Delighted- Underused, but very powerful. My grandmother said this word all the time. I did not realize its power until I began reading Seth Godin’s blog and books. Then I heard Seth give podcasts and speeches where he used it again. Finally, I once had a phone conversation where he made it part of his greeting…something to the effect of “I’m delighted to have the chance to speak with you.” In my opinion, humans wish to delight at a visceral level. When the other person verifies this by using the word I (and I am willing to bet many others) get a warm and fuzzy.

Exotic- I love using the term “exotic” to describe competitors offering solutions to my own. We all know that one should never bad mouth their competitor when meeting a prospect. However, you must defuse what they offer in a friendly and non threatening way. I have found that describing competing solutions as “exotic” encourages the prospect to feel like the other solutions are non sensical. I want them drinking my Kool-Aid, but first the prospect must spit out what is left from a prior sales call with my competitor.

Cheers- I do not necessarily want to be my prospect’s friend, but I do want them to trust me and people trust friends. One way to build a relationship in many countries is to have tea, beer, or any adult beverage together. What word is always used? “Cheers.” I choose to end many emails with the salutation “Cheers” and have found it to be well taken by the prospect in the vast majority of instances. Obviously, situation dictates. Don’t ever throw a grenade like a fastball (see video).

I would enjoy hearing any other key words that you may like to use for persuasion and relationship/trust building.

Turntable.fm

From a more scientific perspective, what makes Turntable.fm so good?

1. Web-Based- Since Turntable.fm is web-based there is no need to fire up an external app or download something. Anyone can access it anytime on one playing field.
2. The Need To Behave- Because DJ’s are offered the almighty “point(s)” they viscerally feel the need to behave and do their best to play music suitable for the room. It is amazing how much assigning a simple point system and offering ridiculous headwear keeps folks in line.
3. Easy To Find Your Group- There are so many obscure rooms that you are sure to find other anti-establishment hipsters to blend in with (irony?).
4. Music Curation By Strangers- There are several services to find music curated by friends. However, this is the first app that really keys in on curated music by strangers. If the room agrees with the selection, the song is ceremoniously initiated as “cool” and therefore okay for me to listen to in the future. I like this.

The Coming Wave

I really think we will see more apps like Turntable.fm. Not necessarily for music either. Apps with simple animation, social elements, and slight gamification. Maybe there will be a light storyline, but nothing to stand in the way of engagement. I think Zynga is doing this in a way, but I believe these apps will get even simpler.

Spotify Logo

I started using Spotify yesterday. Based on the hype, I was preparing to be let down. Instead of starting with the premium version, I decided to give the free version a try.

First of all, Spotify has been in Europe for about four years. This is not a beta product. In fact, it is one of the best experiences with a new app I have ever had. It is easy, slick, and fast. The desktop client is very fast! It is definitely faster than iTunes by a wide margin (at least in my mind).

Then there was the user experience after set up. Phenomenal. Every song, album, and version I could ever listen to. I am sure there is obscure music that is missing, but I don’t care about it anyway. When I figured out that I had to pay for mobile streaming to my iPhone I did so in short order. The downloading of songs onto my phone for times when I am offline was not that fast. That is my only real complaint.

The social and sharing features are bonuses. I can see Facebook friends on Spotify and all their playlists. This only makes me realize how little music I listened to before yesterday.

Before yesterday I was mainly a talk radio guy. However, Spotify made me want to find and listen to music. Now, when I am at my computer I am listening to music. When I am not at my computer, I am listening to music streaming on my iPhone. This is a dramatic behavioral change for me.

I spent around 20 minutes yesterday deleting much of the music from my library. No sense in it taking up hard drive space. I think many people will do the same

So, How Can Spotify Get Better?

Turntable.fm

I would like Spotify and Turntable.fm to have a baby. I love Spotify’s ease of use and full library of music. I love Turntable.fm for the music curation by relative strangers and small group interaction in rooms…not to mention the funky helmets cool DJ’s get to wear. If Spotify had a Turntable.fm feature, I would be listening and engaging with the app all the time, not just listening passively. It would be the complete music app.

I no longer have use for iTunes for music and Apple should be concerned about this. If I am Apple and sitting on $60 bazillion in cash, I would break off a chunk and pick up Spotify and Turntable.fm and ensure future music dominance on the web.

I am one. I know a lot more like me. Since accounting is the language of business, I needed to learn some basics and continue to sharpen the saw over time.

Back when we started Intense Debate I did not know the difference between a balance sheet and an income statement. I think there is this fixation on hacking things together in the web world and turning it into a business if people (I freaking hate the term “users”) begin using their app. So much attention is drawn to the lean start up methods, and raising money from VC’s, but rarely do I see talk about pro formas. I think this is a mistake that leads to poor budgeting, improper break even analysis, and little clue about the behavior of variable and fixed costs over time.

Oh, and what about when Obama wants his taxes paid? You better know what you owe beforehand. Sure… you can hire a CPA, but this is like working with programmers and having no idea about programming yourself.

If the your app catches on, then you “pick up the pieces” and commercialize the technology in some way. At this point I think every entrepreneur needs a basic understanding of accounting.

I stumbled on a great resource the other day that I would recommend to any entrepreneur, web or otherwise. Susan Crosson has contributed 211 video accounting lessons on YouTube each broken into small 3-5 minute chunk lessons on a concept. Taking 15 mins a day and watching these has been a great benefit to me and so I would like to share this with the world.

