MarketMe 2.0

Depending on your outlook, you will either find this depressing or motivational. A website named the Museum of Conceptual Art has a simple page on its site that allows you to enter your age. After hitting submit, you can see what other people accomplished when they were that same age.

So if you are 23 years old, here are a few of the things others accomplished at that age:

• John Singleton directed his first film, “Boyz ‘N the Hood.”
• T. S. Eliot wrote “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
• English poet Jane Taylor wrote “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.”
• Margaret Mead traveled to the South Seas as part of a “giant rescue operation” to study primitive cultures before they perished.
• Truman Capote published his first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms.
• Orson Welles produced and performed his “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast, terrifying millions of people. He also got his face on the cover of Time Magazine.
• Jack Nicklaus became the youngest golfer to win the Masters.
• Francois-Louis Cailler manufactured the world’s first eating chocolate to be commercially produced.

Where do you stack up? Do the daily concerns you face seem trivial compared to some of the things these people endured dozens of years ago. Funny thing is, that they did all of this without a smidgen of the technology we have today.

To try it for yourself, go to the Museum of Conceptual Art.

I’m frankly surprised by the brouhaha that has sprung up around Josh Greenbaum’s reasonable question - does Google own the content that users of Google Apps create? - and my follow-on post. I continue to believe it’s a legitimate question based on Google’s loose language in the agreement.

Let’s be clear: I don’t believe Google has nefarious designs on its Apps users’ content. But the language is sufficiently broad to allow it. The problem with the uproar is that it’s being fueled by common sense. “Of course ‘public’ means what we all think it means, and of course Google doesn’t own my copyrights.” The problem with common sense is that it doesn’t always get a fair trial in court.

Frankly, I think the whole issue could be put to rest by Google defining the word “public.” It doesn’t, at least not anywhere that I could discover. An oversight? Very likely, but no less troublesome for this fact.

Richard MacManus over at Read/Write Web writes that Google neither owns its users’ content nor does Google do anything with private content. The first part is true (and I never said anything contrary to this because…) but the second part is questionable. Richard is thinking like a rational human being. Lawyers don’t get paid to think like that.

Is it “private” if I share it with my company? Maybe. Is it “private” if I share it with my family? Maybe. It’s an open question, and guess who decides? Google (or, ultimately, a court), not you. Why? Because the system doesn’t provide a way to define what is private and what is public.

Think I’m making this up? Here’s a page from Google Docs that I use with Dave Rosenberg and Ashlee Vance for a podcast series we’re starting.

Do you see that “Make this public” button? No, because it’s not there. You can share, and you can define with whom you share, but the system does not allow you to define at what point your sharing makes something public content.

This is exactly why Owen Thomas’ pithy post over on Valleywag is also wrong, though I appreciate Owen at least allowing me the sin of sloppiness. For Owen, it’s obvious what the boundary is between private and public. But for the law, it’s not so clear, and it’s certainly not clear in Google’s system which provides no way to define what is private and what is public.

Would it be hard for Google to do this? Absolutely not. I would guess it would take a Google developer a few minutes to write it into the program. It would take Google’s lawyers about as much time to update its terms and conditions to define public (though, again, I think it’s better to code the definition into the product rather than more legalese into the Ts and Cs.

The only reason not to do either is if, in fact, Google is hoping to use the content in the ways noted in the Ts and Cs. Content that you and I may rationally believe is private, but which Google rationally believes is public. It’s a lawyer’s question, when it really should be for the user to determine.

Matt Asay is general manager of the Americas and vice president of business development at Alfresco, and has nearly a decade of operational experience with commercial open source and regularly speaks and publishes on open-source business strategy. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network.

For the past 14 months, high-tech insiders have been eating up the work of an anonymous blogger who assumed the persona of Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive and one of the world’s most famous businessmen.

P-I reporter Todd Bishop compares Daniel Lyons’ writing on Microsoft with the Fake Steve Jobs’ on his blog.

Daniel Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes magazine, wrote anonymous postings on the blog, the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs.

The mysterious writer has used the blog to lampoon Jobs and his reputation as a difficult and egotistical leader, as well as to skewer other high-tech companies, tech journalists, venture capitalists, open-source software fanatics and Silicon Valley’s overall aura of excess.

The acerbic postings of “Fake Steve,” as he is known, have attracted a plugged-in readership — both the real Jobs and Bill Gates have acknowledged reading the blog, fakesteve.blogspot.com. At the same time, Fake Steve has evaded the best efforts of Silicon Valley’s gossips to discover his real identity.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Daniel Lyons, a senior Forbes magazine editor who lives near Boston, has been quietly enjoying the attention.

