I had a great networking meeting yesterday along with Tami Forman, the CEO of our non-profit affiliate Path Forward, and Joanne Wilson, my board co-chair.  It was a meeting that Joanne set up that the three of us had been talking about for over a year.  Joanne made a great comment as we were debriefing in the elevator after the meeting that is the foundation of this post.  Tami and I shaped her comment into this metaphor:

Finding wood to help start a fire is different from pouring gasoline on a fire

As an entrepreneur, you need to constantly be asking for help and networking.  Those meetings will shape your business in ways that you can never predict.  They’ll shape your thinking, add ideas to the mix, kill bad ideas, and connect you to others who can help you in your journey.

But you need to have a good sense of who to meet with, and when, along the way.  Some people, you can only meet once, unless they become core to your business, so you have to choose carefully when to fire that one bullet.  Others will meet with you regularly and are happy to see longitudinal progress.  Regardless, being clear on your ask is critical, and then backing up from that to figure out whether this is the one bullet you can fire with someone or whether it’s one ask of many will help you figure out if you should push for that networking meeting or not.

Why?

Because asking someone to help you find wood to start a fire (the early stages of your business) is different from pouring gasoline on an existing fire (once you’re up and running).  If you’re in the super early stages of your business and looking for product-market fit, you won’t want to meet with people who aren’t conceptual thinkers, who aren’t deep in your space, or who might only see you once.  Maybe they can help you brainstorm, but you’ll find better partners for that.  They might be able to provide concrete help or introductions, but you’re probably not ready for those yet.  It’s a waste of time.  You need wood to start your fire, and people like this aren’t helpful scouring the forest floor with you to find it.

However, those people can be fantastic to meet with once you have product-market fit and are deep in the revenue cycle.  You have clear demonstration of value, customer success stories, you know what works and what doesn’t and why.  You can have short, crisp asks that are easy for the person to follow-up on.  They will be willing to lend your their name and their network.  You have a fire, they have a cup of spare gasoline, and you can get them to pour that cup on your fire.

The judgment call around this isn’t easy.  Entrepreneurial zeal makes it abnormally comfortable to call on any stranger at any time and ask for help.  But developing this sense is critical to optimizing your extended network in the early years.

I’ve published two editions of Startup CEO, a sequel called Startup CXO, and am a co-author on the second edition of Startup Boards. We also just (2025) published mini-book versions of Startup CXO specifically for five individual functions, Startup CFO, Startup CRO, Startup CMO, Startup CPO, and Startup CTO.

You’re only a startup CEO once. Do it well with Startup CEO, a “master class in building a business.”

—Dick Costolo, Partner at 01A (Former CEO, Twitter)

Being a startup CEO is a job like no other: it’s difficult, risky, stressful, lonely, and often learned through trial and error. As a startup CEO seeing things for the first time, you’re likely to make mistakes, fail, get things wrong, and feel like you don’t have any control over outcomes.

As a Startup CEO myself, I share my experience, mistakes, and lessons learned as I guided Return Path from a handful of employees and no revenues to over $100 million in revenues and 500 employees.

Startup CEO is not a memoir of Return Path’s 20-year journey but a CEO-focused book that provides first-time CEOs with advice, tools, and approaches for the situations that startup CEOs will face.

You’ll learn:

How to tell your story to new hires, investors, and customers for greater alignment How to create a values-based culture for speed and engagement How to create business and personal operating systems so that you can balance your life and grow your company at the same time How to develop, lead, and leverage your board of directors for greater impact How to ensure that your company is bought, not sold, when you exit

Startup CEO is the field guide every CEO needs throughout the growth of their company and the one I wish I had.

“Startup CXO is an amazing resource for CEOs but also for functional leaders and professionals at any stage of their career.”

