These are the new leads: The best sales minds in NYC share their wisdom next week

Charlie O'Donnell
Venture Capital & Technology, nextNY

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told startups to forget about raising money and instead to just go out and sell something.  To me, if there’s any one area that New York City has a serious advantage in, it’s experienced salespeople.  You can never have enough.  They are the rainmakers—the ones who bring in the lifeblood of your company—cash. 

But selling technology and digital media is a different animal.  These aren’t dental supplies—this industry changes every single day.  Given all the experience we have here locally, I thought it would be useful to put together a bunch of knowledgeable sales professionals to share what they know in a take aimed at full time sales professionals. 

So, if you’re a sales rep, director, or VP selling digital media or technology in NYC, this event is for you, and boy have we assembled a murderers row of sales experience here.

The event will take place next Wednesday night, December 9th at 6PM at 111 8th Avenue at Deutsche Inc. 

You must RSVP here.

They’ll be talking about what they did to get to the next level... ie. was there a turning point in their sales career and  when did things came easier... when did they "get it" and when did they really break through.  They’ll also cover what kind of training and methods worked for them, what didn’t and the things that maybe go against commonly accepted sales wisdom. 

Here’s the lineup:

John Roswech, President, Jingle Networks


Prior to joining Jingle Networks, John Roswech served as vice president of sales for Atlas Solutions (Aquantive), where he managed sales and account management teams for third party ad serving, search, rich media and landing page optimization, with revenue growing $100mm plus under his sales leadership. Before Aquantive, Roswech was senior director of sales with Matchlogic (Excite@Home), where he was part of the management team at Narrative Communications and responsible for rich media and lead generation products.


Jed Savage, Chief Revenue Officer, ScanScout


A twelve+ year Digital Media Sales veteran, Jed was the Director of Business Development for eBay’s Strategic Partnerships unit before joining ScanScout.  He served for 4 years with Microsoft’s MSN division, holding positions including Eastern Sales Director, National Sales Manager and General Manager of MSN Sales. Jed increased revenue 10-fold in his first two years at MSN, and helped make the MSN sales division one of the leading revenue organizations in the industry.  Before working with MSN, Jed created the National Sales Team for CBS Sportsline. As the company’s Vice President of Sales his team drove over $30 million in total revenue during his first 2years at the helm.

Jeff Stewart


Jeff is the founder of Urgent Career, a pioneer in the use of linguistic technology to match sales professionals with compatible employment opportunities.  Jeff has founded over a half-dozen companies, which combined employ over 600 people. Immediately prior to founding Urgent Career, Jeff founded a technology-based financial intelligence firm that provides real-time analysis of semi structured text information for Hedge Funds and other Institutional Investors. The seeds of Urgent Career grew out of the observation that semantic analysis of massive amounts of textual data yields valuable insights.


Emily Twomey, SVP Sales, Oddcast


Emily has over ten years of experience in online media sales & interactive product sales. Prior to her position at Oddcast she held the positions of Director of Sales at Razorfish Networks and Senior Sales Manger at The New York Post.  She started her sales career at the downtown style bible PAPER Magazine.


Mark LaRosa


Mark LaRosa is the CEO of QuotaCrush, a sales consulting company focused on helping start-ups with sales strategy and outsourced sales management.  In its first year, QuotaCrush has brought two start-ups from zero sales to break-even – in a horrible economic climate.   Prior to QuotaCrush, Mark was also the founder of Dynamic Mobile Data, a wireless enterprise software company focused on vehicle location and dispatch software.  Mark sold over $20 million in enterprise software in this startup to companies including Pepsi, SHL, UPS, Purolator Courier and Kraft/Nabisco.

 
Vivek Sharma, Former Area Mgr., North America - Engine Yard 


Vivek is currently working on a stealth startup, but he most recent ran the sales team at Engine Yard that covered the eastern part of North America and EMEA.  He was the second salesperson in the company and best performing regional manager in 2008 and was on track for similar success in 2009.  In 2008, he brought on nearly 40% of Engine Yard's net new revenue and closed the largest deal ever in the company's history. )

Is Plancast Foursquare in the future or just Dopplr? Perhaps it’s the event tipping point we’ve all been waiting for.

Charlie O'Donnell
Venture Capital & Technology

In our completely tiny world of the Web 2.0 echochamber, Plancast is blowing up after some good Techcrunch coverage.  (BTW… is it me or does MG Siegler class that place up like tenfold?) 

So what is it?

Plancast is a place where you can share what you plan on doing in the future.  Tonight, I’m planning on going to the NY Tech Meetup, and so using Plancast, I was able to let anyone who cares know about it—and tweet it out as well.