“I’m stunned that it’s taken this long,” said Lyons, 46, when a reporter interrupted his vacation in Maine on Sunday to ask him about Fake Steve. “I have not been that good at keeping it a secret. I’ve been sort of waiting for this call for months.”

Lyons writes and edits technology articles for Forbes and is the author of two works of fiction, most recently a 1998 novel, “Dog Days.” In October, Da Capo Press will publish his satirical novel written in the voice of the Fake Steve character, “Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody.”

The book, in part, led to Lyons’s unmasking. Last year, his agent showed the manuscript to several book publishers and told them the anonymous author was a published novelist and writer for a major business magazine.

The New York Times found Lyons by looking for writers who fit those two criteria, and then by comparing the writing of “Fake Steve” to a blog Lyons writes in his own name, called Floating Point (floatingpoint.wordpress.com).

Though many speculators have guessed that Fake Steve was an Apple insider, Lyons says he has never interviewed Jobs nor written a story about the company. “I have zero sources inside Apple,” he said. “I had to go out and get books and biographies to learn about a lot of the back story.”

Lyons receives around 50 e-mail messages a day through the blog, many with ideas for posts, and says the site had 700,000 visitors last month. Someone claiming to be Jobs’ daughter, Lisa, recently wrote to tell him, “You don’t sound at all like my father, but your blog is hilarious.”

The guessing game around his identity was intense, with speculation centering on a variety of plugged-in journalists, former Apple employees and even Jobs himself.

Over the past year, Forbes Publisher Richard Karlgaard even got into the act, speculating several times on Forbes.com about Fake Steve’s identity. At one point he wrote: “The guessing game has begun. Who is writing it? Send me your guesses. I’ll gladly buy the most expensive iPod for the first to identify Fake Steve Jobs.”

Lyons said he felt bad and later revealed himself to his bosses and colleagues.

Karlgaard said he had a good laugh and holds no grudges. “I think it is the most brilliant caricature of an important part of American culture that I’ve seen,” he said. “We’re really proud that he’s one of ours.”

Forbes had planned to move the Secret Diary to Forbes.com in September, although it may now accelerate the move.

WHO’S WHO

Daniel Lyons’ blog “Fake Steve” won many fans in the technology world, serving up hilarious daily satire of what purported to be a “secret diary” of Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Inc. The blog takes potshots at many major figures in the technology world, and sometimes invented nicknames for them. A guide to who’s who on the blog Fake Steve:

Beastmaster: Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates

Uncle Fester: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Lyons says Ballmer looks like he was “separated at birth” from the character on the 1970s-era TV show “The Addams Family.”

Squirrel Boy: Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt. Lyons figures Schmidt doesn’t mind. “I’m sure he’s laughing all the way to the bank.”

My Little Pony: Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc. A dig at Schwartz’s ponytail, and apparently a name that insiders at Sun call him behind his back.

Bike Helmet Girl: Lyons spotted an online picture of a woman doing funky dance moves at a party while wearing a bike helmet, then posted a photo on the blog and invented a story line about Jobs having a crush on her.

Dr. Evil and Mr. Bigglesworth: Nick Denton and Owen Thomas, the owner and managing editor, respectively, of Valleywag, a Silicon Valley gossip blog that made many fruitless attempts to uncover Lyons’ identity. In a posting on Sunday, Fake Steve wrote of his outing: “My only regret is that we didn’t get a chance to see Bigglesworth take a few more swings and misses.”

The Associated Press

What is an Elevator Pitch?

This is the 30-60 second business description of what you do and why someone should work with you. It’s called an “Elevator Pitch” because it describes the challenge: “How would you explain your business and make a sale if fate placed you in an elevator with your dream prospect and you only had the time it takes to get from the top of the building to the bottom?”

This article will explain the elements of a powerful elevator pitch and then walk you through how to craft yours.

Why Is Having an Elevator Pitch So Important?

You only have 30-60 seconds to make a powerful first impression. The attention span of the average person is just 30 seconds before their mind starts wandering. The other reason is people have less time today. You need to grab them quickly or lose them forever.

