GrubHubMike

Interview with Blagica Bottigliero

Blagica Bottigliero is quite possibly the most well known person in the Chicago Technology community. Starting in the digital space in 1998, she's been instrumental in defining eMarkeing strategy for many of the big hitters: Giant Step, CoolSavings, Orbitz and now Edelman.  In addition, she's launched Gals' Guide which helps women adjust to the Big City after graduating from college and CondoPerks which offers some relief to condo owners that are faced with hefty assessments.

knowist: Tell me a little bit about your work.
Blagica: I help our clients understand if social media makes sense for their products and, if so, what strategies are appropriate. I also serve as internal social media specialist across our Consumer Brands teams.

knowist: How do you figure out what level of transparency is appropriate for twitter/facebook/blogging?

Blagica: It depends on the type of business that is utilizing social media for their corporate endeavors. Consumers are savvy and have high expectations for how companies and brands interact with them online. On one hand, consumers expect some kind of relationship - even if it's in the form of an emailed response within 24 hours. Today, if a consumer sends a Twitter message to a large corporation, the turnaround time expectation is sometimes lowered.  Because consumers and brands can interact on a more real-time basis, transparency is important throughout all levels of communication.

knowist: How do you approach the issue of personal transparency in social media with employees/coworkers? 

Blagica: I'm one of those interesting cases: I have a unique first name and that name's been indexed in Google for a long time. I decided to embrace transparency and social media early on. You can still find some old Orbitz forums I hosted ranking high in the search engine results. My rule: I never put something out there that i would feel embarrassed for someone to see.  From a picture to a tweet to a blog post, I ask myself the same question: 'If I post this right now, Google is going to index it. This picture/post/tweet is going to live on for some time. Am I comfortable with this?' If I answer no to any of these questions, I don't follow through with the post.

Before I started my job at Edelman, our group head looked me up Twitter, read my blog and wanted to see how I interacted with social media - before I walked into her office. 

knowist:  How do you address issues of personal brand vs company brand?

Blagica: I'll admit it - it's  a fine balance. I had the ability to build my personal brand before going back into the corporate world,  but that brand continues to evolve.   I am now an extension of my company. I take this seriously. On my personal blog and other blogs I write for, I clearly outline that the opinions I express are solely mine. Of course, I still continue to write, engage in social media practices outside of my job  - but with complete transparency. One thing to note: I think the typical 'work day' changed since my days at Orbitz.Today, you are expected to have a life outside of your job. It's ok to blog (it's actually a requirement with our team), be active in the industry, speak at events and form  your own opinions about the industry. This acceptance of life outside of work wasn't as easy to find in the early days of digital media.

Zach Kaplan CEO of Inventables

Zach Kaplan is the founder and CEO of Inventables, Inc.   Kaplan has spoken on product innovation to audiences at conferences across the country, including the Technology Entertainment and Design Conference (TED), Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) National Conference, National Plastics Exposition, Sensors Expo & Conference and the International Housewares Show. His work has been covered by Business Week, Fortune, Forbes, CNN, NPR and other leading media outlets (now including knowist!).

Knowist: Tell me a little bit about your work.
Kaplan: I'm the founder of www.inventables.com.  The Inventables Marketplace is pushing product development forward by making it possible for our customers to connect with the right vendors in seconds rather than waiting weeks or months. We're accelerating how fast products come to market and helping to improve quality.

Knowist: How is this bad economy good for new entrepreneur's?
Kaplan: The bad economy helps entrepreneurs focus on what's really important to their customers.  When things are bad customers are focused on what they need to survive.  In this environment if you can find a product customers are willing to pay for as the economy recovers and companies have more cash on hand you'll likely find even more customers  to buy from you.

Knowsit: How is this bad economy good for existing entrepreneurial startups?
Kaplan: This economy provides an opportunity to make your business more durable.  It's a tremendous opportunity to look at your current product offerings evaluate which ones should stay and which should go.  The turbulent economy makes it easier to make changes with customers and employees because everyone understands you need to innovate to survive. 

