inDinero has been getting a bunch of great publicity lately, but many of my interviews focus too much around my founding the company with Andy.  Why do I bother doing PR if I know in advanced that it won't be focused on my company?  

It's hard to predict how articles will turn out in advanced because the editor often chooses the direction.  One unhappy example was when I woke up super early to talk to a reporter about inDinero.  We spoke almost an hour about the company and its progress, but the reporter ended up taking the "lack of females in tech" angle.  I told the reporter in advanced that it wasn't a topic I was interested in discussing, but that's the angle they took.  On the flip side, I was super pleased by how the NY Times and SF Chronicle articles turned out.  While the articles prominently featured me, they also talked a bunch about inDinero and where the company is headed -- and thus sent us a bunch of new customers.  

After getting featured in better known publications, I get asked to interview with smaller blogs and local news outlets to talk about my entrepreneurial background.  My original policy was to turn them down immediately, knowing that they do very little to help the company.  But after speaking to an editor from Fortune, I've slowly begun to shift my opinion:  the interviews have seemed to be a source of inspiration for others, and it's very encouraging to hear from readers who learned something from reading about my company.  It's especially fulfilling to hear from high school students who one day plan on starting a company, because I was in their shoes not so long ago.  

I remember just four years ago, my friend Miriam sent Ali Partovi (then Founder/CEO of iLike.com) a Facebook message with a note telling him how awesome an entrepreneur he is.  She had read about him in the press, and was inspired by the incredible success he and iLike were having.  I was astonished to see his replies -- iLike was taking off like a rocket ship, and he took a few minutes to respond to my friend Miriam's questions.  We were both ecstatic for the rest of the evening, inspired by the fact that a successful entrepreneur would actually bother chatting with wannabe high school entrepreneurs.  Four years later, Ali Partovi became an investor at inDinero.  

If doing PR does nothing but inspire potential entrepreneurs, I think it's worth doing.  If only half of inDinero's stories revolved around the company itself, I'd be happy to have taken the time to do them.

During interviews, I'm often asked who I get my inspiration from.  There are five people I've read extensibly about -- as in, I've read many books about their history, I've studied the products they've built through their careers, and I've watched many of the video interviews of them.  

I think it's invaluable to figure out who your five hero figures are, and to study them for the purpose of applying their ideas to your own business.

Management Philosophy:  Warren Buffet.  I absolutely love his long-term thinking (what other company thinks as long-term as Berkshire Hathaway?)  His thoughts on CEO compensation, the flaws of stock options, and the role of a Board of Directors have struck a cord in me.  I highly recommend reading all of this annual shareholder letters, starting from the one he wrote in 1977.

Design Thinking:  Walt Disney.  His creative powers during his tenure at the Walt Disney Company are unrivaled to this day.  Though he doesn't have a great managerial legacy, it's fascinating to see how his company grew and struggled through the 20th century.  I highly recommend reading Walt Disney:  The Triumph of the American Imagination.  

Business Strategy:  Bill Gates.  He played Microsoft as if he were playing an elaborate Chess game -- the most immediately obvious moves others take often make little sense, and he's one of few technical CEOs who've been able to think so strategically about building an empire.  Just a few months ago, Paul Graham recommended I read Hard Drive:  The Making of Bill Gates and the Microsoft Empire.  It's a great book, and it shows how long it took for Microsoft to become the company it is today.  

Culture and Service:  Tony Hsieh.  His new book, Delivering Happiness, changed the way I think about the culture of my company.  My biggest takeaway was what he said about selling his first company.  When it stops being fun, the money doesn't matter anymore.  I'm looking forward to taking my company to visit Zappos in Vegas next month!

Marketing and Publicity:  Steve Jobs.  I recently started watching his keynotes at MacWorld, starting from the one he gave in 1984.  One investor recently called inDinero an "incredible hype machine", and now you know where the inspiration comes from. 

 

Through my tenure at inDinero, it'll become very obvious where my ideas and philsophy come from.  

Where do you get your inspiration from?  Choose a few people to look up to, and study their histories extensively. 

A lot of entrepreneurs talk about keeping "laser focus" while working on a startup, and most people will agree that it's the right thing to do.  But it's probably the most challenging things to do because it requires turning so many people away.

If you're laser focused on building your product (the most important thing you should be doing as an entrepreneur), do literally nothing else.  

VCs will email you.  Tell them you're not raising money so a meeting doesn't make sense to you.

Potential partners will ask you to work with them.  Tell them you're building product and to call you back in 6 months.

A contact you respect sends an introduction to someone who "might be a good person to know."  Tell them too that you're busy.  If you actually believe in laser focus, not even a strong introduction will stand in the way.

Your own investors email you, and you tell them that you're busy building product and can't meet with them.   

The responses you might get back:

"But it'll only be 30 minutes of your time" -- that's 30 minutes too much.

If it's a VC, they might respond with "It's better to get to know investors before you have to fundraise."  -- that's a) assuming you plan on fundraising, and b) you ever intend on raising money from them.  That response in itself is indicative of the time they'll expect from you if you were a portfolio company.  And if you actually believe in laser focus, you know you want to stay away from that VC.  

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Wednesday January 12th at 1PM Eastern Time, I'll be doing a live chat with Inc. Magazine readers and viewers.  Anyone is welcome to join -- just tune in at http://www.inc.com/live for the event.

A few topics I'll probably be covering:

- How and why Andy and I started inDinero
- The current product roadmap and what we have planned for 2011
- The many challenges we've faced since founding the company

If you have any specific questions you'd like me to answer, feel free to just shoot me an email at ceo@indinero.com.

See you there!