etc....mainly typical CEO talk.
The Q&A session was far more interesting and we got to hear a little more about him. It was pretty impressive because he came from a working class family with none of his parents being college educated, his dad died at a young age and he managed to his college degree, MBA and even law degree. As most of the CEO's I've seen speak, he steadily started rising through the company by simply doing the best job he could at every step of the way, all the way to the top.
It was funny, because I was in the back of the room for the speech, so this way my view:
...however when I got closer I quickly realized who he looked like!
HA!!
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I've been working on changing up HouseOfRave a little to start going for version 3.0. One of the things I did was change up the right navigation pane with more illustrated banners:
I'm not exactly sure if I like it or not the new way. The old version shows off the products a little better, however the new version might make people curious to see what each banner holds when clicked.
I've also replaced some of the YouTube embedded videos on the site with my own HouseOfRave branded video player. YouTube shows related videos at the end of each clip which distracts users and takes them away from my site. It also puts its own brand on the video player which looks slightly unprofessional. You can see an example of the new video player at the glowing hair gel product page.
I've also added a Disco Balls section to the site and some more miscellaneous products. A bunch of much needed functionality updates, templates and features are on the way, but a more versed programmer is handling those.
The University of Texas brought Peter Coors to speak last week and I got a chance to attend. He is the current chairman of Coors Brewing Company. 20 minutes before the speech I Googled everything I could about Mr. Coors, and not to be mean, but he wasn't my type of person.
The business people I most admire are the ones who start with very little and turn it into something great. Pete Coors is a 3rd or 4th generation family member who was handed his company. Of course there is a great amount of work in building upon a family business, but it's not something I am familiar with or have much interest in. However I would have loved to meet his great, great, great grandfather Adolph Coors who started the whole thing from nothing.
I enjoy hearing inspirational stories of how people took nothing and turned into something despite great odds. However the focus of this talk was how the family runs and passes on the business. Not a bad speech, just not my cup of tea....althought it was rather dry.
However I was told by lots of people who had met him before that he wouldn't do it. Naturally I didn't listen to them and tried anyways....but I was flat out denied to take the picture with the beer can. I found this funny that I couldn't take a picture with his own product.
It was a "decent"speech, and a little different...to hear about such an OLD company that is still run by the same family. I didn't really pick up any useful information to share other than some small company facts which can be easily found on the company website.
Yesterday I went to a speech given by the famous founder of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher. As always, watching Herb speak was a great time!
I have great admiration for this man and his unconventional ways of running things. His willingness to be different and exciting eventually earned the envy of all other airlines.
"Professor" Kelleher speaking:
The speech started off with the actual professor of the class (Who is a Southwest Airlines board member) showing "Malice in Dallas" which was a spoof video about a Southwest Airline lawsuit where an aviation company threatened to sue Southwest for using the motto "Just Plane Smart." Herb Kelleher challenged the CEO of the company to an arm wrestling match to settle the issue (seriously). The video ended up being shown world-wide and is sometimes billed as the greatest publicity stunt ever. The video was absolutely hilarious!! It really showed Mr. Kelleher's funny side, wish I could find it on YouTube or Google Video.
The entire time Mr. Kelleher spoke mainly about company culture....constantly instilling into everyone in the room just how important people are, and how if you take care of your people, they will take care of you. I've heard the same thing from other CEO's, but he literally talked about it the WHOLE time.....and he's obviously quite serious that his #1 priority is the people within Southwest. Some quotes from his mouth were:
"If you ain't got culture, you ain't got shit."
"Competitors can buy tangible assets, but they can't buy culture."
He also just like last time lit up a cigarette soon after he started speaking. The man is notorious for loving cigarettes, Wild Turkey Whiskey and candy bars. So the day before I bought some props from the liquor store to use in the picture I would inevitably take with him!
It was actually the first pack of cigarettes I ever bought. In the Q&A session he answered questions pertaining to his many law battles all the way up to the Supreme Court (half the room was law students) and questions about how Southwest became the envy of the entire airline industry....and has become the only one to be profitable for so many years in a row.
One thing I really admire about him is his personality. The second he entered he room, he turned it from dull and quite to loud and FUN. He obviously loves having a good time, and you can see that reflected in the Southwest staff. A great example of leadership by example.
