Email And The Entrepreneur And Start Up Company

If you are a non-entrepreneur Gen Y like my son, you probably see email as antiquated at floppy disks.  For him, email has been replaced by social media, instant messaging and texting.

However…

If you are like me, and most other entrepreneurs, who run start up and emerging companies, you heavily depend on email.

So, what do you do in this spam and virus infected world to protect you and your company’s email?

Spam Reduction

For me, I don’t want to lose emails or their attachments – or inadvertently filter out client or prospective client emails. 

I still use an old Pop3 client called Eudora which isn’t even supported any more (one of these days, I’ll find the time to upgrade this.)  I also use a front-end spam filter called Mail Washer Pro which is excellent at filtering out the more than 2,000 spam emails I get every day.  Mail Washer does a great job – but sometimes, it treats an email from a prospective client as spam which means that I might not even get it.

For me, I use two solutions that might make sense for you and your company. too.

The first is that I am now using one of those annoying contact forms on this web site.  I know a lot of us hate filling these things out – but it solves the problem of new prospects getting caught in the spam filter.  Everything that comes from my web site contact form is marked as a “Friend” which means that I see it.  Once I start working with a new client, I mark their direct emails as Friends also – which means that problem solved – until they use yet another email address and catch me, and Mail Washer, off guard. 

But, for the most part, this is the best approach I’ve seen…and it avoids those spam trap opt in forms that are generally a complete turn off to friends and prospects alike.

 Automatic Email Backup Protection

Since I use a Pop3 email client fed by my hosting company, automatic email backup protection was easy.  There is a California start up company that offers this automatic email backup protection service for free: G o o g l e.

Many of you probably already have a Gmail account for home, personal or other reasons.  Many of you may use them as your primary work and start up company email address.  I personally don’t trust online storage of all my emails when you never know what might happen that inadvertently closes your account and you have lost everything.  Also, if you have employees, you want control of their company email account if they quit or if they are fired.  For those reasons, and others, I don’t choose to use Google or any other web resident email account as my main conduit to the world.

However, I do trust Google as a back up.

I use one of my Google Gmail accounts strictly as a back up for ALL 13 of my domain named email accounts. 

I simply go into my hosting account (I use Host Gator) and create a forwarded copy of ALL my received emails to send to this one backup collection account.  It took me less than five minutes to forward a copy of all email from all accounts to my new Google Gmail account.

Google gives you a massive amount of storage for all the emails and attachments that you get.  They even do a great job of separating out the spam.  This approach also gives me a way to view all my email accounts under one email roof when I’m using my mobile devices. Plus, I have a copy of all emails and all versions of documents sent to me.  If you wanted to back up all emails that you send, you could set up your mail client to automatically BCC all emails you send so that they also get backed up on your special Gmail account.

Check with your hosting account and see if they support duplicate forwarding of your company’s email.  If so, Google is waiting to solve your email backup problems for free.

Entrepreneurs: Don’t Let Your NDA Be A Self Inflicted Wound That Kills Your Start Up Company

A recent question came up about non-disclosure agreements, the always popular NDA, and whether it was required when seeking outside investment in a start up company.

I have been on both sides of that argument with my own companies and with my clients.

I mentor and consult to a lot of start up companies and one thing is clear – ideas by themselves are not worth very much without a genuinely implementable plan, an experienced team for realistic execution, some kind of traction to demonstrate you can grab wallet share – and the funding to make it real.

Nevertheless, I am often presented with an NDA by my entrepreneur clients – and in most cases, I am usually willing to sign it although I immediately share with them that almost no angel investor or venture capital group will be willing to do so just to see their business plan. (There’s already a ton written about the reasons – just Google “NDA Venture Capital” and you will quickly see why you will instantly lose a lot of credibility just in the asking.)

I can remember one NDA presented to me by a prospective client that I would not sign:  He wanted $400 million in expressed liquidated damages if he, in his sole opinion, felt that I violated the NDA anytime in the next 20 years.

This was for a company that only existed on a single Excel spreadsheet.  I refused to sign, returned his retainer and wished him well.

