Verge Business Blog

New: Understanding Fear & Opportunity

2010-07-07T13:31:00.001-04:00

Neophobia is the fear of new places, things and experiences. We all have it. It's a natural survival instinct. The fear of new is the reason most people lead a predictable life - do well in high school, graduate from a good college, do work that supports a fraction of a desirable lifestyle until retirement age. Entrepreneurs somehow figure out a way to trick their brains into believing the reward of doing what is new is greater than the predictability of the American dream. However, we are no less fearful than our "life-in-a-bubble" counterparts; we just process fear differently. The hardest decision an entrepreneur will ever make is new.

The implications are too much to deal with:

* Are my competitors leaving me behind?

* Do customers really find what I do valuable?

* Am I charging enough?

* I've been selling the same widget for 10 years, is my service/product ready for a brand new generation of consumers?

* My industry is shrinking, how will I maintain the lifestyle I've created and stay centered on my core values?

* Have I lost touch with why I even got into this business in the first place?

I don't care who you are, none of those questions are easy to answer. Consequently, most people are so afraid that "new" will be the answer to all of those questions that they don't address them until they're looking at a business that no longer represents their vision or values or the out-of-business sign.

Fear of the unknown is most often a fear of misguided or potentially unfulfilled expectations. Changing ones perception to view "new" as a serious of small, consistent steps over the lifespan of the company will dramatically reduce the fatal grip of unqualifiable expectation. In other words, you learn as you do and that makes it easier to do more because you learn more.

Success is an algorithm, developed over time that yields predictable and measurable outcomes. Look at any company we consider successful and you can see it. They've found the sweet spot - a risk/reward balance that placates the neophobia that is inherent in all of us. The point of this post isn't to help you find that balance but challenge you to create new algorithms. To do this you need to position in such a way that it is always taking small, calculated steps towards answering the hard questions, which is where opportunity lives. In other words, embrace the fear of "new" and you'll find opportunities. This isn't easy to do but you and I both know it's absolutely detrimental to your survival in this fast-paced, show me why you're worth the money, 50 million people have the same idea economy.

I'll leave you with these quotes:

“Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted."

- Unknown

"People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn't they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines....There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear”

- Bill Gates

Posted via email from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

This is AWESOME Branding!!!

2010-07-01T18:26:00.001-04:00

I received this email a few minutes ago. I liked it so much I had to share it with you. It's one of the most creative ideas I've ever seen. A lot can be learned from what he's done.

_____________________

Hi Wes,

My name is Jay Kell and I'm one of the owner/winemakers at VERGE Wine Cellars. We're a small wine company based out of Healdsburg, CA in Sonoma County. Periodically, I check out other businesses named VERGE and yours came up. I really dig the coIn idea and would love to send you a bottle of two of my 2007 Syrah. If you like it, perhaps we could work together in the future on any parties or gift programs you may have a need for.

Bottom-line, I like the name of your business and that alone deserves some wine!

Our focus at VERGE Wine Cellars is to produce Syrahs from vineyards that are on the edges of appellations and that only grow organically/biodynamically. Mike Brunson, who is also the head winemaker/vineyard manager at Michel-Schlumberger, and I make the wine together. The 2007 Syrah is from Bradford Mountain in Dry Creek Valley with vines that have been farmed without pesticides since 2003. It is also one of the oldest Syrah vineyards in Dry Creek. We made around 450 cases. Our previous vintage was named (Feb 2010) as one of the Top Syrahs of the Year in Wine & Spirits.

Please let me if you'd like me to ship you some wine as well as an address and contact info.

Nice to meet you!

VERGE Wine Cellars
4085 Westside Road
Healdsburg, CA 95448
707.490.4585
http://www.vergewine.com

Posted via email from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

Building Ideas out of Experiences

2010-06-29T11:47:00.001-04:00

Contrary to popular belief, innovation is less about cleaver ideas than it is your thought process. To be more specific, innovation requires you to turn your personal memories and experiences into empathetic solutions that enhance the value of your product or service for consumers. Consequently, these solutions increase value and profitability to your stakeholders. These are some very complex issues to balance and are very difficult to successfully pull off. It requires that you be in constant communication with your consumers, while also learning as much as you can about anything you can.

If you've never heard this explanation of innovation before don't panic. Many entrepreneurs are pretty much clueless of what innovation actually is, even more its role in their business life cycle. Over the next few paragraphs a much clearer picture of what innovation is and why it's important will emerge; however, don't expect to leave with a clear cut conclusion; that's really not the goal of this. The goal is to get you thinking again.

Cognition is the mental process of converting information from thought to knowing. Our senses are typically used to gather the information which is processed but observation is needed to first draw conclusions, then organize those conclusions into factual statements. The statements are cataloged within the brain and are drawn upon during times of uncertainty, i.e. problem-solving. You may be asking, “what does this have to do with me and my business?” but please, bare with me. It’s important that you understand how questions are formed first.

As new information is processed, we conduct a series of rationalizations which categorizes the information into segments. The information that is placed into these segments is categorized as previously known facts or new and unknown observations. At this point questions begin to form as we try make sense of the unknown observation, as well as understand how they correlate to what was previously known. Because questions are the precursors and “guardrails” of innovation, you can see why cognition is an important process to understand.

Following the logic presented here, one must now begin to wonder, “how can increased cognition influence my output of innovative ideas?” That’s a good question! You must intentionally expose yourself to new information about your consumers through various forms of ethnography (observations). Questionnaires, focus groups, field tests, surveys, statistical analytics, trend reports, etc. are all great ways to observe your consumer.

Understanding the relationships which exist between your business and your consumer takes constant observation. Information that will be useful to you as you consider innovation is how the consumer uses your product/service/technology; reacts to changes to your product/service/technology; rate of acquisition of your product/service/technology; declines in usage of your product/service/technology (maybe due to competitors or obsolescence), among other things. The information you gather as a result of your observations should be analyzed, but it is the cognitive process you go through to analyze that information that will lead to the question which will fuel your innovations.

The information that you gather is totally obvious at this point. In fact, any of your competitors that engage in primary or secondary market research will have access to the same data.In today’s world; especially with the advent of social media and crowdsourcing, reliance on the obvious won’t solve your problems or increase sustainable value to the consumer. It will however give your competition the opportunity to one-up you. An alternative use of this information is to use it as a starting block for the discovery the “peripherals” (abstract characteristics of a defined demographic which can be used to create niches within a market i.e. apple iPod).

I've thrown a lot out there, so let sum things up: peripherals are discovered by asking the right questions. Questions lead to innovations. Innovations come from observations. Observations are used to expose relationships, which come as a result of cognition. Cognition is a mental process which leads to the discovery of relationships by converting information, known and unknown, into usable knowledge and understanding

Posted via email from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

The Strategy and Experience of You

2010-06-14T14:32:00.001-04:00

You ever stopped for a second to consider how the brands you buy got your attention? Furthermore, have you ever considered why you continue to buy?

I would argue that the answer to both of those questions is strategy and experience. The company that created whatever you bought actually had you in mind when it created it. Everything from the price to the colors of the packaging was designed to appeal to you and the circumstance you were in when you decided to buy it. Recognizing the frequency by which those particular circumstances would occur led the company (or consultant in many cases) to design a user experience that would more often than not make you a repeat buyer.

Marketing and advertisement don't create loyalty and repeat customers. Well thought out and executed user experiences do. Websites and applications alone don't create convenient ways for customers to interact with you and you with them. Well thought out and executed user experiences do.

Logo's and other brand communications don't increase your competitive advantage. They're not sustainable ways of "stealing" market share. Their needs to be a strategy behind it.

We're all apart of someones strategy. A unique experience was crafted just for us way before we ever laid eyes of the products and services we can't live without.

The next time you have a great idea you think the market place needs, keep in mind the ways you've been sold. Think about the products and services you could never do without. Consider the thought that went into that loyalty. Write down the steps of your decision making process. Adapt, augment, and reposition those steps to reflect the goals of your new idea. The most important step of them all is to complete these tasks from the view point of the consumers you are trying to provide value to. Never forget that step.....it's the first one.

Posted via email from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

The Strategy and Experience of You

2010-06-12T09:54:00.001-04:00

You ever stopped for a second to consider how the brands you buy got your attention? Furthermore, have you every considered why you continue to buy?
I would argue that the answer to both of those questions is strategy and experience. The company that created whatever you bought actually had you in mind when it created it. Everything from the price to the colors of the packaging was designed to appeal to you and the circumstance you were in when you decided to buy it. Recognizing the frequency by which those particular circumstances would occur, led the company (or consultant in many cases) to design a user experience that would more often than not make you a repeat buyer.
Marketing and advertisement don't create loyalty and repeat customers. Well thought out and executed user experiences do. Websites and applications alone don't create convenient ways for customers to interact with you and you with them. Well thought out and executed user experiences do.
Logo's and other brand communications don't increase your competitive advantage. They're not sustainable ways of "stealing" market share. Their needs to be a strategy behind it.
We're all apart of someones strategy. A unique experience was crafted just for us way before we ever laid eyes of the products and services we can't live without.
The next time you have a great idea you think the market place needs, keep in mind the ways you've been sold. Think about the products and services you could never do without. Consider the thought that went into that loyalty. Write down the steps of your decision making process. Adapt, augment, and reposition those steps to reflect the goals of your new idea. The most important step of them all is to complete these tasks from the view point of the consumers you are trying to provide value to. Never forget that step.....it's the first one.

Posted via email from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

The Strategy and Experience of You

2010-06-12T09:52:00.001-04:00

Posted via email from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

Untitled

2010-05-19T12:09:00.001-04:00

By a raise of hands, how many people have ever been paid to develop a good idea? Kudo’s to those of you that have, but if you’ve not been given that special privilege and you have an idea worth money, BetaFish is here.

If you’ve ever wasted 3 months crafting an iron clad business plan, only to be smacked with the reality that no one cares about what you’re trying to sell them. BetaFish is here.

BetaFish is an incubator on steroids. We’re combining the benefits of a Coworking space (community, collaboration, openness) with lean startup methodology, to connect smart and talented people to investment opportunities faster than ever before in Delaware.

The idea is to find five, 2 person teams with a super cool tech idea; pay their living expenses for 90 days; give them space at coIN to build their “widget” and collaborate; and also provide the opportunity to pitch to accredited Angels and V.C’s when completed.

Organizations like Y-Combinator in California, DreamIT Ventures in Philly, andTechstars in Boston, are killing it right now. Coworking spaces like Gangplank,IndyHall, and The Factory, all have an steroidal incubator too.

I’d like to assume you already know what Coworking is, so I’ll briefly explain what lean startup methodology is all about.

Eric Ries is the grandfather of the term lean startup. He’s a 31 year old engineer,entrepreneur and blogger. The principles of the methodology are based on the lean manufacturing process, which was made famous by Japanese factories decades ago. The thought behind the methodology is to reduce waste, increase manufacturing efficiency, communicate with consumers to better understand their needs, and thus provide better value in a shorter period of time. BetaFish is no different. We’re all about building more and BS’ing less.

The Lean Startup process makes entrepreneurs focus 100% of their efforts on completing tasks that are absolutely vital to the progression of the idea. Traditional incubators teach startups how to write business plans, when in actuality, startups don’t need a business plan…they need a scalable, and repeatable business model. They need to focus all of their time on product and customer development. They need to rapidly test, fail, learn, and build new ways to generate money from day one so they can afford to perfect their products as customers give feedback.

There are 3 stages to the Lean Startup process:

Customer Discovery: Ideation (You’ve found a problem. How do you solve it?)

Customer Validation: Who will Pay? (You’ve started building a solution, but who will actually buy it? Why?)

Customer Creation: Growth (Products a hit. People love it. How do you sell more without going broke?)