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Interview with Adam Rodnitzky of ReTel

Adam Rodnitzky is CMO and co-founder at ReTel Technologies, an advanced retail video analytics company. He started ReTel with two other classmates, George Aspland and Scott Roberts, while he was at business school at the University of Chicago. Before business school, he co-founded CompleteCar.com and TixNix.com.

See ReTel Technologies at reteltech.blogspot.com

Knowist: Tell me a little bit about your work.

Adam: To date, video analytics technology has not delivered on the promise of turning video cameras into advanced data gathering and reporting devices. Generally speaking, most video analytics developed to date have been able to perform simple tasks like noting that movements have occurred, or that an object is placed where one shouldn’t be. That has worked to a limited extent for physical security applications, but it has been a challenge to apply current systems to the task of gathering retail business intelligence (BI).

At ReTel, we’ve focused on building the first video analytics process specifically for retail BI. We can deliver information from video that few other companies can, and it is information that is useful and valuable to retailers and restaurant operators. We can tell retailers where consumers spend the most time in their stores, what products they interact with, specific breakdowns in gender and age range, how efficient their service processes are; and we’re adding new capabilities continually.

Knowist: What special technical challenges exist in arranging new information that originates from legacy systems?

Adam: In our world, there are a few specific challenges. We’ve had to design our system to essentially be input agnostic so as to work with the widest set of video feeds. Security systems currently in place run the gamut in both age and format. Generally speaking, most surveillance systems that are currently in place are either standard analog or IP video, but some have proprietary video formats that require banks of codecs to process.

The other challenge is that, in some instances, we simply don’t have the proper video coverage or field of view to capture decent levels of intelligence. In these cases, we can supplement existing equipment with low cost, off-the-shelf IP cameras to fill in the gaps. From our perspective, we don’t want to work under compromised data conditions, as it can diminish the value our solution delivers.

Knowist: How do you sell the idea of a "new trick for an old dog" to business owners?  Does resistance to change come from technology or a customer's mindset?

Adam: I read an interesting term for what we are doing the other day: we’re creating value from exhaust. That is, the data latent in security system videos is a byproduct of their primary function, which is to provide after-the-fact verification that an event has or has not taken place. When I think of how we do what we do, we’re turning a cost center into a profit center.

If the equipment is already in place, why not leverage it to discover opportunities for added efficiency in your operations, to learn what engages consumers the most, or where opportunities exist to improve sales? Once we’re able to show the potential for ROI on an incremental technology spend, we see that resistance fade.

Interview with Eric Olson: Co-Founder of TechCocktail

Eric is a technology and finance geek who grew up in Massachusetts and moved out to Chicago in 2005 to join a small startup called FeedBurner.  In his spare time, Eric co-founded TECH cocktail with his friend Frank Gruber.  After the sale of FeedBurner to Google in June of 2007 Eric spent some time at Google where he focused on partner development and then he joined "the dark side" (i.e. Venture Capital).  He's currently an associate at DFJ Portage Venture Partners in Chicago.

Blog: EricJohnOlson.com/blog
Twitter: EricOlson

Knowist: Tell me a little bit about your work.

Eric: My work as an investor and as a co-founder of TECH cocktail really focuses on finding great technology companies in areas outside of the Valley and sometimes funding them but always supporting them and helping them in any way I can.  I am very passionate about building technology based companies either as an operator or as an investor and I am lucky to be able to pursue that passion each day.

That passion also spills over onto my blog, Olson's Observations (former title: The Wannabe VC).  I have written for a number of years about new venture models, new technologies, the state of technology and other business and non-business related topics.  Writing has always been an outlet for me and I would do it even if no one read anything I wrote.  Lucky for me some people do read my stuff and provide me with incredible feedback.

Knowist: What do you enjoy about being an entrepreneur?

