People don't easily recognize the value of human capital. Some even ask what it is. Human capital is the expertise and connections every person can bring to the table. For entrepreneurs, that can be in the form of advisors, mentors, connectors-members of the community who can help you advance your business.
One very stark example of human capital sourced from our network came to entrepreneur Joan Fallon, founder and CEO of Curemark, a company with a treatment for autism. Joan had developed a rather unorthodox method of treating the symptoms of autism using a digestible product. The problem was that Joan, a pediatric chiropractor, didn't have the right credentials or the research background to get the product through the labyrinth of the FDA.
In stepped one of Springboard's alums, board member Lauren Flanagan, who brought in Stacy Grant, an investment advisor at Morgan Stanley in San Francisco. Stacy introduced Joan to a client of hers who had fast-tracked drugs through the FDA process. The result was that Curemark was able to get its drug through the FDA in three short years, practically unheard of. How did they do it? They combined it with another product that had already received FDA approval. That's human capital at work, providing remarkable results. The success of this process has led to continuous financial infusion into Curemark.
In a number of articles in Chapter Three, "The Value of Human Capital," you can learn how different entrepreneurs have utilized the value others bring to the table. I talk about finding the right mentor. Jules Pieri offers sage advice in "How to Get the Most out of Your Advisors." The important connection between academia and innovation is promoted in "Brainiacs for Your Business" by Sharon Flank, who shows how human capital can be turned into business opportunities.
I learned the real value of mining the customer's human values from a former business partner, Blake Mycoskie, the founder and CEO of Toms. He started with a simple idea of giving away one pair of shoes to children in need for every pair bought. The message appealed to customers of stores as widely ranging as Nordstrom's and Harry's Shoes, a local store on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The business generates more than $500 million in sales today. Lynley Sides, in "How to Make Social Responsibility Work for Your Company," explains how social responsibility and the human connection can work for your company.
Remember, human capital leads to financial capital. Mine your human capital connections before you need financial capital-you'll be glad you did.
How Do I Find the Right Mentor?
Kay Koplovitz
The right mentor will be one of the most valuable resources you'll have in your whole career.
One of the most frequent questions I get from women in corporate positions and from entrepreneurs alike is how to find the right mentor. We have seen a rise of discussion about mentorship in business circles of all kinds in recent years. Yet it seems that finding the right one is still challenging to many.
It's easy to understand why. Not all people with experience necessarily make good mentors. It takes a certain emotional intelligence (EQ) to be a valuable mentor. Conversely, all people seeking mentors do not often know what they hope to gain from a mentor.
Let's start with what I would consider the most important factor in establishing a productive mentor/mentee connection. First, one has to establish a relationship. This should be someone you admire in your company or in your industry with whom you already have some communication and familiarity. If you don't have that, it is important to look for ways to bridge the gap. You can do this by offering up your assistance on a project, a task force or industry-wide initiative, or by participating in a common interest, for example on a health issue, a hobby or a community event. There are numerous ways to get to know people and one has to use imagination in order to make those connections.
Once a relationship is established, think through what it is you are seeking from a mentor. Remember, people in a position to give you guidance are likely to be very busy. Therefore, they will be making a decision as to whether or not they want to spend their time helping you. You will advance your request if you make clear what it is you are seeking advice about. Rather than being vague and general in making a request of someone, if you are clear about the advice you are seeking, you have a much better chance of getting a positive reply.
Once a mentor is secured, be very mindful of using your mentor's time wisely. You might find that there are ways to exchange values, providing the mentor with information on something of interest to them. Creating this two-way street is the best way to develop a long-term relationship. It will provide the best opportunity to turn a mentor into a sponsor, someone who has an interest in seeing you advance your career.
KAY'S TAKEAWAYS:
Identify people in the industry you admire.
Be ready to offer service in exchange for mentorship.
Read up on regulations in the industry.
How to Get the Most out of Your Advisors
Jules Pieri
It took ages to convince the right people to sit on your advisory board. So why aren't they helping?
As a CEO, you sign a high-pressure contract with your customers, investors and employees to solemnly swear to be faster, better, smarter than the next guy or gal. Unless you possess superpowers, it's impossible. You can't do this all on your own.