Our 90 day program will lead participants down a straight and narrow path from idea-to-marketplace. We’re providing them with every resource they’ll need to formalize their idea, incorporate, set up their books, solidify their marketing plans, acquire early adopter consumers, build a scalable product, and connect with investors willing to invest. The only requirement we ask of our participants is that they are fully committed to nothing else, but building their product and perfecting their business models, as well as, working at coIN 3 days per week between Monday and Friday.

When all goes well, we’ll be kicking out 2-3 funded companies every 90 days! Delaware will truly never be the same!

Stay tuned for more information.

Posted via web from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

How Exceptional Leaders Think

2010-03-02T08:09:00.001-05:00

Posted via web from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

Wilmington 2.0: What Do We Need To Make This City Prosper Again?

2010-02-03T11:52:00.001-05:00

Recently, I have been doing a lot of research into crowdsourcing, to be more specific crowdsourcing in the sense where a community gathers together to revitalize the place in which they live, work, and play. It is a well known fact that cities across the country are in a fierce battle to attract the creative culture, in hopes of creating new business to aide in economic development and job creation. Wilmington, DE is no different than any other city, looking to make a name for itself within the creative culture. There has been some progress with places like: Red Mohawk, Public House, Poppycock, Urban Avenue, The Rebel, Kooma, and soon The coIN Loft. Many of these places can be credited to the fine work of Preservation Initiatives, Buccini/Pollin, and the State, however we need more. Being as it is that Verge advocates for change and the creation a Wilmington 2.0, where people will want to socialize after 5 PM, I wanted to open up a discussion on what others feel is needed in our city, or what problems should be confronted.

To help garner some thoughts. I'll suggest to think of 10 places/stores/things in general that are needed in our city, whether it be dining, housing, retail, or nightlife oriented. It might help to think of some of your favorite places in other cities you have been, or would like to go. The objective of this is to record everyone's thoughts to advocate for a new Wilmington, so please share your thoughts in the comment section. Also, pictures are always nice too, so if you want provide links to make sure your point is received in the way you are intending. Thanks for your input:)

Posted via web from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

Just A Little While Longer....

2010-02-03T10:27:00.001-05:00

We're very sad to confirm a delay in our grand opening. However all is not lost! Come out for the art loop on Friday....stop by Red Mohawk (228 W. 9th St.) to meet up and take a tour of The coIN Loft across the street (300 W. 9th St.)

Please keep watch of our announcements over the next few weeks. If you have any interest in becoming a member of the loft, please get in touch with us via email to set up a tour.

Thank you very much for your patience and support! Let's All Be Famous!

Posted via web from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

Coworking Debuts in Wilmington

2010-01-27T15:36:00.001-05:00

Verge Business Group Launches The coIN Loft with Open House on February 12, 2010

(January 26, 2010—Wilmington, DE) Wilmington’s Verge Business Group is pleased to announce the grand opening of The coIN Loft, Delaware’s first “coworking” office space, scheduled to open on February 5, 2010. Located at 300 West Ninth Street, in downtown Wilmington’s flourishing Design District, The coIN Loft (short for “community innovation,” with a bit of a nod to the city’s “IN” campaign) will offer 2,200 square feet of inexpensive working, meeting and innovating space to entrepreneurs, freelancers and other populations who typically work outside of a conventional office setting. To celebrate the grand opening, The coIN Loft will host an open house on February 12, 2010 from 8am-12pm and 5pm-8:30pm.

Coworking is a movement that has taken the creative community by storm in the last five years. In many cities (almost exclusively in the United States), shared offices began to adopt the tenets of café culture, creating spaces where “laptopreneurs” could lease space on an at-will basis. In addition to offering month-to-month memberships (ideal for entrepreneurs for whom long-term leases may not be realistic), coworking spaces offered independent businesspeople relief from the isolation that comes from working out of a home office or from the road. Tangibly, a coworking space benefits its members in ways that a coffee shop does not—professional conference space, privacy for phone calls, late hours, reliable wifi, a place to spread out, lockers/limited storage, discounted parking, basic office supplies and complimentary water and coffee.

As time went by, coworking professionals across the nation began to realize some unexpected gains from coworking. These once-independent entrepreneurs—many serving as top level executives of their own businesses—were experiencing actualized benefits they could attribute to their collaborative efforts and the application of collective intelligence. From their hard work and single-minded pursuit of success blossomed a new culture all its own: Coworking (with a capital “C”), a culture defined by camaraderie and innovation.

Says coIN Loft/Verge Business Group co-founder Wes Garnett, “The coIN Loft is Verge’s plan to bring creative entrepreneurs to the city.” Entrepreneurs are who The coIN Loft founders (consisting of Garnett, Verge co-founder Steve Roettger, and “TheProsperMagazine.com” author Pedro Moore) know best—they make up 100% of Verge and TheProsperMagazine.com’s clientele. Knowing full well that Verge may be sacrificing future business by establishing The coIN Loft (since the inevitable collaboration that happens in coworking spaces may make Verge’s services superfluous), Garnett and Roettger can’t help but see the big picture. “I suppose it’s like a gas station offering electric cars to its customers. Despite the effect our venture may have on us economically, we believe it’s the right thing to do for Delaware’s entrepreneurs, that the time is now, and that we’re the people who need to do it.” Verge hopes to break even on The coIN Loft, and anticipates any profit to be reinvested into improvements and capacity-building exercises (typical for coworking spaces).

More than just facilitating cross-pollination, coworking practically demands it; “community” is almost always used in any description of coworking, along with collaboration, openness, sustainability and accessibility. The populations typically attracted to coworking spaces include: graphic designers, web developers, software programmers, industrial designers, architects, fashion designers, writers/journalists/authors/bloggers, e-commerce business owners, marketing/PR professionals, regional sales representatives (who can take part in reciprocal memberships with other cities’ coworking spaces), consultants, non-profit startups, and those pursuing creative internship opportunities. What coworking professionals often take away from the experience is collective intelligence, creative solutions and even new partnerships. Coworking environments are often targeted for “crowdsourcing,” wherein outsourced work is offered via an open call to a crowd of potential contributors.

Membership to The coIN Loft ranges from $25 (for a one-day drop-in), $300 per month (for full-time 24/7 access) and $650 for a private office. To make the best use of the 21 available workspaces, the number of basic and part-time memberships will be capped, with different workstations dedicated to full-time, part-time and drop-in activity. The coIN Loft’s two floors of space are designed with a contemporary aesthetic and an open floor plan. All members will have access to two conference rooms, one with a 47” plasma for multi-media presentations and a ten-seat conference table, the other with a four to six person table and a conjoined innovation-storming room. The innovation-storming room will use “IdeaPaint,” which turns every wall into a dry-erase board. A café on the street level of the building (called Copper, slated to open this summer), and will offer discounts on food, as well as catering for meetings.

Roettger explains the attractiveness of coworking, “We have heard from a lot of entrepreneurs about the challenges of working from home. Whether it’s playing Xbox at one in the afternoon, rearranging the spice rack, or Facebooking, the home office is fraught with distractions. And, just like the stay-at-home parent, the entrepreneur may simply need to interact with other adults sometimes.” Not that The coIN Loft will be bereft of stress-relieving activity. Roettger says there will be cable television and video game consoles, adding, “We plan to offer weekly mixers/socials, allowing members to introduce their clients to their coworking colleagues’ services, recruit new members and just plain have fun.”

It is typical for coworking spaces to be populated with the sustainability conscious: the cost to heat, cool and light a house so that one person can work can be much higher than the cost of leasing full-time coworking space. Not just for entrepreneurs, coworking spaces can also be useful to larger and more-established businesses that have a need for seasonal or short-term office space to accommodate temporary staff or during transition periods.

Wilmington is positioned to be a leader in the Coworking movement for cities our size. Somerville, Massachusetts is a city close in population to Wilmington, and like Wilmington, is situated a short distance away from a larger city; Somerville is already home to two Coworking spaces. Wilmington is ahead of the pack in some cases: Fort Collins, Colorado (less than an hour outside of Denver) is twice Wilmington’s size and is launching its first coworking space in 2010; Corvallis, Oregon (25% smaller than Wilmington, and similarly situated between multiple large cities) will follow Wilmington in opening a coworking space. Some of the most successful coworking sites in the country are IndyHall in Philadelphia, New Work City in New York and Affinity Labs in Washington, D.C., leading Verge to believe that reciprocal memberships for Delaware members will be valuable, and that the time for The coIN Loft is now.

In 2010, The coIN Loft will also welcome some neighbors: several artist lofts will be opening up a few blocks away. Coworking spaces complement artist lofts—where an artist may need good light, stain-proof flooring and seclusion, an entrepreneur (even an artist who is putting on a business hat) needs good technology, a place to have professional meetings and interaction with other human beings. Both attract “the creative class.” How they differ is that coworking spaces have an open-door policy. Verge describes coworking communities as a “tribe,” one with enthusiastic leaders who perpetuate coworking’s values and evangelize the mission, and with members who ultimately create a culture of success, camaraderie, and innovation.

ABOUT THE VERGE GROUP

Garnett and Roettger met in 2008 while working at a financial services firm, which happened to be Roettger’s first post-degree job. Once they jumped ship, they began to pursue not only their technology work (soon to become Verge Business Group), but also to follow through on an idea they had been kicking around since the inception of their company. This was known as the “Community Innovation Project” when it was presented as a seminar at the University of Delaware, and has been reincarnated as The coIN Loft.

Though they remain focused on the technology industry, the two feel as though they have “made a 180 degree turn away” from their earlier work together, with a profound desire to “be a part of important stuff.” Verge is a firm that helps entrepreneurs of all types identify, develop and commercialize innovative consumer products and services, as well as web-based technologies using a unique blend of creative and analytical problem-solving and chutzpah (a process they've named Agile Disruption Method). While you won’t find any information on Verge Business Group prior to 2009, Garnett and Roettger are no greenhorns. Since launching Verge in March 2009, they have been hired by a half-dozen clients for long-term software development and business architecture projects in various stages of execution. For one client, Verge identified the technology that could be applied and leveraged to solve problems in the culinary arts industry (in the words of the programming team it “will revolutionize the entire industry”), and was subsequently hired to help create a national business plan and develop a software program slated for a 2012 launch.

Verge’s inspiration came from a coworking success story outlined in Entrepreneur magazine: that of Seattle web developer David Brunelle, who went from a distracted, Xbox-playing home-based entrepreneur to the founder of a 5,000 square foot coworking space, Office Nomads. (Two days after reading about Brunelle, Verge presented a six-page proposal including three-year financial projections to contacts at the University of Delaware and various entrepreneurial development organizations in Delaware.) The coIN Loft literally brought Verge’s many infatuations under one roof: entrepreneurs, technology, collective intelligence, collaborative innovation and crowdsourcing. While an entrepreneur could opt for a business-incubator-type of office space, it is important to note that incubation is not synonymous with coworking (which doesn’t offer the financing and mentoring of an incubator). Regardless, Verge does see The coIN Loft’s potential as a research and development lab where local companies, entrepreneurs and students can work together to test new ideas.

Garnett is confident that The coIN Loft’s mission “naturally drives members toward activities that revitalize the city.” Verge believes that entrepreneurship is the backbone of a great economy. This may be why The coIN Loft’s most enthusiastic supporters include the Mayor’s Office, the City of Wilmington’s Office of Economic Development and Preservation Initiatives, an urban development firm with thirty years of success in visionary revitalization efforts including Miami’s Art Deco district.

For more information on The coIN Loft, visit www.thecoinloft.com, call 302.668.5265 or email coinloftde@gmail.com.

###

Posted via web from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

Delaware: A Startup Ecosystem?

