After starting and stopping many of my own small ventures over the past years, I am now at the point where I feel I can really focus on getting things going with some momentum. I was going over my notes I had recorded over the years and it seems that my ideas are still very relevant. The "ideal company" concept I came up with 3 years ago has been adopted by other companies now. This concept was to build a company which was a self sufficient incubator of ideas. The inspiration came from all my years of working at various companies where you could see what motivated employees and what did not.
One of the biggest motivators was often stock or stock options. The goal here is to reach the "big payout" where you cash out in exchange for all your laboring. The chances of such a payout is actually fairly small. Yes, you can get some amount of gains. I was able to clear about $25K out of flipping options in one company. But I have worked at 2 other startups where nothing came out of it other than a layoff.
Another motivator is accolades or recognition for a job well done. This benefit is amplified when you have ownership over something. When you are recognized as the owner or creator, you get an extra boost when that part of the project is successful.
My concept was to take a collection of highly motivated, entrepreneurial individuals and tap their true potential by providing them with real motivators:
1. Allow them to create and develop their own business venture ideas.
In a typical corporate environment, only the highest level of management is ever given the opportunity to initiate new business ideas. Some companies do allow for idea submissions but rarely would you be given the opportunity to define, develop, and market your idea on your own.
2. With idea ownership comes real rewards.
You may have in the past come up with great ideas that generated millions of dollars in increased revenue for your company. As a reward, you got a small bonus and your name in the company newsletter. Atta boy! This is nice and all but it would be much better if the idea creator also reaps the direct rewards. By direct rewards I mean a percentage on all profits generated. Tying the reward to the profit and not just the revenue means that the idea developer has it in their best interest to ensure the idea is profitable.
These are just 2 parts of the company concept. I'll elaborate on other ones in later posts.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The Synergy Equation
To build any successful business you need to have great cooperation. When everyone is putting forth their best effort together, in unison, it's quite magical and you can feel the synergistic energy. I believe it's an exponential benefit where E=p(n-m) where E is total energy, p is the energy for one person, n is the number of people who are working together, m is the number of people not helping. For the simple example of a sole proprietorship you have E=p(1-0)=p. For another example, E=p(5-0)=p5, where all 5 people are working collectively. The last example is very representative of my last job, E=p(5-9)=p-4.
To further exemplify this relationship we can substitute a numeric value of 10 for p. So for the sole proprietorship we get E=10. The next example we get E=105 = 100,000 which is a huge amount of energy for just 5 people. In the last example we get E=10-4 = 0.0001 which is much less than even the single proprietor value of 10. A value of 0.0001 pretty much sums up how I felt last year. Just a few of us worked our collected asses off trying to design and debug our product. There was a larger proportion of 9 people also working on the project who were putting in effort but not nearly the same level or interest as we were. A very difficult work environment indeed.
To further exemplify this relationship we can substitute a numeric value of 10 for p. So for the sole proprietorship we get E=10. The next example we get E=105 = 100,000 which is a huge amount of energy for just 5 people. In the last example we get E=10-4 = 0.0001 which is much less than even the single proprietor value of 10. A value of 0.0001 pretty much sums up how I felt last year. Just a few of us worked our collected asses off trying to design and debug our product. There was a larger proportion of 9 people also working on the project who were putting in effort but not nearly the same level or interest as we were. A very difficult work environment indeed.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Not management material?
So if you're anything like me, you really don't want to manage people for the sake of managing people. You also don't want to become a manager just for the salary. I've said this to many people in the past, it's really like whoring yourself. Why on earth would you subject yourself to anything you don't want to do just for money? I am definitely more of a technical person. I get daily enjoyment of working on interesting problems and finding solutions. I don't wake up in the morning and say, "Gee, I can't wait and go sit in my cubical and shuffle paper and attend 8 meetings and working groups." There needs to be some substance to what I do.
It's really quite funny that one of the big companies I worked for tried to reach out to it's shareholders and say that "We have too much middle management. It's inefficient and costing us too much so we're going to lay off 10-20% of our management." All the while the internal pay and reward structure remains the same. They continue to push their employees to become leads and managers because "that's how you succeed here." They will continue to breed more managers whether it's good for the company and the employees or not.
It's really quite funny that one of the big companies I worked for tried to reach out to it's shareholders and say that "We have too much middle management. It's inefficient and costing us too much so we're going to lay off 10-20% of our management." All the while the internal pay and reward structure remains the same. They continue to push their employees to become leads and managers because "that's how you succeed here." They will continue to breed more managers whether it's good for the company and the employees or not.
Corporate backgrounder
I have worked/contracted for 10 different companies over my 17 year "career". Out of those 10 I would have to say that only 3 were truly somewhere I would recommend anyone else to go. 4 of them were large cap companies. Do you think any of the 3 good ones were included the 4 big ones? Nein.
These big companies were all bloated with bureaucracy and politics to the point where unless you fit in the mold of their "ideal" employee, you will never be successful or financially rewarded. Don't get me wrong. They will still love you to death. They need you. They need all of you little gerbils to keep running as fast as you can and for as many hours in the day that you can stand. They need you to keep their big mechanical 2 ton gorilla moving.
They will keep feeding you with little $20 gift cards and little "atta boy" recognition e-mails or printouts that you can put on your gray cube wall. It's analogous to giving a new pet a biscuit when he can finally poop outside instead of on the carpet. "That's a good boy! Here's a little treat. Now go sit in your gray doggy basket and don't bother me while I go enjoy my prime rib and watch the game on my 60" flat screen."
So you worked your butt off for 20 bucks? Granted, they often provide a decent base salary. But you will notice while the salary of those colleagues who started at the same time and level you did snowballs, you get either no raise or a raise that doesn't even come close to the rate of inflation. Those colleagues fit the mold of what they company really wants. They breed and reward managers and grand standers.
These big companies were all bloated with bureaucracy and politics to the point where unless you fit in the mold of their "ideal" employee, you will never be successful or financially rewarded. Don't get me wrong. They will still love you to death. They need you. They need all of you little gerbils to keep running as fast as you can and for as many hours in the day that you can stand. They need you to keep their big mechanical 2 ton gorilla moving.
They will keep feeding you with little $20 gift cards and little "atta boy" recognition e-mails or printouts that you can put on your gray cube wall. It's analogous to giving a new pet a biscuit when he can finally poop outside instead of on the carpet. "That's a good boy! Here's a little treat. Now go sit in your gray doggy basket and don't bother me while I go enjoy my prime rib and watch the game on my 60" flat screen."
So you worked your butt off for 20 bucks? Granted, they often provide a decent base salary. But you will notice while the salary of those colleagues who started at the same time and level you did snowballs, you get either no raise or a raise that doesn't even come close to the rate of inflation. Those colleagues fit the mold of what they company really wants. They breed and reward managers and grand standers.
Introduction
This blog has been created for all those who are tired of being put through the grinder in the corporate world and know that they can do better and and should be treated better. My hope is that this blog won't simply be a rant on all of what's wrong out there but really a call out to those who are like minded and a gathering place to share ideas.
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