At the end of the speech I got out my Wild Turkey whiskey and cigarettes and took a great picture of me and Herb. I still get a kick out of this picture!
Then after the speech we both went to Cancun and ripped it up!!
Ok, that last part was obviously fake....but the speech was fun anyway! The guy is absolutely hilarious, smokes like a chimney and drinks like a sailor....but is one of the most famous CEO's of all time because of his willingness to put people first and do things different.
The condo I was living in with two rommates was sold, and we have now moved to a college-based community of apartments like I used to live in. These apartments are great because everyone living there is a student of some sort, they have lots of great amenities, and best of all individual leases. This means if you have four people living in an apartment, and three of them move out, the last person is not stuck paying the full rent....just their share. This way I can be very flexible about my living arrangements.
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I recently followed an idea for starting a Facebook based site which offers Facebook Tricks etc, and it's coming along nicely. I've been getting some decent traffic, up to 350 unique visitors a day and growing.
Right now the site is making less than $1 a day from the one Google Ads, but it's not even been online for two weeks....so I'm not worried yet. A problem with Google Ads is they base the ads on page content....mostly Facebook talk. Needless to say the pay per click rates are low, even though I'm getting a lot of clicks.
It's sometimes getting above 1,000 impressions a day, so I'll start looking for other ad systems that pay higher rates for page impressions. Here are the stats from the last few days:
This is actually turning out to be a fun little project!
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Thanks to "Bob", I was tipped off about the Austin Entrepreneur of the Year awards last week, and I attended the event with Kunal of Grade-A-Books. It was one of the better events I've been to, with a great pre-event, event, and after-party. Then later out to Downtown!
General Account - $ 1,357 Spending Account - $ 77 Spending Account 2 - $ 403 Investment Account - $ 2,523 Bill Account - $ 981 Permanent Savings - $ 5,549 Charity Account - $ 338 Stock Portfolio Value - $ 11,323 Roth IRA - $ 6,574 Emigrant Direct - $ 1,007 Total Liquid Assets - $ 30,132
Credit Card Balance - $ 0 Business Holding - $ 5,309 Total On Hand - $ 35,441
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My first stock sale in a while occurred on Friday. I had a $23 limit order set for Syntel (SYNT), and made a profit of $681. I'm in the process of restructuring my portfolio, so I will start buying around October which is generally not a very hot month for the stock market.
I've accumulated $5,549 in my permanent savings account which is earning a very small amount of interest (less than 1%). I need to put some of this money back to work in low-risk areas.
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I found the popular marketing blog Brand Autopsy pretty interesting, and recently asked the fellow Austinite John Moore to coffee. We met up and had a great conversation. After spending years in the marketing departments of Starbucks and Whole Foods, he really knows his stuff.
My income for April was pretty slim. Several stock shortages forced me to cancel several orders, leaving House of Rave profit at only $1,080 for the month. Ouch! I'm looking to correct that discrepancy this month.
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This past week I had the opportunity to attend a huge event held in Austin. CEO's and politicians were in abundance, but my favorites were Michael Dell, Steve Ballmer and Colin Powell. Unlike the speeches I usually attend which have mostly students present, the subject matter was much different. The resounding theme of this conference was: Making the world a better place through the use of technology.
I've never seen Michael Dell do a solo speech, but he was actually really good and pretty funny too. The day before his speech I got to speak with Mr. Dell one-on-one for about 3 minutes which was rather fun!
One of the distinguished guests at the conference was Dato Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the Prime Minister of Malaysia. I'm not sure how to pronounce his name, but I managed to get two photos with him during a press conference! Much to my surprise, he actually looked a bit like the Prime Minister of Malaysia from the movie Zoolander!
He had so much security around him that I didn't dare approach him for a picture without permission. Instead I asked his head press secretary to take these pictures for me.
I was really excited to see Steve Ballmer speak. He didn't act like this, but he was still fun to hear. Once again, the speech was about improving the world through the use of technology, so it was mainly a speech about what Microsoft has done to help. I was already in the very front row, but I really wanted to snag a picture with him....no luck though:
My FAVORITE speaker through this entire event was by far Colin Powell. I thought a staunch, former Secretary of State would be speaking....instead the guy was an absolute comedian!! He had the whole place in laughter most of the time, all while peppering his speech with serious points. He's 69 years old and has been doing this for years, and you could easily tell. I truly enjoyed the time he spent speaking. His speech was incredibly natural, he never used the teleprompter or stood at the podium and it seemed he honestly enjoyed being up on the stage doing his speech.