2010-01-21T17:27:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, a trending topic that encouraged a lot of good discussion from the people I follow from Philadelphia, was sparked by a blog posted by @bjennelle in regards to Fast Company searching for the five best cities in the country to launch a startup. In Blake's post he posed some really good points as to why Philly is a good place for a startup: (1) because they have "one of the tightest startup communities of significant size in the country"; (2) Philly's entrepreneurial and creative scene have been built grassroots by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs; (3) Philly has had success in grassroot help-groups for entrepreneurs like Philly Startup Leaders , Indy Hall, Barcamp, Ignite, Technically Philly, MakePhilly, The Hacktory, Hive76, Refresh Philly, etc. Even though it seems with all these resources Philly has a great startup ecosystem already in place, the people that commented on the post, as well as Blake all still feel that the city needs to make a good amount of changes to catch up to elite cities like New York, San Francisco, Boulder, Seattle, and Austin. The unanimous feeling was that Philly has made some good strides, but as far as being a great city for startups, it is just in the infancy stages.

Naturally as I read through the comments, I started to think about where Delaware (Wilmington) would be on the food chain for great startup cities. As many of you all from Delaware know, our state is not the most receptive to new ideas or businesses. I can say this since Wes and I are in the process of launching an untraditional business (The coIN Loft) in Delaware, and have found it more of an uphill battle, even though it can do so much good for the entrepreneurial ecosystem. It seems that things that are adopted in the elite cities, take forever to make a splash in this state, don't believe me, just take a gander at the small number of people really using social media to their advantage. I find it kind of embarrassing that this is the way things work here, however I also find it encouraging, mostly because this means that this state is leaving it open for new leaders to step up and pull this state to where I know it can be. Like Governor Markell said in something I read yesterday about the future of business in Delaware, "Delaware needs to be and can be the best place in the country to start and grow a business."

My first reaction to this quote by Markell is: Wow, this is awesome; it looks like Delaware is finally going to be placed where it should be, but then reality sets in and I realize that this is something that is not going to happen very soon if some action doesn't take place NOW. One of my biggest pet peeves is the type of people that just complain and point out all the negatives, so instead of me being one of "those people", I'm going to suggest my opinions on what Delaware needs to do ( Wes and I included) to make Governor Markell's statement ring true.

(1) We need new ideas. This was very evident in Wes and I's talks with Mayor Baker, who said that Delaware is in dire need of new ideas because the traditional businesses are becoming obsolete. Unfortunately, the inability to remain relevant has led to many of these places closing or downsizing, thus creating a rise in unemployment.

(2) We need to be open-minded. Needing new ideas is one thing, but when these NEW ideas are generated, we need to be open-minded and embrace the ones with potential (not just potential we're comfortable with either). A perfect example of this was an innovative tech company Wes and I were working with last year, that could not and did not get the proper help/funding from the state. This company was forced to leave the state in order to be successful, and sadly once they reach success, I can pretty much guarantee they will not return.

(3) We need to build a close-knit entrepreneurial community. Selfishness is a thing of the past, that does not exist in a world that embraces collaboration and community, due to the mass transparency social media brings us today. Just take a look at the people trying to sell you something on Twitter, they do not retain many followers since they have nothing real to say, and often times make an ass of themselves, thus diminishing their reputation. When everyone bands together and realizes the power a "crowd" can breed, that is when we (Delawareans) will create the type of ecosystem that is conducive to startups. New entrepreneurs need to see that there is a community that will welcome them and help them grow. When ego is dropped at the door, it is miraculous what the mind of many can conceive.

(4) We need to embrace and harness the young talent. This is something that goes beyond words, the young talent is going to be the future of the city, so it should be paramount that it is embraced and encouraged now. One of the biggest problems Delaware has it that it does a poor job of retaining the graduates of its schools. We are losing very smart and talented people to these other cities because they do not see the same opportunity in this state compared to the others. I can speak from experience on this because Wes and I would often travel to New York, Boston, and Philly when we launched Verge because we related to the entrepreneurial community in the other states much more than the experiences we had in Delaware. We had thoughts of just doing business in other states because we felt Delaware just wasn't moving at the speed we wanted. It was not until we began launching The coIN Loft, that we truly felt Delaware had a lot of potential. What I am trying to say is that by embracing the younger generations and letting them give their input, it would make this state a lot more attractive. For that reason alone, we've opened the doors of coIN to high school and college students exploring the idea of entrepreneurship while they're still in school.

(5) We need experience in today's economy/hot industries. Experience is something that is very much needed in our state, and I am not talking about just any experience, I am talking about the people who have their hands on the pulse of the hot industries and the ones who have launched successful scaling startups in this decade. This may seem like a dig, but I think everyone can agree that the business world today is a thousand times different than what it was years and years ago. Experience like this is invaluable, take a look at the dream team Foursquare, a New York startup put together.

(6) We need true startup/early-stage capital. It doesn't matter how great of a startup ecosystem you have, if there is no access to early-stage capital. Ultimately, a startup is going to go where the money is, since it is money that will be the spark that will allow them to scale. Delaware has a few resources for capital, however these resources need to look at alternative investments and new ideas. Now, it is easy to say that they shouldn't be so risk averse, because it isn't my money, however the angel groups and VCs that took risks on early-stage investments such as Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc. will be receiving large returns, thus placing more money in the trough for the next homerun idea. It sounds like this wish may actually be underway, as I saw last night that Ernie from First State Innovation will be launching a fund for startups. One idea we've been kicking around internally is a local stock exchange. This isn't the time to talk about this, but I think it brings balance back towards the people, rather than a select few. A crowdfunding model specifically for startups would also be a great idea (this is apart of the vision of The coIN Loft).

(7) We need leadership and most importantly ACTION. Like Andrew Carnegie said, "As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do." I felt this quote was important because in order to make Delaware into a great environment for startups, people are going to need to stand up and lead this change, not just by words, but by action. Philly has done a great job of this thus far with entrepreneurs launching the groups I spoke of before.

My point in writing this post is to hopefully envoke response to what others feel is needed to put Delaware on the map as a great place for startups, or to tell me I am completely wrong. Some discussion is better than no discussion, so I encourage the people that read this to PLEASE leave a comment. Let this be the beginning of an avenue to voice your opinion on doing business in Delaware.

Posted via web from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

Marketing Isn't About Solutions

2010-01-20T19:41:00.001-05:00

If you've ever read Seth Godin's work, you'll know he is a huge evangelist of doing remarkable things people like enough to tell their friends about. Launching The coIN Loft has taught me a valuable lesson-although coIN will solve a lot of problems for people, it doesn't mean people will like what we're doing. People need to find their own value in your doing.

Marketing is the perception of value people identify with your "stuff", not the solutions you tell them it will provide. In other words, your "stuff" doesn't even have to work, nor does it have to be used for the purposes it was designed to be a valuable part of people's lives.

Who remembers Power Wheels? When I was growing up, every kid on my block wanted one. Even though most of us could run to whatever destination the person was driving to three or four times before they got there, we felt just like Michael Knight we were sitting behind the wheel of our very own Trans-Am. The marketing made us think we could drive like our parents did-as fast as they did. In reality, the product actually wasted time. The battery charge would die thirty blocks from our house, which left us to use every muscle in our 80lb bodies to push the 150lb clump of plastic home...alone.

Marketing is frustrating. Marketing rarely ever makes much sense. Marketing is people. People don't want solutions, they want perceptions.

Posted via web from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

From Grief to Greatness

2010-01-19T08:17:00.001-05:00

The crowd stared in frightened anticipation as the the 6 foot guard took the most gloriously painful shot of his life. As the ball bounced off the backboard and fell through the net, the player, exhausted and drenched in sweat, fell to the floor of his high school gym. The crowd erupted as they watched players from the visiting team and their home team rally around the almost lifeless body of the player. The joy of accomplishing his goal was overwhelming. Scoring 61 points in a single game was no small feat; especially during a tumultuous time like this. Every ounce of energy the played possessed in heart, mind, and body was left on the floor. The brutal murder of his 61 year old Grandfather had been avenged. The player honored the death of his best friend the way his Aunt had requested. He scored 1 point for every day his Grandfather lived.

The player was Chris Paul (CP3) of the New Orleans Hornets.

The day after his Grandfather was robbed and brutally murdered by gang of teenagers, Christ Paul's senior year basketball season began. Fueled with pain and anger he refused to sit out of the game. On the way to the game he asked his Aunt what he should do to honor his Grandfather's death; surprisingly, his aunt replied, in a very matter of fact way, "score 61 points". Astonished by answer, he asked her to repeat herself. Again, in the same tone she repeated, "score 61 points, 1 for every day your Granddad lived on this Earth". Chris repeated her exact words under his breath as if to say yeah, OK, I'll try.

Between the car ride to the gym and the last few minutes of the fourth quarter, Chris found the courage to turn his doubt in to audacious belief. During the interview I was watching on espn's "Homecoming", Chris recanted his feelings during the game. He said he became fixated on his goal..."nothing was going to stop me". In the context of the story his words really resonated with me. During the toughest time of his life, Chris dug deep to turn his grief into greatness. He used his fears to carve out a success story for the history books.

Most of us will never come face-to-face with a situation like Chris Paul; however, we've all had our share of "61st point" moments. For Steve and I, The coIN Loft is our moment. It is the second one we've had to endure as partners. The first was our decision to take a leap of faith to start Verge. The difference now is that we can rely on the support of an entire community to see us through the tough times. The difference for you is that now, through our coworking community, you too have a soft place to land when tough times arise. You no longer have to pace the hallways of your house or nervously sip coffee after coffee when things don't go your way and need to be fixed. You can simply reach out to your neighbor to discuss and collaborate on solutions. Times like these will arise often during your days as an entrepreneur. Let's get through them together.

Posted via email from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

Don't Panic! (your brain might get stuck that way!)

2010-01-18T11:31:00.002-05:00

We've all heard the fabled warnings of our mothers about not making faces because they might just get stuck that way. Until today I never thought those words, now pearls of wisdom, had any validity.
Over the weekend I watched "Bad Company", a spy/thriller film staring Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock. The basic premise of the film is Chris Rock, unbeknown to him, had twin brother that was killed in the line of duty as a government agent on a high profile case. Anthony Hopkins works for the same department the twin did. The department tracks Rock down, sequesters him, then trains him to pick up where his brother left off.
During one of the scenes, Rock is suddenly abducted in his sleep by agents and brought to an interrogation room as a part of his training. After a short bit of dialogue about the ordeal, Hopkins explains to Rock how the brain shuts down during times of fear/panic. As a young entrepreneur, those words stuck with me. I asked myself "if fear impairs my brain function during times of anxiety, how is it effecting my ability to think clearly about my business?" I would challenge you to consider the same.
Fear is one of our most basic and vital survival tactics. What we consider as our "fears" is made possible by the amygdala, a small almond shaped organ near the base of the brain. It's primary role is to process and store our emotional reactions. In other words, when we are faced with situations that increase our anxiety the amygdala produces an involuntarily compulsory reaction which tells us to run, fight, or freeze. Consequently these reactions may not be beneficial to dilemma at hand, but it's what we've unknowing conditioned our brains to do. Over time, the reactions become hard-wired into our psyche. This process is referred to as fear conditioning.
What am I getting at?
Our business ventures present us with stressful situations on a daily basis. One day it's the need for process innovations or increased efficiency of operations, the next day it's the need to diversify our product line, while the next day we could be faced with the decision to use twitter to reduce the cost and time of our marketing strategy. During these times of excessive anxiety, we need to take a second to consider our options, rather then allowing ourselves to simply react. Consider prototyping your way through the problem with quick sketches, mind maps, analogies, and metaphors. Another sure fire way to hedge off detrimental compulsory reactions is to frequently discuss your business with a trusted colleague or friend. Their perspectives can help you approach things in a more rational way. Remember, how you think is what will be!