My intuition is that this guy’s company still only exists on that same single Excel spreadsheet.

Don’t let your own NDA be a self inflicted wound that kills YOUR start up company!

We Shall See, Said The Zen Master

A lot of my clients hear me tell them, “We shall see, said the Zen Master.”

This is a reference to an excellent movie, Charlie Wilson’s War. Part of the dialog:

A boy is given a horse on his 14th birthday. Everyone in the village says, “Oh how wonderful.”

But a Zen master who lives in the village says, “We shall see.”

The boy falls off the horse and breaks his foot. Everyone in the village says, “Oh how awful.”

The Zen master says, “We shall see.”

The village is thrown into war and all the young men have to go to war. But, because of the broken foot, the boy stays behind. Everyone says, “Oh, how wonderful.”

The Zen master says, “We shall see.”

When it comes to start up companies…and life…and planning either…a Zen master can be helpful. http://DeviledDetails.com/

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Fundraising: Can I Use Investor Money To Pay Me Back?

As I get questions from readers from my Ask The Chief ImpleMentor series, I will take some of the questions that I think might have a broad audience and post them here on the blog.

This one is filed under “Dragons – Fundraising: Can I Use Investor Money To Pay Me Back?”

Question:

Love the blog! Finally someone answering real life startup company questions! I want to raise $1.8 million from investors for my computer business to take it to the next level. Can I use $250,000 of the $1.8 million to pay me back the money that I have already invested in getting my company started?

Thanks again!

Walt

Answer:

This is one of the most frequent questions I get from clients: Can I get back all of my money that I have invested so far in starting my company from the new investment dollars I get from angel investors or venture capital?

The short answer is almost never.

• Most will see it as a red flag and not invest.
• Most want to see you so committed, financially, to the company that you can’t afford to let it fail.
• If you don’t get paid back, then the company only needs $1,550,000 instead of $1,800,000 to accomplish the same goals that are in your business plan.

The longer answer is maybe a little. Read more >>

Fundraising: Can I Spend The Angel Investor or VC Money As I Get It?

As I get questions from readers from my Ask The Chief ImpleMentor campaign, I will take some of the questions that I think might have a broad audience and post them here on the blog.

This one is filed under “Dragons – Fundraising: Can I Spend The Investor Money As I Get It?”

Question:

Thanks for your comments about accredited angel investors. It was very helpful. We just finished your business plan and are starting to pitch our deal to angel investors and venture capital. Since we are already spending money on buying stuff for the company, can we start spending the investor money as we get it?

Steve

Answer:

The first thing you need to buy is a big sword – so you can fight off all the dragons that are getting ready to hatch! Firstly, you didn’t say – but I hope you have a Reg D PPM for a LOT of reasons. Please see FundRaisingDocuments.com

One of the things that should be covered in your Reg D PPM is how you handle investor funds as you receive them. For every successful offering I have ever been involved with or even watched from the sidelines, the money is ALWAYS escrowed as it is collected. That means that the money is deposited in a separate, untouchable escrow account UNTIL all of the minimum level of funding is reached. None of it goes into the company’s operating account until then.

Why? Read more >>

Firing the Indispensable Employee

As I get questions from readers from my Ask The Chief ImpleMentor Campaign, I will take some of the questions that I think might have a broad audience and post them here on the blog.

This one is filed under “Dragons – Personnel: How do you fire the indispensable person in your organization?”

Question:

We just moved and I have decided that even if you built an office across the street and moved in slowly, it is devastation to the routine. My staff all get their feathers ruffled despite the fact that their gain is significant in the work place. It just chaps me to no end to deal with WHINERS! Even though I am a woman CEO, I have to admit that I loathe women employees as a rule anyway – but whining women disturb me to my very core.

For the record, I employ 7 men to every woman – not by design but just the way it worked out. The women that I have (for the most part) think like men, behave like men and love men. However, I have one NAZI fem , the HR director, who is causing problems for the whole organization with her attitude and approach. Even though she is indispensable to my company, she is my biggest mistake. How do I rid myself of her since no one else knows what she knows in so many very critical areas?

Susan

Answer:

Read more >>