Our first hiring decision was to  hire an adviser to help us with the project.  Due to some relationships we have, we were able to find someone who had several successes in building technology/process based platform companies to assess what we wanted to do and find the best approach to doing so. He undertook an extensive amount of research and was able to: 1) validate that our concept was on target; and that 2) much of what we wanted to accomplish could be done with available software and services.  We found that what five years ago would have cost well into six figures could be accomplished for a fraction of that.  This was very exciting as it meant we could start this business for a lot less than we thought and get to market faster than we envisioned.

Continuing to appreciate that we knew what we didn’t know, we hired him to manage the project for us. In doing so, he was able to find a great web design/developer for us to work with; these guys are incredibly bright as they have both an understanding of the technology and the business case for technology.  This is a very unique trait and once again tied into our philosophy about hiring smart people.  As important as finding the right firm to work with, our adviser was able to negotiate a great fixed price contract for us.  As some of the subsequent lessons will show, this was perhaps one of the smartest decisions that was made.

At this point in our start up’s life, we felt we were in great shape and doing all the right things.  We were able to think beyond our initial idea to find something unique, we identified what we didn’t know and hired people smarter than us to shepherd us through the development process.  Just as important, development was moving along and the initial design was looking great.  This was early January and we were targeting a late March launch that looked right on target.

This is when we learned an important and invaluable lesson about hiring smart people.  Its good to give smart people freedom and flexibility to do what they do best, its generally going to result in a great return.  But, one should never forget that smart people also make mistakes.  Because smart people are still people its critical to question and challenge them on key decisions and recommendations.  This is incredibly hard to do because as someone who doesn’t know, its easy to be intimated by their talent and your lack of knowledge. In as much as its incumbent upon a leader to recognize what they don’t know, its also necessary for a leader to have enough confidence to ask questions; remember there are no stupid questions.

As the next post will discuss, I didn’t have the confidence to dig deep into a decision that in hindsight should have been challenged.

In assessing how to do this, we came to understand the problems in the job board industry and the power of online communities, particularly when you are dealing with micro-niches. Hence, the concept of nextupcareers.com as a destination rather than a service was born. NextUp is designed to be a career site and job board that promoted community and knowledge sharing rather than focusing on the purely transactional functions of a job board.

When we began to determine the feasibility of creating a site of this type we immediately recognized that we didn’t know a whole hell of a lot about building websites and web-based applications. We know lots of people in the web building space, but we knew that even if we could articulate what we wanted and build a requirements document, we wouldn’t be capable of managing the process and ensuring we were doing the right things and making the best decisions.

As we came to the conclusion that we really didn’t have a clue about building what we wanted to build, we could have made two choices. We could have tried to educate ourselves or we could embrace the reality that we didn’t know and hire someone smarter than us to figure it out and manage the process for us. Both options have considerable risk to them and both are going to have a trial and error learning process.

This was a very critical decision for us, as much of the investment we were going to make was going to be into this site. As a bootstrap start up, our funds are limited; it would have been easy to try to figure it out on our own. Fortunately, we decided on option #2; we were better off finding someone who can help us learn what we didn’t know.

As some of the other lessons learned will demonstrate, this was a critical decision for us and ultimately a smart decision although there were some expensive mistakes made going this way as well. However, by and large we found that by understanding and appreciating what we didn’t know, we were able to minimize some potentially sizable mistakes.

Because of that background we knew that the industry had a supply/demand problem when it came to talent management. RE/PdM professionals are very technically skilled and they have a unique experience/skill set so its not a labor force that can be quickly scaled. The industry is growing rapidly, resulting in a situation where the demand was far outpacing the supply of talented people.

This is not a small industry but it was clear that this was a very neglected market. In doing our market research, we were not surprised to find that there were very few recruiters who specialized in finding these professionals. The depth of the neglect was surprising because there are so many firms and websites dedicated to the engineering and maintenance profession. That was then it occurred to us that we had likely found something truly difficult to find these days – an uncontested market. What made it so, and therefore made the industry unique is that is a niche within a niche, or what we have come to call a “micro niche”.

Once we came to understand the micro-niche, we quickly realized that there were hundreds, if not thousands of these to take advantage of. We also learned if we could build a defined profile of a desirable micro-niche and a delivery model that could be quickly replicated and mass customized we would be able to deliver services to any micro-niche we wanted.

Building a business model that is going to be replicated and scaled requires a different approach than one that is a single instance. By assessing the market and stepping back to look at the big picture, we quickly realized we had an opportunity that was far larger than what we envisioned. Whether or not we end up pursuing other micro-niches, it was clear to us that we needed to build our model to allow for the possibility.

Looking beyond ourselves, allowed us to think critically and ultimately create a business model that we believe will be much more successful.

As I began to dive into the project I was amazed to find that not only was our use of organizational development best practices rather unique, the market for recruitment services was incredibly fragmented and the delivery model broken. The effort grew and evolved into something exciting and what we believe will be a disruptive and scalable solution. Of course, building something new is never easy, and along the way our team has learned our share of lessons in bringing the idea to market.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be posting about those lessons learned. Some of them will no doubt be familiar, which in hindsight makes them frustrating. At the same time, there are some unique insights that I hope will help other entrepreneurs on their start up path.