Eric: What don't I enjoy?  That's really the question.  Building something from the ground up is incredibly exciting.  You get to create a concrete manifestation of your DNA, your ideas, your values and you get to work with great people to make your dream come true.  Sometimes you even get to change the world just a little bit.

That said, there are ups and downs.  Lots of them.  Its a roller coaster really.  Sometimes you're on a high because some deal is about to close or you are about to launch something new.  The next you may be on a low because a deal fell apart, the product broke or you realize you may not make payroll next week.  That's all part of being entrepreneur.  I am not sure that anyone ever gets used to the ups and downs and that is why I think entrepreneurs really need to have a passion for what they are doing.  That is what keeps them moving forward on good days and bad.  Along those lines I am not sure anyone can understand what it is like to be an entrepreneur unless they have done it.

Knowist: What do you enjoy about being an investor?

Eric: Being an investor is a blast.  You get to meet with smart, talented and creative people each and every day and help them shape their companies.  I love heading to one of the universities around the Midwest and spending a day in the labs or simply meeting entrepreneurs for tea at Argo Tea in the Loop to hear their new ideas.  You can just feel the energy, the anticipation of what is coming.  At times it is hard not to just jump right in and help to operate the business in some way but there are other rewards that come in the form of getting a company a connection that lands them a huge deal or helping them recruit their new CTO.

What is hard about being an investor is that you have to say no a lot.  Sometimes you have to say no to guys with perfectly good businesses just because they aren't venture plays (in that they don't look like they will scale exponentially).  Some folks call these types of companies "lifestyle" companies and that term now seems to carry a negative stigma.  I think that if someone is excited about their business and it can cash flow nicely they should go for it but yet I still have to turn them down in terms of funding.  Its tough to do that but it is better than funding something only to see it continue to grow linearly and then have to push the entrepreneur and their business in the wrong direction.  Bottom line: every business has a "right size" and there is nothing wrong with that.

Knowist: What experiences in your past evoke nostalgia as you've grown through this circuitous path?

Eric: I love the fact that there is a revolving door between entrepreneurship and venture capital.  It is healthy to have guys in venture who have worked in a startup before or have even founded one.  They can empathize with the entrepreneurs and help them by sharing the experiences that they have had on the operating side.  It is also healthy to have venture guys in startups.  These guys can help startups in many areas including on the financing side, which can often be tricky to navigate.

Back to your question-- I am very nostalgic for the FeedBurner days:  My first day when I built my desk and chair and my computer still hadn't come in yet from CDW so Steve gave me a Forbes magazine to look through.  The day when I brought my first big publisher on board.  The evolution of our ad network.  The conferences, the flying monkey and, of course, the team.  Working with all of those guys everyday is something I wish I could do again.

That said, I am proud of what we built at FeedBurner and I am excited about the future, about what else we'll be able to build and about how we can all change the world (the last two "we's" refer to all innovators, investors and entrepreneurs).

Interview with Genevieve Thiers of Sittercity

Genevieve Thiers is founder and CEO of Sittercity. Sittercity connects parents with caregivers in their area.  Thiers earned a spot on Crain's coveted 40 Under 40 List in 2006 and was recognized by President Bush as the SBA's Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006.  In addition to these impressive credentials, knowist thinks of Thiers as a master in Public Relations. 

Knowist: What does it take to become a PR expert?

Thiers: It definitely takes creativity, careful strategies and an acute awareness of the brand.

As far as the creative aspect goes, you need unique pitch angles and interesting story ideas, otherwise no one will want to write about you or feature you on-air. You must give them something that has substance, something carefully thought through.

Strategy-wise, you must be able to network and foster relationships with producers/editors/other PR professionals. It's important to think about everything from that person's perspective. What does their audience want to see? What have they recently reported on (so you can determine what to stay away from to avoid redundancy)? It's not just all about you and what kind of coverage you can get. You also have to follow up with these people, be flexible and accommodating (sometimes they'll want an interview at the last minute!), and remain committed to keeping in touch. Meet for drinks, meet for lunch and put in that valuable face time so you can get to know them and their needs.