Susan Crosson Video Stats

What is really interesting are the stats from one of her videos. Her videos are very popular in Pakistan and India. Just another example of the power of web video as a conduit to learning around the globe.

Enjoy this lesson on the accounting equation.

I finally am back to using Delicious after two years. For some reason I stopped using the service. I have a feeling many did the same. Did people stop bookmarking?

I have been more likely to save links to my Firefox browser and delete when I no longer need the link. I also used Google Notebook (pretty sure I was the only one) and was disappointed when they discontinued that service.

In the past, I never used Delicious to share/broadcast what I bookmark. This is because most of what I bookmarked had some business purpose. Therefore the sharing aspect of Delicious never appealed to me.

However, I am intrigued by what others are bookmarking and have used it as a “popularity search engine.” I may have just coined a term, but follow my logic. I don’t care for who is bookmarking, I care how many people bookmarked a given link. It adds credibility and draws my attention. It tells me I need to keep track of something.

My final observation is that many of the links I saved two or more years ago are dead links. This is surprising to me given the SEO benefits of keeping content online and searchable. I am no SEO expert, but I was under the impression that the longer a permalink existed, the more Google juice accrued. Maybe people are changing the permalinks to target other keywords. I am sure most have their reasons, but I can’t put my finger on what those reasons are. Please feel free to correct me if you are in the know.

First, let’s discuss what color actually does. It is a photo sharing application for mobile devices rooted in the concept of Implied Social Networks and utilizing your location to meet those nearby. You get to see pics that are shared by those close in proximity to you. It could serve as a great ice breaker when meeting new folks. I actually like the idea and look forward to their future releases.

So, Color has a good idea. They also have a good team of proven entrepreneurs. And now they have funding! Great, right!? All the makings for a good launch and future success. Certainly they should garner lots of positive press…

Unfortunately, they made one mistake that has served as a catalyst for bad press and belligerent commenters: they said the number! $41M big ones.

To me, this is the equivalent of announcing that you have a 27 inch penis. Your friends will look at you funny and strangers that don’t know you will mock you and root against you. This is what happened today.

There are people righting the ship because they know the entrepreneurs behind Color personally (See Jason Calacanis’ post here), but that may not be enough.

So, what is the lesson? Don’t say the number. If they announced their product and stated that they had received significant funding from Sequoia, people would be writing and commenting in a much more positive light. In my view, I see no value in announcing the amount of funding you received. It only serves as competitive intelligence and adds no PR value in my eye. Again, just announcing that Sequoia is an investor should be all you need in this case. Let who your investors are be the story, not how much you received.

I have been naturally lean my whole life and so the goal with this workout it to gain some mass. It has worked as I’ve added a little over an inch to my biceps over the 12 week period. Like all workouts, diet is extremely important as well. I will blog about diet and supplements another time.

My Bicep Workout:

Warmup- stretch, 5 mins on stationary bike, 10 traditional pushups, 10 superman pushups, 10 overhand pullups, 60 seconds of jumprope

Assume all have same set and reps as #1

1) EZ Bar curls (my ez bar is about 18lbs)- 4 sets; 10-8-6-10; 38,48,58, 38 lbs

2) Machine Curls- 85,95,105,85lbs

3) Dumbell curls- 30,35,40,30 lbs

4) Rope hammer curls- 95,105,115, 95 lbs

5) Dumbell hammer curls- 25,30,35,25 lbs

I will finish with 3 sets of decline crunches while holding a 10 lb medicine ball and 5 mins on the stationary bike.

Again, the goal of this is to add some mass and tear up your bicep to encourage growth. This takes me roughly 1:20 to complete. If you are running short on time, knock off the fourth set and add 5-10 lbs per set.

Yesterday, Paige and his team launched Betterworks and I felt compelled to write about two things that stand out:

1) You can’t help but notice the Yammer influence, especially with the pricing model and the market being served. For under four bucks you get happier more productive employees. Gigantic market (about a bazillion dollars).

2) Oodles of value at a cheap price. The Value/Price ratio is off the charts. For the price of some Air Jordans you can grab huge discounts for your 100 employee company. Seriously. Many SMB’s spend more on paper in a week.

In my opinion, if your startup has these two ingredients, you can get a lot of things wrong (bad employees, poor design, etc) and still be very successful.

I am sure there is more special sauce involved, but these are the two things that jumped off the page.

Semper Fi

I have noticed a difference in my all around size, but feel it could have been better without taking as many days off as I did for sickness, ski injury, and ridiculous amounts of biz travel in January. This affected the diet as well (which is just as important).

I will be toning down the “bodybuilding” work toward the end of March to focus more on compound movements, cardio, strength, and flexibility (in preparation for golf season). I am going to be competing again this summer.

If you would like to give it a go, here is what I’ve been doing:

Warm Up:
-Jog 3 mins
-stretch
-10 pushups
-10 overhand pullups

Workout: 4 sets each; 10-8-6-10

• Barbell benchpress; 135,145,155,135lbs
• Fly machine; 95, 105,115,95lbs
• Incline dumbell flys; 20,25,30, 20lbs
• Incline dumbell press; 30, 35, 40, 30
• Dumbell benchpress; 35, 40, 45
• Cable crossovers (45lbs each side), one set until exhaustion

Note: foot is still recovering from ski injury, so no running for another couple of weeks. I do abs twice per week: bicep and back days.

Stats: 6’2”, 191lbs

Tomorrow is shoulders.