Essential Elements of a Powerful Elevator Pitch

1. Concise. Your pitch should take no longer than 30-60 seconds.
2. Clear. Use language that everyone understands. Don’t use fancy words thinking it will make you sound smarter. Your listener won’t understand you and you’ll have lost your opportunity to hook them.
3. Powerful. Use words that are powerful and strong. Deliver the “Sis-Boom-Bang” to grab their attention!
4. Visual. Use words that create a visual image in your listeners mind. This will make your message memorable.
5. Tell a Story. A short story, that is. A good story is essentially this: someone with a problem either finds a solution or faces tragedy. Either type of story can be used to illuminate what you do.
6. Targeted. A great elevator pitch is aimed for a specific audience. If you have target audiences that are vastly different, you might want to have a unique pitch for each.
7. Goal Oriented. A kick-ass elevator pitch is designed with a specific outcome in mind. What is your desired outcome? You may have different pitches depending on different objectives. For instance do you want to: make a sale, gain a prospect, enlist support for an idea, or earn a referral.
8. Has a Hook. This is the element that literally snags your listener’s interest and makes them want to know more.
   This is the phrase or words that strike a chord in your listener.

How to Craft Your Killer Elevator Pitch

• Write down what you do. Write it several different ways. Try writing it at least 10-20 different ways. Don’t edit yourself at all. You will edit later. This first step is for generating ideas. Don’t hold back. Ideas can be goofy, serious, wild, funny, or conservative. It doesn’t matter. The goal is to get at many ideas as possible down on paper.
• Write a very short story that illustrates what you do for people. If necessary, the story can be long. You will boil it down later. Paint a picture with words.
• Write down your objective or goal. Do you want to make a sale, gain a prospect, enlist support for an idea, earn a referral, or something else?
• Write 10-20 action statements. This is a statement or question designed to spur the action associated with your goal.
• Record yourself. You can use Jott if you don’t have a recording device. Jott is a free phone based service that translates your messages into text as well as providing an online link to the original audio.
• Let it sit. Come back to what you’ve written with fresh eyes and ears the next day or later on in the same day.
• Highlight the good stuff. Listen and read through what you’ve recorded and written. Then either highlight or circle the phrases that hook you with clear, powerful, and visual words. Obviously not all the words will fall into these categories. You still need connector words, but you want them to be as few as possible.
• Put the best pieces together. Again you’ll want to write down several versions of this much tighter pitch. Tell us what you do and why people should want to do business with you. Include elements from your story if you can fit it in.
• Record these new ones.
• Do a final edit cutting as many unnecessary words as possible. Rearrange words and phrases until it sounds just right. Again, the goal is 30-60 seconds maximum.
• Dress Rehearsal. Run it by as many people as you can get to listen to you. Get feedback from colleagues, clients you trust, friends and family.
• Done for now. Take your final elevator pitch and write it down. Memorize and practice it until it just slides off your tongue naturally.
• Continue to improve. Over time, always be on the listen for phrases that you think could make your elevator pitch more clear and impactful. And then test it out. Every once in a while you will probably benefit by starting from scratch because things always change: you, your business, your goals, and your clients’ needs.

What’s your elevator pitch?

Take two Harvard grads with a combined five summers of intern experience and give them a computer. Add a dose of schmoozing skills, some business smarts and heaping amounts of wit.

Before you know it, you have Intern Memo, the website and thrice-weekly e-newsletter created this summer by brothers Will and Theodore Bressman of New York. They have made it their mission to help the nation’s interns get ahead in their fields of choice, establish valuable connections and even have some fun.

Intern Memo also focuses on social activities in New York City, where the site is based. As landing an internship increasingly becomes the doorway to the world of work, Intern Memo is tapping into a nationwide need to share experiences. The Bressmans hope to expand to other cities.

“In the last 10 years, internships have become a prerequisite for entry-level jobs,” says Jamie Fedorko, author of The Intern Files: How to Get, Keep and Make the Most of Your Internship. “You can’t get one without” an internship.

Will, 25, and Theodore, 23, co-founded the site (internmemo.com), which sent its first e-newsletter on May 28. Their sister, Ellie, 19, markets by word of mouth and on a Facebook group. The e-newsletter now boasts more than 3,000 subscribers.

“There isn’t really a resource out there for people who want to be spoken to, not down to,” says Will, who, after interning at sports and media corporations, wanted to help others trying to break into careers.

“Interning is a really funny experience,” adds Theodore, who has interned at financial companies. “It can be fun, and it can be bad. But if you have the right perspective, it’s awesome.”