For brand awareness, you have to be well aware of what image you want to portray. Sittercity, for example, is a trust-based business. It is absolutely essential that we let people see how trustworthy and safe we are. At the same time, we work in child care, so having fun is also a part of our brand. Whenever I go on interviews, I know I am representing our brand, so I make sure that everything from my tone to my outfit reflects the image we want to portray: safe, trustworthy, fun and approachable.

You also have to understand that PR encompasses so much more than just media appearances. It's also about going on speaking engagements, entering award submissions and other similar things that help generate awareness of your organization.

Knowist: I've heard the theory that a thoughtful social media approach is more valuable than PR. What's your thoughts on that?

Theirs: Both are extremely important. I don't believe in getting into a discussion of what's more valuable because what exactly determines "value" anyway? With PR, you can easily see how many hits you get, how many impressions those hits earn and other quantifiable things. With social media, it's different. Measurement is harder and results may not come as quickly. Being on Twitter has done wonders for Sittercity in helping us connect with current and potential members, and further understand their needs; we know that, but we haven't quite "measured" the value of it.

For me and for Sittercity, an integrated approach offers the most value!

Interview with Chris Hill of Perkspot.com and 12 Interactive

 Chris is a former finance geek trying to make a living as an entrepreneur. He founded PerkSpot in 2006 to help employees discover the valuable discounts available to them. He currently leads the PerkSpot team in finding the latest and greatest discounts, ensuring PerkSpot users have a great experience, and collaborating with clients to put together robust discount programs for employees/members.

Knowist: Tell me a little bit about your work.

Chris: I started 12 Interactive LLC (the parent company of PerkSpot) to leverage web-based technologies to build service-based businesses. Our first business was PerkSpot, which manages employee discount programs on behalf of very large employers and associations. Our clients include many Fortune 500 businesses, state and city governments, as well as a number of well-known associations. As PerkSpot continued to grow and the needs of our users and clients evolved, we decided to launch 12tickets.com and MemberBuy.net (both currently in public beta) to service those needs.

Knowist: So what else is new?

Chris: Our newest business is Coupon Tweet, which is currently in private beta. I have always wanted to find a way to help members of the general public (i.e., people who don’t have access to a PerkSpot discount program through their employer) find ways to save money with online coupons. I decided to couple that with my recent Twitter obsession to form Coupon Tweet, which basically searches through millions of Twitter posts (AKA tweets) and returns the best discounts for our users. We have poured a lot of time and money into this service and think it is a ‘disruptive’ technology that could have a pretty significant impact on the way people use online coupons. We are currently in private beta but hope to have something launched shortly for the public.

Knowist: Give me an example of a big decision you've made lately.

Chris: I decided to expand our staff despite the economy sucking. This includes a very senior hire at PerkSpot to help continue to manage and support the huge growth we are experiencing. By bringing him on board, I will be able to free up some of my time to ensure successful launches for our other sites and services.

Knowist: What kind of interesting things happen in your office?

Chris: Our office is basically a bachelor pad. Our company is 100% male 20-somethings (knowist: I happen to know this is a lie. Chris is 30) , which will thankfully be changing with our next few hires, and we lack certain things like silverware that isn’t plastic and adult drinking cups (we use plastic cups from various local bars and the kiddie cups that Giordano’s gives us when pick up pizzas from them). Our eyes were recently opened to the fact that we were ill equipped to host important guests when our primary contact from one of our biggest clients decided she wanted to stop by our office with a bunch of pizzas for lunch. This is a huge account for us and we were serving her soda in a plastic kiddie cup from Giordano’s! She was a great sport about it and I think she actually had lot of fun with us.

