Before & After
This is the Nike window display that was recently completed for the Nike SB amateur video ‘Debacle’ that premiered last week. It went from the HUF clothing shop to office and the transformation continues.
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Forming a Web Design Contract
Having an online presence is important- but not nearly as important as having a well-designed, easy to navigate website. Unless you’ve got tons of web design experience, chances are you’ll hire a professional to build your site. Most web designers work under contracts, which can vary wildly depending on the designer, the services you need, and the stage of construction a site is at. Here are some dos and don’ts to be mindful of when creating a web design contract:
DO break the contract into phases. If you’re building a brand-new site or overhauling an existing one, it’s a good idea to have several “mini” contracts- one for each task. For example, an agreement for logo design, an agreement to build the homepage only, or an agreement solely for web hosting services are sometimes better than including everything in one contract. (Make sure you have ownership rights to anything created on your behalf.) This is an especially great idea if this is your first time working with a certain designer- if you’re not satisfied with the work after one phase is completed, you can use another designer to finish the project.
DO get a clear timeline. Most design contracts that are broken into phases specify a completion time for each phase. Be sure to note if you need to approve work before the designer can proceed to the next phase.
DO spell out billing specifics. Designers can bill hourly, per task (such as logo design) or per project. Some prefer a specific billing method, which is fine- so long as you can easily approximate the total cost of the project. Stay away from hourly billing if you’re given the option- costs tend to rise and are more difficult to control with this method.
DON’T make the contract too specific. Don’t spell out the design or web programming services specifics (e.g. contract for design of homepage to contain…and pages to contain…) in the contract. The contract should be as straightforward and unambiguous as possible, and can even refer to other agreements, such as a service level agreement, that specifically detail the design work contracted for.
DON’T obligate yourself to more services. This goes hand-in-hand with DO #1 above: don’t enter into an overly expansive contract, such as one that obligates you to purchase future design services or maintenance work.
DON’T let the contract be a substitute for good communication. Sure, the contract will specify billing and timelines, but designers can be flexible within this framework. If you want to modify design work, make changes, or request additional services, the contract doesn’t bar you from doing so. There’s no substitute for good communication. Work with the designer through each step of the process to make sure you’re both satisfied with the result.
Source = Startupnation
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I will be attending this meetup group in a couple weeks, let me know if your interested and we can all network together.
Connect with the coolest women in Silicon Valley!Find out how these cool women…
- Build their business brands from the ground up
- Build their personal brand in the business world
- Learn practical ways to campaign, market and promote your business that you have never thought of….
These cool women had involved in building some cool brands that only you and I can imagine. Spend a chill evening with cool women including:
- Porter Gale – Vice President of Virgin America
- Megan Casey – Cofounder & Chief Editor of Squidoo.com
- Gina Bianchi– Founder of Ning
Learn how to “Cool” your brand before your competitors catch on!
Who are our on the Cool Women panel?
Porter Gale is the Vice President of Marketing of Virgin America.
Megan Casey is a co-founder and the Editor in Chief of Squidoo.com, the popular publishing platform started 4 years ago with bestselling author and blogger Seth Godin. Before starting Squidoo, Megan spent 6 years in book publishing, most recently at the Portfolio business books imprint of Penguin Group, USA. Megan is now widely regarded as one of the most inspiring community leaders online (and, irrelevantly, the youngest).
Gina Bianchini is the co-founder and CEO of Ning, an online platform for creating your own social network for anything. Previously Gina was the Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Harmonic Communications. She has also worked as a Director of Business Development and Investor Relations at CKS Group and as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs.
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San Francisco Seawall 337
San Francisco SWL 337 Proposal: Downsized And Drawn Out
The proposed retail space for San Francisco’s Seawall Lot 337/Pier 48 (a.k.a. “Mission Rock”) has been cut by more than half and the developers are pushing to “complete the project in phases over a 17-year period that would start in 2013.”