– Scott Dorsey, Managing Partner, High Alpha (Former CEO, ExactTarget)

One of the greatest challenges for startup teams is scaling because usually there’s not a blueprint to follow, people are learning their function as they go, and everyone is wearing multiple hats. There can be lots of trial and error, lots of missteps, and lots of valuable time and money squandered as companies scale. My team and I understand the scaling challenges—we’ve been there, and it took us nearly 20 years to scale and achieve a successful exit. Along the way we learned what worked and what didn’t work, and we share these lessons learned in Startup CXO.

Unlike other business books, Startup CXO is designed to help each functional leader understand how their function scales, what to anticipate as they scale, and what things to avoid. Beyond providing function-specific advice, tools, and tactics, Startup CXO is a resource for each team member to learn about the other functions, understand other functional challenges, and get greater clarity on how to collaborate effectively with the other functional leads.

CEOs, Board members, and investors have a book they can consult to pinpoint areas of weakness and learn how to turn those into strengths. Startup CXO has in-depth chapters covering the nine most common functions in startups: finance, people, marketing, sales, customers, business development, product, operations, and privacy. Each functional section has a “CEO to CEO Advice” summary from me on what great looks like for that CXO, signs your CXO isn’t scaling, and how to engage with your CXO.

Startup CXO also has a section on the future of executive work, fractional and interim roles. Written by leading practitioners in the newly emergent fractional executive world, each function is covered with useful tips on how to be a successful fractional executive as well as what to look for and how to manage fractional executives.

A comprehensive guide on creating, growing, and leveraging a board of directors written for CEOs, board members, and people seeking board roles.

The first time many founders see the inside of a board room is when they step in to lead their board. But how do boards work? How should they be structured, managed, and leveraged so that startups can grow, avoid pitfalls, and get the best out of their boards? Authors Brad Feld, Mahendra Ramsinghani, and Matt Blumberg have collectively served on hundreds of startup and scaleup boards over the past 30 years, attended thousands of board meetings, encountered multiple personalities and situations, and seen the good, bad, and ugly of boards.

In Startup Boards: A Field Guide to Building and Leading an Effective Board of Directors, the authors provide seasoned advice and guidance to CEOs, board members, investors, and anyone aspiring to serve on a board. This comprehensive book covers a wide range of topics with relevant tips, tactics, and best practices, including:

• Board fundamentals such as the board’s purpose, legal characteristics, and roles and functions of board members;
• Creating a board including size, composition, roles of VCs and independent directors, what to look for in a director, and how to recruit directors;
• Compensating, onboarding, removing directors, and suggestions on building a diverse board;
• Preparing for and running board meetings;
• The board’s role in transactions including selling a company, buying a company, going public, and going out of business;
• Advice for independent and aspiring directors.

Startup Boards draws on the authors’ experience and includes stories from board members, startup founders, executives, and investors. Any CEO, board member, investor, or executive interested in creating an active, involved, and engaged board should read this book—and keep it handy for reference.

Five new mini-books from Startup CXO, but with new bonus material and an obvious focus on each specific functional area.

Each book has several topics in common – chapters on the nature of an executive’s role, how a fractional person works in that role, how the role works with the leadership team, how to hire that role, how the role works in the beginning of a startup’s life, how the role scales over time, and CEO:CEO advice about managing the role.

In Startup CTO (Technology and Product), the role-specific topics Shawn Nussbaum talks about are The Product Development Leaders, Product Development Culture, Technical Strategy, Proportional Engineering Investment and Managing Technical Debt, Shifting to a New Development Culture, Starting Things, Hiring Product Development Team Members, Increasing the Funnel and Building Diverse Teams, Retaining and Career Pathing People, Hiring and Growing Leaders, Organizing Collaborating with and Motivating Effective Teams, Due Diligence and Lessons Learned from a Sale Process, Selling Your Company, Preparation, and Selling Your Company/Telling the Story.

