Julie Meyer, co-founder and chief marketing officer of First
Tuesday, has probably advised more dotcom hopefuls than any other
person in the UK. Here, she shares her views of what makes an
e-commerce project successful
The exuberance of the last year got us to a point where a lot of
Internet companies were funded on half-baked business plans. A lot
of them then failed and it is a very steep curve getting funding
now. Good people who have really thought through their business
plan might get funding, but it will be rare to get venture capital
investment now.
It is back to the old days of having to prove yourself. You have
to build a solid business plan, from having an operational plan to
what milestones you need to achieve to stay on track. Investors
will look for weaknesses, so every entrepreneur needs to stack the
deck in their favour.
De-risk the business for investors or they will just move onto
the next guy. You need to look at the worst-case scenario and
ensure that it is still a feasible plan.
Experience counts and you have to have people who have worked on
a start-up before and have been successful - or if they weren't
successful, can explain why. Having finance people onboard is
crucial. If you don't know anything about finance, hire someone who
does.
You can't be everyone, so get people who complement you. There
are agencies that outsource experience. I use an agency called
Finance Professionals (www. financeprofessionals.com). A lot of
people use First Tuesday for networking, there are also marketing
organisations such as Agency.com.
With marketing, you need to make sure people are communicating
the right vision. It is not mass PR, but really knowing what is
going on. There are also people who specialise in the business of
finding people with specialist skill sets.
In the dotcom world, you have to be persistent in finding
people, which means networking like crazy. There are lots of
different networking events, so go to where these people hang out.
Go to one, and you will hear about others.
It is important to build up contacts in this game by being
interested in what other people are doing. Lots of people go to
networking events and just talk about themselves. Instead of doing
that, try to figure out what is driving other people's business.
Offer connections whenever you can, because the more you give, the
more you get. You can't be sitting in your back room building a
business. It is a sociable job. Be open and willing and prepared to
be shot down. You have to be ready for someone to say it can't be
done. Even if you would rather not hear it, feedback is good.
Business is all about flexibility and fine-tuning in the real
world and being able to respond and act quickly. However, you do
have to be persistent and actively create your own destiny.
Don't be afraid of hard work, because setting up an online
business is time-consuming and not at all glamorous. You go to
sleep thinking about it, dream about it and wake up still thinking
about it. If you knew how tough it would be, you would take the
safe job, because your lifestyle will be tested and your personal
life will wither away. You have to be prepared for that, yet so
many people think it will be given to them easy.
You need to believe that you will find the answers to questions
- yours and other people's. Also, at the early stages, everyone
wants to be a founder or a partner. But not everyone can be. A lot
of dotcom people are operating two levels above what they really
are and then how do you hire someone above them?
If you already have a chief marketing officer, you can't have a
chief chief marketing officer. It is important to give people
incentives like options-based assurance.