Posted via email from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

At One Time DE Was A Truly Innovative Leader In The Country

2010-01-14T14:58:00.001-05:00

When I saw the tweet earlier today about the glory days when Delaware was considered one of the true innovative leaders in the country, accompanied by some encouragements to inspire the state to recapture its position; it immediately reminded of a post I wrote about a month ago, Why Coworking? Why DE? Why Now? The premise of this post was to discuss the reasoning behind Wes and I's decision to bring coworking to Delaware. In that post our reasonings were based mostly off of us envisioning Delaware as a clean slate, waiting for people to decide what happens next. Now, I see this picture of Delaware as a good thing, and as a bad thing. The good being, Delaware would seem like a very conducive place for new ideas and start-ups. The bad being, Delaware is going to have to either find some way of attracting these new ideas and start-ups, or inspire the people currently in the state to become these new ideas and start-ups. Either way, I see it as a tough path since it seems other states now have a formidable lead on us (Delaware), due mostly to us (Delaware) being content to only be known for financial institutions and incorporation services.

On the other hand, I do also see this as the most opportune time to take action, otherwise I would probably be employed in the financial services industry, unfortunately. So, do I think Delaware will be able to regain its position amongst the other leaders in innovation, you ask. I would have to say yes, but only if we as Delawareans join together as a community to force this progress, you see many is always better than a few, and WHEN this community begins to make progress, others will follow and the rest will be history.

LETS ALL BE FAMOUS!

Posted via web from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

Don't Let Age or Experience Shatter Your Dreams

2010-01-13T16:26:00.001-05:00

I have wanted to follow up watching the biography of Ferdinand Porsche with a post, however I couldn't think of what to talk about until it hit me this moment, so here it goes:

While watching the biography, the most interesting thing that stuck out to me was the resiliency and creativity Ferdinand possessed at such a young age. For instance, he was tinkering with his own inventions revolving around electricity and batteries at age 12, nowadays your typical 12 year-old would only think about tinkering with his PS3 or ipod ( and not the inventive type of tinkering of course). Then, by age 25 Ferdinand developed what was the first ever hybrid car, using two electrical/gas engines that powered each front tire of the then enormous carriage-looking car. And as if making it a hybrid wasn't enough, he also created a car that at the time was considered one of the fastest, reaching a blazing 9mph top speed. Of course, after all of this he went on to create Porsche which I am sure you all have heard about.

So, my point to this story is that age is simply just a number when it comes to new innovations. If you don't believe me look at Mark Zuckerberg, or Elon Musk, or Kevin Rose, or even the dudes from Youtube. The parallel between all these people is that they all had great ideas, but little experience in each of their respective industries. This lack of experience or their age, however did not deter them from seeing their idea to fruition. Now, you might say, well the reason each of these people succeeded to the point they are today is because they got their idea into the hands of the right people or the people with the experience to make their ideas scale. My response would be that I agree, although I would also say that the thing that separates this group from everyone else, is that they actually had the nerve to turn that great idea into something the experienced people (i.e. VCs) would want to be part of.

To close, I would just like to reiterate that age and experience should not mean that you cannot make your dream happen. Look at Wes and I, I am sure you probably have heard the story of how we went from reading an article on coworking in Entrepreneur Magazine, to putting together a team that could help us bring coworking to DE in just under 3 months. And what's my age again? .......... That would be 23.

Posted via web from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

TNT: coIN Loft brings coworking to Wilmington

2010-01-12T09:32:00.001-05:00

According to Wes Garnett, Delaware is the only mid-atlantic state that does not have a coworking space.

“It’s not just because no one has started it,” he says, “but because no one has even heard of coworking.”

Much like many Philadelphians, Garnett sees a northern neighbor taking technology talent from his city when there are plenty of reasons to stay home. Though Delaware is well-known as a tax shelter for large corporations, the state hasn’t exactly been rolling out the red carpet for entrepreneurs, something Garnett and his partners hope to change through coIN Loft.

“In 2007, Delaware was ranked 50 out of 50 for attracting entrepreneurs. The next year we jumped to 35,” he says. “Either way we suck.”

The life-long Delaware resident, along with business partners Pedro Moore and Steve Roettger, is leading the charge to create coIN Loft, a coworking space in Wilmington, Delaware. The trio is anticipating opening in March and the space will have 17 desks available in three tiered memberships: basic (a few times per month), part-time (two to three days per week) and full-time. Members of coIN Loft will also be eligible to participate in crowdsourced client projects.

The origins of coIN Loft – short for “community innovation” – stemmed from a October article in Entrepreneur Magazine citing coworking as an upcoming trend in the startup world. Both Roettger and Garnett saw the space as a chance to change Delaware’s lack of an entrepreneurial mindset as well as a way to attract clients to Verge, their Wilmington-based company that offers consulting services to early-stage startup companies.

The business partners began immediately looking for a space. Something that, as any of the Indy Hall founders would tell you, should come only after a community is established, something Garnett acknowledges.

The floor plan for coIN Loft. (click to enlarge).

“We did everything backwards, it’s in our nature to be running really fast to the things we want to do,” he says.

In researching a space, the group also came across a real estate developer shopping around a coworking space dubbed the name “Verge Coworking,” ironic given coIN’s consulting gig.

“It’s like in school when you wanted to talk to a girl you thought was hot and she turned out to be your best friend’s girlfriend,” says Garnett. “It was like the Twilight Zone.”

That coworking space eventually fell through, but that won’t stop coIN Loft’s urgency. The group just signed a year lease, and the group, using roughly $25,000 of outside investment and $25,000 of their own funds, and is beginning to renovate the space as weather allows.

“In Delaware things just take forever,” he says of coIN Loft’s urgency. “People really want to see things change but most people just sit on sidelines.”

coIN Loft’s organizers say it has a handful of verbal commitments for full-time members and has seen interest in the Wilmington community as a next step for the city finding its identity. The community, which has already held two Ignite events, even created an entire neighborhood dedicated to housing creative professionals.

“If we could build the reputation of coIN up,” he says, “it will make people say: ‘These guys [in Wilmington] are just as talented as anyone else.”

Every Monday, Technically Not Tech will feature people, projects, and businesses that are involved with Philly’s tech scene, but aren’t necessarily technology focused. See others here.

Full Disclosure: Independents Hall co-founder Alex Hillman is a current sponsor of Technically Philly.

Posted via web from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

Fear is Contagious...Get Out From Under the Pressure

2010-01-07T14:20:00.001-05:00

The topic of fear seems to be very prevalent through Wes and I's posts, so I figured since we are living in a transparent world I would give you a little bit of a personal story about our journey with fear as our copilot. It seems that fear is everywhere and is very contagious among everyone, even if you cannot recognize its presence, believe me it is not too far away.

Our journey began almost two years ago when I had just finished up my senior year of college at the University of Delaware, and started my working career at a financial services firm. It was at this firm that I met Wes, and within a week or so of working there, we already started scheming ways to better the so-called process to success. Now, its not because we just wanted to be defiant, rather we saw this process as something that may or may not create success for some people. It seemed also that this process was giving others an excuse to remain mediocre, and paralyzing them in an optimistic state, dreaming that someday one big deal would come that would catapult them out of mediocrity. It was at this moment that we needed to make a decision: should we conform and be stuck in the ever so contagious fearful environment or develop our own thing. Being it as though we are both very ambitious, we felt that conforming would just not suffice, so we began creating our own process of shooting for the stars. One thing that gave us a little encouragement along the way, was something Wes' dad had said to him, "If you go after the the big things and fail, you will learn the steps to reach the top, but if you never try, you will never know what the top is or how to get there." With this encouragement and various small successes, we became students of our industry and derived a process that seemed to get us into places and meet people that we would have never expected. It was the lessons from our time at that firm, that Wes and I will never forget and will carry alongside of us throughout our working lives.

So, not to soon after we started our own thing, came the time when we realized that financial services was not either one of our true callings, and that we were meant to do bigger things; thus the planning for Verge became our nights and weekends for the next 4 months. Now, if you ask does it really take that long to plan a business, my answer would be NO WAY. The reason that it took us this long was that (1) we didn't know exactly what we were going to do, and (2) fear and pressure were hanging above our heads. It took until the beginning of March until we finally mustered up the courage to quit our jobs to venture out on our own. I cannot tell how great of a feeling it was to clear my desk and walk out of the corporate world to become my own boss, but that feeling soon became HOLY $*@T, I am my own boss. I honestly don't think I got too much sleep that night, thinking about all the "What Ifs?", and the feeling of "What do I do now." Then I remembered this saying I once heard, "You should embrace fear or the feeling of butterflies, because that feeling is when you can tell you are on the path to growth." It is simple little things like this that I continue to tell myself along my entrepreneurial journey.

Since this post is to be transparent and talk a little about fear, I will give a little insight to how fear affects me to this day. To be quite honest, every step towards the goal of launching The coIN Loft have had their ups and downs. Immediately upon reading into the concept of coworking, I felt that this was something I needed to be part of in some sort of way. After finding that there were no spaces in Delaware, the decision became that Wes and I were just going to have to start a space ourselves. At the time it seemed like a no-brainer, however soon after reality caught up and I started to think is Delaware the right place, maybe there isn't a space in Delaware for a reason, would anyone in Delaware see the same value that I did by working amongst other like-minded individuals, etc. Then came the money part, this is a big investment in a business that does not seem to be very easy to break-even in. These thoughts continue to be in my head at all times, a lot of times depriving me of sleep, however each morning I wake, pumped to be one day closer to satisfying the goal of launching Delaware's first coworking space. You see I am more scared of the feeling of regret, than the feeling of failure. Both Wes and I are the type of people that want the ball at the end of the game knowing we need to make something happen, and we have found that this pressure and fear is actually our internal drive that will ultimately make us successful. The coIN Loft is our way of introducing change, and encouraging the people of Delaware that as a community we can make some really cool stuff happen, key part being that community is the catalyst.

I know this post has been kind of erratic but the point of what I am trying to say can all be summed up in a quote I thought of this morning: "Fear is contagious and sometimes crippling, but it is how you channel that fear that can ultimately make you wildly successful."

Posted via web from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

Born Leader? Nah, But I Would Like To Think So...

2009-12-31T13:17:00.001-05:00

For everyone who has read anything I tweeted recently, you have probably seen a trend/theme around the topic of leadership and that pesky "call-to-action" sort of stuff. I know all of that can kind of get annoying, so this time I'm going to be a little more light-hearted and tell the tale of Wes and I's journey towards launching The coIN Loft and my take on leadership.

To start, I'll tell the story of The coIN Loft idea. So here I was, taking a little break from work during the day to catch up on the latest issue of Entrepreneur Magazine, when I stumbled across the article titled: "Solo, But Not Alone." I decided that might not be something too bad, so I continued to read. As I was riffling through it, I started thinking about all the possibilities and then it just hit me, Wes and I need to start one of these "coworking spaces." I showed Wes the article and after about a grand total of 2-3 minutes, we started reading anything and everything that had the term "coworking" in it. Once we got through all the research, we immediately began typing up a business plan/proposal and financial projections for our very own space. Now if you ask me to whom we were going to take all this stuff too, I don't think either one of us could have told you at the time, rather we preferred to take the good ole' "fly by the seat of your pants approach," not because we are young and ignorant, but instead it was simply because we felt that this (launching a coworking space) was something that was very necessary for Delaware, and even better it was very much inline with our vision, through which we operate Verge. When adding all this together, we felt that if we got the word out to the right people, they would help us make coIN Loft a realty and a success, and everything else would kind of fall in place. Luckily, we have been right so far and keep in tuned for our future progress.