This Tuesday Michael Dell gave a speech at the University of Texas which I attended.
I had met Michael Dell before, and from what I understand, he doesn't particularly like public speaking. The "speech" was actually a moderated conference with a UT professor, then was opened up for Q&A.
The moderated part was not as engaging as I had hoped, because the large audience was simply watching two people talk to each other. I had more hope for the Question & Answer session, but it turned out to be rather disappointing, not from Michael Dell's responses, but the quality of the questions being asked.
Some of the interesting points I picked up from the event were:
"Try not to be the smartest person in the room. If you are, find another room."
He wakes up at 6am every morning and works out (A very common theme I'm seeing).
He did not use investors to grow Dell. I started clapping when he said this.
Said managed services may be Dell's next big thing. For example: If Boeing doesn't want to do all their own printing, IT support etc...Dell will take care of it all.
The way you order pretty much anything in China is: 1.) You place an order online or on the phone. 2.) You receive two numbers, an order confirmation number and a Bank of China transaction number. 3.) You take your money (Often literally a sack of money) to the Bank of China, and they transfer it to Dell.
I generally go after speeches and try to talk to the person and get a picture, but he literally DARTED out of the place when the event was finished. Oh well, I still have my previous Michael Dell Picture!
Last Thursday was a very busy day, but I had the opportunity to see two very interesting people. I got to attend a speech given by Karen Katz, the current CEO of Neiman Marcus. I haven't seen many women CEO's speak, so it was nice to hear....however I don't recall her once mentioning or complaining about being a woman in the business world, and she's done great.
She started working at Neimans in 1985 then worked her way up to CEO in 2000. She's a UT alum and then went to graduate school at Harvard. During her speech you could tell she knew everything about retail from the ground up.
Some things I found the most interesting about the speech:
When she first applied with Neimans, she did not get the job.
The web-based store at NeimanMarcus.com does $600+ million in sales a year! (I love how NeimanMarcus, Nordstroms and other large retailers setup their websites...I want to find out what they use and copy them).
Her favorite brand is Target....says she spends massive amounts of money at Target (Interesting....)
"A brand is not saying what it is, it's what the customer THINKS it is."
Average Neimans shopper has a household income of $200,000+
"Selling is a skill to master. You will ALWAYS be selling no matter what you do."
It turned out to be a good speech, and I got a picture with her afterwards:
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The same day, I attended the Austin Big Idea event which helps people start and grow small businesses. The main headliners were Gary Hoover (who I met the day before) and Dr. Randal Pinkett, the Donald Trump-selected Apprentice.
Dr. Randal is actually a really amazing person (and basketball-player-tall). He's a Rhodes Scholar, graduated with five degrees, owns a multi-million dollar company, and was selected as The Apprentice.
He gave a speech talking about the importance of small businesses, and his experience starting one himself. One main point he drove home was to create a lasting entity....A company that can sustain itself if the founder was suddenly taken away. He got lots of reaction out of the audience, and he actually turned out to be a GREAT speaker!
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Action Plan after the speeches:
1.) Research what NeimanMarcus, Nordstroms, Macy's use for their online web stores. They all look very similar and have super-simple shopping carts. I like.
2.) Begin process of making small businesses much larger, and delegate some of the work.
An event was held by BoostrapStudent which featured Gary Hoover as the speaker.
I had done my research prior to the event and read about Gary, and found out he was the guy behind BookStop book stores which was later bought by Barnes & Noble, and the founder of Hoovers.com.
BookStop was the first big-box book retailer to use the "Lots of selection + very low prices" method which Gary actually modeled after Toys R' Us, and Hoovers is now one of the leading corporate information websites on the net. I was delighted to find that Gary was an extremely enthusiastic speaker, and showed the typical "craziness" that's seen in a large amount of very successful business founders.
He actually lives in Austin, and I will get a chance to meet with him once again at another event being held this week. I took three pages of notes because he had tons of very interesting and useful information.
BREIF HISTORY
He grew up in Indiana, and started reading Fortune Magazine at around 12 years old, and was fascinated by business. He became obsessed with understanding how enterprises worked, starting with his hometown General Motors plant.