Interview with Dave Van De Walle of U Sphere

Dave Van de Walle is CEO of U Sphere.  He launched U Sphere in early 2006 after leaving Chicago stalwart Aon Corp. He had a circuitous route to this business -- held gigs such as PR guy at TransUnion and Sports Information Director at Chicago State University.  In each case, his job was to keep reporters from hearing any news.

Find U Sphere
Twitter:usphere
Blog at http://ublog.usphere.com

Knowist: Tell me a little bit about your work.

Dave: U Sphere is like lots of startups, I would imagine -- we get into an area that needs a disruptive technology, then realize that our technology might be more disruptive if we focused our efforts a little differently. When we launched, we were "eHarmony meets LendingTree for college admissions."  Simple thought is get kids to visit a portal when looking for a college, they fill out a form, we make introductions to colleges and universities that want to compete over them.  We didn't have the money or dot-org status of a College Board, and we didn't have the deep pockets or army of interns that some of the other startups in this space have.  But, alas, we're still here -- partly because we think of ourselves as a really nimble operation.

While we're nimble, I've also thought of U Sphere as an "autistic business."  And I don't use that in a demeaning way -- we've all been touched by autism in one way or another.  Here's what I mean: we're laser focused on a couple areas within a niche -- the niche within the niche has been connections between students in other countries and schools that want to connect with them.  I'm no expert on autism, but there's a tendency in autism to bend the rest of the world to fit the needs of the autistic individual.  Or, eventually, you let the world come to you.  We're using new-er technologies -- things that launched well after we did, and even after some of our competitors did -- to, well, bring the rest of the world into our own bubble of how we think reality should be.  (Video, for example -- it's everywhere and just now taking shape in the university recruitment world.)

Knowist: There's a trend towards individual entitlement in technology that is expanding into a global movement towards microentrepreneurship. Care to discuss?

Dave: I love micropreneurship.  (My next book, which will be my first book, will either be about that or about running an autistic business.)  I think the global movement is really cool for branding the individual -- the growth of coaching and business coaches and life coaches and the like.  But there's also a "short-tail" danger there -- just how many Twitter followers and Facebook friends can you really add before people realize that all you're trying to do is sell them something?

Note what's happening in the new administration: Technology, Transparency, Communication.  So we're all entitled to a web that works and a mobile phone to use it on.  We want to know what everyone is up to, and that means we'd like to see as many of the goings-on of the administration as we can.  And we write and speak coherently and we stay on message.

What I fear about this new movement is that we're going to start accepting less quality in exchange for more quantity.  Journalists will be run out of jobs by bloggers who don't know "it's" from "its."  The quick camera shot on someone's phone will replace long-form journalism.  We'll all become smarter through Twitter posts and the links that follow, yet dumber because we trade so many 1s and 0s disguised as one-liners and status reports we'll be too tired to find out what's really going on in the world.  Economizing our social media time will knock The Economist out of the mailbox.  I could go on...

Knowist: How do you go about choosing technology solutions?

Dave: I'm in the middle of a series of painful lessons and the jury is still out.  Open source CRM vs. Salesforce?  Mac vs. Windows?  Blackberry vs. the iPhone?  I'd love to have all this stuff wrapped up in a neat little package, but I think the winners in all fronts are the most scalable, flexible and simple solutions.

Interview with Adrian Holovaty of Everyblock.com

Adrian Holovaty is a Web developer in Chicago, and he runs a site called EveryBlock. He's co-creator and co-Benevolent Dictator for Life of the Django Web framework for the Python programming language. Some Chicago folks might know him for his old (as in, May 2005) crime site, chicagocrime.org, which was one of the first Google Maps mashups.

On a more personal level, He's a quasi-professional musician, in that He makes money playing gigs in Chicago, and posts YouTube videos from time to time. More stuff about him, including a blog, is at holovaty.com.



Knowist: Tell me a little bit about your work.