So lets talk about leadership. When it comes to leadership or being a leader many people cower to thought of themselves being a leader because they feel they might not have the charisma, or give age old excuse "some people are just born leaders,and others are not." Well, I do believe that some people are leaders, and others are followers, however not because these "leaders" are born with the "leadership gene," instead the people that become leaders are the ones who get the courage to make change. Do Wes and I think we are leaders, well we would probably like to think so, but we just see ourselves as ordinary people following our vision for Delaware, while gaining courage through meeting other folks who share our vision.

Posted via web from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

2010: The Year In Review

2009-12-31T12:59:00.001-05:00

My wife was in the other room preparing for our New Years day brunch while I sat at my computer trying to figure out how Verge and The coIN Loft were going to meet and exceed our 2010 strategic goals. Like s man possed, I was tearing through page after page of Google search results looking for the "magic answer" when it occured to me, "how I think is what will be" (a blog post from yesterday). Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to take your own advice. If you've found yourself stressing over what next year will bring, close your eyes and imagine; write down everything you see; bounce those vision statements off of questions of consumer value, feasibility and viability, and you have just lived through an entire year of business! I did this very same process and now I'm not waiting to see what 2010 will hold for Verge and The coIN Loft anymore. Two key characteristics of an entrepreneur are agility and ingenuity....both are inherently offensive actions. It's very hard to live these characteristics if you can't see what coming, so I urge you to find some time over the next two days to stare at the clouds. If your honest with yourself, you'll be looking at 2011 on Monday. Happy New Year! Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Posted via email from Wes & Steve are The Dumb Kidz?

Untitled

2009-12-30T17:27:00.001-05:00

Posted via web from Verge & coIN Loft blog's posterous

Independently Working Together

2009-12-30T16:09:00.001-05:00

Wilmington, DE-Work can be a lonely place for emerging entrepreneurs, many of whom court their clients and ink their deals by phone and e-mail amid the empty cereal bowls on their kitchen tables.

And with cheap office space in short supply throughout Wilmington, it can be tough for an upstart to make the leap from armchair-entrepreneur to the ranks of the cubically contained.

But the coIN Loft could change all that.

It will be an open space where freelancers can come to work, 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week, without the hindrance of a long-term lease or a back-breaking rent payment, said Steve Roettger, one of the founders.

He and partners Wes Garnett and Pedro Moore are planning to open the coIN Loft, a 2,200-square-foot building located downtown at 300 W. 9th St., on Feb. 5.

There will be co-working space for 21 entrepreneurs who can each rent a desk in the wifi-equipped building for between $40 and $300 a month, depending on how much access they want to have, Roettger explained……..

read the article in it’s entirety here——>http://tinyurl.com/ykk8qbk

Posted via web from Verge & coIN Loft blog's posterous

You Are What You Think

2009-12-30T15:13:00.005-05:00

" Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought"- Alexander Hamilton

Cognition is the mental process of converting information from thought to knowing. Our senses are typically used to gather the information which is processed but observation is needed to first draw conclusions, then organize those conclusions into factual statements. The statements are cataloged within the brain and are drawn upon during times of uncertainty, i.e. problem-solving. You may be asking, "what does this have to do with me and my business?" but please, bare with me. It's important that you understand how questions are formed first.

As new information is processed, we conduct a series of rationalizations which categorizes the information into segments. The information that is placed into these segments is categorized as previously known facts or new and unknown observations. At this point questions begin to form as we try make sense of the unknown observation, as well as understand how they correlate to what was previously known. Because questions are the precursors and "guardrails" of innovation, you can see why cognition is an important process to understand.

Following the logic presented here, one must now begin to wonder, "how can increased cognition influence my output of innovative ideas?" That's a good question! You must intentionally expose yourself to new information about your consumers through various forms of ethnography (observations). Questionnaires, focus groups, field tests, surveys, statistical analytics, trend reports, etc. are all great ways to observe your consumer.

I've gotten a little ahead of myself, so let me explain:

The information that you gather is totally obvious at this point. In fact, any of your competitors that engage in primary or secondary market research will have access to the same data.In today's world; especially with the advent of social media and crowdsourcing, reliance on the obvious won't solve your problems or increase sustainable value to the consumer. It will however give your competition the opportunity to one-up you. An alternative use of this information is to use it as a starting block for the discovery the "peripherals" (abstract characteristics of a defined demographic which can be used to create niches within a market i.e. apple iPod).

In summary:

Peripherals are discovered by asking the right questions. Questions lead to innovations. Innovations come from observations. Observations are used to expose relationships, which come as a result of cognition. Cognition is a mental process which leads to the discovery of relationships by converting information, known and unknown, into usable knowledge and understanding

Posted via web from Verge & coIN Loft blog's posterous

Innovation Presentation

2009-12-23T11:45:00.001-05:00

Innovation Presentation

View more presentations from The Verge Business Group.

Why Coworking? ..... Why DE? ..... Why Now?

2009-12-15T13:40:00.001-05:00

Why Coworking?

Coworking is simply a means to an end for Verge. People who have been reading our thoughts in our blogs or on twitter have of course seen some of our rants about collaboration, innovation, coworking, etc.; but the real reason we are pushing the concept of coworking so much is that we believe this is one of the single most important actions Delaware must embrace to ignite inspiration, new ideas, fresh thinking, and economic development. We envision our space to be the hub for the most talented/creative minds in the state, in which companies and government will seek to gain our input for solving consumer, business, and state problems/issues. It would be easy for us to go to a Philly or New York and take part in their welcoming entrepreneurial community, but it is our pride in Wilmington that gives us the fire to make something happen here. In short we want to make a name for the city through creativity, starting with The coIN Loft at 9th Street.

Why Delaware? …and… Why Now?

Many of those that are living, working, and trying to grow businesses in Delaware, know that our state has traditionally not been recognized as a place conducive or inspiring to innovation and entrepreneurship. Rather, Delaware is known as being an environment of big/old business. In fact, Governor Markell was quoted as saying, “Delaware ranked 50th out of 50 states for attracting entrepreneurship back to the state.”

Knowing this Wes and I felt it very important to get government officials views on the city, as well as gain their support with what we are trying to accomplish through our coworking space. Our first target was Mayor Baker (of Wilmington) who we had the chance to meet the other week. He stressed many, many times that Wilmington is a great city that is in a total revitalization, and that the city, as well as the state are very much in need for fresh ideas and new ways of thinking. He also mentioned that the most effective way to spark economic development in the city is through the creation of new business or ventures that have traditionally been contrary to the business environment, we as Delawareans have became accustomed to. He was once quoted as saying that every city is built by its community and its businesses.

Basically, because of the need for revitalization and new growth, we see it as no better of a time to collaborate as a creative community to pave the future of this city, rather than complain, move, or wait to reap the benefits that are evident to be on the way. We believe the city of Wilmington is home to many talented individuals and is a great place to make a “test case.” It is imperative for the creative class to be the true hope for this city.

Someone Is Telling A Fib!

2009-12-02T02:42:00.002-05:00

It's 2:45am and I'm up thinking about innovation. I think someone is telling a big fat fib!

As you may have read in previous posts, we are purveyors of a hybrid Design Thinking/Agile Disruption methodology. This approach has been amazing and to-date, is the purest form of true innovation methodology we've come across; and therein lies the problem! Many consultants claim to be innovative but in the end are producing products and services that absolutely fall flat when they reach the market. My conclusion is that some companies like to repeat whatever seems to be the most popular business jargon in Entrepreneur magazine or Businessweek.

There are a few rules that every company should stick to when innovation is the topic at hand.

1) Make sure you're creating something consumers actually need.

2) Make sure you're creating something that is actually viable.

3) Make sure you're creating something that is technically feasible.

Accomplish these three objectives with:

1) Intuition

2) Discovery

3) Rapid Prototyping

4) Repeated Contradictional Inquisition

5) Collaboration

If your company is looking to institute a innovation strategy, don't follow the jargon; follow the technique.

Coworking Is Reinventing Freedom

2009-11-23T19:39:00.002-05:00

A month ago I had a conversation with my Dad about my choice to start a company. Before that day, I don’t think I had every really known what he thought of it. It wasn’t that he hadn’t previously sat me down and gave me the teary eyed “son I’m proud of you” speech but this time around he truly spoke from his frustrations. What he said changed my life.

“Son”, he said, “I’ve spent my whole life working for someone else’s success…..being an entrepreneur you’re making the future happen. The only thing I can do is fix yesterday and hope tomorrow is better for me. You’re creating a better tomorrow for everyone.”

Those words recreated what I believed an entrepreneur to be. I was always taught that an entrepreneur is someone that owns their own business. When Steve and I started our company we quickly realized our vision had to be much bigger then simply filing some state documents and getting a EIN. It wasn’t until my dad said those words that I decided to actually investigate my belief and settle on an actual truth. I read everything I could and finally concluded that “Entrepreneur” isn’t a person or an action its a set of qualities:

empathetic: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit mannner.

visionary: tending to envision things in perfect but unrealistic form; idealistic

ingenuous: skill or cleverness in devising or combining

agile: marked by ready ability to move with quick easy grace, having a quick resourceful and adaptable character.

Coworking is giving entrepreneurs the chance to recreate the world around them. People will envy our freedom. They’ll criticize us for being idealistic. They’ll say our plans will never work. Despite that, there will always be someone like my Dad in the shadows with heart gripping pride in what we do. They’ll live vicariously through us as we innovate vicariously through him. Coworking is everything and nothing society has taught us to be….but I like that. In fact I cherish that. I hope you will too.

"It seemed I could either have a job, which would give me structure and community or I could be a freelance and have freedom and independence. Why couldn’t I have both.” - Brad Neuberg, Hat Factory, San Fransico

LET’S ALL BE FAMOUS!!

Where has Creativity Gone....Kids Stand Up

2009-11-19T13:16:00.002-05:00

Many people can agree that school systems, as well as the American culture in general, teaches kids from the very beginning that to be trulysuccessful you must get good grades through high school, go to a good college (now get a masters), and finally complete your journey by getting a good job. Now, I am not saying that anything is particularly wrong with this, for some people; to be honest I followed this path by graduating high school with honors, graduating from a good college, and then getting my first good job at a respected financial services firm. I will also say that my dream ever since I was a youngster was to own my own business (it didn’t matter what it was), however it seemed that everything I was taught or told growing up was to navigate me away from fulfilling my dream, mostly for my own protection.

AND WHY IS THAT?

This is quite an easy question to answer; the reason everything was encouraging me to not think creatively or to dream big, is that we,Americans, are scared of failure and the “what if”. It seems that we are being brainwashed since elementary age to not think creatively, and to not take chances because we do not want to be wrong. Our school systems, parents, everyone is thinking that they are protecting us by not challenging us and encouraging us to think differently, but all they are really doing is hindering our growth and our ability/talents. Many kids follow the so-called path to success I discussed above, but end up feeling not fulfilled, working in menial jobs for someone else, just putting in time to hopefully, eventually be the one who gets to tell other people what to do. These kids, also end up not knowing who they really are and never find out what they are truly good at or find their true passion. I mean come on people, how many times do you hear people say: “I hate my job” or “work sucks”.

IS THIS THE WORLD WE ARE REALLY LIVING IN?

By enforcing this curriculum, we are truly creating a generation of people that, sorry to say it are robots, and that are afraid to think differently because they do not want to be wrong or fail. We need to realize that this generation are the ones that are going to keep innovating and enriching life for all people, these are the ones that are going to find the cure for cancer, or save the planet if you will. If we take away their creative capacities at an early age, then what will happen? Your guess is as good as mine? I surely do not want to see that day!

Some quotes to back up my rants, then I’ll say why this relates to COIN.

“Creativity in education is now as important as literacy”

“We are born as creative beings….We don’t grow into creativity; we are educated out of it”

“All kids have tremendous talents, and we squander them”

***All quotes from Sir Ken Robinson***

What The coIN Loft Proposes.