In Startup CMO, the role-specific topics Nick Badgett and Holly Enneking talk about are Generating Demand for Sales, Supporting the Company’s Culture, Breaking Down Marketing’s Functions, Events, Content & Communication, Product Marketing, Marketing Operations, Sales Development, and Building a Marketing Machine.

In Startup CFO, the role-specific topics Jack Sinclair talks about are Laying the CFO Foundation, Fundraising, Size of Opportunity, Financial Plan, Unit Economics and KPIs, Investor Ecosystem Research, Pricing and Valuation, Due Diligence and Corporate Documentation, Using External Counsel, Operational Accounting, Treasury and Cash Management, Building an In-House Accounting Team, International Operations, Strategic Finance, High Impact Areas for the Startup CFO as Partner, Board and Shareholder Management, Equity, and M&A.

In Startup CRO, the role-specific topics Anita Absey talks about are Hiring the Right People, Profile of Successful Sales People, Compensation, Pipeline, Scaling the Sales Organization, Sales Culture, Sales Process and Methodology, Sales Operating System, Marketing Alignment, Market Assessment & Alignment, Channels, Geographic Expansion, and Packaging & Pricing.

In Startup CPO (HR/People), the role-specific topics Cathy Hawley talks about are Values and Culture, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, Building Your Team, Organizational Design and Operating Systems, Team Development, Leadership Development, Talent and Performance Management, Career Pathing, Role Specific Learning and Development, Employee Engagement, Rewards and Recognition, Reductions in Force, Recruiting, Onboarding, Compensation, People Operations, and Systems.

I’ve written a lot over the years about Return Path’s Core Values (summary post with lots of links to other posts here).  And I’ve also written and believe strongly that there’s a big difference between values, which are pretty unchanging, and culture, which can evolve a lot over time.  But I had a couple conversations recently that led me to think more philosophically about a company’s values.

The first conversation was at a recent dinner for a group of us working on fundraising for my upcoming 25th reunion from Princeton.  Our guest speaker was a fellow alumnus who I’ve gotten to know and respect tremendously over the years as one of the school’s most senior and influential volunteer leaders.  He was speaking about the touchstones in his life and in all people’s lives — things like their families, their faith, the causes they’re passionate about, and the institutions they’ve been a part of.  I remember this speaker giving a similar set of remarks right after the financial crisis hit in early 2009.  And it got me thinking about the origins of Return Path’s values, which I didn’t create on my own, but which I obviously had a tremendous amount of influence over as founder.  Where did they come from?  Certainly, some came from my parents and grandparents.  Some came from my primary and secondary education and teachers.  Some came from other influences like coaches, mentors, and favorite books.  Although I’m not overly observant, some certainly came from Hebrew school and even more so from a deep reading of the Bible that I undertook about 15 years ago for fun (it was much more fun than I expected!).  Some came from other professional experiences before I started Return Path.  But many of them either came from, or were strongly reinforced by my experience at Princeton.  Of the 15 values we currently articulate, I can directly tie at least seven to Princeton:  helpful, thankful, data-driven, collaborative, results-oriented, people first, and equal in opportunity.  I can also tie some other principles that aren’t stated values at Return Path, but which are clearly part of our culture, such as intellectually curious, appreciative of other people’s points of view, and valuing an interdisciplinary approach to work.

As part of my professional Reboot project, this was a good reminder of some of the values I know I’ve gotten from my college experience as a student and as an alumni, which was helpful both to reinforce their importance in my mind but also to remember some of the specifics around their origins – when and why they became important to me.  I could make a similar list and trade and antecedents of all or at least most of our Company’s values back to one of those primary influences in my life.  Part of Reboot will be thinking through all of these and renewing and refreshing their importance to me.

The second conversation was with a former employee who has gone on to lead another organization.  It led me to the observation I’ve never really thought through before, that as a company, we ourselves have become one of those institutions that imprints its values into the minds of at least some of its employees…and that those values will continue to be perpetuated, incorporated, and improved upon over time in any organization that our employees go on to join, manage part of, or lead.

