Businesses often fail when it comes to doing something as simple as talking to their customers. I'm not sure if it's because they're lazy or if because they don't feel the need to, but it's probably the one big thing that can make or break a company Don't ignore your customers! Few thoughts:

1) Ignore the customers and they'll flock to the competitor. When I board an airplane, I expect the pilot to greet me. (thank you, Jetblue) When I buy my clothing from Barney's, I expect store assistants to help me with figuring out what I want to buy. When the help isn't there, I'll just cross the street and buy from the better company.

True story: I was looking for sun glasses in a shopping mall, and I was prepared to buy. I walked in, but the store assistant was too busy tooling around with his Facebook, so I left. I went to the store next door and spent $400 because the man at the door greeted me and gave me his honest feedback on which sunglasses looked good and which didn't. Lesson of the story, always talk to your customers.

2) Ignore your customers and miss out on what they're actually looking for. Company executives are apparently so busy working on their companies that they have little time to solicit the feedback of customers. Problem is, how are the execs to know what's working and what isn't? I think a great example would be Mattel: they sell Barbie dolls to preteen girls, but the execs are probably in their 40's. Unfortunately, girls don't aspire to elegantly dressed dolls anymore. How are the execs to know that the girls of today aspire to be anorexic sluts? Without the constant feedback, the execs would never have known this!

3) Talking to users = Making new friends. I love it when people talk to their users, whether it be about the product or about nothing at all. Hair stylists do this best: You're stuck in a chair and they're cutting your hair. What else is there to do besides talk to the hair stylist about the latest gossip on Valleywag? Encourage casual contact between you and your users and maybe you'll meet your most loyal word-of-mouth marketers.

All of this comes back to how I run this blog. I write a lot, but I want to hear from readers. Matter of fact, this blog post was inspired by a blog reader! Without the feedback, I wouldn't know what you guys wanted to hear. As always, please feel free to reach out and/or comment with your thoughts.

With much love to my passionate readers,

Jessica

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college.

She loves chatting with fellow students, readers, and entrepreneurs, so don't hesitate to email her or message her on AIM! Feel free to subscribe to her blog or stalk her twitter.

Most of you have only met the superficial version of me. I've been thinking a lot about my personal brand in the recent weeks, and I've come to a few major decisions as to how I want people to perceive me. Through my blog, I have complete discrepancy as to how and what I write about myself. Until lately, it's been completely overdone. For some silly reason, half the people who have heard of me perceive me as a child prodigy. The other half either think I'm arrogant or don't care. The purpose of this blog post is to tell you that I'm more of the normal teenage girl than you probably think.

Firstly, I don't deserve the credibility that I have. I'm out there in the tech world and I'm sometimes mentioned on people's blogs. Big deal! I haven't sold a successful startup and I don't have a product that I've launched this year. Yet somehow, I get invited to speaking engagements and other fancy elitist groups. Instead, you should see me for and only for my enthusiasm and potential. I'm off to an early start, but in a few years, that won't matter. Nobody will care in 10 years that I went to college early and failed at a few startups when I was 16 years old. I guess I'm slightly worried that I've been spending too much time talking to you guys and not enough time doing something great. Until I find amazing success, none of you should have the right to call me smart.

Next, I much rather you guys view me as a child prodigy than as a whore. Sure, my personal branding has been overdone, but at least it was overdone in a somewhat positive direction. Unlike Paris Hilton, people have a slight clue as to what I want to do with my life. Smarts are sustainable, looks are not. As one of my friends said, "if you're going to be famous, at least have a business model." People associate my name to business and technology. As for Paris Hilton, well, people look at her as a hot girl with an empty brain. No matter how hard she tries to change her personal brand, people will be stuck in their old ways of thinking. So, if you overdo your personal branding, "do it with a business model" :)

Internet celebrity Julia Allison wrote on her Tumblr yesterday:

I’m in the midst of a transformation right now. Actually, it’s not so much an internal transformation (although there’s that, too) but a realignment - so my outside matches my inside, so the perception matches the reality.

The quote just comes to show that people don't understand who she is. They read about her in Valleywag, but they don't know how fun, enthusiastic, and smart she is in real life. I've been told so many times by my blog readers that I'm different from how they thought I'd be. Some thought that I'd be formal, proper, intelligent and well-spoken, whereas others thought I'd be a snotty-arrogant-uptight-child-prodigy-bitch. One reader suggested that I overdid my professional brand, whereas Julia blurred her personal and professional brands together.