When Wes and I finally gained enough courage and confidence to enter the life of an entrepreneur, we immediately thought about the reasons why and what legacy we wanted to leave behind (yes, even though we are only in our 20’s). The one thing both of us felt the most passion for was to be able to teach, and more importantly encourage kids to discover the importance of entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity. Now that we are opening The coIN Loft, we see this as not just an ordinary coworking space, but a hub that kids can use as an outlet for creativity and true real life knowledge.

Here is an excerpt from our proposal, to better explain how The coIN Loft will interact with kids:

“A very important aspect of our action plan will be to seek support and partnerships with the local universities, state-run programs, city officials, local freelancers/entrepreneurs, non-profits, etc. Currently, we have relations with the University of Delaware (Venture Development Center), Delaware Tech, but will also be in contact with Delaware State’s market street location, as well as Delaware College of Art & Design. Being young entrepreneurs ourselves, we fully understand the value of working and collaborating with other various types of entrepreneurs at all stages of development. With that being said, we intend to open our doors to the students of the local colleges so they can learn the process of business start-up and innovation. We will also seek to enlist the help of many of these students to serve as volunteers for our events to demonstrate the importance of being an active participant in the growth of the communities in which they may later do business. Allowing students to volunteer & participate will inevitably attract more attention from the universities. Our vision for the future is to use this awareness as leverage to start a COIN internship program for student entrepreneurs. Seeing that many of the entrepreneurship programs being offered by Delaware colleges are fairly new, COIN presents a golden opportunity for schools to expand their support for student business ventures beyond graduation.”

Conclusion.

I’ll end with a quote, again from Sir Ken Robinson, “We need to see our creative capacities for the richness they possess, and see our children for the hope that they are.”

Agile Disruption Method II

2009-11-19T11:09:00.006-05:00

This is a more in-depth explanation of our introduction to Agile Disruption Method from a previous post.

Agile Disruption Method is an adaptation of the Design Thinking "process". Design Thinking is an innovation method made popular by Tim Brown of Ideo, that encourages people to question problems from the perspective of what is feasible, viable and commercially desired. Agile Disruption Method encourages people to discover innovation by repetitively "disrupting" their own conclusions at every step of the process, irregardless of where they are in the process. Moreover, Agile Disruption Method is a collaborative way to maximize the value proposition of a product or service through continuous analysis and observation of the effect they have on humans; not through statistical data alone but also with the real life experiences of people.

The principles of Design Thinking, human desirability, feasibility and viability are shared by Agile Disruption Method. However, the goal of Agile Disruption isn't to find conclusions; on the contrary, Agile Disruption Method is the process of antagonistic query and contradictory discovery. To accomplish this goal one must think. Thinking, believe it or not is rarely used when a company decides to embrace innovation (consumer value based problem-solving). Thinking by definition is an internal mental process that uses data or information as input; integrates that information into previously learned material which is used to further ones knowledge, understanding and perception of reality. Thinking, which is inherently perpetual, either confirms or contradicts the known. Understanding this lead us to a theoretical definition of the influence thinking has on Design Thinking and consequently Agile Disruption Method:

"A Design Thinker and consequently by default, an Agile Disrupter, is one who purposefully seeks to challenge and disprove their own perceptions in order to increase the efficiency of the internal mental process, thus increasing by which they expand their knowledge and understanding. This in turn maximizes the value and future profitability of their innovations."

As a company we had issues with meeting the checkpoints of the Design Thinking process and found ourselves continuously "disrupting" conclusions at various points in the process that we were dead set on within hours of making them. We quickly found that by dispersing those checkpoints within a circle of skilled individuals, we were able to locate the bugs in our conclusions much quicker, as well as discover ways to accomplish what we previously considered impossible. Agile Disruption is now being used to find profitable solutions by first considering the remarkably impossible through collaboration.

Agile Disruption may not make much sense at this point. However, stay tuned for our next post which will demonstrate how the process works and why it is an important component to the Design Thinking process. If you think you can offer something to help us refine our method, please comment or send us an email.

The Hypocrisy of Ideas

2009-11-19T09:41:00.003-05:00

No one owns an idea. We can own our perception of an idea, but not the idea itself. By our definition an idea is an epaphanic awareness of the alignment of known facts and life experiences that alters ones perspective on reality. The realization of an idea leads one into creative thinking which can then lead to the commercialization of their own point of view. You may think we’re way off base but in doing so you’re actually proving our point. In this case “idea” is the idea and we can both have different perspectives of what that is but it in no way changes that an idea is just an idea until someone does something with it. What is ultimately done will be a reflection of our own understanding and life experiences. For example, a wheel is just a wheel and no matter how you choose to utilize that wheel it will remain a wheel. You may see the wheel as a way to help you harvest crops faster; whereas I may see it as a way to prove I can finish a quarter mile faster. Either way we see it, the wheel is still a wheel. (If you’re seeing a correlation between application and perspective you should.)

The point to all of this is that many people don’t feel comfortable with Coworking because of how closely people work together and how they are encourage to freely trade ideas amongst each other. “They” have fears that people may steal their ideas. We obviously don’t believe that but not just because of the reason I’ve already explained. The true reason is that we believe in open collaboration. No two people will see a problem or opportunity the same so why not work together to optimize the results? Coworking is one of a million ways to find higher quality solutions cheaper and faster.

I’ll leave you with a couple quotes:

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives and mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

- Oscar Wilde

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”

- Charles Darwin

The coIN What?

2009-11-19T09:40:00.001-05:00

the coIN Loft is a Coworking space opening in Wilmington, Delaware in February 2010. Coworking is basically a place for entrepreneurs that typically work at home or local cafe’s to collaborate and grow. Not for you? Let’s challenge that….

You ever woke up at 7am like a home office gladiator, ready to absolutely tear through every shred of work you have and found yourself sitting on the couch watching Price is Right by 10:30am? That my friend is not what Coworking or the coIN loft is about! Coworking spaces hold entrepreneurs accountable and increase productivity. They don’t accomplish this because there’s a Nun with a iron ruler walking around whacking people when they aren’t getting work done. They keep people on track because of the camaraderie you have with the people around you. People respectfully push others forward and suggest better or more efficient business practices when they’re needed. In addition to that, there’s a bit of a competitive factor there as well. Let’s assume you’re a graphic designer and you’ve been trying to get a design job with the local Big Time Business for months. Just when you decide that maybe it’s not going to happen you notice an excepted proposal on your neighbors desk from Big Time Business. I wouldn’t recommend you utter your first thought but when you manage to swallow your pride you dig deeper and try harder to land your next potential design job. Furthermore, you now have the opportunity to work with your neighbor to perfect your pitch to increase the chances of accomplishing your goal.

Coworking is a beautiful model for entrepreneurs at any stage but start-ups will be the sweet spot of the coIN loft. My partner and I currently own a company called Verge Business Group, which acts as a tuning fork for early stage start-up companies to make sure consumers actually want to listen to the song they’re singing. We felt our efforts to support and perpetuate entrepreneurship in Delaware could be more substantial if we pursued the Coworking concept. We’re very excited to be apart of this 5 year old movement and truly feel it fits our forward-thinking personalities. Moreover, we hope to see the Coworking community meld together to work on the important stuff in our world together. There are Coworking spaces all over the world so it’s a matter of time before that vision comes true. Entrepreneurs that view the coIN loft as the type of place they’d like to join, won’t simply do it because we offer the space for $300 a month or the various free amenities. They’ll do it because they too want to be intimately involved in the important stuff in our world.

As we write on Twitter every morning….LET’S ALL BE FAMOUS!!

Why Execution Matters

2009-11-12T14:00:00.002-05:00

Going to keep this pretty brief...here are two pretty powerful quotes from two awesome people:

"Well done is better than well said"

- Ben Franklin

"You can't build a reputation on what you're going to do"

- Henry Ford

In conclusion, words are just that, words, so I encourage everyone to take action because without execution all you have is an idea and be sure to not become another "frightened rebel."

The Misconceptions of Success

2009-11-12T13:21:00.002-05:00

It seems many people believe that it takes a lot of luck to become successful. These people look at the ones considered to be a success, and think (1) there is no way I can become that, or (2) I am just not lucky enough to become that.

I want to now challenge these thoughts....

Ben Franklin once said, "Diligence is the mother of good luck." When I read into this saying, I come to the conclusion that people become successful not because of luck, but rather because they commit themselves to the hard work success breeds. Through commitment, these people move agilely through the challenges until they reach the level they want to achieve, and luck simply becomes an afterthought.

I want to encourage people to find their passion, and become committed.

The Wisdom of Crowds

2009-11-05T08:31:00.004-05:00

If you get the chance read Howard Greenstein's article at blog.inc.com on "The Workforce of Crowds". The premise of the article is the backbone of our new Coworking venture, The coIN Loft and our seminar series Community Innovation Project (November 5, 2009, University of Delaware, 42 Amstel Ave. Newark, DE. 19716)

How could your company use the collective intelligence of a crowd to move forward? Leave a comment!!

2010 Web Strategy

2009-11-05T07:34:00.004-05:00

The following article is from www.baekdal.com

2010 is now only a few months away, and that means that many companies are now in the process of planning next years strategy and budget. So what should your web strategy be for 2010?

Here is something to think about...

The Use Economy

In 2010, the internet will move into the "use economy", as opposed to the "find economy" of the past.

Focusing your strategy around building a website that can be found on Google and present your entire product catalog as a visual stunning and engaging presentation is a thing of the past.

You can't use a campaign. You can't share a product catalog. You cannot make a package a part of your stream.

People do not share or discuss a newspaper or a blog. But if you write a really good article, then that is certainly sharable. Just as you cannot share a shoe campaign, but you can share that one shoe that all your friends talk about.

In the "use economy":

Content is atomized.
It's part of a stream
It about on-going interactions
It's a part of people's existance

A traditional website doesn't solve any of these challenges, and as such your web strategy for 2010 is not about a website.

It's not about the content either

The biggest change in a use economy is that the focus of your attention is not even about the content itself. Your content plays a very important role in that it functions as the motivator. It is what gets people interested in using it.

But the real value is in the use itself. What do people do with it? What kind of reactions does it create? How do they share it? What kind of conversations does it start? And most importantly, how does it make people feel?

That is the point of the use economy. This is what your brand should be all about. It doesn't matter if it's an article, a pair of shoes, or a cup of coffee.

You web strategy for 2010 should be about people, and interacting with them directly.

Checklist

What to do?

Focus on how people can use your content or products
Get people talking
Help the communication along
Focus on the long haul, instead of short term interactions.
Focus on increasing sales via the energy created by your existing customers (i.e. the energy of your existing customers is what persuades new-comers to buy your products)

Where to do it?

Use every channel that makes sense
Move your content to those channels (don't use Twitter just to link to your website)
Support people's environments
Move your store into their world. If people talk about your products on Facebook, why not also allow them to buy it directly from there?

First time experience:

Design your social channels in ways that makes it easy to find out what else you have to offer
Make it easy to take the first step (just being friendly and open goes a long way)
Encourage first time user to act.

The bigger picture:

Use your website as the hub for all your activities.
Show people everything you do, and where you do it.
Centralize the bigger picture, but de-centralize your network.
Make sure your internal workflows actually work.
Make it easy to manage your social universe.

Things not to do:

Forget your website as a platform
Forget the technology (people don't care if what you use)
Forget about creating a package/campaign
Don't put anything between you and your customers.
Do not lose your patience. It takes many months to reach critical mass. It takes time to learn what people care about.

In 2010 everything online is about people, communication and using that to your advantage. It's not a platform, it's not a thing, it's not a system, it's not about CMS, it's not about IT, and it's not even about website design.

Going Viral?

2009-11-04T08:15:00.003-05:00

A virus only lives if its host continues to live. It's sole duty is to reproduce and spread to other hosts. Viruses by nature are built to weaken and eventually kill the host if they themselves are not eradicated, weakened or made dormant. To remain viral a virus must stay true to it's nature and continuously spread; however, fundamental problems exist as the notion of "going viral" is applied to business strategy.