That’s a powerful construct to keep in mind if you’re a new CEO working on designing and articulating your company’s values for the first time.  You’re not just creating a framework to guide your own organization.  You’re creating the beginning of a legacy that could potentially influence hundreds or thousands of other organizations in the future.

(This is the second post in a series documenting the work I did in Colorado on the Governor’s COVID-19 Innovation Response Team – IRT.  Introductory post is here.)

Tuesday, March 17, Day 1

• Extended stay hotel does not have a gym.  Hopefully there is one at work
• Walking into office for the first time.  We are in a government building in a random town just south of Denver that houses the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) and the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.  These are the teams who are on point for emergency response in Colorado when there is any kind of fire, flood, cyberattack, or other emergency
• 
• 
• MAJOR Imposter Syndrome – I don’t know anything about anything
• 7:45 meeting with Stan
• 8:15 department briefing
• Met two deputies – Kacey Wulff and Kyle Brown.  Both seem awesome. On loan from governor’s health care office and insurance department
• Team “get to know you” was 4 minutes long.  So different than calm normal 
• Emergency Operations Center in Department of Public Health
• Small open room with over 100 people in it and everyone freaking out about not following best practices – no social distancing
• 
• Leader giving remote guidelines
• Lots of “Sorry, who are you and why are you here?”
• Local ops leader Mike Willis excellent – calm, inspirational, critical messages around teamwork, self-management, check ego at the door (turns out he is a retired Brigadier General)
• HHS call – maxxed at 300 participants, people not getting through, leader had to ask people to volunteer to get off the line (oops)
• Lunch and snacks in mass quantities here – it’s not quite Google, but this part does feel very startup.  I wonder if the Emergency Ops Center does this all the time or just in a crisis. Guessing crisis only but still super nice.  Also guessing I will gain weight this week between this and all gyms in the state being closed down
• Lots of new people and acronyms
• Multiple agencies at multiple layers of government require a lot of coordination and leadership that’s not always there, but everyone was incredibly clear, effective, low ego.  A lot of overlap
• Got my official badge – fancy
• Jared calls – just spoke to Pence, his guy is going to call you – tell him what we need…”uh, ok, now all I have to do is figure out what we need!”
• Fog of War – this room is healthy and bustling and a little disconnected from what’s going on, no freak out
• Kacey and call from Lisa about Seattle being on “Critical Care” because they don’t have enough supplies, meaning they are prepared to let the sickest people die – oh shit, we can’t let that happen here (or is it too late?)
• Got oriented, sort of
• Slight orientation to broader command structure and team
• My charter and structure are a little fuzzy, guess that’s why I’m here to figure that out
• Late night working back at hotel.  Thinking I will become a power user of UberEats this week

Wednesday, March 18, Day 2

• Gym at work is closed along with all gyms everywhere.  Looks like a lot of hotel floor exercises are in order
• Ideas and efforts and volunteers coming in like mad and random from the private sector – no one to corral, some are good, some are duplicative, all are well intentioned.  Lots of “solve the problem 5 ways”
• Shelter in place?  Every day saves thousands of lives in the model – credibility with governor
• State-level work is so inefficient for global and national problems, but Trump said “every man for himself” basically when it comes to states
• Not feeling productive
• Productivity is in the eye of the beholder.  Kacey totally calmed me down. Said I am adding value in ways I don’t think about (not sure if she was just being nice!):
  • Connection to Governor really useful for crisis team
  • Basic management and leadership stuff good
  • Asking dumb questions
  • Out of the box thinking
  • Liaison to industry and understanding that ecosystem
  • Arms and legs
  • People used to working in teams on things – different expectations in general
• Ok, so maybe I am helping
• Colleague tells me about Drizly, the UberEats equivalent for alcohol delivery. Good discovery.