In real life, I'm just an adventurous teenager. I like to do something called having fun. I have something called friends. I go to class, I do my homework, I play instruments, I play sports, and do all the things you'd expect a normal 17 year old kid to do. (minus the many fun business/tech trips I've been on). Sure, I'm in college, but that doesn't mean much about my personality. Instead, try to see through the fog: all of the random bloggers you stalk are real human beings and have lives outside of the internet. Their personal brand may be completely deceiving for all you know.

Like many girls, I've had that desire to have the spotlight on me. And I've gotten quite a lot of spotlight for a girl my age, but I've come to realize that it's nothing more than a distraction. I'm dedicating too much effort to building up my personal brand and not enough in a) leading a normal teenage life and b) working on doing something amazing, whether it be save the world or build a hot startup. As one of my friends Charlie mentioned, the most brilliant people he knows prefer to keep in the shadows. They don't have much of a personal brand, but their smarts and successes create the true credibility one needs to be known. I guess as of late, this idea has been much more appealing to me.

So what does all of this mean for you, me, and my future in blogging?

1) The blog lives on. I'll always continue to blog because I love you guys so much!

2) I've decided to cut wayy back on my conference going. I have many connections as it stands and I don't need to waste more time networking with 50 year olds.

3) You hopefully won't have to see me on Valleywag again. As I've mentioned in other posts, the influx of press gives you a temporary high.

4) It's soo easy to get drawn into the fun culture of Silicon Valley. It's so easy that you sometimes forget to create something of value.

So for now, I'll try to stay in the shadows. I have no problem speaking at conferences or doing interviews or whatever, but I'll remain honest and true to myself: I'm a kid who's yet to succeed in business.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup and the managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. Big thanks to my friends Jacob Locke, Patricia Handschiegel, and Charlie O'Donnell for having helped me gather my thoughts on this.

I'm sitting in a panel moderated by Guy Kawasaki and he wanted the panel to be women only, which got me to think about the different type of women entrepreneurs there are.

Firstly, many women entrepreneurs I meet seem to run a business geared towards other women. Most of the women on this panel had businesses that target women. This isn't a problem at all. If anything, it can be a smart thing. My mom, for example, makes clothing for women not just because she knows that business best, but because it makes more money than men's clothing does.

Whenever I'm introduced to a female entrepreneur, it's almost as if I'm expected to make friends with them. I don't make friends with many women in business and tech for some reason, but there shouldn't be anything wrong with this. To the guys: just because you're a guy doesn't mean you'll automatically click with other guy entrepreneurs! Same thing applies to girls. When I meet a new girl, I see if they fit into the following categories. If they do, fine. If not, better. Personally, I dislike the idea of girls who fit into cookie cutter categories, but there are so few of us who can truly be considered unique. Here are the stereotypical categories that I commonly see:

1) The geeks: I meet many girls who are incredibly friendly, but they're geeks. They spend the majority of their time working, working, and working. I find it hard to click with the hardcore female geeks because they don't believe in fashion or partying. You may not see many of these girls because they're so incredibly sheltered.

2) The blogger chicks: These girls may or may not have a functional business, but they sure know how to write! They often attract overly obsessed and sketchy guys. I can safely say that these are the girls you're probably most exposed to. Such blogger chicks include the likes of ijustine.

3) The suits: For some reason, men in suits have an intimidating vibe behind them. They don't know jack about technology, but they sure know how to talk. Women in suits can be no different. Meg Whitman, for example, was CEO of eBay.com and is probably incapable of installing a simple PHP script. She's 100% the business type and she does a great job at this, but you don't see a sense of fun or girliness in this type of girl.

So you ask, where do I fit in? Where do my favorite women entrepreneurs fit in? From what people tell me, I can fit into one of these or all of these. Back in computer camp days (yes I used to be a total dork) I would definitely place myself as a geek. Last year when I had no company in the works, I was a blogger chick. Now, I'm seeing myself more and more as all of the above. The girls I generally click with fit into multiple categories. The hardcore geeks have no social life. The absolute hardcore blogger chicks have no aspiration to have a career. The suits come off as being too elitist.

Let's look at a real life example: Patricia Handschiegel. I have so much respect for her as a female entrepreneur because she's a hard worker, yet she's fun and enthusiastic about managing a good work/life balance. Cheers to her recent sale of StyleDiary.net! If only there were more entrepreneurs like her out in the world...

The absolute biggest problem for female entrepreneurs is perception. The above categories can apply to guys to some extent. The popular stereotypes are guy geeks, surfer dudes, and elitist men. In the media, you mainly see the stereotypes. For girls, you mainly hear only about blogger chicks. For guys, you see all of the above categories. If the fun and brilliant female entrepreneurs got some more exposure, we would definitely see more women entrepreneurs out there.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star. (and traveling to random cities and checking into hotels while being underage)

Wow, where do I begin?