In the true sense of the phrase, "going viral" doesn't seem to be a very reliable means of continued success. When living out it's manifesto the virus will repeatedly encounter two different scenarios:

1. Hosts will increasingly become immune as anti-viruses are produced. (competition)

2. Virus will reach maximum penetration, leaving itself no other place to spread. Eventually it

will die off as a result of it's own success. (unbalanced growth)

If one intends to achieve continued success as a viral business, they must take a step backwards to become the creator of viruses; not the virus itself. Viruses are made of DNA and RNA. A RNA virus is more effective in this case because it uses the DNA of the host to replicate itself. In other words, create thing's your "host" or prospective consumer will except, use and help spread. Once your virus is being spread on it's own, step away and allow the host to regain its strength or simply stop marketing your "thing" to them. At this point, you should focus your energy on producing a new RNA virus that will be compatible with your previous creation. Doing this will allow you to effective target the hosts that except and replicate your virus the fastest while leaving the rest of the population open for growth.

At this point we would love to leave you with a fantastic, life altering conclusion but unfortunately we couldn't come up with one. Hopefully we made a compelling argument for an alternative "viral" model. Check back with us soon....maybe we'll figure out a way to write a blow your mind conclusion for this entry.

New Thoughts on Our Process.....Agile Disruption Method Sounds Good

2009-10-30T10:00:00.003-04:00

Thinking along our process, we have decided to coin the phrase: Agile Disruption Method. We were trying to figure out a good way to describe the flow of thinking we undertake with each new project or client and BOOM the Agile Disruption Method was born.

The last month and half or so we've been studying design thinking. If you have no idea what that is, visit the ideo website for further explanation. While design thinking allows its believers to navigate through a process, agile disruption method allows people to move freely with that process. At any given moment one could jump from prototyping to idea generation then inadvertently stumble upon a launch worthy solution which needs further discovery to substantiate. Situations such as this are not uncommon; however, we felt the need to formulate their occurrence into a formula which can help people (like ourselves) find the track again.

The following are some phrases or thoughts we felt best described what this method entails:

*Attention to aesthetic, function, usability, and human experience/value given to each phase of development.

*Fast-paced, counteractive way of creative thinking/reasoning.

*Continuous morphing, building, forming strategies all leading back to centralized root of problem.

* Infinite-possibilities approach; moving in all directions to expound upon new thoughts/ideas, not just forward toward the obvious or definite.

* "Go with the flow" approach until either a solution is rendered or the path becomes compromised to point of undoubted viability/inefficiency.

* Choosing what is to be created, it is the precursor and result of the creation process and iteration selection process. Assume nothing is as it seems until it is, then dismantle it to explore the possibilities that exist within.

* To guess toward best or most simplifying explanations, which deduction can explicate and which induction can evaluate.

* Every solution creates a problem that needs solving.

Just a small sample, more thoughts to come.......

Can Anyone Become a Leader?

2009-10-16T14:25:00.002-04:00

While reading some excerpts from Seth Godin's book Tribes, we came across the statement: "The market needs you (we need you) and the tools are there, just waiting. All that's missing is you, and your vision and your passion." This sparked the discussion of the true meaning of a leader, and the questioning of if anyone can become a leader. It is said that a leader is generally a charismatic individual that can inspire others through his/her ideas & passion. We went on to explore what others have defined as a "leader" and found:

"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be." -Rosalynn Carter

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader." -John Quincy Adams

"A leader is one who knows where he wants to go, and gets up, and goes." -John Erksin

SO.....can anyone can become a leader?

When we discussed this our first thought was that some people are just meant to be leaders, while others are just meant to merely be followers. The more we thought, we came to the conclusion that everyone has at least some leadership qualities, and in some way could be leading or inspiring others and simply not recognize it. All it takes to be a great leader is passion, belief, and a firm commitment. So we encourage everyone, be committed to your passions, follow them and connect with people that inspire you to inspire others.

Coworking Wilmington

2009-10-06T13:00:00.005-04:00

We've recently started working with Preservation Initiatives to start our own Coworking spot. For those that aren't familiar with the term, we're not talking about people that simply work in an office together. Coworking offers low cost office space, free internet, meeting rooms and interactive brainstorming rooms to entrepreneurs that typically work on the go in local coffee bistros/cafe's and home offices. The idea behind the concept is to create a collaborative environment which helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses through collective intelligence and cross-pollination of services.

Our space, The Community Innovation Loft or COIN will be a hybrid version our Community Innovation Project and a business incubator. We will focus our efforts on early-stage start-up and growth phase companies....no particular industries. We're looking at launching in either the LOMA Design District or in one of the newly renovated West 9th St. store front properties near Red Mohawk. Stay tuned for more info about the progress of the project. Join our meetup group: COIN Wilmington if your interested in participating in it's growth.

Business Plans Don't Work....Right?

2009-09-24T15:41:00.004-04:00

That's right people...we said it. BUSINESS PLANS DON'T WORK.

We've had the "pleasure" of working with many different types of entrepreneurs along our journey and almost all of them have at one time or another mentioned how they need to update, write or follow their business plan. Every time we hear someone say this we always end up glancing at each other with a hint of laughter in our eyes.....here's why- the business plan is suppose to be a physical representation of your vision as an entrepreneur; the consumers needs, and how you plan to make money providing solutions to those needs. We place an enormous amount of emphasis on the business plan being a reflection of your VISION. If you can't see your business and its success, you can't write and therefore it doesn't exist.This is why many entrepreneurs end up miles away from where they wanted to be. If you want to avoid the vision pitfall, it takes honesty, empathy, agility and ingenuity.

We've developed a seminar specifically designed to address the vision problem many entrepreneurs face. We'll be running it at the University of Delaware starting October 20th. If you can make it please do....if not keep your eye out for the breakout events.

Let's Have CIP Every Day!!

2009-09-14T09:10:00.003-04:00

We recently started a Community Innovation Project group on linkedin.com. If you don't have time for our program on October 20th at the Universtiy of Delaware, this would be a great way to still get those creative juices flowing. Innovation is the only weapon we take into the war of business. Don't let your competitors catch you empty handed....we can promise the results will not be in your favor.

Check out our linkedin.com group and join today. We'd love to create something with you.

Community Innovation Website

2009-09-09T18:58:00.003-04:00

Ok, so the cip website is finished and ready for your veiwing pleasure. A few things have changed since we've last posted and even since we've finished the site. The program will be in Purnell Hall room 324B. The date has changed to October 20, 2009....same time.

To RSVP for the program, please contact us through the Community Innovation Project website or communityinnovation.eventbrite.com.

Stay tuned for our "I AM INNOVATION" campaign!!!!

Community Innovation Project

2009-08-27T10:50:00.002-04:00

University of Delaware Venture Development Center
Lerner Building, room 324B
Tuesday, October 18, 2009 5:30pm-8:30pm

The program is conducted like an open forum/round table discussion. Wes Garnett and Steve Roettger, owners of The Verge Business Group, LLC act as moderators. The entire program is 3 hours long. The schedule of events is as follows:

1- Introduction of the program by Wes and Steve

2- Round table discussion about the innovation process. (60min)

-Wes and Steve will introduce their innovation model to the group.

-Dream It, Plan It, Test It, Build It

3- Real business idea from a client of Verge is presented to the class as a working example. (45 min)

-Idea will be stripped of all proprietary information to ensure the safety of the client.

-Group will be asked to apply the innovation process to the idea, as well as test the business model for feasibility. At the end of the process we hope to have built an entire business model from the groups' suggestions.

4- To further delve into the innovation process, Wes and Steve will ask that the group rip apart and build on the previous business model to create the best solution for profitable innovation. (45min)

5- Networking and feedback (30min)

Community Innovation Project is not a Focus Group

Focus groups rely on moderators to lead the group and stimulate discussion without saying too much about what the company wants to hear from the participants regarding their product or service. The moderator must keep the participants focused on the topic, involve all of the participants and encourage group members to react to each others comments to solicit enough input about how the participants view and potentially utilize the product or service. Moderators must work from a guide with an outlined discussion plan. The goal of the group discussion is to provide the company with target market opinions to identify trends; which will lead to sales revenue.

C.I.P is an open forum, round table discussion about the process of successful implementation of profitable business model innovations. Because the seminar is built around an educational model, participants will never be pre-screened. Although we will examine a test case in a focus group like fashion, the manner in which we conduct that portion of the program is far removed from the regimented outline style of focus groups. C.I.P is meant to replicate the pressure entrepreneur's feel as a result of eminent competition. To get a better understanding of this, imagine standing in Blackberry's shoes when Apple's iPhone sky rocketed past 1 million units in the first week of sales. These are the types of dilemmas we will confront participants with; however, we will use real business ideas from real entrepreneurs looking to launch a new and innovative business idea. Unlike focus groups, the outcome of their super charged "innovation-storming" will not be pre-determined. There will be no set questions or right or wrong answers. The goal of this portion of our seminar is to teach the group how to think through complex business issues quickly and decisively. These are priceless skills they will be able to employ for many, many years. In addition to that, the entrepreneur that chooses to put their business idea through the program is given a chance to peer into the minds of their future consumers and leave with a blueprint of how to gain the most traction. Hopefully you will agree that the Community Innovation Project is a win-win situation for all those involved.

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Very Cool Microsoft Surface

2009-06-26T15:57:00.001-04:00

Vision + Mission = Change The World

2009-06-26T15:47:00.002-04:00

While watching a documentary about the life of the great Michael Jackson, I was struck by something one of the commentators mentioned about Michael. Before Michael even starting working on his record breaking, multi-award winning album, "Thriller", the gentleman said Michael literally saw himself breaking records. He would tell everyone he was going to release the biggest album of all time months before he recorded any of the music. Michael went as far as writing the success of the album on his mirror so he would see it every morning. He would religiously repeat it to himself as he stood in the mirror. In the end, Michael completely reinvented the way music has been recorded, produced and performed forever.

The fervent reiterations of success Michael subjected himself to may be a bit much for most people; however, if we take a moment to dissect the process that Michael put himself through, we should see the most fundamental elements to the innovation process, vision and mission. Michael committed himself to his vision statement- "I am going to release the biggest album of all time", then developed a mission to help himself accomplish his goal (repeated the vision everyday, produced flawless music, etc.). Because Michael never gave himself a chance to see or think anything less then excellence he accomplished his goal. I would suspect that it was in no way an easy thing to do, but if Michael saw himself in the winners circle I'm sure he knew the sacrifices that needed to be made.

As entrepreneurs, we're faced with just three choices...fail, blend in or change the world. To accomplish that goal, it is extremely important that a clear vision and mission are distinguished. Michael gave us a perfect example of how the process should look. It's a great lesson from one of the greatest human beings to walk the earth. He will definitely be missed by all that knew him.

R.I.P Michael Jackson!

It's All About Leverage!!

2009-06-19T10:36:00.003-04:00

We came across this article in Inc. magazine today. Innovation can come from anywhere if you allow it to. The secret is learning how to spot profitable opportunities in the midst of frustrations and/or doubt. The research and development team pulled it off with flying colors. Not only did they solve their problem, they saved a ton of time and money! You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how valuable this path to innovation can and will be to your company.

Take a few moments to enjoy the article if you haven't read it yet. We're sure it will change the way you grow your business forever.

What is Real Innovation

2009-06-14T18:08:00.003-04:00

If you've read through our other posts, you'll notice the repeated use of the term "real entrepreneur". We won't get into the complete definition of what that term means to us today, but we will introduce the only matter of business entrepreneurs should worry themselves with; real innovation.