So imagine your company as a bunch of auto parts. As CEO, you hope to soon be at the wheel of a lean, mean driving machine. You don't personally need to know how to assemble the seats, the engine and the tires. But you do need to find people who can put the parts together so you can get on the road, fast. This is where advisors come in handy.
Here are three rules for putting together an advisory board that will get-and keep-you in gear:
Keep the load light. Keep the number of active advisors in your company between three and six. Why? It's basic human psychology. Did you ever get an email asking for help, and then notice it that it was sent to fifteen people? Most people don't respond to such things, because they assume that one of the other fourteen people answered. The same is true of advisors. They need to feel needed before they'll extend themselves.
Don't be afraid to drop advisors along the way. The skills you need from your advisors in the first years of your company will be radically different than what you need later on. Veteran advisors understand this. Manage expectations by using a formal agreement with equity compensation reviewed annually. Specify the expected time commitment and grant equity that assumes a year's involvement. In an early-stage company, one year's involvement will be worth somewhere between one-quarter and 1 percent of the equity in the company.
Do a lot of test-driving before putting people on the road with you. What can seem like a burning need right now might be a distant memory six months later. Conversely, an advisor can be extremely enthusiastic for two months and then fade away, thanks to other demands and pressures in their life. You are looking for advisors who can consistently and quickly answer your calls, and who have enough depth and coverage to merit a seat in the car.
In addition to forming a great advisory board, consider joining a community of peer advisors. You'll get immediate help, you may find candidates for your advisory board, and you'll practice the art of giving and taking advice, which will benefit you in multiple ways.
To find great peers, I've had good luck with the Creative Good Councils, a peer network of digital executives across a wide range of industries and geographies. They've announced a free membership for qualified candidates. I've been a member for several years and it's been very helpful. Because there is careful vetting of applications to ensure that only senior-level talent is admitted, the quality of participants is high.
Just as driving from coast to coast is an intense and exhilarating process, with unexpected weather, boring interludes and breathtaking scenery, so goes the journey of building a business. You wouldn't invite just anyone along on that road trip, but it sure would be lonely doing it alone. Find some trusted advisors to take along for the ride.
KAY'S TAKEAWAYS:
Leaders of companies need a sounding board of advisors who have diverse talents to help them "steer the ship."
Keep the number of advisors just right (three to six) and formalize agreements about their pay or equity and what the time commitment you require in return. Create one-year term agreements and review annually so you can rotate the advisor to suit your changing needs or end the agreement if it's not working out.
Join a peer group of advisors with which you can practice giving and taking advice.
Brainiacs for Your Business
Sharon Flank
Our company is stocked with scientists, but we still can't solve every technical challenge ourselves. Enter the scientific advisory board.
My company, InfraTrac, is science central. And we still can't possibly overcome every technical challenge we're faced with all on our own. The answer? A scientific advisory board. Scientific advisors aren't easy to recruit, but they add invaluable brainpower to your company. Getting them on board is an art as well as a science.
Using instruments small enough to fit in a smartphone, we use light to analyze the components of drugs, allowing us to detect counterfeits. While we were in the development phase, our challenge was to learn about portability technologies and then turn that knowledge into marketable applications in multiple industries. We knew that melding the applications and the science would require some serious expertise, so we sought out the smartest people we could find and started peppering them with questions. Then we asked the best contributors to join a scientific advisory board. Here's what we learned in the process of getting them to sign on.
Before you think about putting together a compensation package, you need to realize that most of the people who will make great scientific advisors are not businesspeople. Their priorities and values may not be the same as yours. Money is generally not a key motivator. We found that it was worth asking them the big questions: What is important to you? Do you want to get rich? Do you want to keep your day job? Do you want us to provide opportunities for your students? It is not likely that a professor will give up tenure to join your company. That's partly because of the job security. It's also partly because professors get to choose their research topics, and employees don't.
What, then, do scientists and academics tend to value?