On Mondays, subscribers receive a general behavioral tip, such as developing a good rapport with a boss. Wednesday’s “Internal Monologue” features diary-like entries from Intern Samantha and Intern Simon, two real-life interns using pseudonyms to write candidly about office escapades. Fridays offer a “wild card,” in which Theodore, in charge of editorial content, compiles a list of mostly free weekend events and often includes transcripts of interviews with professional bigwigs from varied industries.

“If there’s one thing we can offer, it’s … a balance between utility and levity,” says Will, who oversees Web development and potential partnerships. He works full time at a video website, while Theodore freelances for online publications. Ellie has three years left at Harvard.

Fedorko, who interned in college and is now a freelance writer, also stressed balance, urging greenhorns to find the middle road between being the “ingratiating brown-nosing intern” and “the intern who thinks they know it all.”

Blair Clark, a senior at Penn State University, recalls her first internship last summer, at a New York art gallery.

“When I started, it was overwhelming … I had to learn everything right when I got there,” from how to use the office fax machine to adapting to the fast-paced work environment, says Clark, 21. “Anything would have helped” to make the transition a bit smoother.

Next summer, the Intern Memo team hopes to expand to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

For now, the best advice these interns emeriti can give their fan base is to relax.

“Most of the time, you’re not entrusted with something that’s life or death,” Theodore says.

Votehere.net raised more than $20 million to bring online voting to the masses.

That idea never really took root, but the intellectual property behind the Bellevue firm and its predecessor company, Dategrity, is being reborn in a new startup called Demoxi.

In a complex deal, Demoxi is acquiring about 50 patents from Dategrity, a venture- backed startup that will continue to operate as a stand-alone company focusing on online voting in the public sector.

Steve Wood has left the chief executive post at Dategrity, while three other employees have migrated to Demoxi. The new company is receiving a cash infusion from Dategrity, which had previously raised more than $3 million in venture funding.

Jim Adler, who founded VoteHere.net and served as president of Dategrity, has stepped into the role of chief executive of Demoxi. And Northwest Venture Associates managing partner Tom Simpson, an original investor in VoteHere and Dategrity, has joined the new startup’s board.

Monster Venture Partners, the newly created venture capital firm of Global Market Insite founder Rob Monster, is leading Demoxi’s new $1.5 million venture round.

Why the fuss over an 11-year-old technology that never really took off?

Monster, for one, believes that Demoxi is sitting on a gold mine when it comes to technologies that will help consumers better protect their identities online. The goal is to use the original VoteHere technology to create new ways to store passwords, exchange files and access Web sites without registering.

Eventually, Demoxi — which also has taken control of the patents related to online voting — could find its way back into that market. But for now, Adler said it made more sense to focus on the private sector by creating systems to make online voting — whether it’s the ranking system on an online news service such as Digg or online ballot casting for a program such as “American Idol” — more transparent and auditable.

“It’s a great technology, but the government market is not ready for it,” Adler said. “That is what we have really learned.”

Demoxi is pursuing numerous angles. But the first big push, a downloadable application called Demoxi ID, is slated to launch in September.

Monster said the service is designed to act as a central repository where Web site password information is stored on an individual’s computer hard drive, creating what he calls a “secure identity wallet.”

“This is an opportunity for the consumer to take back control of their personal identity and their personal information and be highly aware when that information is being transferred to a third party,” he said.

A movement among computer users is already pushing this easy log-in concept. Recently embraced by Microsoft and others, it’s called OpenID and it allows people to log in to multiple Web sites without handing over e-mail or other personal information.

One of the original motivations for the OpenID project was to create an online identification system that was not controlled by a single entity.

Online ID technology has never really penetrated the mainstream market; Adler says it has been the domain of “geeks and nerds and technology wonks that think this stuff is really cool.” But Adler believes it is now “bubbling up” as people grow more concerned about their online identities and the growing number of passwords they collect.

Adler said there is one big difference between Demoxi and some of the OpenID providers popping up. Demoxi keeps the personal ID on a user’s hard drive, while OpenID providers host them “on a server in the sky somewhere.” That could open them up for online attacks, he said.

So how will Demoxi attempt to make money?

The tiny startup believes it can present targeted advertising — on behalf of Web site publishers — based on five characteristics that it collects from consumers: age, gender, ethnicity, language and location.

Straddling the fence as a provider of secure IDs and an advertising network may be a tough sell for consumers. But Adler said it is important to create both, adding that “one hand washes the other.”