Holovaty: EveryBlock is a very, very granular local news site. We show you what's happening, literally, right around your block. That includes stuff like newspaper articles that mentioned something in your neighborhood, crime reports, restaurant inspections, Flickr photos, movie filmings and all sorts of other information, filtered by city block and updated daily. You can sign up for e-mail alerts or RSS feeds to get notified whenever things happen in your neighborhood, or you can just browse the wealth of information on our site (warning: it can be addictive!). We're based here in Chicago and cover 11 cities.

Some folks in the news industry have considered us to be the "future of news," which I think is pushing it, but that demonstrates the level of interest in our project.

Knowist: Everyblock has had a different funding path than most businesses.  What are the ramifications of grants vs institutional for-profit funding?

Holovaty: I was lucky enough to get a two-year grant from the Knight Foundation thanks to a contest they held, called the Knight News Challenge. It's different from your standard VC funding in that we retain all the equity of the company but we have a specific mission to fulfill under the terms of the grant: namely, we have to open-source the code that powers our site, so that other people can take it and use it to make similar sites in their own cities. We are creating the site and code as a public service.

Knowist: Most businesses have a very clear (and legally binding) responsibility to shareholders.  What's your take on that vs a responsibility to the community?  To Employees?

Holovaty: First, a preface: My background is in journalism. Before EveryBlock, I worked as a Web developer at three mainstream newspapers (the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Lawrence Journal-World, and the Washington Post), and I got an undergraduate degree in journalism. With that background, I've always been most comfortable serving the public, as opposed to being a cold capitalist. It sounds cheesy, but there's this feeling of a "higher calling" when you're working as a journalist -- like you're going to change the world and do public good.

So that's the context for EveryBlock. We're a journalism organization dedicated to providing a public service. Of course, it'd be nice to be able to pay our rents, buy groceries and keep the servers running, so we're now turning our attention to figuring out how to keep our project sustainable as a business. Craigslist is very much a model for us -- technically for-profit, but run like a non-profit.

Interview with Aashish Dalal of Parkwhiz.com

Aashish Dalal is Co Founder and Chief Whiz at Parkwhiz.com. ParkWhiz.com is only place you can find all of the parking that is closest to you, whether it’s a parking garage, surface lot, or a person renting out their driveway.

Find Aashish: www.parkwhiz.com/blog

knowist: What kind of tensions exist between technology decisions and strategic thinking?

Aashish: Tensions that exist generally revolve around ideal vs. reality. Many times it’s easy to imagine what we WANT to do, but a completely different beast when attempt to execute it. Expectations are also a source of tension as much of what is needed is needed NOW, which is sometimes impossible when 5 other projects are due at the same time.

knowist: What kind of interesting things happen in your office?

Aashish: Most of the interesting things that happen revolve around our interaction with customers. We field all calls through our 800 number and get some interesting calls. Many people think we own the parking space that they are inquiring about, while others start yelling at us for no apparent reason thinking we damaged their car. It’s frustrating explaining to these customers that we don’t own the facilities, but are only providing a service to find and reserve parking. Once we explain that, they seem to get on board, leaving feedback for the particular facility. Of course, this branding exercise sharpens us as we find new ways to illuminate the public on ParkWhiz.

Interview with Keith Schacht of Crafted Fun, Inc

Keith Schacht is the founder of Chicago-based Crafted Fun Inc, the company behind leading Facebook applications such as Growing Gifts and Hatching Eggs.

Prior to 42 Friends, Schacht co-founded and sold two technology companies. In 2005, BusinessWeek named him one of the top 20 entrepreneurs under 25. He has been featured in Fortune, Forbes, BusinessWeek, and Business 2.0 and served the world's top consumer product companies including Nike, Proctor & Gamble, Motorola, BMW, Kraft, and many others. Schacht attended University of Illinois where he studied computer science and psychology.

Find Keith:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/keiths


knowist: We once had a chat about making memes go viral. In my own marketing work I've talked about having a viral coefficient. That is, if you send a piece of communication out to a given number of people. Then those people, in aggregate need to forward the communication on to a larger number of people in a short time frame. Can you explore that idea a little bit for me?

Keith: Sure, I essentially agree with your summary. However, it doesn't even have to be a short time frame. I know a tutoring company that is experiencing exponential growth as a a result of viral (word-of-mouth) marketing. The viral loop is months rather than days or hours, but the same math still applies.

Also, even if every new customer you get only refers, on average, 0.5 additional customers. Your product isn't experiencing viral growth, but it doesn't mean that's not valuable. You've just increased the value of each customer by 50% by getting every other customer to bring along a friend. People have talked about the value of referrals for years like this for years, the only difference today is that the friction for referring friends has gotten so low (5-clicks to invite 50 friends) that people are actually seeing the referrals be greater than the starting group and that's what results in the hockey-stick exponential growth that everyone is talking about today.


knowist: You've been very active as an entrepreneur. Freshwater Ventures, Inventables, and Crafted Fun come to mind. Is there a unifying theme in the work you've done?

Keith: Definitely, each project or business I've ever done has logically lead to the next in mind, but I don't know if the thread is interesting to anyone besides me. :) I love using technology to create experiences. My two passions are technology and psychology: I love the usability of software, the subtle factors that make something "fun", highlighting the unexpected aspects of something to surprise people--and I love taking advantage of all these things to create something from scratch that excites people.

Interview with Jack Kent of GrubHub.com

Jack Kent the 5th (knowist: yes, the 5th!) was born at a young age in 1982. Unable to communicate with others, walk, or even feed himself, he eventually overcame these challenges and more to graduate Ball State in 2004. He is currently working as the creative director at GrubHub.com. His interests generally lie in the artistic realm- music (listening and playing) and graphic/web design. Beer also ranks quite high on the list.

knowist: Tell me a little bit about your work

The 5th: According to my business card, I'm creative director of GrubHub.com. The vast majority of my work is working on the front end of GrubHub.com, from any and all marketing/advertising, to the site itself. I try to approach my work with GH.com with an emphasis placed on usability and how the design can help push the brand (read: makes more money) instead of making a site that looks great but doesn't meet the users needs or make it easier to use. Having said that- I also try to find way to let it have as much form as function- so long as form doesn't step on functions toes.

knowist: How did you learn to be such a great designer?

The 5th: Apart from 2 semesters in school, my early education in web design was a trial by fire redesigning the site waaay back in the winter of '07. Learning web design by fire has been quite a challenge, but an enjoyable one and and am looking forward to seeing where the next couple years brings as my knowledge and abilities increase.

knowist: The correct answer would have been: "knowist taught me everything I know"

knowist: Whats the biggest decision you've had to make lately?

The 5th: The biggest decision I've made lately is to work at things more. I don't neccassarily mean at my job or any certain thing, but as an overarching theme. There's a quote by Aristotle that sums it up fairly well- "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit". While not aiming for excellence per se, it's hopefully a by-product of my effort to do better.

Interview with Chuck Templeton of DeltaBeans

Chuck Templeton is an Eco Entrepreneur Student of Leadership and Strategy. California native transplanted to Chicago about 7 years ago. Three years in the Army, (Airborne Ranger, Sniper qualified), but no live action. Founder of OpenTable.com. Board member of GrubHub.com, Partner in Delta Beans, LLC, advisor for multiple tech start ups. Husband and father of two girls (2 and 4).

Find Chuck:
twitter @greenergood
blog http://blog.greener-good.com/

knowist: Tell me a little bit about your passion for environmental issues?

Chuck: I have always had a tint of green growing up connecting with nature and the outdoors. I loved camping with my dad or walking a stream jumping from bolder to bolder for miles at a time as a youngster. My father recycled aluminum cans (not for the evn, but for the $) but it was always amazing to me when we went to drop off all of the cans, how many were there and that many in society just threw theirs out. But most of my life has been as a passive environmentalist. That all changed when my wife and I had our first child, Kendall. She made me think more about the future and what the world would be like when she got older. I started to think about her standard of living and decided to do some research on what was/is actually happening in the world.

