reecepacheco

Yesterday, my friend and biz partner Joe said to me:

“You may be the closest person to [Teddy] Roosevelt I know.  He just didn’t tolerate incompetent people whatsoever.”  

Joe’s reading a book on Teddy right now.  We sort of revere the guy because he was a total badass, and I took Joe’s remark as a compliment.

I think I learned this from my parents.  Entrepreneurs themselves, they’ve worked long and hard to be successful in the restaurant business and they expect the best out of everyone around them - be it employees, partners, vendors, etc.  

A quick example.  One day, twenty-odd years ago my mother had an incident with a Miller beer deliveryman.  He used that one infamous word that is guaranteed to cause a problem (Hint: it starts with a “C”).  

Well since that day, my parents have never sold a single Miller product in our restaurants.  

Extreme?  Yup… and I love it.

I operate similarly.  I have extremely low tolerance for poor writing.  I expect 100% attention in meetings.  I want the best of the best in people and nothing less.

Does this make me a snob?  I don’t think so.  It’s about having high standards and surrounding yourself with people of similar ilk.  

And if you want a laugh, here’s the relevant conversation with Joe…

Me: …and I just don’t f$#%*@g understand this #$*&^@&*  ”wondered if we might organize an intro…” in an email in which he added the dude he wants to intro already.

Joe: You may be the closest person to Roosevelt I know.  He just didn’t tolerate incompetent people whatsoever. 

Me: That is probably the greatest compliment you’ve ever given me 

Joe: Yea, I would love to have someone say that about me.

Me: Well thanks man. I really appreciate it… Even if it means I’m an intolerant asshole.  ;)  

…this jerk even spelled my f$#%*@g name wrong!

Just an FYI: if it’s quiet over here, it’s because I’ve been working on our company blog lately: telling our story from day one, announcing some new partners, handling all the PR for HomeField and dropping posts on new features like this (with video!).  

Check it out once in a while.  Who knows?  You may learn something.

@robgo:

This is a continuation from my previous post about fast followers.

Several times a week, I hear a pitch from for a company that is fairly similar to existing players in the market.  When I ask the entrepreneur how they expect to win vs. the various competitors, I’ll often hear something like:

“Well, they don’t have feature x, y, and z which has been built into our product from the beginning.”

These same folks usually include some sort of Harvey Ball chart to show how differentiated they are from their competitors.

My advice: if you need a Harvey Ball chart to show how you are different, you aren’t different enough.

In my view, winning as a startup doesn’t have that much to do with individual features.  Features do drive success, but great teams and great product development processes drive features.

I saw a talk a while ago by Mike Maples.  In it, he encourages entrepreneurs to “be different, not better”.  I completely agree.

Being different means being WORSE than competitors in some dimensions.  It’s a very intentional decision to forgo some areas of potential strength and choose the 1 or 2 dimensions that no one else is thinking about and absolutely destroy the competition in those areas.

Some examples?  Tumblr, Zappos, Milo, Polyvore, etc.

Be different.

I completely agree here.  This is the way we think about HomeField in terms of some of the competition.

We actually think of most of our competition as market validation and differentiate ourselves by our lack of features. We see it as a strength that enables HomeField to become the ubiquitous video platform for sports (and achieve some other stealth goals as well).

Lacrosse, per NCAA definition, is a “spring” sport.  I know it’s February and there’s snow on the ground outside my window, but games have started so to me, it’s spring.

Five years ago, I’d be cranking through classes all day before a team lift (always legs on Monday), then I’d put in 2.5 hours battling through drills on a turf field on the roof of the Brown gymnasium, (Yes, on the roof.  No, it wasn’t cool.  It was cold, windy, and half the field was covered in building exhaust… ok, yeah, we sort of relished it), then we’d head inside to watch game film for 30 minutes and finally sit in the ice bath to soak up the soreness.

The coolest part was I did all of this surrounded by 40 other guys who all had the same mission as I - win game #1.  Then #2, #3, #4 and so on…

These days, my competitive career is entirely different.

I probably stay more active in lacrosse than my teammates on the NYAC.  Already this year I took a trip to Miami to play in a tournament.  I had a blast playing with some other amazing players, the competition was solid and I even took an 80mph shot in the ribs that has been painfully reminding me of the trip for a month now.  (Seriously, this bruised rib is one of the most nagging injuries I’ve ever had).

And last weekend, I headed back to Brown with some other alums for a preseason scrimmage against the current Bears team (Unsurprisingly, Providence hadn’t warmed up since I graduated.  Wind chill had the temp around 7 degrees).  Still, it was a great day and us veterans were able to pull out a close win over the young pups.

The win was fun for a moment, but there was still a fundamental lacking for me and I’m realizing how much I miss the bonding of a team working towards a common goal and the inherently high level of competition on a daily basis.

Sure, when my NYAC team starts up soon we will all be focused on winning our 4th straight A.L.L. Championship, but we don’t even practice.  We just show up on Sundays and play.  It’s easier on the calendar, but I know deep down every teammate of mine, and every true competitor out there, needs that battle and that feeling of true team.

But since my lacrosse career won’t last forever, I’ve assembled a new team (different “sport”), uber-competitive, we all have the same mission… and this game is played 24/7.