Trip Philosophy

I'm at San Juan International Airport (SJU) in Puerto Rico, waiting for my flight to Santiago (STI) in the Dominican Republic. I'm going to spend the week with Rich, my best friend from college, and the entire Reyes family. This weekend is DR independence day which will be awesome to experience and next week we will be chilling out on the beaches of Santo Domingo.

Anyhow, last night as I boarded the red eye from LAX to SJU, I found the perfect blog post for pre-trip inspiration. Let me pause to say that this was only possible do because of my favorite new iPhone app - Byline - which lets me access my Google Reader from my iPhone. The post, Five Travel Lessons You Can Use At Home, by Rolf Potts appeared on Tim Ferriss's blog. It's worth a read, but what I took away from it was beautifully simple: life is about experience not possessions. I would take a trip over a flat screen TV, a great meal over a finely tailored suit and an afternoon with Estrella or Rich or Jaspar or Tom over another meaningless piece of technology any day.

So far this year I have traveled over 50,000 miles and spent time with some of the world's most interesting people. I haven't bought a single new item of clothing, technology...really any material item for that matter. This isn't to say I reject material things, my MacBook and iPhone (along with it's nifty apps, as previously mentioned) enable me to work from anywhere. My yoga mat, yogi toes and meditation bench keep me grounded. Throw in a pair of running shoes and I am good to go.

Before leaving yesterday Jaspar said to me, "Try to not work over there."

"Why?" I asked. "I am having a blast. I love the work we are doing. I mean, it's great to get away from the office and I certainly don't plan to spend all day in front of my laptop. But traveling and building this business are two of my favorite things in life. Getting do them at the same time is a dream come true."

With that I plan to continue living the travel, work life indefinitely.

ADD

Just as I was jumping between tabs - Email, Reader, Highrise, Calendar, HypeM - I came across this awesome post by Bijan on Focus. I am totally dyslexic, totally ADD and "learning disabled". So this post about focus in startups is especially poignant for me. Over the past 18 months I have started two businesses TaskUs and Smarter Social Media and I'm currently running them in parallel. There is some overlap, but by and large this is an exercise in giving 100% of my efforts in two places. It's a lot like dating two women, without benefits.

I am a firm believer that as focus increases, so to does effectiveness. So I have no intention of continuing this path for longer than I have to. That said, in a masochistic way, it's a lot of fun.

Reflections on the Philippines - Part 2

I was on the ground in Manila on Monday night ready to spring into action. Instead, for two long days I waited. Patience is one of my Three Entrepreneurial Essentials, and it's the one I struggle with the most. At one point Joan had to take me to The Spa to get rid of me -

a kind of adult day care with massage, facials and a steam room. I was bouncing of the walls. The only place I wanted to be was at the office with the TaskUs team.

The reasons I waited are sealed, confidential, forever. But when I made my move I didn't stop moving for three days straight. What the team has accomplished over the past four weeks is astounding. We have gone from 10 to 75 employees. We have gone from a single five day a week shift, to a 24/7 operation. What's more is that our growth hasn't stopped yet. We will be at 200 employees by June, maybe sooner (pausing to knock on wood).

Naturally there was a ton to get caught up on. From Wednesday through Saturday morning I worked. I met with agents learning what is working and what isn't. I met with team leaders, QAs, trainers and managers structuring plans for the next four months. Every nine hours I went back to Trader's for two hours of sleep, a work out and a meal and then I'd return for another stretch of work.

It was the hardest stretch I have worked since leaving investment banking. But it was easier than any work I ever did on Wall Street for a simple reason: my people. From the second I walked into the office the dedication, focus and determination of the team amazed me. Everyone recognizes the start up nature of the organization, and as a result are willing to work long, hard hours for little pay.

In particular I was wowed by the work of Jandric, Rommel, Charles, Naomi, Ehmy and Kim. Over the three days I spent at the office these people repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to go the extra mile for the operation. To challenge my ideas. To suggest innovative solutions. And most importantly, they demonstrated ownership - a feeling that they had a large stake in the operations success. Previously, I thought this attitude of ownership was reserved for the American start ups of Silicon Valley, but this trip proved to me that the Filipino people are as ambitious and dedicated as any of the young entrepreneurs found in the U.S.

I can't wait to expand my operations in the country.

Truism

If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don’t have to manage them.

Jamie posted it. Tom has been telling me this for months. Only now am I realizing how true this is.

An Apology

A few weeks ago I wrote a post entitled Reflections on the Philippines. In the post I share my insights on my recent trip to the country. Having spoken with the members of my team in Manila I realize that the post went to far. Not only were elements of the post exaggerated and embellished, much of it was down right insulting. Working with the people of the Philippines over the past year has been an incredible experience. I have written frequently about the passion and dedication of the people I have worked with there. As a result I plan to aggressively expand my operations and investment in the country in the coming months. But before I do I need to offer this apology for anyone who my post insulted.

Bryce

One Whale vs Lots of Fish

Is it better to have one, million dollar customer or one million, one dollar customers?

I've wrestled with this question a lot over the past year. TaskUs is a business that has a lot of customers who spend relatively small amounts of money with us. Smarter Social Media is a business that has a hand full of customers who spend a lot of money with us.

Jamie argues that a large customer retail base gives you control over your destiny. And while I think which is better depends on the nuances of the individual case, I've got to agree with Jamie that a school of fish is better than a single whale. With hundreds or thousands of customers your bets are hedged. You may have more customer service stress or a harder time growing the business quickly, but the security more than makes up for this.

At Smarter Social Media we had plans to launch a huge campaign late last year. The kind of campaign that we had to hire and train new staff for. The kind of campaign that required the investment of time and dollars. At the last minute the customer put on the brakes. Fortunately for us this was a minor delay and the campaign is well under way currently, but if this client had pulled out together our business would have been hurt bad.

At TaskUs we sign up new customers effortlessly on our website. There is little investment as the infrastructure is already in place and grows organically to match our client base. While we are never happy to loose a customer, there is no single TaskUs customer that could undo that business.

Solid Citizens

Today we met with Jeff and Tom - the newest editions to the Smarter Social Media team. Our growth has been really exciting of late. We have now added five new team members over the past three weeks. Jeff and Tom are really exciting editions because they bring decades of experience in brand research and traditional media that really serve to strengthen our value proposition.

In our conversation Jeff started talking about "solid citizens." For Jeff these are good brands, with no sex appeal. Generally the kinds of consumer products you buy every time you make a trip to the super market but they don't jump out at you or excite your passions. It's easy to forget how important these brands are to our everyday lives - What would I do without my Colgate toothpaste?

This got me thinking about the members of our team who are "solid citizens" - they show up to work on time everyday, they deliver on schedule and will go the extra mile. All the while they aren't out on the street singing their own praises. Now let me make it clear from the outset that I do not consider myself a "solid citizen". I am good at what I do, but I am equally good at talking about being good at what I do. But as a result I have an even deeper respect and admiration for the "solid citizens" on our team.

Jed recently took over as head of TaskUs operations. When Jed came to us he was quiet and reserved. But over the past few months he has worked hard and learned fast. Most importantly he has learned to always ask questions. In the few weeks that he has been leading the TaskUs organization he has done an amazing job. Tasks are at an all time high and I'm having to handle less and less of the daily work. Jed genuinely cares about each and every client. He is proud of his position and as a result has no problem working the long, hard hours it requires to deliver every time.

Over the course of my career I have dealt with a lot of developers. Some are awesome and reliable, like the guys at Brilliant2 but the majority that I have worked with over promise and under deliver. Admittedly, this is in part due to my shoestring budget. But given these constraints I am all the more thrilled when I find great developers. We hired Casen last year and my prejudices about developers have since disappeared. Two weeks ago I tasked Casen with developing a site that would allow us to test transcription applicants outside of our offices. I wanted the site to check the transcriptions automatically and assign an accuracy score, removing the need for a human checker and streamlining the entire application process. Casen said he would deliver on Friday and on Friday of last week Transcription.PH went live.

Taking time to thank the solid citizens in our lives goes a long way to keeping the people we rely on everyday close to us.

Checking References

We are hiring! Over the next 6 weeks I need to bring on three new people - Junior and Senior social media positions and a crack PHP developer. If you know one of these folks please send them my way.

When interviewing I rely on one thing - my gut. I never look at resumes. I don't check references. And I definitely don't give candidates consultant type brain teasers. All I want to do is get a feel for the person, to see if they will fit in, in our young, scrappy, results driven environment. To see if they are driven. To see if they will work hard. To see if they will endure. I am usually pretty good at getting a sense for this. But I have made some mistakes. Which is why I am making a late New Year's resolution - I will be checking three references (at minimum) for each and every candidate from now on. I learned this lesson the hard way.

Last year I interviewed an awesome guy. He seemed perfect for the position we needed to fill. So I hired him and he fit right into the organization. The first few weeks he worked hard and delivered. But as the projects got more complex and the demands of work increased he flaked.

Today Jaspar decided to check the references for a new applicant. Turns out the new applicant had worked at the same place as our ex-employee previously. In his conversation with the HR Director of this company Jaspar brought up our ex-employee and the HR Director said, "You know those people who interview really well, but when you hire them they are like a totally different person...that's (your ex-employee). You should have called me about him I bet I could have saved you a lot of money..."

Yup $12,500 to be exact. The most expensive mistake I've made to date.