A Mother’s Company: The Mother Company
You’d think by now I’d be fully BlogHer’d out. I’ve got my rather tattered sparkle skirt from last year, some party pictures from years past. I have stories of bedbugs, memorable stories of late nights, and other stories I wish were not stories from others.
By now most of us know the brands, the drill, the insider’s club scramble, and the indelible thought of otherwise very classy women with bags on their heads at CheeseburgHer. By now we know that P&G does a huge ditty and that Jimmy Dean has the dancing sun man (they couldn’t possibly pay him enough to do that). We’ve done the booths with milk mustaches and supported one-another’s sponsored companies.
By now we know that last year’s HerBadMother’s fight for Tanner was an emotional moment in time for all of us, and this year, there will be a line of women waiting to donate blood in honor of The Queen of Spain. Underneath the hum of the excitement this weekend Susan is on all of our minds. At the end of the day, we’re women and we’ve got some badass compassion under all those Skinny Bitch margaritas.
You’d think by now I’d be completely done with hangovers and high heels, how-to’s for pros and breakout sessions.
But yeah, I’m not. Because of The Mother Company.
A childhood friend of mine is the founder of The Mother Company, a parent-centric, child-focused company that aims to embrace the social and emotional development of kids.
This is little Abbie, for goodness sake! This is the kid I played soccer with and took ski trips with and played dolls with. (Wait, I don’t think either of us played dolls.) This woman and her team that are making a serious run for becoming the next Mr. Rogers. I think they just might do it.
So I swore off BlogHer until Abbie asked me to come and support her for BlogHer11. And then I packed-up and headed down here to San Diego.
I realized that BlogHer is about companies like this: built by mothers, funded by mothers, produced by mothers. I believe completely in my friend and her mother-driven company. I’m here at because I know what kind of people are behind The Mother Company and I know the products to be full of soul, tackling issues and lifestyles on an intimate, but digestible level.
So I’m here. No parties or hoopla this year. No business card swapping. No sponsors to be touting. And it feels good. I’m here to be a friend. I’m here to support and make introductions here and there. But mostly I’m here to watch a female entrepreneur make a run for the big league.
If you’re at #Blogher11, you can find The Mother Company all the way in the back on the left under the big “600″ sign. Their booth looks like a comfy livingroom. They’re serving ice moca lattes and showing clips from their latest production. They’ve got a limited amount of DVDs to hand out too.
Between the chaos and giveaways and pitches at BlogHer, you’ll find these women to be real and ready to talk about the business of emotional learning for kids. You’ll find me there too, because BlogHer, at it’s core is about relationships. This one was worth being here for.
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SCRUM for Startups
I learned about SCRUM last year when @la_gringa moved to a SCRUM model with her engineering team and got excited about the simplicity, the huddle-up approach and the ability to be successful in small chunks, working up to a large chunk of success. And although it applies mostly to agile development systems and theories, the same application can be applied to startups.
I’ve had a killer engineer walk out on me after I was (correctly) accused of changing directions for the umpteenth time. I’ve watched exhaustion hit teams of awesome folks after scrambling toward Beta. I’ve pushed things in and out of priority in fear of exceeding my monthly burn rate. I’ve seen frustation from product owners and developers who are kept from using emerging technologies because previous decisions have already determined the course. SCRUM helps curb eager entrepreneurs and keep focus.
The concept of SCRUM works for startups because, we simply can’t afford to do anything else. Streamlined communication, quick huddles, sprints and backlogs work for us marketeers and entrepreneurs too.
1. Ownership. As startup minds, we tend to own a lot of pieces of a project. Letting ownership creep into other vital parts of the business (say, um, sales), slows down the process and keeps the owners from having command and control over their domains. The next time you, the entrepreneur, thinks your hand belongs in every piece of the pie, remember: you are not the owner of ever piece of the process and meddling in someone else’s sandbox can extend the production process and cause development lags. So hand it over, honey, and let the project owners own. If you can’t do it, be your own SCRUM master and whip yourself a few lashes.
2. Define your SCRUM team. Cross-function is key for us. We’re startups, afterall. But not every function crosses over at the same time or on the same sprint. Assemble the teams, assign the backlog and sprint like hell. Rinse and repeat. This means that each piece of a solution is represented by the person who can accomplish the sprint’s task for their specialty. I bet you’ll put yourself at the tippy top of each of those. When that happens, remember that you and you alone do not a SCRUM team make.