"Real" Innovation rarely happens accidentally or sporadically throughout the career of a real entrepreneur. http://www.realinnovation.com/content/what_is_innovation.asp

"Real" Innovation is accomplished consistently and systematically, given the true voice of the customer and a process for delivering solutions. Companies that innovate successfully do so using an efficient and repeatable methodology. Success is not dependent upon genius – it emerges from the disciplined application of a proven innovation methodology"

So what is a "proven" methodology? While there are quite a few methods that are generally excepted as a reliable means to real innovation; Breakthrough and Open Source innovations are among our favorites.

Breakthrough innovations occur when a product or service disrupts the current state of a market-think iPhone and Google Docs. Open Source innovations are innovations which also which disrupt the current state of the market but are derived from both internal and external sources; meaning, a company will "open" the innovation process to a group of people and draw on their input to innovate a product or service. Eli Lilly is a great example of a company utilizing an open source platform to solve complex problems involved in the innovation process.

Despite whatever your innovation method of choice might be, accomplishing "real" innovation must at a bare minimum 1) improve the life of your customer 2) have a measurable return on investment and 3) strengthens the brand(s) of the company.

Check out the slide show in our previous post to get your self started. Of course we're always available to answer your questions.

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Business Model Innovation Matters

2009-06-06T12:56:00.001-04:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation....this is a great way to get your business moving down innovation road.

ENJOY!!

Business Model Innovation Matters

View more OpenOffice presentations from Alexander Osterwalder.

Weekly...Monthly...Whatever.

2009-06-05T12:43:00.004-04:00

Those are pretty much our thoughts 0n blogging. We started this with the best intentions; we had hoped to keep fresh content flowing every week; excuse...excuse...excuse. To be honest with all of you, we're really not that into the whole blogging thing.

*Gasp* *Shock & Awe*

Before you grab your pitch forks and throwing stones consider this:

So much attention is given to the places information and social technology can take a business, we've seemed to have forgotten the power of simple one on one conversation. As we tell many of our clients, we are a business built on real relationships with real people. Once a firm understanding has been found we weave in technology as it becomes appropriate to the tasks at hand. We won't say that every business should run this way but what should be noted is that the power of a hand shake shouldn't be forgotten.

On the other hand, we need to be more responsible. We are a firm that has a lot to offer and during prime transitional times such as these, we need to be more vocal about the beautiful opportunities intelligent business strategies can bring both of us. For what it's worth, please stay tuned in.

Until next week friends....

Intelligence: The Silent Business Killer

2009-05-04T10:11:00.003-04:00

Starting and running a business is the dumbest investment one could ever make. The odds will never be in your favor; especially when customers are as fickle as teething children. How do you safeguard your investment and create the life style you entered the business for? It all starts with your ability to think intelligently about your business. If your mind is on the paycheck your business should provide, you've already failed. The reason you've failed is simply-business is the biggest ego trip you will ever encounter. To play and win its game, you have to consistently and relentlessly outsmart it.

According to Wikipedia, "intelligence is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn." You may be saying to yourself " I'm not really that intelligent. I just know how to survive" In response to that we'd ask that you stay tuned to our blog. It's possible that you're a business owner, not an entrepreneur.

So how do you use intelligence to grow success brands and extravagent business systems? That question is suprisingly easy to answer:

1. Take 3-5 hours per week to THINK and PLAN! Know your next move before the consumers.
let you know you need to.

2. Swim in Blue Oceans. http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/about/about.php

3. Develop a deep understanding of the emotional triggers that make your consumer buy. Knowing this will allow you to control your ability to generate income in any economy for one reason-demand will create the need for supply rather then supply depending on demand.

Follow these rules and you'll be an intelligent entrepreneur and/or business owner in no time.

Remember-success isn't something you become, it's something you become aware of. Don't waste it!

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So you think you need Venture Capital?

2009-04-21T00:02:00.001-04:00

You wake up at 3am with a billion dollar idea. Eyes half opened, you frantically reach fora pen to write out the details. The next morning you review your thoughts, then proceed to write a business plan. Upon completion, you are thoroughly convinced that your seven pages of pure genius will no doubt lead you to fame and riches; however, you also realize you're going to need money, and lots of it. Suddenly you remeber reading an article on venture capital. After a few brief moments of pondering all the ways your idea could get shot down, you reason to yourself that you don't actually need venture capitalists; they need you. In fact, any investor with half a brain would worship at your feet for a chance to invest in your idea. Feeling invincible, you laugh out loud while thinking of how cool it will be to see venture capitalists lining up around the block to throw money at your glorious idea.

If you're a real entrepreneur, stories like this are not as foreign as some would think. We've all had a "billion dollar idea" at some point and like the proverbial you in the story, we have all been mistaken. Venture capitalists can be very fickle people. No two will see an opportunity in the exact same way. Before you commit yourself to the idea of venture capital, ask yourself a few simple questions: Are you sure a VC will want your idea in the first place? If they do, how will you make them aware of your idea? What are their triggers for investment? We'll do our best to answer these questions for you.

What is a Venture Capitalist?

A Venture Capitalist or VC for short, is a person or investment firm that lends large sums of money to entrepreneurs with a dream. Most VC's are searching for business models (notice I didn't say systems) which have the potential for freakish growth in the short term and a management team to sustain that growth over the long term. Most VC's will want to work with a management team ( and in some cases join the board of directors) to ensure the business system will 1) return their investment 2) double, triple, quadruple their investment 3) be built correctly to make sure it sustains long term positive returns on their investment. Some venture capitalits prefer to invest in long-shot start ups, while others like late stage investments where the idea and business system has already been proven successful.

What are VC's looking for?
Venture Capitalist's invest in all kinds of products and serivices. VC's will first read the Executive Summary of your business plan to determine if your idea is worth a second look. For that reason alone, the executive summary is arguably the most important document you will ever produce if your looking to catch the attenture of a venture capitalist. When reading your Executive Summary, Venture Capitalists are looking for the three golden standards; viability, fundability and feasibility. Let us explain:

Viability: Does your idea have the capicty for survival? In other words, can your idea support the top of mind brand recognition it will need to become an absolute cash cow. Also, they want to know if your management team will have the wherewithal to consistantly push boundries and make big things happen.

Fundability: VC's are only interested in ideas that have the potential and viability to produce insane returns on their investment(s). If your idea won't hit the 50-100 million dollar mark in the first 5 years, good luck trying to get some attention. Venture Capital isn't a romance novel and a warm cup of coco by the fire. If you intend on getting in the ring with these guys, you better come with your guns, knives, and laser beams ready to action. In other words, make sure your idea can make money before you approach a VC.

Feasibility: This step is basically for checks and balances. A feasibility review, if done correctly, should measure whether or not your seperate conclusions of viablity and fundability actually make sense once you put them together.

So what is the Executive Summary?
The Excutive Summary is the first sheet after the table of contents in your business plan. A well written Executive Summary will have seven main components. These components should be written out in the following order:

1) Who/what your company is (mission statement)

2) Product/service

3) Target Market

4) Competitive Advantage

5) Goals and Objectives (your vision statement)

6) Yours and your management team qualifications

7) Finances (what will it cost you to complete and launch your idea. How will you pay for it / use their money)

If you complete an air tight Executive Summary, writing the actual business plan should be fairly easy. We would advise you to complete a full plan; especially the Marketing and Financial portions. Something you should consider, that most people overlook, is the educational backgrounds of the VC's your submitting your idea to. The purpose of this is simple-imagine you have a great pick and pack robot idea, and your VC target is a graduate of M.I.T. Wouldn't it make sense to have a stellarTechnology and Financial Plan? How about if your looking to launch a user generated social video site which specializes in short films and your target spent 25 years as a show producer at Time Warner? Wouldn't it make sense to write a bomb proof Marketing Plan? Remember, VC's are fickle people. It's usually the seemingly small and most obvious things that get overlooked, so take your time and be smart about things.

As a true entrepreneurs, we know your hunger to succeed will eventually take you exacty where you want to go. However, if you should happen to need some help along the way, Verge is here to help develop your ideas into the monsterous profit machines you've always dreamt of. Contact us whenever and however you feel comfortable-our team is ready when you are!!

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It's all "Bull" when your wallet's "Bear"

2009-04-06T11:02:00.002-04:00

The markets are showing signs of life again but for a large majority of business owners, this depression/recession has put them on the edge of extinction. We say shame on us and shame on them. Why? Because we all got scared, that's why. Some business owners are merely employees without a boss, while others are real entrepreneurs; meaning they embody the resilience, passion, and vision to reach the next level of success no matter what type of obstruction impedes their ability to make progress.

As business owners, the hardest, most stressful step you've had to make was the decision to start your business. Unfortunately for some, it was the last big step as an entrepreneur they ever took. (Please take note of the distinction made between business owners and entrepreneurs. This will be the topic of a later blog)

So at this point we don't blame for asking "what the heck are you guys getting at"? And there in lies our point. You know that annoying feeling you get when things are dragging on too long, and you just want to see some decisive action being taken....well that is exactly what was lost when most of us decided to sit and wait for the economy to make our companys profitable again.

If you think you did all you could possibly do to keep your business alive during the bear market ask yourself these simple questions:

1) What did I learn about the potential of my business?

2) Does the vision of my company match its potential?

3) Did I adjust my business plan to align with my vision and potential?

4) How much will this potential cost me? When will I achieve it?

5) Are my competitors or my industy heading in the same direction? How will I differentiate myself?

These types of questions are what real entrepreneurs are constantly challenging themselves with during periods of feast, famine, drought, flood, recession, depression, bull market, bear market, no market.

Are you a real entrepreneur?

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Verge Business Blog

New: Understanding Fear & Opportunity

This is *AWESOME* Branding!!!

Building Ideas out of Experiences

The Strategy and Experience of You

The Strategy and Experience of You

The Strategy and Experience of You

Untitled

How Exceptional Leaders Think

Wilmington 2.0: What Do We Need To Make This City Prosper Again?

Just A Little While Longer....

We're very sad to confirm a delay in our grand opening. However all is not lost! Come out for the art loop on Friday....stop by Red Mohawk (228 W. 9th St.) to meet up and take a tour of The coIN Loft across the street (300 W. 9th St.)

Coworking Debuts in Wilmington

Delaware: A Startup Ecosystem?

Marketing Isn't About Solutions

From Grief to Greatness

Don't Panic! (your brain might get stuck that way!)

At One Time DE Was A Truly Innovative Leader In The Country

Don't Let Age or Experience Shatter Your Dreams

TNT: coIN Loft brings coworking to Wilmington

Fear is Contagious...Get Out From Under the Pressure

Born Leader? Nah, But I Would Like To Think So...

2010: The Year In Review

Untitled

Independently Working Together

You Are What You Think

Innovation Presentation

Why Coworking? ..... Why DE? ..... Why Now?

Someone Is Telling A Fib!

Coworking Is Reinventing Freedom

Where has Creativity Gone....Kids Stand Up

Agile Disruption Method II

The Hypocrisy of Ideas

The coIN What?

Why Execution Matters

The Misconceptions of Success

The Wisdom of Crowds

2010 Web Strategy

The Use Economy

It's not about the content either

Checklist

What to do?

Where to do it?

First time experience:

The bigger picture:

Things not to do:

Going Viral?

New Thoughts on Our Process.....Agile Disruption Method Sounds Good

Can Anyone Become a Leader?

Coworking Wilmington

Business Plans Don't Work....Right?

Let's Have CIP Every Day!!

Community Innovation Website

Community Innovation Project

Very Cool Microsoft Surface

Vision + Mission = Change The World

It's All About Leverage!!

What is Real Innovation

Business Model Innovation Matters

Weekly...Monthly...Whatever.

Intelligence: The Silent Business Killer

So you think you need Venture Capital?

It's all "Bull" when your wallet's "Bear"

This is AWESOME Branding!!!