He founded BookStop in 1982 which had a great amount of success. He loved reading books and he saw the potential of the Toys R' Us styled business (which was very revolutionary back then), so he put the two together.
In 1989 he sold BookStop for $41 million cash. The Barnes & Noble Superstores division which was modeled after BookStop is now worth over $2.5 billion.
in 1990 Gary started a business information service, now Hoovers.com which eventually went public.
Like every successful person, his big failure was TravelFest which started in 1993 and ended in 1999 when airlines cut commissions to travel agents.
GARY HOOVER WISDOM:
He constantly focuses on the customer at the very end of the chain. He says despite what a company does, it always relates down to individual customers and people.
Like so many other very successful business people....he is a voracious reader. Says he religiously reads at least the front page of the Wall Street Journal daily, and he goes through many books a week. He claims his house looks more like a library than a home.
He is an avid studier of history. I was particularly interested to notice that he was a big fan of business history. I once did a post about bubbles in history as I used to study these....after his speech, I realized just how important studying these things are.
"You can only go as far forward as you can backwards"
He firmly believes a liberal arts education is the best, but that it doesn't necessarily mean formal schooling.
"You never know where the answers come from." He gave an example of a 6 year old who told him it was stupid to put children's books in BookStop so far away from his mom who was browsing in the cooking section.
Randomly stumbling upon information is vital.
It's important to differentiate yourself if you want to create something great. He gave a good example: If you walk into a grocery store blindfolded, you wouldn't be able to tell if you're in an Alberton's, Krogers or Randall's....however you WILL know if you walk into Whole Foods.
PRIMARY THEMES OF SPEECH:
Many of the same mistakes are repeated throughout history because people ignore what happened in the past. That's why he loves history. I completely agree.
He said the most powerful advantage an entrepreneur has is to know where you are, where you are going and where you are coming from.
Everyone is always buried in little details, the real winners are the one's who take time to look at the big picture. He gave the example of Bill Gates taking two weeks off every year for his own private "Think Week" where he simply reads the entire time.
He had a "3rd Grade Rule" about business plans: If a 3rd grader can't understand it, it's no good. He also said "Present it to your grandmother"
Other Random Observations:
He drank his bottled water with a straw (ha!)
It seems he has more racing through his mind than he can push out.
He openly gave out his email address and encouraged people to send him emails and business plans.
He carries around a little black book full of ideas.
A group of people enthusiastically spoke with him for over an hour after the speech, where I took possibly the worst photo ever:
Something interesting was during the Q&A session someone asked: "How do you protect your good ideas from being stolen when presenting them." He right away said, "I don't believe in that. I believe in telling everyone about all my ideas."
He then went on to explain that ideas are a dime a dozen, the trick is having the knowledge, resources and dedication to start on the idea. He even said he often won't sign NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreements) anymore. He obviously enjoyed sharing his ideas, and actually had a couple of neat "Blankets" which were basically a portable, visual business plan. He liked printing these things out on blankets (Or tablecloths...I'm not quite sure), because he could simply crumple them up in his bag:
Overall he was a great speaker and very knowledgeable person. Hopefully I will hear more from this fellow Austinite in the future! He also ended his speech by saying Austin is still one of the greatest cities to be an entrepreneur.
I've been been running House Of Rave as a part time income for around 5 years now, and by FAR the most trafficked portion of the site is the rave videos section. When I first started the website, I was forced off every hosting plan I had due to high bandwidth usage. I've always burned through about 400 to 700 gigs of videos per month....several years ago that was a big deal and a large expense.
I am getting more traffic than ever on House Of Rave, but I'm concerned about the videos.
It was only recently that YouTube.com and Google Video showed up....but they have very quickly established themselves as THE place to go for all types of videos. So if people want videos of club/rave stuff, then YouTube will eventually steal much of my traffic. To counter this, I will instead fully utilize these two free services to my advantage.
I am in the process of revamping the video section to allow users to comment on the videos and view them directly from the site using YouTube. I've also started uploading all the good videos to YouTube and Google video, so House Of Rave still gets exposure when people search for club/rave videos on those websites.
I've even started using YouTube for individual product videos on HoR, and so far people seem to like them. Sales of certain products definitely increased when visitors could watch the product in action. My first test trial was for the High Intensity Glowsticks, and that worked pretty well.