As it stands, the project would produce approximately 10 commercial and residential buildings, including two towers near 200 feet and another taller than 300 feet. The area would be broken into 12 small city blocks and would feature 8 acres of open space, including the waterfront park.
One major parking structure and stalls in other buildings would accommodate 2,650 parking spaces for Giants games and other uses. There also are plans to refurbish Pier 48 for exhibitions and other events.
Construction of the cornerstone waterfront park would likley not begin for nearly a decade.
And gone from the proposal is the “scheme for an entertainment center tied to well-known names in food and music, including a 5,000-seat music hall.”
source = socketsite
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Obviously John Wooden is not on my advisory board, but he is in my Pantheon-of-Wonderful-People.
Quote to consider
No written word, no spoken plea Can teach our youth what they should be; Nor all the books on all the shelves It’s what the teachers are themselves. Given to John Wooden by his Father upon Graduation And now to You
He is, quite simply, the greatest basketball coach ever. The numbers speak for themselves: 10 NCAA championships in 12 years, including seven straight national championships, 38 straight tournament wins and 88 straight wins overall. You don’t build a record like that without being a great leader and without being able to mold and shape raw talent into cohesive teams that make winning a part of their very existence. A day after his 95th birthday, UCLA’s head basketball coach emeritus brought his leadership lessons to UCLA’s Alumni Weekend Conference, where he shared his thoughts on team spirit, teaching and — most important to him — poetry, during a conversation with author Steve Jamison and a group of business school graduates.
I don’t like to give advice. I’ll give opinions.
You’ve got to get across to each individual that what we are interested in is what is going to work for all. You have to think for the group and not just of yourself.
I once heard team spirit defined as a willingness to lose oneself in the group for the good of the group. I used that for a spell, but it wasn’t quite what I wanted somehow. Eventually, I decided that I would eliminate the word “willingness” and institute “eagerness” — an eagerness to lose one’s self in the group for the good of the group.
[A leader] is just part of the group. You have to be firm but not stubborn. Stubbornness we deprecate, firmness we condone. The former is my neighbor’s trait; the latter is my own.
We’re all different. The good Lord in his wisdom didn’t create us the same. Some players, for example, I had to pat on the back constantly, and there are others I had to pat a little lower and a little harder. You can’t treat everybody alike. You have to try to give everyone the treatment they earn and deserve under your supervision.
When you have to discipline, do it privately and not before others. Don’t embarrass them before their peers.
- Complete Interview
- Coach Wood web site (warning he has audio on his web site)
- His books
- John Wooden
source = startupnation
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Startups are my passion. I spend a lot of time around them, watching them, interacting and working with entrepreneurs, and seeing how they cope with this recession. In this spirit, here are my top 5 tips for startups on surviving the recession.
- Remember that the Recession is an Opportunity. All changes in the business environment are an opportunity to do arbitrage on those changes. If you did enterprise software or services before the recession, you had a big barrier to entry in the form of the corporate relationships and huge sales forces that companies like Microsoft and Oracle have. But if your service is cheaper than your competitors, in this environment, chances are big corporate buyers will overlook the fact that you’re five guys in t-shirts and flip-flops. If you’re a creative content company, remember that movies are a counter-cyclical industry: in a recession, people want more entertainment to change their minds. This is an opportunity for you. More broadly, recessions are the best times to overtake competitors
. Remember that the recession will affect your competitors too. They’re likely to advertise much less, so right now might actually be the best time to splash on a huge ad buy (this also means ads are cheaper). Or maybe they’ll be in more trouble than you so you can buy them, or just watch them flail around and crash. - Adopt the New Owner Mentality. As entrepreneurs, we are in love with our businesses. We pour ourselves into them day in and day out, and we think about them 24/7. This is a strength: you can’t win as an entrepreneur if you’re not passionate and committed 200%. But when the macro environment changes, it can be a weakness, because we’re too close to take the broader view. So do this thought exercise: imagine that you, the founder, have been fired, and you’ve just been brought in as CEO. What are some of the blunders the previous guy did? What needs to be changed? What priorities need to be shifted? What did the previous guy miss? Your VP Sales may be a great friend of the previous CEO, but has he really been productive? Of course, the answers to these questions will be things you already know, but in the back of your head, without fully realizing them. Detaching yourself emotionally from your past decisions should make those choices more obvious, and easier. It sounds silly, but try it on for size.
