Since November we’ve had well over 400 users interested in the Stacks beta program. Imulus isn’t exactly a well-known interactive agency, yet we’ve been able to generate a good amount of interest in little time and with little effort. The interest in Stacks is primarily generated from our success with our Support Details product.

Support Detail is a free web-tech support application that we launched in April of 2009. It was a tool that sat on our back-burner for over 6 years, but it took less then 1 week to develop. We launched it to solve a recurring problem that we had with clients not technically familiar enough to give us the browser’s technical specifications. Within weeks of it’s launch, Support Details was featured in LifeHacker, SitePoint, StumbleUpon and MaximumPC. That early success drove visitor count up to 40k per month. With that much traffic coming to the site we decided to advertise our own products using Support Details as the advertising outlet. Our logic, if you like what we’ve done with Support Details, then maybe you’ll like our other products. Hopefully Stacks is equally as exciting as Support Details. We believe it is and we’ll work hard keep it useful without becoming cumbersome.

We’ve snowballed the success of one product into another. This method can be seen all over the web. Most notably by 37Signals. They’ve managed to build BaseCamp, snowball success into Ruby on Rails, then to the SVN Blog, then to the Job Board, etc… Now they have an entire suite of products, most of which are very successful. They are selling by snowballing their success from product to product. This creates a community of supporters and users that grow with you over time.

I don’t think this methodology is difficult to replicate. Focus on solving a problem within your industry. It doesn’t need to be sexy, or feature rich. Stop yourself the next time you get frustrated with an aspect of your daily routine. Think about an easy way to solve that problem then execute on it. Just don’t wait 6 years to pull the trigger.

Process is like most things in life, it needs balance. The hard part is determining where the right balance is for a company.

Companies that focus too heavily on process can slip into the all-to-common roll of being a workhorse. Producing medium quality work that lacks feel and creativity. Yet, companies that can’t reign in certain aspects of process tend to lose money and long-term durability. The key lies in finding a medium.

Implementation of a strict process can help companies rebound in times when individuals aren’t present. Yet, companies must be careful. The ability to swap individuals in and out has a cost. There’s a reason small businesses sometimes change the game all together and not just the rules. Small companies thrive on being nimble and innovative. These two things are the result of talented individuals working together as a family. If you remove this aspect from a company, over time it will bloat, lose drive, and eventually quality will diminish.

Case in point, rather than: check your approach, verify other team members understand and agree, confirm the customer is on board, document it, and then start. It’s better to just do it. If the result is good: add it to your toolshed, document it, and teach others. If not, eat crow, fix it, and move on. My feeling is most of the time this gamble pays off. Especially if your people are high caliber and your customer buys into the strategy.

However, for small companies it’s a facade to pretend that you can replace a family member and keep moving forward like nothing happened. A company, especially one that strives to break barriers, will always be hurt by the loss of a key individual. There is no way around this. The goal of a good process shouldn’t be to avoid this all together, but rather to mitigate its damage. Employee happiness, company profit, high quality work, and long-term sustainability should be enhanced by process. Not stifled. This… is not easy.

Best of luck to all companies (including us) who are trying to combat this challenge

Our “Process” is under attack; by us.

Recently, if you’ve bugged our office you’d be hearing the word “Process” tossed around with great frequency. This sounds ironic coming from a company which disdains corporate red-tape and culture. Yet I feel that Process has gotten a bad rap over the years. It’s been associated with words like ridged, out-dated, creativity-killer, soul-crusher… you get the point. In fact, I believe the opposite is true.

A great process is like having a common language between your entire team. Anyone new, coming into that team should be able to learn the language and immediately contribute. Similar to a language; processes need to be malleable and grow organically over the years. We’ve looked at ourselves in the mirror and determined that much of our success is dependent upon our chemistry and culture. While these things work well at first, they don’t allow your company to grow. They really fail once someone leaves either on vacation or permanently. Events like that will clearly cause havoc in a company which is glued together by chemistry.