Instead of fighting a losing battle against these dominating video services, I can get MORE traffic by joining them.
Now I need to translate these changes into results. House Of Rave is around the $2,000/month range, I need to step it up.
Steady Monthly Income - Much Work = Good.
-------------------------------------
Due to several confounding factors I could not perform my homeless experiment this week. I was planning on being homeless for about 3 days to see what I could learn. This is not the end of the experiment, simply a temporary delay.
I stopped shaving in preparation for the experiment, and it was a surprise to see I grew this in only 6 days:
!!!
------------------------------------- I already met Michael Dell once, and I get to see him again in Austin. He is giving a speech at UT: When: Tuesday April 25th 2006 - 7:00pm Where: Texas Union Ballroom @ University of Texas Austin
I found this upcoming speech surprising, because Michael Dell is notoriously shy in front of crowds. When I saw him, his wife and Lance Armstrong did all the talking...he didn't speak a word in front of the crowd!
I'm back from Chicaaago, and had a great time in a great city.
Fortunately I stayed with friends, so didn't have to pay for housing. The whole trip was pretty cheap considering I stayed for 5 nights and was constantly out & about.
$300 plane flight $350 spending. 5 days Total = $650
This was actually way under budget, yet I didn't hold back on any expenses while there. Now I must meet my goals for the next few months, and I'll take another trip.
--------------------------- Some Random Observations:
Flying with ear plugs makes plane flights so much more pleasant.
On Tuesday I saw/met Kevin Rollins the CEO of Dell at a speech he gave at UT. He was brought in to speak about ethics by a Mormon organization. He's Mormon himself, so he also talked about how his upbringing has helped him bring strong business ethics into the company.
He originally started out as a consultant for Dell in 1993, but then soon was escalated to regional manager, then overseer of North American operations, then CEO. His speech was mainly geared towards how ethics is a strong virtue at Dell. Of course I've never heard a CEO say otherwise about their company!
His last words of advice were: --Work hard now, because you can't redo it later. --Don't have regrets. --Dream Big.
Pretty standard stuff, but important nonetheless.
---------------------------------
I just finished my taxes, and I filed independently for the first time. I used TurboTax, and it was relatively painless. For 2006 I've been keeping excellent financial records, so next tax season should be a cinch...I'm actually looking forward to it!
Also, I've had experience with the homeless before in my bottled water experiment, but next week I'm doing a "homeless experiment" where I'll actually be homeless for a few days to see what I can learn. I'm not sure how it'll go, but that's why I'm doing it!
Yesterday I went to see Jeffrey Immelt speak on the UT campus, the CEO of one of the worlds oldest and largest companies, General Electric (GE). Originally founded by Thomas Edison, this company has grown up with America and has been one of the leading innovators in American technology. I fortunately got the chance to meet Mr. Immelt before and after the speech.
Some point of interest from his speech:
--Three big trends he says will get stronger: Globalization, larger interaction between government and business, volatility and face paced business.
--He says one of the secrets GE uses is turning their enormous size into an advantage, and not making it a disadvantage. He also says reinvesting so much money in research is a HUGE factor in their success.
--Good Business Leaders Must: Lead with an undying sense of optimism, believe in change, have a healthy disrespect of history, know the difference between confidence and arrogance.
--He reads 4 newspapers a day, 40 journals a week and about 50 books per year. He says he is an avid reader, something I've noticed most great business leaders are.
--He says his main job as a CEO is to: Pick initiatives and businesses to get involved in, shape the company culture, pick great people.
--"If you want something done, ask a busy person."
--He started out at a very lowly position at GE in 1982. He worked his way up over the years, but never really planned on becoming CEO. He was hand picked by Jack Welch.
--He gave the standard spiel about being successful in a company: Make your job fun, have a passion for it, work hard yadda yadda yadda.
--Immelt and Steve Balmer used to share a cubicle at Proctor & Gamble many years ago.
--He is very interested in doing business with Eastern Europe and the Middle East. He also sees much more growth ahead in China and India. He says in 5-10 years half of all business done by GE will be outside the U.S. He constantly stressed that globalization is here to stay and extremely important.
--I asked if he works out, and he said EVERY DAY at 5:30 am for one hour.
Of course I had to take a picture with him. This man is just about one of the most powerful people in the world. He was actually genuinely interested in what all the people who swarmed him after the speech had to say, and a very nice guy in general.