So I first started out by doing my college apps, but then my laptop battery started to drain. I made my way to the Continental President's Club only to be turned away by the receptionist who told me that I was "too young."

"The age rule of 21 is silly" I said.

"It's not silly. ITS THE LAW!" replied the receptionist.

Jordan from Valleywag suggested that I instead respond, "Do you know who I am? Those rules don't apply to me." HAH! But of course, being the infamous Jessica Mah that I am, I "pulled some strings" and here I am sitting in the President's Lounge enjoying free power for my laptop. Life is good. If only my plane got here on time!

Photo of the Continental President's Lounge, taken by yours truly.

As always, when Jessica Mah is turned away from something, she'll find a way to get in. Look here, here, and here. You know you love me!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star. (and traveling to random cities and checking into hotels while being underage)

I was reading Meghan Asha's Tumblr when I stumbled across a blog post that I could definitely relate to. It was titled, How much is 'too much' to show on the Internet?

The idea of fame and celebrity status will at one point or another flood your mind. Remember when you were seven years old and you said you wanted to grow up to be Brad Pitt or Britney Spears? This sounds dorky, but when I was seven years old, I aspired to be as smart and successful as our good friend Bill Gates. I wanted people to admire me for my amazing achievements. Now, it seems as if people enjoy talking crap about all of the celebs I've mentioned above. Then what good is having celebrity status?

Here's a tidbit from Meghan Asha's blog:

Strangely, it was compelling to watch someone else doing daily activities in front of a web cam. What makes some people such exhibitionists? My friend Julia Allison is all over the Internet with intimate details of her personal life. It seems like exposing yourself to the virtual world is an addictive cycle that leaves one with an initial high and low (once you’ve read others nasty comments on your video or blog).

After thinking this through, I will have to agree. I've been filmed for documentaries and TV shows. (one which I decided NOT to allow released because I felt like a schmuck.) Like pretty much every other girl in the tech scene, I've been on Valleywag. I once had a webcam show that I promise never to do again. Basically, the idea of having lots of publicity and being in the public eye is VERY appealing. But after a while of having video cameras watching you do this and that, you want to just go back to normalcy.

Publicity is best (I feel) when it comes in doses. Doing an interview or being blasted on Valleywag every so often can be fun. When it happens daily, you get bored. Getting publicity and fame is just like taking drugs. You get a high, you get a low, and if you get it too often, you become addicted. When the attention goes away, you wonder what happened to your celebrity status. Not like I'd know... I've never been famous! But these are still important thoughts I need to let out.

There are, however, very positive points to having all of this:

1) You get credibility. People are impressed by the noteworthy interviews/tv shows/etc.. added to your resume. I take advantage of it all the time!

2) People recognize you. I remember going to the Super Happy Dev House Party back in August and so many people there recognized me! One person I met even told me that his buddy IMed him with a link to my blog. Or getting emails from random readers saying that they saw you at a random part of the city. Awesomeness!

3) Publicity = Traffic to your blog = New friends! I love getting emails from you guys. I love meeting my readers in person and becoming true (non-internet) friends.

I can go on and on, but you get my drift. Take the publicity in doses and take control over your image. I haven't been the best at doing that. I've been trying to get attention as a smart, yet fun and awesome blogger chick because that's truly who I am. :) I hope its working!

PS - I'll try to keep the sex appeal to a low, but my male readers prefer otherwise.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star. (and traveling to random cities and checking into hotels while being underage)

Everybody has been talking about TED this week. My question is, why does everybody care so much?

To be honest, I haven't put so much thought into this until recently. I always thought of TED as a great conference for brilliant people to exchange ideas and help each other, but I didn't know that everybody in the valley has been talking about it. Just a few hours ago, I was reading an article on Business Week by Sarah Lacy titled, "Why I'm Fed Up with TED." I'm sure this Sarah person is an incredibly kind and awesome person, but the many articles are telling me that people want to go to TED mainly for the status symbol. Sure, it's a resume builder, but it's as if everybody lost sight of what being part of TED is supposed to be about. Perhaps its my ignorance of this "status symbol" that got me into TED in the first place?

I wanted to go to college early not because it would make me look good. Matter of fact, it was a terrible decision for my social life and for my future as a "normal" college student. Going to college early means that I would have to transfer into another college as a junior, but most colleges have a much lower admission rate for transfer students. I went to college early for other reasons: to be in an open environment where students were actually motivated to learn. Kids here don't care so much about looking good. They want to learn, regardless of the grades they receive. I feel as if TED is similar in this regard. They actively seek members who want to inspire each other with brilliant ideas. They're TEDsters because they want to help each other and help the world more than they want to help themselves.