As I post, I welcome any feedback and insights about your own experiences.

To begin, I am pleased to announce that NextUp Careers, our career portal for reliability engineers and predictive maintenance professionals has finally launched. It took a year plus to finally get to launch and was extremely painful and stressful but also an exhilarating and fun experience. NextUp will prove to be an interesting case study because its an entirely different approach to the traditional job board. There have been some incredible lessons learned throughout this that I will share in the coming weeks.

I am also pleased to formally announce the launch of Hire EQ. Hire EQ is an outsourced recruiting solution designed to meet the unique hiring needs of small/mid-size businesses. We believe that Hire EQ is the first model of its kind as recruitment process outsourcing has always been a service that only corporate America could take advantage of. There are a lot of exciting elements to Hire EQ but the part that I’m really excited about is the addition of David Pollard to our team. Dave is a long-time friend and client. He is also the owner of Talent Fusion, one of the top RPO companies in the country and an innovator in the recruitment space. Having Dave drive Hire EQ is a huge benefit for us and it speaks to how disruptive we believe Hire EQ will be.

I am also pleased to announce that within the next couple of weeks we will be announcing the formal launch of Joe Strategy. Joe Strategy is a strategy focused blog that will provide insights on best practices, planning tools and general insights and analysis. The site will be geared towards small/mid-size businesses and professional service providers. The latter is a different audience for us, but we are focusing on them because the vast majority of professional service providers are small/mid-size businesses and as we can attest from first hand knowledge, the world of professional service providers is changing drastically and the disruptions will continue.

When we formally launch Joe Strategy, we will be releasing our white paper entitled “The Crowd, the Cloud and the Demise of Professional Services as We Know It”. We’ve received some great feedback from our reviewers on it, and I hope that it will make many think about the impact of technology on professional knowledge advisers/providers.

This blog will also be active. Whereas Joe Strategy posts will be focused on strategy, this blog will continue to revolve around general business topics and insight. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be blogging about my start up lessons learned.

So, let me know who/what you are comparing yourself to and why?

There are several reasons for this – everything from summer vacation to a lack of focus/insight on interesting topics.  However, the primary reason is that I am extremely busy with several projects that will hopefully be winding down or transitioning to a different phase upon the end of this month.  Despite the lingering effects of the Great Recession, we at the Vann Group have been busier than ever this year working on lots of exciting opportunities.  Over the coming months, I will be sharings some of these with you as soon as I can.

One project that I am working on started out as a blog post, but has become a full blown White Paper.  The working title is “The Cloud, Crowd and the Demise of Professional Services as We Know it”.  Its a depressing but insightful look at what the future holds for traditional service providers and creatives.  For a quick understanding of the Cloud & Crowd, I suggest you check out this article entitled “Cloud Based Computing Spawns Cloud Based Marketing“that appeared in Friday’s Mass High Tech.  It is written by Richard Banfield of Fresh Tilled Soil and features a great new start up from Chris Merrill called Web-o-Matic.  It’s a great read and will be an excellent primer for the White Paper.

Until then, enjoy your summer and see you after Labor Day.

One of the keys to being succesful in business is staying disciplined, particularly when it comes to the activities that are critical to growing your business.  And, I have to say that blogging has become a success driver for our marketing.  Therefore, I have committed to myself that I will provide at least one blog a week of substance (debatable I’m sure) to the Vann Group blog.  To ensure that I stay disciplined and on target, I have plugged two hours a week into my schedule strictly for the purpose of blogging.  Here is hoping I can keep myself disciplined!

With that behind me, I did want to provide a quick review of my spanking brand new iPhone 3GS.  Its been a week since I traded in m Blackberry for the iPhone, making my conversion from the dark side complete as I am now fully operating my life on Apple products.  No one can ever convince me to go back to a Windows based computer.  One week into it, I can’t say the same about the iPhone.

There is a lot to like becuase for all intents and purposes its like carrying a handheld computer.  Surfing the web is easy, as is updating my Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts.  I’ve also got into some other apps as I’m now tracking my diet and am using the Wine Enthusiast Guide for wine shopping. Oh, and I can do my banking right through the phone and can call overseas for free using Skype.  I also like the way email is presented and I’m getting used to the keyboard.

On the negative side, the email is not in the same league as Blackberry – its harder to navigate between email accounts and the push technology can’t compete.  I’m an email junky so this is discouraging.  Also, in as much as I’m getting used to the keyboard, I miss the feel of keys.  The lack of keys also makes it impossible to dial/type without looking at the keyboard.  A real problem for anyone who might dial/type while driving or appearing like your engaged in a meeting rather than texting.

Overall, I’m at an 8.5 on the phone, which is about where I was with the Blackberry.  Bottom line, its all aobut which experience is more important to you – email or the web.  If I get used to the email, I’ll never to back to Blackberry, but if I can’t, my iPhone might be available on EBay.

With that being said, far more important than the perception of the glass of water is what you want to accomplish with the water.   If you want to empty the glass, the opportunity is there because half the water is gone – the challenge is how do you get the rest of the water out?  Alternatively, if you want to fill the glass, the opportunity is there because the glass is already filled halfway – the challenge is figuring out how to get it full.

Personally, I’m trying like hell to fill the glass.   How about you?