After the speech there was a private session for an hour and half with him which contained about 10 representatives from the business school, 10 representatives from the engineering school, three GE employees...and me (Of which I don't fit any of those categories). I think the main thing that drew me in however was the free food! No matter how much money I ever have, free food will always lure me in.
At this session Jeff Immelt mainly took a barrage of questions from the curious audience about his daily routines, views, business opinions and personal life. It was great fun meeting him, and I even got a make-shift dinner of finger foods and some free GE bags and other goodies!
I've tried and used tons of different Ecommerce shopping carts over the years, and some online shopping carts can be very expensive. Nowadays, open source shopping carts have sprung up all over the place that offer novice web users the chance to open an Ecommerce store.....FREE.
For a recent partnership business I'm helping start, I did a review of several open source shopping carts which allow you to start a fully functioning Ecommerce store with little know-how and little money: --------------
OScommerce: This is the big daddy of open source shopping carts. It has an enormous amount of users who regularly contribute to their support groups and add on modules.
Pros:
FREE
Easy to install
Huge support section and forum.
Add on modules created by the community for free
Great selection of out-of-the-box OScommerce templates available (for money) at TemplateMonster.com
When you purchase a template, the entire shopping cart is already included for free.
Can have a store up, running and accepting orders within minutes.
Simple checkout screens.
Cons:
Templates are extremely hard to manipulate, will most likely need to buy a professionally made template or have someone help.
A little "Bulky" on the backend.
Will take a little getting used to the backend: adding products, adding options. Not as intuitive as some of the for-pay shopping carts.
This is basically an easier to use offspring of OScommerce. From my experience, it is almost identical in every aspect to OScommerce, just a cleaned up interface. The only major difference I saw was the ability to easily upload multiple templates, something OScommerce is pretty fussy about. Zen Cart is also slightly easier to use in the backend, but once again, is almost identical to OScommerce.
Zen Cart templates are not hard to find (for pay), but OScommerce has more templates, more add-on modules and a larger community of users.
ZenCart Frontend
ZenCart Backend
------------------
X-Cart: This is a for-pay shopping cart that allows a full, turnkey solution to Ecommerce:
Pros:
Easy to install
All add on modules and templates usually cost money, but are professionally done.
Easier to use than OScommerce and ZenCart.
Has easier add-on features and a clean interface
Easier to get professional help than the open source carts.
Has very nice upselling features and makes it easy to upload multiple images for a product.
Cons:
Not open source. If you have complicated modifications to make (which most people don't), this shopping cart will be much harder to manipulate than OScommerce/ZenCart.
Costs at least $200 for the software, plus extra money for templates and add on modules. Probably not the choice for an uber-cheap startup.
Xcart Frontend
Xcart Backend
---------------- All of the above shopping carts allow for easy merchant account integration and are a complete out-of-the-box solution for starting an Ecommerce store. I'd suggest first downloading OScommerce and trying it out. Add a few products, add some categories, place a few orders yourself and get used to the feel of it. The only requirement is a web hosting plan that allows you to create databases.
Verdict:
OScommerce: Use if a free solution is needed. Best option when looking for free upgrade modules. Best options when looking for great looking templates.
ZenCart: Use if a free solution is needed. Works slightly simpler than OScommerce.
X-Cart: If you've got a few hundred dollars to spend and want a nice looking store with upsell features and easy multiple image uploads, I'd recommend Xcart. They have a free demo also.
If familiarized with these sorts of shopping carts, you can have a brilliant idea for an Ecommerce store and actually exectute the idea while you're still motivated about it rather than first having to learn about ecommerce!
I'm always trying to further educate
and improve my knowledge of the business world and everything else. I encourage you to
comment on this site with your expertise, criticisms, advice, opinions,
recommendations or general thoughts.
Somehow I forgot to post this, but sometime last year (circa September 2007) I went to go see Al Carey, the CEO of Frito Lay speak on the University of Texas campus. 
New account balances are as follows:
This Tuesday Michael Dell gave a speech at the University of Texas which I attended.
I've tried and used tons of different Ecommerce shopping carts over the years, and some online shopping carts can be very expensive. Nowadays, open source shopping carts have sprung up all over the place that offer novice web users the chance to open an Ecommerce store.....FREE.