This does NOT mean that people who aren't part of TED are dumb. It simply means that they have an extremely limited number of spots and they want to attract quality attendees who think less about status and more about the core reasons for being a TEDster.

Just think about. What are your true reasons for wanting to go to TED? One reader suggested, "would TED matter if you couldn't wear nametags?"

Eli Pariser, the founder of MoveOn.org, came to speak at my college today! Ends up that he was once a student here at Simon's Rock, the Early College. Like the rest of us, he finished with a 4 year degree before he turned 20, and had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. Lucky enough, I was given the chance to introduce him to the audience :)

It was funny to hear that he interviewed here as a theater major and ran the school magazine that I cut funding on. Somehow, he shifted from being a liberal arts theater geek into being a leader of a huge non-profit. How did that happen? Completely accidentally. He didn't sit down with a few friends and decide to start a non-profit. He was a techie and set up an online petition calling for a non-military response to 9/11. Within a few weeks, half a million people signed the petition. By November, he was asked to join what is now MoveOn.org.

I found it especially interesting that he said:

"It's not all about a candidate. It's also a movement... Change cannot just be done by a president."

That goes to show that Americans (and organizations) love placing responsibility and blame on one person. Our president sucks not only because he's an inefficient leader, but also because he has an inadequate team. Whether or not you agree with his policies deserves a whole different argument, but it can be seen that he's failed at being the "CEO" of our country. If we want true change to happen, we can't just elect a new president. People who truly believe in an objective must continue to work with a leader to accomplish its necessary goals.

Image of Pariser with students in Simon's Rock College's Formal Lounge. Credit to Ryan Shepherd

We read about Eli Pariser in the news quite often. I've seen his name mentioned in Valleywag, the NY Times, and CNN dozens of times. Many people hate him and MoveOn.org for their views on politics. So I asked him, "how do you deal with people shit talking you all the time?" It comes down to fulfilling an objective. He isn't on this planet to be liked. He's working for a specific cause. I then asked whether or not he believes all press is good press. "OF COURSE NOT!" The point of having press for MoveOn.org is to spark discussion and to get the press going back and forth about those discussions. Looking at this from a marketing perspective, you're definitely getting 10X what you paid for when you spark the right questions. When the press continues to mention you over and over again for a question you asked or discussion you sparked, you're getting free coverage.

How about getting people to join a movement? He took psychology here at Simon's Rock with the same professor I took psychology class, and he was quick to mention cognitive dissonance and the "foot in the door technique."

"By making someone sign a petition, they're not just signing their name on a piece of paper. They're identifying themselves with a certain issue. They sign a petition, they volunteer, and they move up the ladder. A successful movement involves matriculating people up that ladder. It sometimes gets tricky because leaders need a balance between moving followers up the ladder VS finding a bigger base of supporters"

Does this quote remind you of anything? Running a business, duh! Back when I ran a dedicated server hosting business, my co-founders and I had to find the right balance between growth and maintenance. When to focus on current customers and when to focus on finding new customers. It's always an on-going conflict, and that's where staff recruiting comes in!

On another note, Pariser made a huge emphasis on listening to your followers. Take into account everything they say and let them help you lead. If he had it his way, he'd be running a site that did only what he wanted, but that would be impractical and inefficient. Even as a leader, you continue to learn.

Of course, Pariser hasn't had a perfect streak. We all hear about how he is the executive director at MoveOn.org, but he tried leading tens of other projects that didn't go anywhere. It's almost as if the press frames his life story as something that grew overnight. He developed as a person and he learned how to lead by managing many different campus projects, activities, and events.

I think it's safe to say that he's doing pretty well for himself... putting his personal finances aside, Eli Pariser is leading a project that has over 3 million members, that has raised over $100M, and is super passionate about the cause he's fighting for a cause he believes in.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star.

In a nutshell, Mark Cuban is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, an NBA franchise and Chairman of HDNet, an HDTV cable network. [wikipedia] He recently wrote on his blog about how he was pissed off about an interview he recently had with Deadspin.com sports blogger Will Leitch, who wrote a somewhat nasty critique about him on valleywag.com.

And as usual, valleywag.com went back to critique Mark Cuban even more for critiquing Will Leitch! I don't blame valleywag for doing that, because it's what they do best. However, Mark Cuban has every right to complain that a blogger took advantage of the interview and spun it off, basically into writing nasty comments about Mark.