The more research I have done, the more I realize that we have some serious challenges ahead of us and those are not as far out in the distance as many believe. I also don't believe that technology alone will be able to save us. We are making amazing advances in learning between materials science, energy and biomimicry. But the physics of 6.5 billion people on the planet, of which 3 billion have arrived in the last 50 years and another 3 billion projected in the next 40 cause me pause for concern. I believe that we must change culture and the values of humans as to what a high standard of living is and move away from consumption as the primary goal of a live. There are so many other ways of defining real wealth, many of which point to
more intense experiences and require a lot fewer resources.

knowist: Have you had to resolve conflict between your environmental passion and your business initiatives?

Chuck: There are indeed some business initiatives that I am engaged in that are not currently 100% aligned with my evolving vision for the future of Planet earth and its inhabitants (not that anyone is asking my opinion besides this blogger). But my goal is to help move them where is makes sense in a direction that is more consistent with my perception as to what it will take to be successful as resource challenges, carbon capt and trade systems, re localizing of economies, increased energy prices and rising commodity prices permeate the business community. Just like the last 5 to 10 years has drastically changed the competitive landscape for businesses, I believe that the next 5 to 10 will bring even bigger change as we move from a carbon based economy to a carbon neutral or carbon negative world.

So I hope help the businesses I am involved with be ahead of the inevitable curve we are speeding towards so that they can have a competitive advantage and excel in a changing world.

Interview with Sachin Agarwal of Dawdle

Sachin Agarwal is the co-founder and CEO of Dawdle, an online marketplace for both new and used video games, systems, and accessories. After working in VC and ibanking he started Dawdle.

Find Sachin
Twitter: @sachinag
Blog: http://blog.dawdle.com

knowist: Tell me a little about your work

Sachin: My job is to do everything I can to give interesting projects to the technology team and to leave them alone to do their jobs. I consider myself both the stage manager and the producer of the play that is Dawdle. The technology guys are the actors - the stars of the show. I strike partnerships with other companies, try to identify and recruit high value professional sellers to the site, do our media outreach, and handle some of the customer service.

knowist: What kind of tensions exist between technology decisions and strategic thinking?

Sachin: Well, we have our internal roadmap of stuff we want to build to make the site better/cheaper/faster/whatever-er. Partnerships often require us to write some specifications for our partners and usually require some technology to be built on our end. In addition to that, we always get feedback on new features from our professional sellers that we need to incorporate. Sometimes it feels like we're zigzagging between 800 different things, but that happens when I'm not doing my job and setting strong priorities. I make the final decisions about what takes priority, based on external feedback and internal development time estimates, and the technology team whips it up.

knowist: How has the concept of Dawdle evolved?

Sachin: The initial vision of the site worked much more like Priceline for video games - although I hated that comparison, in retrospect, it was the right one. We did a complete 180 on that and now Dawdle is much more of a fixed price marketplace, although we retain the Priceline style user-experience under our "StandingOffer" technology. It was a big deal to make that change, but thankfully, we were able to retain our transaction engine (we call it our Intelligent Matching Engine) by coming up with some clever ways to hack it (in the good sense). If we hadn't made good strategic decisions about how the technology would have worked from Day One, we never could have retained the engine and may have just puttered around forever. Since we made that change, sales have skyrocketed and it's been easier for me to recruit new sellers to the site.

knowist: what else you got for me?

Sachin: I think it's really important for every startup to have at least two people: one focused on technology, and one focused on everything else. Even if two technologists start a company, someone is going to have to step up and own the business aspects of the company. I initially tried to do Dawdle myself with some outside consultants (here in Chicago) building the technology. That just didn't work because Dawdle was just one of many clients. Similarly, a single technologist with no business partner is going to have a devil of a time getting good outside feedback from potential customers, partners, and press. The separation of roles is key.