 

Plancast has a non-bidirectional follow, just like Twitter—which means you can find out about my events but I don’t need to hear where you’re going to be.  That’s very powerful because it opens up the number of possible connections in the system.

What’s really interesting to me is that I’ve been talking about the scheduling and event issue with a number of people who are working on it.  Why everyone is suddenly working on scheduling, I have no idea, but there are a number of different takes on it.  There’s BuddyBlip and tym.ly as well, and I’m sure a number of other people are working on it. 

At first, when I saw Plancast, I thought of Dopplr.  Tons of people signed up for it, and people kept posting to it to varying degrees, but it never quite crossed the chasm.  It’s a perfect example of a startup that showed solid initial traction, but sputtered when it tried to get past the tech community.  One reason is that it kept all your future plans locked away.  There was no broadcasting to other networks, and so there was very little virality and discovery by outsiders.  Even so, Dopplr didn’t really change my behavior much.  I sort of felt like, “Great, so you’re going to be in Denver…”  If I wasn’t going to be in Denver at that time, it wasn’t useful to me.  In fact, because it was all about big trips, most of the info, by definition, was never going to be that useful for me. 

Plancast solves that problem by making it about the small stuff—the stuff I could actually tag along for and participate in.  That makes it infinitely more useful to me—but let’s keep in mind that I’m not every user.  To cross the chasm, you have to get past the people with almost 5,000 Twitter followers (should I get a cake?), and those folks, like my mom, don’t attend nearly as many events, nor do they want to broadcast it to the world.

Being the Tipping Point

Solving this, however, is where Plancast could be potentially awesome, if this is the way they want to go… and here’s how.  If I’m Plancast, I’d strike deals with Facebook, Meetup, Eventbrite, Evite, Pingg, Upcoming, etc…   and I’d focus on becoming the event “Tipping Point.”  A browser plugin or link would effectively work the same way.  Basically, you’d want a button or checkbox that recognizes that there’s an event on the page, and broadcasts a message to my friends that I’m interested in going. 

By allowing me to curate which events I blast to my social network, you’re creating a stronger signal than just hitting maybe, ignoring it, or sometimes even hitting yes.  You’re telling the world that you’re going and that you’d like people to come with you.  There’s a huge problem, particularly in Facebook and Meetup events where no one ever wants to be the first one in the pool.  For whatever reason, in Facebook they hit yes but never show up, and in Meetup they just tend to ignore the invite.  A lot of these people would actually go if they knew their friends were going, so Plancast could seriously up the response rates and actual followthrough on attendance for events.  By encouraging others to go, and informing me when other friends sign up, it pushes the event over the tipping point, which is potentially very powerful. 

This would work well not just for the Web 2.0 crowd, but for the soccer moms in closed little groups of close friends publishing their intention to to go the next Wiggles concert to each other.

Not only that, it begins to aggregate the information on what I go to across event platforms, learning a lot about my interests and being in a position to offer new events to me—so there’s your business model, kiddies.

Of course, maybe this isn’t where Plancast wants to go—and maybe they’ll just wind up being another Dopplr—a sad reminder of what could have been.  I have a feeling that won’t happen though.  They seem to have a lot more user centric DNA to them, and I love their publish everywhere, open strategy. 

One thing they definitely need to do, though, is make it so I don’t have to manually input all my future events—like I said either with a browser plugin, or by allowing me to sign in and sync with all of my various event accounts.  Heck, they could even publish this stuff to my Gcal automatically—but that might be a bit of feature creep.  They’d have to let me have the choice as to which events I want to publish to the outside world, though.

I’m looking forward to see where this one goes… it’s really interesting.

To Poach or Not to Poach: Hiring and Retaining within the Startup Community

Charlie O'Donnell
Venture Capital & Technology

Just the other day, an entrepreneur I know asked me what I thought of a recent hire going from one startup to another—and the “aggressive” fashion in which that person was recruited.

This is a touchy subject—way more than it ever is within the big corporate community.  There, it’s much more about competition.  When you’re talking about folks you may have started with when your team was just a handful of people, it can easy get personal—both between the exiting employee and their company, and among entrepreneurs. 

I basically follow two rules of thumb when it comes to these situations:

“No one takes your employees from you, you lose them.”

and

“Don’t hire anyone with baggage.”

 

If someone is able to hire away one of your employees, that means you haven’t created an interesting enough environment for them to work in, or one that looked promising enough for them to stick around in.  If it wasn’t that company they left for, they probably would have left for someone else soon enough.  It’s easy to demonize the person who hired them away, in the same way that people who get cheated on tend to hate “the other woman/guy”, but the reality is that the blame starts in the mirror.  At my own company, we had an employee whose background was extremely highly sought after, and I know she got several offers.  I even know which startups made those offers and I can’t blame them.  She was pretty awesome.  However, she stuck with us nearly until the end of our fulltime status at the company, which is more than I ever could have asked for—and I think that’s a testament to the kind of relationship we built over time.  It was a relationship based on a clear shared vision, fairness, and open communication.