I'll take a bold stand: I like Mark Cuban. I respect him, and I think he can teach us a lot about running an organization, whether it be a basketball team or an internet start-up. I especially loved his recent blog post about honest and respect: being absolutely honest with evaluating yourself and others. Going back to topic, his interviewer might have had a lot of fun bad-mouthing him on valleywag, but that's a permanent action that will prevent others from wanting to work with him.

I'm used to speaking to business execs and start-up founders, and I don't blog about the stuff they explicitly tell me NOT to make public. Sure, I would love to tell all of you about so-and-so's latest and greatest projects, but that would completely destroy my credibility. I was nasty about Meg Whitman two blog posts below this, and that probably hurt my credibility. If I sat down and learned about what she did, I probably would have had more respect for her as a CEO. If I sat down with Mark Cuban and I disagreed with him on something, I'd tell him on the spot. I'd tell all of you about it if I had the permission to.

Looking back at this issue from blogger Will Leitch's perspective, he needs to be fun and entertaining to keep the traffic flow coming. Mark Cuban just so happens to be an easy target because of his personality and the fact that he's incredibly rich. Ethically speaking, I'll say that Leitch has the right to bad mouth Mark Cuban without Mark's permission, but I don't see how it'll pay off in the end. If anything, having not blogged about Mark or posting some sort of apology would clear up his reputation if he wanted to speak to another CEO in the future.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star.

Arg, it's raining down here in Nevis. Oh well, I'll give you guys a blog post.

Edit: The following post is based on supposedly false information. One of the founders sent me a nice email addressing the situation, which was a really smart move. Whenever someone writes false and misleading information about your company, immediately address the situation. Well done, Mr. Co-founder. See here. ANYWAY,

I was reading up on my juicy tech gossip at Valleywag and heard about a site, Famesource.com, buying Indian users at 10 cents a piece. The website sets out to connect wanna be celebrities with fans and representation. For example, if I wanted to be a famous rock star, I would upload my bad music and hope that fans vote me up and a talent agency signs me on.

The company is supposedly buying these users at 10 cents a piece because it will help gain traction and attract the eyeballs of investors. My primary concern would be how this could backfire on the founders. Investors will want REAL traction that will bring REAL revenue, and a scam plot like this can only look bad for the young company.

In an interview with one of the founders, he says that its all about "getting exposure..." except isn't it so obvious that the type of exposure is a primary concern? If I'm a wanna-be rock star, why would I care about random guys from India if they aren't going to be true fans? If I was that wanna-be rock star on famesource, I'd be pissed.

But of course, they have a spot on CNN's weekly airing of "Young People Who Rock." I'll let you know when it's my turn. :)

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star.

I was surfing through PayPerPost.com after reading about how bloggers who make money from the site lost their Google PageRank! I clicked to check out one of the featured members' blogs, and I laughed at my discovery...

I was sent to a website called texas-sweetie.blogspot.com, a blog written by a pregnant Texan woman trying to make money on her blog by taking on PayPerPost advertising opportunities. Only problem being, most of her blog posts are clearly advertisements that she's paid to post, so who the hell would want to regularly follow her "writing?" Below is a sample of her daily writing:

... Chemises are mostly on sale now that saves you a couple bucks when you buy one or more. Check out the website.You will find sexy costumes,sexy clothes,plus size lingerie and many more. You can also pick a sexy gift set for her under $25. Go shop now and let the woman you love be feel even more sexier and beautiful...

Wow, I'm now more compelled than ever to buy myself a chemise... but not really!!!

What's even funnier is, the blog posts on her front page that ARENT advertisements talk about PayPerPost. Observe:

Strange as it is,PPP suddenly got exciting with a lot of opps coming out minutes ago and then quickly got quiet. I don't understand.They seem to give all the opps at once then if you are slow,you end up grabbing one or two opps.

Luckily,I learned how to be fast so I can have few opps to post. I am just hoping that all of my newly posted entries are gonna get auto approved as it my only way to now that I am doing well in my blogging. Still pretty sleepy here but it's ok. Me and my baby are gonna be fine because God is taking care of us.Happy Friday morning everyone!

Hah, no way! So you're basically admitting that the entire purpose of your blog is to make money through PayPerPost opportunities, eh? I'll give her a little credit for trying so desperately hard to make money for her baby, but seriously - blogs like this represent what PayPerPost is. I've seen other blogs who do a way better job at doing "social advertising," but how is this one woman able to get away with such bad writing?

I guess Michael Arrington and Nick Denton aren't far off when they say PayPerPost has some serious problems... As a disclosure, I signed up for PayPerPost to see what it was like and how it worked, but never would I accept money to write positively about a company... When companies send me something, they do so full knowing that I might just call their product/service lame.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor.