Instant MBA: "You Have To Be Paranoid"

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Today's advice comes from Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman's interview with the San Francisco Chronicle:

"Keeping the company innovative and nimble, and making sure that the industry doesn’t take a left turn as we go straight is going to be the big challenge ... You have to be paranoid."

Stoppelman's seven-year-old company, which allows users to search and rate local businesses, has seen tremendous growth recently. Yelp reached the 50 million-unique-visitors-a-month mark in May, and has launched sites in 11 countries.

He says that it has been tough to organize the business efficiently and effectively as it has grown from a startup to more than 1,000 staffers, but it was necessary. Particularly in the tech world, it's important to be flexible, ready, and one step ahead of competitors.

In any sector, especially a temperamental one known for its volatility, believing there is always something else looking to take over your position -- and knowing how to mitigate that threat through your own innovation -- is crucial to success.

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INSTANT MBA: Sweat The Small Stuff

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Today's advice comes from Feather and Black founder Adam Black's interview with the Yorkshire Post:

“Insecurity is a good thing and arrogance is a cardinal sin ... I would rather know if we’re having a bad day because if we have a bad day, I’m in a bad mood. If we have two bad days I do something different."

Black founded his UK furniture company in 2004 with exceptional customer service in mind. To stay successful, he's incorporated an obsessive eye for detail and an unwillingness to let the small things slide.

He's acutely aware of the goings-on at Feather and Black, checking sales figures several times a day even when he's out of the office. By staying on top of things, Black says he's able to fix even small problems to improve business and better serve consumers.

“We’ve strengthened the brand, we’ve shortened the lead times, created new products and fast track delivery. We’ve done 100 things a little bit better and made a big difference.”

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INSTANT MBA: Be Flexible In Your Business, But Not In Your Ideals

  x You have successfully emailed the post. Today's advice comes from TerraCycle founder and CEO Tom Szaky:

"Be flexible in your business model but not in your ideals, and harbor determination."

Szaky founded TerraCycle when he was just a 19-year-old Princeton freshman. The company made worm refuse into fertilizer and packaged it in recycled bottles.

Now, TerraCycle has completely altered its focus, after Szaky saw an opportunity and went for it. TerraCycle's main business is now in 'upcycling' -- the repurposing of used material -- and things are going better than ever.

"I've gotten to this point with TerraCycle because I was open to adapting my plan when I needed to, but I stuck to my principal of an eco-friendly company built from, and run on, trash. No one was going to change that.

I was determined to make it work, and the trick was doing what was needed to make it happen -- not always the path I had in mind, but the same end result nonetheless. Be willing to consider a different path."

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INSTANT MBA: Execute On The Fundamentals

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Today's advice comes from Dovel Technologies CEO Paul Leslie's interview with WashingtonExec:

"The key to being successful in today’s climate is still going to come down to executing on the fundamentals extremely well – being aggressive with business development, account management, being responsive to customers, recruiting and keeping the best employees, and providing the highest quality service will remain as critical success factors."

Leslie accepted the job to head Dovel earlier this year, after serving as CEO of two tech services and IT companies and doing a bit of consulting. Dovel is also in the IT sector -- it builds systems for both public and private clients.

He acknowledges that the set of challenges are different for small business CEOs nowadays, especially ones that rely on contracts, but the fundamentals required for success remain. Leslie points to the switch away from annual funding.

"While the small business CEO is less worried about the large program budget cuts, we do need to get comfortable with the fact that incremental task order and contract funding has become the norm.

Getting annual funding for task orders is becoming rarer. Instead of having 5 - 6 months of solid funded backlog – today 4 months or less is becoming the norm for a task order business."

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