Documenting Process allows us to quickly pick-up where another has left off. When a failure happens along the course of a project, it is the process that can be refined. Teams which clearly understand and execute an effective process will spend less time thinking about how to do something and more time can be dedicated to execution and creativity.

As an entrepreneur there is no boss to tell me what I’m doing wrong. Instead, I try to be hyper-vigilant on assessing my performance, skills and the myriad of daily communications. I can’t be truly confident in my abilities without being self-critical. It serves no one to hide faults and weaknesses behind a false appearance.

Here is my own personal list (made public) to help myself gain a perspective on a situation and how I can resolve it. This time it is “Why I fail to execute.”

Why?

• I don’t plan out enough.
• I’m always rushing myself, therefore things get missed and others pay the price.
• I put too many little things on my plate which should be delegated out.
• I’m not giving others enough information and training to adequately pick up some of my workload.
• When I do assign myself work, it’s too easy to push things off into the future.

What are my rewards for “not executing”?
It’s helpful to dig deep into the hidden reasons that a negative feature or characteristic continues despite a desire to change.

• Delaying work load if I don’t feel like doing it.
• Delayed responsibility.
• It allows me to choose what things I focus on thereby giving me some sort of twisted control.
• It creates a perception that I’m too busy, maybe deep down I want that perception, but busy doesn’t equal effective.

What does it cost me?

• Time
• Energy
• Lack of achieving goals.
• Stress & frustration.
• Lack of leadership.
• Reduced depth of relationships
• Loss of money & failure to capitalize on opportunities
• Self-confidence

How can I change this?

• Wake up each morning and plan the day; look at tomorrow; assess the next 5 days.
• Make time to focus on creativity during the week.
• Prioritize tasks which can be delegated and get back to others first thing in the morning so they aren’t left waiting for a response.
• Set aside a time chunk each day for tasks which only I can do; and make time to document, train and delegate items to others.
• Before pushing off a task ask myself “what is it costing me to delay this?”
• Minimize distractions and make time for brainless activities.

There you go. I hope this helps other entrepreneurs better understand themselves.

I’ve said from day-one; “my job is to make myself irrelevant“, but that has proved tougher then I originally thought.

I’ve spent the last week away on vacation; as detached as my iPhone will allow me to get. Being out of the loop on the day-to-day team dialog and hands-on involvement has really given me a better appreciation and perspective of our office and our team’s capabilities. It’s reassured me that it’s OK to let go, bruised knees are just part of the learning process.

Owners of small businesses wear many hats but others need to try on those hats from time to time if you plan on growing as a company. Take for instance the sales process. For the last 7 years this has been part of my domain. I have a very established way of doing things which has worked very well for ME and Imulus. I was reluctant about leaving the sales process up to the rest of our office while I was gone. I believed I hadn’t trained them enough; I didn’t give them the necessary time with the training wheels on.

Thankfully with the lead of our Project Manager Stephanie, the office strongly pushed back on the notion they weren’t up to the task. I tucked away my fears and took a seat in the back. Over the next few days I watched the dialog between us and two perspective clients. I was impressed by what I learned. They deeply engaged with the prospects, were exceedingly quick to respond and thorough beyond my standards. Not only did they live up to the task but they taught me what I needed to do to improve my sales process.

I emphasize process because this term gets a bad rap, yet it’s critical to running a successful company. I think it’s important to stress a key principal at Imulus before I continue. We don’t grow for the sake of growing; to maximize profits; or to add extra personal to drum up our size. Nope, we’re not that shallow. Instead our growth is aimed at creating a better company. One that is enjoyable to work at, for and with. Everytime we add someone it’s because we want greater specialization and expertise. Process gives us constraints and structures to be creative within; as opposed stifling creativity.

My tip
Step away from the office and watch your team work. Take notes, refine and re-implement your process. The key is to let your team drive the company’s process rather then just the owner(s). Look at your process as the joint brain trust of the kick-ass people you’ve hired. Have the faith and confidence in your team. It will go a long way to improving your small business.