- Take the Long Term View. Now that you’ve looked at how the recession can be an opportunity and not just an anvil around your neck, and you’ve taken a cold, hard “new owner” look at your business, it’s time to make some goals. Here’s a great tip: “when u close your 1st round, immediately create the ideal slidedeck for raising your 2nd. these are your new company goals.” This matters even if you haven’t raised or won’t raise VC. Think about the kind of presentation you’d like to make to potential investors or customers (or Startup 2009) about your business a year or two from now. These are your new goals. Surviving the recession will be a byproduct of that, not one specific goal. If you’re an investor-funded business or otherwise not yet profitable, do about twelve different Excel projections on how, and under what assumptions, your runway will take you there.
- Make Changes Fast, and Open. Nothing is worse than death by a thousand paper cuts. If you decide that the recession doesn’t change your overall strategy and/or business model, you just need to cut some costs and ride it out, that’s fine. If you decide that you need to completely change your strategy and business model to face the recession, that’s also fine. But either way, you need to reach that decision quickly and, most importantly, implement the changes quickly, and get back to actually running your business. This is especially true with layoffs. Laying people off is horrible. But it’s even more horrible to leave people in the dark, not knowing whether they’re going to be laid off or not, agonizing and polishing off their LinkedIn profiles instead of working. So do it quickly, as humanely as possible, and then move on. Prefer cutting too close to the bone rather than too far. If you’re going to renegotiate your office lease or fire your PR firm or what have you, do it now. Just as importantly, you have to be as open as you are fast about those changes, to your employees and your investors. Explain to them why the layoffs are necessary, other than saying it’s “the economy.” If they’re going to have to move out of their Broadway offices into cubicles in a renovated strip mall in New Jersey because the new lease will buy you a few months of runway, say that. Show them your P&L and your Excel projections. They might be grateful for that openness, and if not at least you’ll have done all you could.
- Be Awesome. Last and most important. In a bear market and in a bull market, the single best predictor of success is simply being extremely good at what you do. The reason you need to take the long term view and make changes fast is so, once you’ve done that, you can go back to doing what it is you launched that startup for in the first place. The recession is not going to kill most companies that have a killer product or service. But if you have a killer product or service, worrying to much about the recession instead of constantly refining and promoting it, that might kill you. So when in doubt, be awesome. It’s no guarantee, but it’s your best bet.
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Self-Discipline
Having ideas is easy, getting started on making those ideas happen is also relatively easy. However, enduring the pursuit to make ideas happen over time is very difficult.
The greatest barriers we face are not around us, but within us. Having the self-discipline and fortitude to manage and complete projects over time is one of the greatest traits of a leader.
Here are a few quotes to consider on the topic of self-discipline:
“Nothing is easier than saying words. Nothing is harder than living them day after day.” -Arthur Gordon
“Commitment precedes achievement” -Unknown
“Nearly all men can stand adversity – but give him power, and the extent of his character will be revealed.” -Anonymous
“The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you succeed.” – Old Chinese Proverb
“The one thing that will out-trump everything is just to outwork the bastards. You’ve got to outwork them, outthink them, and out-passion them. But what a thrill!” -Roy Spence, President. GSD&M
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Recent Entries
- Before & After
- Forming a Web Design Contract
- Worst performance ever!
- Cool Women. Cool Brands – Virgin America, Ning and Squidoo
- San Francisco Seawall 337
- Turning Job-loss into Opportunity
- Pick Good Influences For Your Advisory Board
- 5 Tips For Startups On Surviving The Recession
- Delivering Happiness
- Self-Discipline
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