At the same time, each employee really needs to do what is best for them—so it’s really not about one company “stealing” from another company so much as it is employees optimizing for whatever priorities they have in their life.  We don’t have guaranteed employment from employers, so employees don’t realistically owe any “extra” loyalty to the people they work for.  This is still business, despite all the blood, sweat, and tears that teams put into their startups.  However, that doesn’t mean a free for all is good either.  We all need to play nicely in the sandbox, because you never know when you’re going to need someone else’s help.

When I say not to hire anyone with baggage, I think you really want to make sure that anyone you bring on has been as forthright as possible in dealing with their current employer.  You should always ask about that if you’re about to hire someone—and insist on openness from the person you’re trying to recruit.  If they’re unhappy, it should come to no one’s surprise.  If they have other goals, they need to be communicated to the employer.  Sure, no one likes to see a good employee leave, but there’s no reason why you can’t know that it’s coming ahead of time and make the appropriate plans around it.  If you know that your top dev is looking for more of a challenge—one you can’t provide—then not only should they be able to tell you, but also you should be supportive of their search.  Not only is the open and honest feedback about their situation helpful and informative to you as an employer, but you want to make sure your company has a supportive, not vindictive, reputation in the market.   People switch jobs.  It happens.  The worse you treat your former employees, the harder it will be to recruit new ones. 

So, when I hear the word “poach”, I cringe a little, because I think it misses the point.  That employee was gone way before the offer was made, but unfortunately, internal communication is often very poor *on both sides*, which often leads to bad blood and negative buzz in the market around your company.

First Round Fridays – Deck your ecommerce halls with Monetate to drive sales

Charlie O'Donnell
Venture Capital & Technology

Abandoned shopping carts getting you down on Black Friday?  Pay per click ad campaigns not converting to more purchases?  Perhaps that’s because you spent all sorts of time customizing your AdWords text, your direct marketing newsletter, and adjusting the wording on your display ads, but yet you’re driving all of your customers to the same site with the same messaging and offers.

What Monetate does is to allow any site to easy and dynamically create a post click marketing solution with a single javascript tag.  You can add new content to pages, overlay content on other elements (like sale tags) and render dynamic text in creative.  Sites have shown substantial ability to boost conversion, increase revenue, and decrease abandonment.

So this way, when I find your site because I clicked on the “Hats for bald dudes” PPC link on Google, you can dynamically change all the ads to show bald dudes in hats with attractive women checking them out.

Of course, I wouldn’t be searching for that, because chics seem to dig the shorn dome, but you know, some guys out there are still doing the hat thing and haven’t fully embraced the shine.  That kind of display would certainly increase conversion of that particular customer.

I love the tagline on their site: “You work hard to drive traffic to your site. Don’t waste it.”

Services like Monetate that improve the overall shopping experience are particularly interesting to me.  I think retailers are realizing that the web allows them to analyze, personalize, and compliment their existing offerings in ways they never had before—and that if they don’t take advantage of this now, they’re going to get steamrolled.  This is the kind of technology that Amazon has been perfecting for years—and now any online seller or marketplace can take advantage of as a service. 

Obviously, I’m biased because this is a First Round investment, but if I’m selling anything, I can’t see a reason why I wouldn’t give this technology a shot.  That is, unless, you’re absolutely satisfied where your conversions and revenues are and wouldn’t want to see them increase.  If you’re curious, check out their “Lift Without Loss” whitepaper.

Will the Ace Hotel embrace the innovation community?

Charlie O'Donnell
Venture Capital & Technology, nextNY

Almost overnight, the Ace Hotel lobby has become something of a phenomenon.  On any given day, you’ll run into an actor, a fashion designer, a model and—randomly enough--an tech entrepreneur. 

Just this week, as I was taking meetings in my relatively new role on the First Round Capital investment team, I got to meet Charlie Rose, spotted Tobey Maguire, and most notably, Boxee’s Avner Ronen and Jetsetter’s Drew Patterson.

With a long study hall style table, comfortable couches, and wifi whose codes are the worst kept secret since USV’s Foursquare funding, the Ace had attracted a growing following from the New York City startup world.  The Stumptown Coffee right off the lobby doesn’t hurt the geek pull either—everyone knows high quality caffeine is the fuel that makes code go.