Thursday, March 19, Day 3

• Weird – my back feels better than it has in months.  Maybe it’s the pilates, but still, seems weird.  I wonder if the higher altitude helps. If so, we will be moving to Nepal. Have to remember to mention that to family later
• Governor Policy meeting 9 am – “Cuomo is killing it” – words matter – “shelter in place” and “extreme social distancing” debate
• “The models are wrong – so let’s average them”
• We need 10,000 ventilators. We have 700.  Uh oh.
• Raised issues around test types and team capacity…Gov expanded scope to include app and still pushing hard on test scaling.  Gov asked for proposal for expanded scope and staff by 4:30. Guess that’s the day today!
• Recruited Brad to lead Private Sector side of the IRT’s work. Important to have a great counterpart on that side. Glad he agreed to do it, even though he’s already vice chair of another state task force on Economic Recovery
• Senior Ops leader interrupts someone during daily briefing – quietly says to the whole room “not vetted, not integrated, not helpful” – incredible.  In the moment, in public which normally you don’t want to do but had no choice in this circumstance – 6 words gave actionable and gentle feedback. Great example of quiet leadership
• Private sector inbound – well intentioned and innovative but overwhelming and hard to figure out how to fit in with public sector (e.g., financing to spin up distributed manufacturing)
• Team huddled and created proposal for new name, structure, staffing, charter, rationale, etc.
• Present to senior EOC staff for vetting, feedback
• Feels like I’m adding value finally – plan creation and “bring stakeholders along for the ride” presentation/vetting AND getting the team to stop being hair on fire and focus on thinking and planning and staffing
• Present to Gov – “brilliant” – then after, Kyle says “I’ve worked for multiple governors and senators, and this is the first time I’ve heard something called brilliant” (not sure it was brilliant)
• Now to operationalize it, stand up a team, replace myself so I can get home once this is marching in the right direction at the right speed
• Transferable skills (leadership, comms, strategy, planning) – not just missing context here but missing triple context – healthcare, public sector, CO
• Day 3.  Feels like longer
• Still, feels like adding value now.  Whew.  
• Dinner with a Return Path friend who came down to my hotel’s breakfast room, picked up takeout on the way, and sat 6 feet apart. 

Stay tuned for more tomorrow…

Must-Read New Blog

I’ve talked about Why I Love My Board a few times in the past.  I was reminded at my quarterly Board meeting and dinner this week that it’s a great and unusually strong group, and we’re lucky to have them.  Fred and Brad have both been prolific bloggers for years,and I know many of you follow their blogs closely.  Think of that as getting a taste of the input and wisdom you’d get by having them on your Board.

In a very exciting development, one of my independent directors, Scott Weiss, has now started blogging on the Andreessen-Horowitz platform.  Scott is probably our most outspoken and colorful director (and that’s saying something).  Scott just joined Andreessen-Horowitz as a partner in their fund, so he now a VC, but his experience as an operator both at Hotmail in Internet 1.0 and then at Ironport have been incredibly valuable for me as an entrepreneur, and I expect most of his posts to focus on the entrepreneur’s perspective.

Two of Scott’s first three posts, Looking Bigger and Ridiculously Transparent, are perfect examples of the value I’ve gotten out of my six year relationship with Scott as a Board member.  If you want a taste of what it would be like to have him in your corner…subscribe to his blog!

Book Shorts:  Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales

Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Selling and Little Red Book of Sales Answers were great refreshers in sales basics for you as CEO (and head of sales, and sales manager, and sales rep).  The books were a bit “self-help” flavor for my taste as a reader, but they were excellent on content, and I have two long pages of notes of “back to basics” items I need to remind myself and my team about.

Anyone at Return Path in sales/account-project management/marketing — your copy is on the way, hopefully by way of a barter I proposed with the author (sorry, Stephanie and Tami…), but in any case, we’ll buy them.  Anyone else who is interested at RP, let me know, and the copy is on me.