Monster, who has joined the company as president, said Demoxi is helping consumers better manage their personal information. And because of that, he said it should resonate.

“Very important in building a business of this nature is trust and being fully transparent in … how and when data is being transmitted from your local drive,” he said. “So we are taking the aspect of privacy very, very seriously and building a platform that truly earns the trust, respect and confidence of consumers around the world.”

Employers are increasingly checking out online personal information about candidates when making recruitment decisions.

Net reputations built up through online activities–such as blogging, posting videos to YouTube, or using social networks such as Facebook and MySpace.com–can have a significant effect when applying for a job, according to a report from business social network Viadeo.

According to the research, released Wednesday, one in five employers finds information about candidates on the Internet, and 59 percent of those said it influences recruitment decisions.

A fourth of human resources decision makers said they had rejected candidates based on personal information found online. Most people, however, remain unaware of the effect their Net reputation can have on their job prospects.

Examples of online information that has been shown to create negative information include MySpace pages that reveal excessive drinking or disrespect for work.

One survey respondent said his company rejected a candidate based on activities found online that “did not fit ethically” into the organization.

But information found online can also work positively when applying for a job, with 13 percent of HR decision makers having decided to recruit people in light of what they found.

Positive information could include achievements not already known, Internet skills demonstrated through a Web site and extra skills not revealed by a corporate application form.

Peter Cunningham, a U.K.-based Viadeo manager, said the results should be a wake-up call to anyone who has ever posted personal information online.

“The rise of search engines such as Google means that potential employers are never more than a few clicks away from information about you,” he added in a statement.

The research surveyed more than 2,000 consumers and more than 600 employers via an online interview.

Tim Ferguson of Silicon.com reported from London.

Advertising today is political and your best new idea may come from a small office you maintain halfway around the world. Those are two of the four lessons that ad guru Randall Rothenberg takes from the continued success of the Dove “Real Beauty” campaign (that’s the one with the naked women).

“Say what you will about globalization,” he writes in Advertising Age, “but it works for idea flows. The “Real Beauty” concept originated in Ogilvy’s Dusseldorf office, then rapidly made its way to London.” Then onto New York.

Regarding politics, he writes: “Even the most conventional products must take a position in a public debate. Thirty years ago, least-offensive programming dominated advertising and programming. Today, provocation is in order.” He then quotes Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide CEO Shelly Lazurus as saying, the question is, “Can your brand lead a movement?”

As for the other two points, they deal with innovation and with the Web. Rothenberg says that Dove was actually able to keep its advertising spending low because it put into action a number of inexpensive and innovative buzz-centric campaigns that engaged consumers through SMS text messaging, flashing billboards, and the like. Dove (a product of Unilever) also engaged consumers on the Web. The lesson, says Rothenberg, is that “dialogue is de rigeur.” (Here’s the link to the column.)

What do you think? Do you think the Dove campaign is effective product marketing, or is it simply provocative artwork. Moreover, do you think that these are the four lessons learned from the campaign? What other lessons might there be? And are any of these four points is, in your mind, more pivotal to the campaign than the others?

Inc.com

Taken from Dumb Little Man’s Jay White

We get lots of email at Dumb Little Man but this one really hit me because I tend to get in this rut too.

Jay

I love the site but I have a question (if you don’t have time, don’t worry about it). You mentioned that you are a work-a-holic and so am I. I work close to 60 hours a week to earn enough money so that my wife can stay home with the kids. Since I am so into my work, it is hard for me to leave work at work. It seems that I am always thinking about my job and it’s causing an unintentional distancing between me and my family. How would you recommend that I balance the two so that I can totally focus on work, yet know how to call it a day and really enjoy my family time?

So as many of you can imagine, this is a tough one and as far as I am concerned it’s ramifications have nothing to do with who earns what, it simply has to do leaving work at work. So how do you do that?

Here are the things that I personally do. Without them, I swear I’d be thinking of my job or Dumb Little Man 24×7.