Publication, especially academic articles that further their careers. You can help by providing questions and data worth studying and even by helping to write the article and getting it submitted to a journal. Promoting your advisors as conference speakers, even at poster sessions, is a good way to raise their visibility-and yours. Presenters often attend conferences for free, which is a good thing for your budget. Their presence also attracts other experts, which can be a great recruitment strategy.
Patents. In a perfect world, the advisors would come up with the ideas, and all you'd have to do is pay the lawyers.
Ideas. Put the smart people together, by email if necessary, give them a hard problem to gnaw on, and let them learn from other members of your advisory board. This is the fun part-a frolic in the park for an active mind. Do the prep work: Make sure everyone knows the existing state of the art, including recent patent filings, so you don't waste time reinventing the wheel.
Influence. Academics' ivory-tower ideas don't always make real things happen. You can help fix this problem, which can be extremely rewarding. An advisor may have an advanced technology in search of practical applications and real-world tests. You can provide those applications and tests, then flip this back into a scholarly paper of the type: "Use of [Academic Technique] to [Solve Your Real-World Problem]." These serve a dual purpose: The advisors get a publication, and show that they are doing something important. You get a white paper that serves as validation.
Bragging rights. You can sometimes make your advisors happy just by showcasing them on your website, in your blog, and even in a press release. The press release works particularly well for retired experts: They can hardly issue a release about themselves, but it shows they are doing active, exciting things that matter.
Equity. You are going to make it big, and your advisors deserve to share in your success. Some of this is about long-term financial rewards, of course, but there are bragging rights to consider, too: They were smart enough to see the wisdom of your vision.
As one of our advisors put it, "You can't afford to pay me what I'm worth-and anyway, this is what I do for fun." What fun: Our advisors have given us hundreds of hours of free labor, multiple patents and credibility.
KAY'S TAKEAWAYS:
To attract scientists to your advisory board, offer them something of value in exchange for their expertise.
Ideas for what you can offer: Publication, patents, equity, bragging rights.
Three Ways to Expand Your Future
Denise Brosseau
By connecting with people who face hurdles similar to yours, you can vastly expand the possibilities for your own future.
Books about innovation fascinate me, because they help me understand how people come up with new, world-changing ideas. At the top of my pile is Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From. In it, he talks about the "adjacent possible"-a sort of shadow future that is just at the edge of today's present and offers immense potential.
Think of it like this: You are standing in a room with four doors. You open and walk through each door, and on the other side is another room with three more doors. As you open door after door, entering room after room, you will soon find yourself in a room that you did not have access to from the room where you started.
That's your adjacent possible. You can't see it today. You can't get to it today, at least not directly. But you can get there. The reward for doing so is access, not only to a wealth of new ideas, resources, expertise and opportunities you would have never known were available, but also to a world of people who are eager to learn from your experiences and teach you about things you know nothing about.
The most successful executives and entrepreneurs I know understand this model. So when I work with my clients, I push them to think about and explore how they can open lots of doors and tap into their adjacent possible as often and as broadly as they can.
How can you do that? Here are three steps everyone can take:
Begin by convening and collaborating with those people within your own organization who are tackling other parts of the same challenge that you are. Identify like-minded individuals and invite them to lunch or organize a call to explore the idea of knowledge-sharing on a regular basis.
Build your personal network by identifying others outside your company who share the same job title as yours or who are facing a similar next hurdle in their company or their career progression. LinkedIn is a great tool for this. Ask for a call, meeting, or get-together at an upcoming trade show or industry event. Build a connection and agree to collaborate or share ideas whenever possible.
If you are tackling a big challenge (clean water, global poverty, technological advancement), convene those in your industry, including those at competitive organizations. Set a simple agenda of sharing what your organization is learning and ask others to do the same. This sort of co-opetition model will help everyone expand their adjacent possible and create a more robust set of solutions for the entire industry.
No matter what issue, challenge, project or initiative you are working on, you are not alone. There are always others in your wider ecosystem if you begin to open the door to those possibilities. But you need to open the first door.
What will you do this year to connect with those in your ecosystem and broaden your own adjacent possible?
KAY'S TAKEAWAYS:
Your "adjacent possible" future is something you can't see today. You can't even get there today, but you can get there. This is where innovation lives. Learn how to open the doors to this future.