Some of the most critical reminders — although you have to read the books to get to get the color:

– Ask questions, don’t talk talk talk at prospects (just like the SPIN Selling methodology we always train with at Return Path)

– Never say “tell me a little bit about your business” — do the research first

– Importance of testimonials in selling

– Never blame others or blame circumstances when things go wrong.  Take control and solve the problem (good for sales and for everyone!)

There was a great essay in the New York Times yesterday about multitasking. The gist of the article is that multitasking, when taken to an extreme, is unproductive at best and in the case of driving, quite dangerous.

I’ve long believed that in business, as in any activity relying in part on interpersonal relationships, it’s important to be fully present when talking to other people. This is especially true in one-on-one conversations, but true even in larger meetings. The article talks about the clicking you hear when you’re talking to someone on the phone and he or she is typing in the background. And we’ve all been in meetings where someone picks up a Blackberry to reply to a presumably non-urgent email. How annoying! Better to step out of the meeting if the email is that important…or tell the person who called you that you don’t have time to talk now.

Even forgetting the annoying part, how can you possibly connect with another person when you’re reading or writing at the same time? How can you make a point or read their body language? How can you convey to the rest of the room that you’re taking the subject seriously?

Like most of us these days, I too am addicted to multitasking, repsonding to emails, answering cell phones, and the like. The only way I’ve been able to make sure I focus on the meeting at hand is to turn off the phone, leave the Blackberry or laptop in another room, bring nothing other than a piece of paper and pen to the meeting. Sure, I have to go back and enter a couple things on my computer in my to-do list afterwards instead of in real time, but it’s a worthwhile tradeoff. If I’m on the phone, I turn away from my desk or put my headset on and walk around the office to remove other temptations.

I don’t think all multitasking is bad…in fact there are lots of times where it makes great sense and is productive. But the principle of Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing Well applies here in spades — having a conversation with another person, or being fully present and accounted for in a meeting, are usually worth doing well!

Doing Well by Doing Good, Part IV

This series of posts has mostly been about things that people or companies do that help make the world a better place — sometimes when it’s their core mission, other times (here and here) when it becomes an important supporting role at the company.

Today’s post is different — it’s actually a Book Short as well of a new book that’s coming out later this fall called Green to Gold:  How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage, published by Yale Press and written by Daniel Esty (a Yale professor and consultant), and a good friend of mine, Andrew Winston, a corporate sustainability consultant.

Green to Gold is a must-read for anyone who (a) holds a leadership position in business or is a business influencer, and (b) cares about the environment we live in.  Its subtitle really best describes the book, which is probably the first (or if not, certainly the best) documentation of successful corporate environmentalstrategy on the market.

It’s a little reminiscent to me of Collins Built to Last and Good to Great in that it is meticulously researched with a mix of company interviews/cooperation and empirical and investigative work.  It doesn’t have Collins “pairing” framework, but it doesn’t need to in order to make its point.

If you liked Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, this book will satisfy your thirst for information about what the heck the corporate world is doing or more important, can do, to do its part in not destroying our ecosystem.  If you didn’t like Gore’s movie or didn’t see it because you don’t like Al Gore or don’t think that many elements of the environmental movement are worthwhile, this book is an even more important read, as it brings the theoretical and scientific to the practical and treats sustainability as the corporate world must treat it in order to adopt it as a mainstream practice — as a driver of capitalistic profit and competitive advantage.

This is a really important work in terms of advancing the cause of corporate social responsibility as it applies to the environment.  Most important, it proves the axiom here that you can, in fact, Do Well by Doing Good.  If you’re interested, you can pre-order the book here.  Also, the authors are writing a companion blog which you can get to here.

Why Publishing Will Never Be the Same, Part I

As you may know, we published a book earlier this year at Return Path called Sign Me Up! Sales are going quite well, in case you’re wondering, and we also launched the book’s official web site, where you can subscribe to our “email best practices” newsletter.