I discovered the Ace Hotel thanks to a coffee invite from Nick Bilton.  As it turns out, Phin Barnes, my colleague at First Round had known about it for a while, and on any given day you’re likely to run into one of us taking meetings with entrepreneurs here. 

The question is whether the Ace Hotel will embrace its newfound friends in the Big Apple’s creative class.  While the waitresses aren’t pushy with getting people to order—yet—little cards have started showing up reminding folks that these seats are “guest only”.  I’ve yet to find a guest among the Ace’s laptop nation yet, but I’m currently sitting within spitting distance of Malcolm Gladwell as I write this.  I’m pretty sure he’s not staying at the hotel either.

There’s certainly an argument that attracting the local tech scene’s “cool kid” crowd, like Zach Klein, who I ran into the other day and passed on an office space tip to, is good for business.  Being community friendly will help the Ace become the go to place for innovators from the creative class.  I mean, wouldn’t you like to be the place where the next Google or Facebook was hatched?  That’s especially the case since many of the young innovators are also the trendsetters in music, food, clothing, etc.  I doubt anyone wants someone to build a router at the study hall table at Ace, but they should certainly extend an open invite for Anthony from Hype Machine to come hack here with his tech team. 

To look at a similar story, you can go back to when the local NYC tech community adopted the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park as its unofficial social hub.  That’s a good example of a business totally embracing the community.  Mentions of the Shake Shack on Fred Wilson’s blog date back to the summer of 2004, when foodie entrepreneur Joshua Schachter and del.icio.us had a little office at 915 Broadway.  Since then, the venue has hosted two of the best tech events in NYC and an epic snowball fight that featured Shake Shack employees participating and free hot chocolate.

The Shake Shack further fostered their relationship with the local tech community by letting a couple of hackers claim and build off of the @shackshack Twitter account.  By powering it with a retweet bot, they created a way for local “insiders” to skirt the line by seeing who they knew was already there.  Now, much of that functionality can be found on Foursquare, but still, the fact that the folks from Danny Meyer’s burger paradise in the park didn’t attempt to block the account speaks well to the kind of relationship they want to have with the community.

So the question is, will the employees from the Ace Hotel be ready for the West 29th Street snowball fight with local entrepreneurs or will we soon get booted for being wifi and table moochers. 

Video from last year’s Shake Shack snowball fight.

 

UPDATE:  I got this message via the little Plugoo chat window on my blog: 

“ACE NEW YORK LOBBY SIGNS > "Thanks for pointing this out. We want to balance the needs of our guests & the community - both are very important to us. NY lobby signs are down & we hope this flows naturally & organically. – Ace”

That’s really the best response I could have gotten.  It makes me want to go there more and to make sure I’m spending a little money and recommending them, too.

This Week in New York Tech - November 23rd

Charlie O'Donnell
Venture Capital & Technology, nextNY

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LET THESE NYC STARTUPS MAKE YOUR HOLIDAY WEEK!

While this will be one of the quieter weeks in the NYC tech scene, no doubt that it's going to be one of the most hectic weeks at home. You're probably hosting, cooking, and shopping (and drinking), so why shouldn't the internet make your life a little bit easier and more entertaining this week. I've picked out a few local companies that might make this the best Thanksgiving week ever.

I did find free jazz on the (covered) rooftop of the Empire Hotel tomorrow night, which looks like a pretty cool thing to do.

First off, you can't host a great party without inviting anyone, so Pingg should be your first stop for party invites. They wrote up a piece for all the T-day hosts out there that you should check out.

Before all the festivities, you should definitely make the traditional trek to the Upper West Side to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade floats get blown up. Who else is going to be there, though? How will you find them and share the experience? Hotpotato, a First Round portfolio company, just got back from launching at Crunchup and should be up and live in the app store by the time the first bit of helium makes its way into Snoopy. Share photos, notes, etc., with others in real time all around this annual event.

Meals are going to be pretty standard--turkey, stuffing, etc.--but make sure your wine selection isn't. Check out Snooth.com for the best recommendations from the most comprehensive wine database in the world.

What on earth are you going to wear? Try out a bunch of outfits and ask your friends to vote on the most appropriate ensemble with Fashism. If you're like me, you can barely dress yourself, so this kind of thing is best left to crowdsourcing.

Men, you will undoubtedly spill wine, gravy, and cranberry sauce on your white shirts, so come this Friday, it's going to be time to go shopping for a new one. Don't just buy one off the rack. Customize and personalize your own unique dress shirt with Propercloth, another cool NYC startup.

You've made way too much food and will undoubtedly be eating turkey between now and 2015. Looking for the best recipe to mashup the leftovers? Look no further than this week's Food52 Turkey Leftovers contest. I feel like that one is going to be a win-win all the way around.

Enjoy your holiday!

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