• Change your route: What I mean by this is literally “change your route home”. If you have a bad or overly stressful day at work, take the long way home. During the first half of your journey home, turn the radio off and think about what you have to accomplish at work and how you will execute. During the second half of the drive, turn on whatever music you like, talk radio, (whatever) and begin the process of thinking about things outside of work. Do not think about work during the entire commute, you must separate before you get home!
• The boss at work does not equal the boss at home: Just because you are an important guy at work doesn’t mean that you get to make demands at home. You have to remember that the people you live with are not paid to take your BS. If you love them, you will treat them better than those that report to you. On the flip side of this, your being an entry-level employee at work doesn’t mean that at home you can get the “power trip” your ego begs for.
• Vent: Venting is the art of blowing your lid and we all do it. Once you get home after work and kiss the kids, give yourself a 15-minute window to let it out. You should set this up in advance with your spouse but leave the time limit at 15 minutes. During that time, they have to simply listen and let you get it out. After that, you must agree that work is over.
• Blackberry/Laptop: Occasionally we all have to work at night or on the weekends. The key here is to set an expectation when honestly important projects arise. If you really don’t need to work, keep the electronics off. Don’t login just because you are curious. As we all know you will find reasons to email people or start completing tasks.
• Questions first: When you get home, immediately ask how your spouse’s day went (AND LISTEN). Many times their response is enough to get you to think of family tasks and break you away from work. In addition, you will probably earn some points for engaging them in the conversation. Remember, it’s human nature to want to talk about yourself so resist the urge.
• Survival: Whether you believe it or not, your company will survive without you. It is key to remember this as you choose where to spend time. If it is after hours and you haven’t turned off the blackberry, you have to resist the urge to get involved in something that isn’t really ultra-critical.
• No work, no matter what: This is a tough one but at my house we practice it like a religion. On Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5-10 PM I have sworn not to do work. These nights and times actually have a place in my calendar and I have told co-workers that I am absolutely unavailable no matter what. If I were a CEO making 10 trillion per year perhaps this would change but I am not so…I’m booked.
• 25% Rule: When I plan my days, I leave a minimum of 25% of the time open. This time is used for emergencies, task lists, etc. It is during that time that I accomplish smaller tasks that I would have reserved for off-hours.
• Get up earlier: Don’t be a crybaby about this one. If may sting in the beginning but if you are constantly running out of time, take time from you and not your family. As your family sleeps, you can easily get some stuff done by heading to the office early.

These are things I do and they are tough at times because there are constantly urgent issues arising at work. The key for me was learning how to delegate and say no when I had to. Again, it’s not easy but with some will, you can do it.

I’d love to hear what you do to really get some work/home separation. If you have a cure that I didn’t mention, please share it in the comments. It would probably help a lot of people.

A new report highlights the importance of making new businesses appear credible to employees and customers.

The success of an emerging business depends largely on the owner’s ability to convince potential employees or customers that the nascent company is operational, according to new research.

In an attempt to explain why some organizations succeed and others flounder, Erno Tornikoski from the Seinajoki University of Applied Sciences and Scott Newbert from the College of Commerce and Finance at Villanova University, analyzed data collected in the panel study of entrepreneurial dynamics, or PSED. The PSED was a three-year study that identified and repeatedly surveyed 830 Americans who were actively involved in starting a small business. Their report appears in the current Journal of Business Venturing.

About half of the survey participants ultimately created successful businesses — defined by researchers as ventures that had made a sale, hired employees, or received external funding. The researchers found that an entrepreneur’s personal characteristics, such as level of education, had little to do with the success of his or her venture. Rather, the quality shared by successful entrepreneurs was the ability to make their emerging organization seem legitimate.

“People are likely to buy products, work for, and give money to entities that are credible, that they perceive as operational,” said Newberg. “Organizations that make their fledgling operation appear more legitimate than it might actually be are better able to access customers and recruit employees.”

While the education and previous experience of each entrepreneur had little bearing on the ultimate success of his or her venture, the collective experience of people on the start-up team such as employees, mentors, and financiers, did influence the venture’s chances for success.

“It is an advantage to have some amalgam of start-up experiences within the team,” Newberg said. “Even people who have started a successful business in the past, can fall victim to the ’sample size of one’ because they are limited to that singular experience. A more diverse set of information about what seems to work and what doesn’t, seems to be helpful.”

The researchers also found that whether or not an entrepreneur had created a business plan for their start-up venture had no bearing on the success of that venture. Newberg speculates that perhaps investing a lot of time creating the perfect business plan document takes time away from executing the ideas described in the document. He also suggests that entrepreneurs may become too attached to their initial conceptions or misconceptions once they are formalized by inclusion a business plan. Because things change so rapidly for an emerging venture, it is important to be flexible, Newberg explained.

“Of course you need to have a reasonably crystallized idea of what you are going to do — whether you write it down or have it in your head,” Newberg said. “But it’s important to remember that as soon as you write it down it’s going to be wrong.”

Inc.com