The process of publishing the book was fascinating and convinced me that publishing will never be the same.  Even in two parts, this will be a long post, so apologies in advance. Front to back, the process went something like this:

– We wrote the content and selected and prepared the graphics

– We hired iUniverse to publish the book for a rough total cost of $1,500

– iUniverse provided copy editing, layout, and cover design services

– Within 8 weeks, iUniverse put the book on Amazon.com and BN.com for us (in addition to their site) and properly indexed it for search, and poof — we were in business

– Any time someone places an order on any of those three sites, iUniverse prints a copy on demand, binds it, and ships it off. No fuss, no muss, no inventory, but a slightly higher unit cost than you’d get from a traditional publisher who mass prints. We receive approximately 20% of the revenue from the book sale, and iUniverse receives 80%.  I’m not sure what cut they give Amazon, but it’s hard to imagine it’s more than 10-20% of the gross

Other than the writing part (not to be minimized), how easy is that?  So of course, that made me think about the poor, poor publishing industry. It seems to me that, like many other industries, technology is revolutionizing publishing.  Here’s how:

– Publishers handle printing and inventory.  iUniverse and its competitors can do it for you in a significantly more economic way.  Print on Demand will soon be de rigeur.

– Publishers handle marketing and distribution.  iUniverse gets you on Amazon.com and BN.com for free.  Amazon.com and BN.com now represent something like 12% of all book sales (cobbled together stats from iMedia Connection saying the annual online book sale run rate is now about $3 billion and the Association of American Publishers saying that the total size of the industry is $24 billion).  Google and Overture take credit cards and about 5 minutes to drive people to buy your book online.  Buzz and viral and email marketing techniques are easy and cheap.

– Publishers pay you.  Ok, this is compelling, but they only pay you (especially advances) if you’re really, really good, or a recognized author or expert. iUniverse pays as well, just in a pay-for-performance model.  Bonus points for setting yourself up as an affiliate on Amazon and BN to make even more money on the sale.  iUniverse actually pays a higher royalty (20% vs. 7.5-15% in the traditional model), so you’re probably always a fixed amount “behind” in the self-publish model, but you don’t have an agent to pay.

Unless you are dying to be accepted into literary or academic circles that require Someone & Sons to annoint you…why bother with a traditional publisher? As long as you have the up-front money and the belief that you’ll sell enough books to cover your expenses and then some, do it yourself.

In Part II, I will talk about how iUniverse pitches a “traditional publishing model” and why it only reinforces the point that the traditional model doesn’t make a lot of sense any more in many cases.

Why Publishing Will Never Be the Same, Part II

In Part I of this series, I talked about our experience at Return Path publishing a book back in January through a new type of print-on-demand, or self-publishing house called iUniverse and why I thought the publishing industry was in for a long, slow decline unless it changes its ways.

We had another interesting experience with iUniverse more recently that reinforces this point.  It turns out, although iUniverse is mainly a “self publisher,” they also have a traditional publishing model called their Star Program, which includes an editorial review process.  The good news for us is that they contacted us and said they liked our book so much, and sales are strong enough, that they’ve given it an Editors’ Choice and Readers’ Choice notation and they want to put it in the Star Program.  That was very exciting!  I mean, who doesn’t want to be a star?  The bad news is that the traditional model isn’t particularly compelling.  This is the deal they’ve offered:

– A 3-year exclusive for them (our current contract is non-exclusive)

– Diminished control over the IP

– Diminished royalties

– iUniverse would re-publish the book, which means (a) it would become unavailable for 6 months before the re-launch, (b) they would give it a new cover and re-edit the book, (c) we could revise the content if we want, and (d) they’d have control over all final decisions around the editorial and cover

– iUniverse would do more active marketing of the book

Ok, so this could be a compelling deal, if the “more active marketing” was really going to move the needle for us.  So we asked more about what that gets us.  The answer:

– Sending the book out for reviews (we did this within our industry but certainly not by broader business press, although we probably could do so on our own)

– Setting up book signing events (hard to imagine this is interesting for a business how-to book like this)

– Setting up interview or radio appearances (again, we did this in-industry but not broader)

– Introducing us to the buyer from Barnes & Noble retail stores (success rate unknown – too early to tell in the program’s life)

The folks at iUniverse had no idea what we could even project in terms of increased sales from these activities.  When we pushed on this a little bit more on the tangible benefits of marketing, their end comment was “the most successful books are the ones where the authors are out actively promoting them.”

We haven’t made a decision on this one yet.  Their support is probably valuable on balance, the change in royalty structure isn’t material, and assuming we could carve out the IP issues to our satisfaction, it could be a good way to issue a second edition with less cost.  The in-store presence is really the wild card that could really tip the scales.

But the lure of legitimacy (e.g., someone else published it with an editorial review process, we didn’t just pay to play) is the biggest thing in iUniverse’s favor on this one, and that’s what I have to imagine will decrease over time for the publishing industry as it becomes easier and easier for individuals to publish content, market it, and establish credibility by having other individuals rate and review it.

Thanks to my colleague Tami Forman for her assistance on these postings (and for managing the book project!).  Tami is too modest to tell anyone, but she is a wonderful writer and has a blog that she updates not nearly often enough on food — she used to be the food editor for iVillage.

(Post 4 of 4 in the series on Scaling CROs – other posts are, When to Hire your First Chief Revenue Officer, What Does Great Look like in a Chief Revenue Officer and Signs your Chief Revenue Officer isn’t Scaling)

Assuming your CRO is on track and scaling with the company so that you’re not having to mentor or coach them, I’ve found a few ways to engage with the CRO that have been particularly fruitful. Here are a few tips on making every moment with your CRO well-spent.

One of the easiest ways to carve out quality time with your CRO is during travel time, or in and around events.  Particularly if you’re a B2B company that engages with clients during the sales process, you’ll probably find yourself at a lot of client meetings and events, either internal or external.  Your CRO will be there, too, which gives you a great opportunity to spend large blocks of time together in transit, or a good deal of time together socially. One thing we learned during the work-at-home pandemic is just how much time we save by not traveling.  So when life resumes to normal, why waste time in an Uber or on a plane when you can have a deep strategic conversation or even a personal/social one with one of your senior executives? Of course, you have to actually be more proactive in meeting with your CRO since you won’t have events that naturally bring you together, but I’ve found that the early morning time in the hotel gym or late-night drink in the lobby bar before heading up to bed now translates to time I can have with my CRO. 

Another way to engage with the CRO is In a Weekly Forecast meeting.  Jeff Epstein, former CFO of Oracle, was one of my long-time board members at Return Path and he helped us architect a new core business process once our sales team got large and mature and geographically disparate enough that it was hard for us to have a solid forecast.  Both me and our CFO engaged in the Weekly Forecast meeting and because of that we forced the discipline of a good roll-up of all regions and business units. The CRO and all sales managers attended and knew that we were paying attention to the numbers and trends and asking tough questions. Our attendance was a forcing function for the CRO so that they organized a pre-meeting the prior day with all teams and units to prepare, and that in and of itself had a cascading effect through the organization of adding discipline, rigor, and accuracy to the forecast.  It also made me a lot more empathetic to my CRO’s issues with respect to the sales leadership team.

Finally, the other way that I engaged with the CRO was ad hoc, either internally or in-market.  My most successful heads of sales have been good at winding me up and pointing me at things as needed, whether that means getting on a plane or Zoom to help close a deal or save a client, or doing a 1:1 mentoring session with a key employee. So, not all interactions with the CRO have to be initiated by the CEO, and a great CRO will use the CEO, leverage their time, when it’s needed.

(You can find this post on the Bolster Blog here)