A Fly On The Call

It's a weird feeling to pitch an idea and everyone in the room agrees with every part of the idea. No pushback. No brainstorming. No trying to beat the idea little. It sounds like a dream, but it rarely brings the best results. You need to find someone who is willing to pushback -- at least sometimes.

We talk about that and more. 

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The sun is out in Atlanta and Monique and Adam are feeling good. Join us we talk about the not too distant future of in-person innovation and more. 

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Those who need to keep their full-time job while starting something else often get pushed to the side as not serious. That's not always the case. We discuss some of the ins and outs and what have yous of side hustles. We end the podcast talking about the work ethic needed to sell water in Atlanta in August.

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Can a startup exist inside of a large corporation? What are the levels of being acquired? These questions and more are discussed in this episode.

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The podcast starts with BREAKING NEWS! Congrats to the Eletype team on the acquisition. Then we go deep into talking about environmental startups and making changes by doing the little things. 

We talk conversational marketing, when and how to use the fancy acronyms that drive the business world, and our kids first email campaigns.

That and more, on this episode.

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Adam recorded a Q&A with Jason Fried of Basecamp for the ATDC YouTube channel last week. On our podcast last week we talked a little about that conversation. Today, we're sharing the audio of the podcast.

You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/uLxtf11RTe0

And stay tuned to regularly scheduled programming next week.

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Inspired by an interview Adam did with Jason Fried of Basecamp ( https://youtu.be/uLxtf11RTe0 ) we talk about marketing without metrics and when and how you can do that. After that, we discuss our own problems with perfectionism, procrastination, and imposter syndrome. 

That and more, on this episode.

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Monique does a good job of breaking down the numbers of what it looks like to own a franchise, run a self-storage facility, and help large corporations get patents. Any of these jobs and more might be what you want to do, but it is helpful to understand the work and reward from each. We do that on this episode.

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We're back! We start our episode talking puppies and eventually get into startup talk. Monique and Adam debate the future of Silicon Valley and the future of the VC world in general. 

That and more on this episode.

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We talk about customer discovery, some of the ideas in Alberto Savoia book The Right It: Why So Many Ideas Fail and How to Make Sure Yours Succeed, and why it's okay not to start a venture-backed product company.

That and more on this episode.

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Maybe we should have called this podcast, "Now How Did We Get Here?". We go down some different paths on this one. We talked about the business and governmental models for China to the early 2000's blogging culture to the price of coffee at a gas station. 

It's a winding road of a podcast, but not too long.

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Can you create a successful MarTech startup without using tracking technology? We don't know. But we talk about that and the difficulty of selling on metrics besides price and ROI.

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The fun of these calls is the topics diverge from startups pretty often. This week, we talk about the importance of having diverse group of people in the room when making the decision. Then we talk about Monique's past work at Roosevelt's Little White House at Warm Springs. (https://gastateparks.org/LittleWhiteHouse/)

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If you're a startup with a sales path of selling into government things are going be hard. We talk about that from a local and national level before we head down the path of using virtual assistants.  Monique makes a strong case that the virtual assistant of 2020 is a powerful tool and the people doing this are changing the perception of what an assistant is. 

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We let the whole record roll on this podcast as we talk about family, technology for helping families, books, and a possible A Fly On The Call bookclub.

Enjoy the longer than normal episode. 

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For years, folks would tell me, "it's so cool that you run your own company. You get to work when you want to." My answer was always, "yeah, that's great if you want to be working all the time." In this episode, we talk a little bit about the hustle of very early-stage entrepreneurs and a lot about how being smart about the advice and advisors you work with when you're starting a company.

PS: Sorry for the sub-par mic situation. We'll be better next episode.

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If you're tracking trends on what we like to talk about, growing and building company culture in modern times seems to be high on the list. Part of the reason that is, is because it's a true competitive advantage and it's changing a lot in post-COVID world. 

And so, we discuss Spotify culture versus Joe Rogan (and podcasting in general) among other company culture touchstones on this episode. 

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We dig a little deep on this as we talk about race, gender, and age all play a role in your first impressions with potential business partners and investors. We discuss some of the differences in early conversations and how to recognize some of the shortcuts folks are taking when they are first talking with you and what you can do to make those shortcuts work to your advantage. 

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We talk a lot about how a company can encourage individuals to build a social strategy while not making them mouthpieces for the company and then go down a bit a rabbit hole on what the future of companies and work.

It's an interesting one.

In this episode, we talk mostly about the icky practice of engagement pods and then we talk a little about the old school nature of some social media practices and how you can't scale everything.

What happens when a company you're coaching is thinking about shutting down? How much of should you try to coach them up and get them going again? It's not always easy either way, but we talk about that for a while on this call.

You really do get to be a fly on the call as we talk about a potential new company to the ATDC portfolio. We talk about what we like about the company and some of the struggles we might see going forward. As always, the name of the company is not mentioned to protect the innocent :)

After that, we talk about the business of a college education in 2020. Is it worth the money? Should you drop out to start a startup? We don't know the answers, but we talk about some of that stuff all the same. 

We start off talking about juggling babies and jobs (but not about juggling babies) and then we dive into managing your early set of hires and end by discussing how it's difficult to fire an intern you're not paying. 

It's a fun, honest, and random episode. 

It's okay to be proud of what you do. On this week's podcast, we talk about that novel idea and other ways you can be humble, but a successful entrepreneur.

This week Monique and Adam talk mostly about the pitfalls of comparing your entrepreneurial story to others. You don't know what everyone has in their secret stack so it's not worth comparing their business or life to yours.

Music by Yung Kartz