3. Sprint and sweat. I remember one of our first clients who wanted to be able to play with his prototype as we went along. Crazy! How could we have one whole chunk of the process finished enough for him to tap around on?! Sprints make a lot of sense for startups. The end-product (and the audience it serves) is a moving target. Competition, client needs and learnings all keep things fluid. Overall the product is moving in a forward direction. In a sprint, you bust ass on one thing with no interruptions or changes for about two weeks. Then you huddle-up and check-in. A sprint gets one.thing.done.completely. Put a few sprints together and you’ve got yourself a product.
4. Burndown, not burnout. A great VC told me to put a stake in the ground and move forward from it. The burndown chart is a visual way to track what is left to do during a sprint (and during a full backlog cycle). As a marketer I like the burndown chart because it shows us where we’ve come from and what we’ve got left to do. It puts all of us team members, team leaders and product owners on the same page. We know what we’ve done (YAY us!) and what’s left to do (time to bust-a-move).
5. The Daily Bread. SCRUM meetings are an ADD’d out, caffeine-deficient person’s heaven. A daily 15-minute meeting with three questions for each person: (a) What have you done since yesterday? (b) What will you do today? (c) Is there anything standing in your way today? I love this method. For entrepreneurs, we have a truckload of things to do in a day. Are you kidding me? But apply a daily SCRUM approach to your day, to your team and create an environment where everyone is on the same page. When you’re head-down in building at the speed of light, it feels good to know where everyone else stands.
Applying SCRUM to a startup environment creates a sense of ownership, but not dictatorship. It protects the process (the sprint process and the greater product). SCRUM determines the collective path and knocks back daunting tasks by breaking it down into chunks of successful sprints. It shows you where you’ve come from as a startup, as a series of smaller teams and as a lean response team. We don’t code in a box. We don’t sell in a bubble. We don’t market in a funnel. We huddle, we call the play and we play it.
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No Princess Fights Alone
I have a wall in my bedroom. It’s my faith. It’s got everything from Buddhas to paintings, wood crosses to African face art. On my wall hangs my grandmother’s crucifix that she wore most of my lifetime, and, until the end of hers. On my wall is my great grandmother’s rosary I have carried around the world, and during the birth of my children. There is a mobile by a New York street artist that twirls different words like, “Believe”, “Compassion”, “Sincerity.” On my wall is a little tiny note card from La Gringa that says, “I Love You.” In the center there is a mirror to remind me to also believe in myself.
At night I fall asleep looking at my wall, reminded of all the blessings around me. Call it what you will — divine or not, religious or not, complex faith or simple blind gut instinct. My wall is my faith and running is my church. And right now, my wall is for Susan.
The past few days, my wall has been pounded on with thoughts — I’ve hit every single deity and then some, praying for a woman I do not know well and have only met twice. Her princess army is strong, her fight is extraordinary and unfair and hateful. She is very sick.
In the midst of job interviewing, offers and decisions, I find myself thinking of Susan every day. So many times a day. I think of how brave she is, what a mother-fricker cancer is. I think of my children and I hold them closer just thinking about her. I want to do something — anything, anything any thing. And there is nothing to do, but stare at my wall this week, and beg the treasures that calm me to sleep every night, to send the same peace to her.
NO PRINCESS FIGHTS ALONE.
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Happy Birthday, Angels
My beautiful twin superheroes turn 8 today. You are the greatest humans I have ever known. I love you.
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“What’s Your Ideal Job?” and Other Recruiter Questions
As most of you know by now, my company Threxy has closed. After six extraordinary years, I’ve decided to go in-house again. Why? Because I miss collaboration, I miss the startup feeling, the long-vision roadmaps. I miss the ability to see a project through instead of just advising others how to. I’ve been the Annie Oakley of outsourced marketing long enough and I can’t wait to begin working with a team again.
In the past few days, I’ve spoken with some fantastic companies and, as you’ve probably experienced yourself, I’ve been asked the same battery of questions by almost every person I’ve spoken with. What do you say we make it easier on all of us? I’ll just go ahead and answer the questions now… then we can move onto the fun stuff like experience and interest and cool technology.
To the recruiters who are seeing my blog for the first time (welcome and, um, happy-ish reading), this, like most of my writing, is just plain silliness.
Q: What is your ideal job?
A: Well, I could be snarky and say, “Not having one,” but that’s not true at all. I love to work on projects I can wrap myself around. My ideal job today would be a VP Marketing role in a smaller size company that is building out or rebuilding their marketing initiatives. My ideal job would involve working with smack-down-smart brainypants, because, well, that’s what I call fun. I’d throw in a tasty product that is actually exciting to market and one that could benefit from my experience. I’d like to learn from my colleagues. Mama always says, “Learn and teach, learn and teach to keep the balance of work just right.”
Q: What is Threxy? It sounds a little dirty.
A: Threxy is not an adult business, although I’ve made sales programs for enough of them to know more than I should about it. Threxy stands for “Three Ex-Yahoos!” and it’s a company we started in 2005 with three ex-Yahoos (product, engineering and me, the marketer). We had a product idea that we incubated and took through the funding stage. A killer VC told me to scrap it, take the assets and create something new. He was right. From the bones of FamilyRoutes came a six-year business that built online products, developed product and marketing strategies and knocked back about $1 million in revenue. Not bad for a true cottage (like, really, in.my.cottage) startup.
Q: What are your salary requirements?
A: Now, really. Etiquette says to never talk about money, sex or politics and we’ve already covered two of the three. My consulting rate is about $150/hour. That would be over $300,000 per year if I applied the same metrics to a 40-hour work week. I’m not asking for that much, not even in the same ballpark. So there you go.
Q: What makes you a good fit for this role?
A: See, this is a trick question. No one is the perfect fit. It doesn’t happen. It’s about having the right skills to apply to the right company, at the right time, with the right team. Stars have to align — that or a great recruiter. Which is why I’m on this call anyway. So tell me, what makes me a good fit for this role?
Okay, maybe not the way to answer that one. I know people apply to hundreds of jobs online. I’ve known friends and colleagues who click Apply to every job with their keyword search results. That’s not my approach. I’m looking for a company to call home, a place to sink my brain into, and a place to enjoy watching a company grow and develop. I’m only applying to companies where I think I’m a good fit. That said, I’ve had two calls already where the job description and the job offered were different things. Thank goodness for great recruiters who can navigate it with me.
Q: So you graduated from Syracuse University in 1992?
A: <<Crickets>>. Most people don’t know that I didn’t ever receive a degree. I left Syracuse University in 1992 with a good education and a lot of life lessons, but no, I did not graduate, despite my genius IQ. Did I just say that out loud?
Q: Are you willing to relocate?
A: Nope. San Jose to San Francisco is about the max I’m willing to shift. I have too good of a life to consider anything else.
Q: Do you do SM, SEO/SEM, CRM, UGC, SCRUM or PCP?
A: Yes, I have been doing social media since before SM was a catchphrase and I’ll be doing it long after it is called by another name. Social media to me = customer engagement where customers are. SEO/SEM are in my planning and management suite but not my day-to-day job. There are people a lot more skilled than I at executing on SEO/SEM. CRM is old fashioned lead generation and customer retention. So yes, I’m a marketer to customers and CRM is about customers. I earned my chops building, monetizing and growing UGC. I’d consider myself well versed. I know the SCRUM philosophy because two of my clients are using it and because I try to follow what product and engineering are doing. After all, the whole reason you have a company is for the product, right? PCP, nah, but thanks.
Q: Tell us something unique about you so that your resume will stand out!
Are you telling me my resume doesn’t stand out? Okay, fine. Here you go: I once spent five minutes alone with Michael Jackson. There you go. Does my resume stand out now?
Q: It must be hard closing your company and going in house.
A: Not really. I’ve been looking forward to it for a year. This step was planned and I’m literally thrilled and like a kid waiting to open birthday presents over finding just the right company to work for. I am very proud of the company I built, but I’m also proud to say that phase of my career has finished and I’m onto this next one.
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Home
I look at the clock and see that it’s 9:04 a.m. — if I don’t throw on a skirt and head into the house, I’ll miss the warm coffee and fresh jugo de naranja, chorizo and Manchego cheese. I stumble outside my door and the hills of rural Granada greet me with their greens and browns and golds. I am home.
I glance at the clock 12:04 a.m. — cleaning up the dishes from dinner tonight. I’m not at El Amparo. In Granada breakfast is being served. I’m not in Granada. I’m am home.
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Side Gigs