Regularly exchange knowledge with people in your organization, industry peers and-if it's a big enough idea-competitive organizations so that everyone can expand their adjacent possible.
Cast a wide net into your ecosystem and begin to open the doors that will eventually lead you to the adjacent possible future you are creating.
How to Make Social Responsibility Work for Your Company
Lynley Sides
As customer attitudes change, "giving back" is no longer an option. It's a necessity. Here's how to make it good business, too.
When I was on my first start-up, social responsibility was still the concern of a small tree-hugging minority. But today phrases such as "profits with purpose" and "conscious capitalism" are topping prediction and trend lists.
Most executives are aware of global social issues and want to make a difference. Here's why that's harder than it sounds:
Expectations for businesses to operate responsibly are at their highest point in history.
Public satisfaction with the social impact of Corporate America is lower than ever.
In tough times, doing good becomes unsustainable if it doesn't support the bottom line.
So how can your growing company do good in ways that are also good for business? Here's how to start:
1. Tie your brand to your social mission as early as possible.
Start now. Create a brand that makes people feel good about affiliating with it.
Cause-conscious consumers and employees see themselves as investing in you, not just exchanging money for products or time for a paycheck.
The value your customers attribute to your products extends beyond tangible factors like function, durability and quantity.
If buying your product makes customers feel good and enhances their identity, you'll be able to command a price that includes that value. You'll also set the bar higher for your competitors.
Growing companies across all industries, such as Method, Annie's Homegrown, YesTo, Toms Shoes and Warby Parker, are setting new standards for sustainable operations, corporate giving and smart branding. In doing so, they're forcing big-brand competitors to spend time and money rethinking their value propositions and marketing strategies.
In a great example of corporate conversion, Hershey's recently committed to sourcing only certified cocoa for one of its product lines. Yes, it took months of pressure and a lot of negative PR, but Hershey's is now benefiting from the switch. In a sense, they didn't have much choice: Smaller fair trade chocolate companies like sweetriot present alternatives that feel better to consumers and can make tangible dents in the big brands' numbers.
2. Spread the word.
There are lots of ways to give back. You can:
Operate sustainably.
Treat people well.
Make environmentally friendly products.
Give to worthy causes.
No matter how you integrate social responsibility into your business, it's important that you let people know right away. The earlier you communicate social responsibility as an important part of your value proposition, the better job they will do at differentiating your company, and the more value you will build as a result. If you put off being a good citizen until you think you can afford it, your customers will have already formed beliefs about your brand. Changing those perceptions is difficult and expensive.
3. Make your customers your partners.
Perhaps the easiest way for most growing companies to be socially responsible is through giving. And if it's done right, giving can do more than help good causes and create goodwill. It can drive real value for your business.
Consumers are nearly twice as likely to buy or recommend a product if it's affiliated with a cause they care about.
Simply writing a check to a charity and advertising that you did it doesn't engage consumers or inspire them to tell anyone about it.
If a company's giving isn't integrated with business activities, it doesn't directly boost the bottom line.
To create more value for their brands, Coke, Project RED and Starbucks have built interactive web experiences around their giving, working with their customers to make a positive impact. Pepsi and Chase let customers vote on the companies' corporate giving, engaging them socially. Why not take it one leap forward? Drive greater business value by allowing consumers to choose where the cause dollars go and then directly drive purchases as a part of the process. Today's consumers expect to be empowered and engaged socially. And when they're empowered and engaged by your brand, they will purchase and become advocates for it, sending their friends and colleagues to buy from you too.
That's a win for social good and a win for your business.
KAY'S TAKEAWAYS:
Tie your company to social mission as early as possible.
Giving back makes good business sense. However, it can prove difficult to maintain long term while trying to make a profit.
Social mission must be embedded in all corporate messaging.
Engage your customers in the mission.
Since giving back is the new norm, have your company connected to a social mission from the start, so your customers and employees will feel good about their relationship to your brand.
Connecting the consumer and employees to a cause creates a strong emotional bond, which will keep them engaged with your products and sharing with their friends.
Stiletto Network: The Emerging Power of Women's Human Capital
Kay Koplovitz
Women are changing the rules of the game in business and creating powerful new networks.
You can really capture the emerging power being wielded by women using their human capital networks in the world of business and power in Pamela Ryckman's book, Stiletto Network: Inside the Women's Power Circles That Are Changing the Face of Business. It came "on the heels" (pun intended) of two other powerful books that came out in spring 2013, Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg and The Athena Doctrine by John Gerzema and Michael D'Antonio. Each of them captures the changing world of women, business and power from different perspectives. But if you want to know how this is being done, Stiletto Network is the one that can inform you.
Pamela started out on the road to her research to fill a personal need. She has written for the New York Times, the Financial Times, Fortune, CNNMoney, the Observer and many more. But when she took a break to raise her children, she found on her return that she had lost her footing.
Then she attended a women's conference in California and an amazing pattern started to unfold. She met woman after woman who introduced her to others, and Pamela started to realize that the landscape was shifting. Not only were women not balking at helping each other achieve their goals, they were promoting their friends, business associates and colleagues. The women were active, confident and collaborative, and intuitively knew who Pamela needed to know next. The electronic Rolodexes came out, and one connection after another was made. This is the power of women using their human capital network to effect change. This is the heart of the Stiletto Network: friendly, open, selfless and stylish women who opened up with their stories.
What has resulted is a beautiful mosaic of how women are changing the rules of business to suit themselves and their lifestyles. At last, we are learning to earn power and use power for ourselves and others.
The power of the human capital network emerges in the story of Shauna Mei, who started her career at Goldman Sachs and left after only a couple years to join a Goldman client and start a research firm in luxury goods. That led to her becoming the COO for a client company and having her AHA moment, which is when she left that company to start her own online luxury lifestyle company, AHAlife. That is when she returned to her Goldman contact Janet Hanson, founder of 85 Broads (85broads.com), the global professional women's network. She discussed her plans for AHAlife and her need for capital. One discussion led to another until Shauna wound up raising her angel capital primarily from the group of 85 Broads members. The human capital network effect was definitely in place.
Stories like Shauna's fill the book. Über-connectors Kim Moses, Heidi Roizen, Maggie Wilderotter, Heidi Messer, Ann Winblad, Gerry Laybourne, Alexa von Tobel and dozens and dozens more provide the blueprint for how these Stiletto Networks are formed, operate and provide real value to their members.
Time after time, you learn that the characteristics women hold and cherish are becoming more the norm for business today. Attributes such as collaboration, diversity, judgment, intuition, partnership, listening, inclusiveness, flexibility, selflessness and loyalty mean a lot.
Interestingly, these are the attributes that are documented in the extensive global research done by John Gerzema and Michael D'Antonio in The Athena Doctrine. They tested the gender associations of one hundred twenty-five attributes among sixty-four thousand men and women and came up with some pretty conclusive results. The business world is decisively moving toward leadership in the attributes most commonly described as feminine.
One might expect that the attributes more characteristic of men would be going out of fashion, but neither The Athena Doctrine nor Stiletto Network takes that position. Male attributes of decisiveness, authority, power, ambition, aggressiveness and the like have their place too. It's the combination of both gender attributes that will be required for leadership as we move forward.
What author Ryckman is attempting to do is to give women a road map of how they can form their own Stiletto Networks and help others as well as themselves succeed in business, and indeed in life. That road map relies in part on being able to harness the power of our human capital networks.
I find that the stories told in her book reflect what I see changing every day in the world of entrepreneurs, where I spend a good portion of my time working with women entrepreneurs who are participating in the Springboard Enterprises network to raise capital. What they learn on their way to raising capital is that it is that the human capital, the human network, that leads you to success. That's the story of the Stiletto Network, told in the rich stories of the women brave enough to tell them.
KAY'S TAKEAWAYS:
Women are using their attributes of openness, collaboration, inclusiveness, transparency and trustworthiness to help their colleagues achieve success. This is a cultural change from earlier generations.
Women are changing the rules of how business is being conducted to better reflect their strengths. This is documented in recent research, which cites feminine attributes as the most desirable for leadership in the twenty-first century.
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