GiveForward

This is the second post in a series about how to win and be awesome at Excelerate Labs.  If you missed the first post you can find it on the GiveForward.com Blog.

You’ve survived the insanely frenetic pace of mentor month where you’ve been averaging about 5 hours of sleep per night for the past month and it’s starting to catch up with you.  Fortunately, now is the time to catch your breath, kick back and enjoy your MBA month.  You’ll listen to some interesting lectures, hang out with your classmates, and take a break from all the mischigas that was mentor month. Most importantly, during this month you’ll have time to develop real relationships with a handful of mentors and start thinking more deeply about your business.

Here are three things you should do during your MBA month:

(1) Organize a social event with your fellow Excelerate classmates

The Excelerate 2010 class is probably ten times closer now than when we were in the program.  It wasn’t until the third month of Excelerate that we really started to bond.  And that’s because Excelerate was such as whirlwind experience and we were so focused on our businesses and mentor meetings, that we didn’t realize we were surrounded by great mentors everyday. Excelerate is a mentorship driven program, and the experienced mentors that participate are truly phenomenal.  But don’t overlook the value of peer-mentorship. There is a ton you can learn from other companies who are in the thick of it just like you.  If nothing else, going through the highs and lows with friends is great group therapy.  Getting to know your fellow classmates sooner rather than later will serve you well.

(2)  Find Your Tim

You’ve met with a million people during the first month, but the second month is really about developing deeper relationships with a small handful of mentors who will help you during Excelerate and beyond.  We were very fortunate in that we found one mentor, Tim Krauskopf, who really took us under his wing.  He helped us strategize about the business, hone our pitch and pitch deck when it came time to raise our round, and even helped us secure the first half of our seed round through investors that he knew.   Tim has been an invaluable asset to us.  He has since joined our board and we email or speak with him weekly.  If you do one thing during July it should be figuring out who is going to be your Tim.

Super Awesome Pro Tip: Be proactive about pursuing the mentors you want on your team.  Sam Yagan will tell you a thousand times over that finding mentors is like dating.   I liken it more to middle school dating: awkward.   You don’t know if the mentor likes you and you’re kind of scared to ask her out.  Here’s the reality – the mentors are just as unsure about the process as you are.  Don’t wait for a mentor to make the first move.  If you mesh with someone, let them know that you’d love for them to continue helping you.  They will be flattered and impressed that you asked.  And if they have been casually talking with two companies but only have time to get deeply involved with one of them, asking them directly will make the decision easier for them.

Super Awesome Pro Tip: Find mentors without day jobs.   They are awesome.   Mentors that have had successful exits, are retired, or are between jobs have the time and energy to focus on your company, so seek them out.

(3)  Listen to your heart

During your June mentor meetings you are going to get a million and one disparate ideas on how you should be running your company.  Something we realized after hearing Michael Krasney speak is that you need to follow your heart.  At the end of the day, you need to do what feels right for your company.  If it doesn’t feel authentic, chances are it’s going to fail.

Super-Awesome Pro Tip: Write down your company’s core values and put them on your website.  Start living them.  This is something we did after Excelerate ended but I wish we had done it sooner.  Creating values, a mission and a vision for your business makes it easier to filter out the noise and focus on what’s important.

Okay.  That is all.  Relax. Have fun.  Make friends. Get to know your mentors and  enjoy your MBA month.

What would you do if someone called you a charity case?  If you’re like most people you’d probably be a little offended.   To many people, accepting help from others represents a personal failure.   Well, today we are declaring that this mindset needs to end!  Because the reality is that EVERYBODY is a charity case. Yep, everybody.

According to a study released recently by the National Bureau of Economic Research, 50% of Americans said they absolutely wouldn’t be able to come up with $2000 in the event of a medical emergency.  And a staggering 75% of those surveyed said they would have to dip into savings, ask friends and family for help, or resort to credit cards or a home equity line of credit. Let me repeat that: 75% of Americans would need help covering a $2000 bill.

Now, imagine that someone close to you is diagnosed with cancer or another illness and instead of just $2,000, that friend needs $10,000 or $20,000 to cover the medication co-pays, travel costs, meals, extra daycare for the kids and all the other out-of-pocket expenses associated with getting sick. Like most people, you’d probably want to help by sending some money, right? Of course you would.  But the reality is that most Americans don’t give money when a loved one is sick. They might bring a meal over to the family or send flowers, but they don’t typically send money.  And that is the problem.

As a society, we are generous in celebratory moments like the birth of a baby, graduation, or a wedding.  But we’re often afraid to give when times are bad. And it’s not because people don’t want to help. If anything over the last three years at GiveForward we have witnessed that people truly do want to help, and the act of giving can be a remarkably empowering experience.  Rather, the reason people are hesitant to give money is because they are afraid of making the beneficiary feel like a charity case.

We feel strongly that this “charity case” stigma needs to end!  And it needs to end today.  According to a recent study by Duke University, the average cancer patient pays over $8500 a year in out of pocket expenses not covered by insurance.   If 75% of Americans can’t come up with $2000 in an emergency, imagine how few can come up with $8,500.  I’d wager that for 99.5% of Americans an expense of this nature would be devastating.

So the reality is that we’re all in the same boat.  I’m a charity case.  You’re a charity case.  Everyone is a charity case — every single one of us, whether we are in the lower class, middle class or upper class.  We can all use an extra helping hand when we get sick. So today we are asking you to do one thing.  The next time you find out that someone you care about has been diagnosed with an illness, stop worrying about offending their sense of pride.  Instead, worry about how you are going to keep them alive so that they get to celebrate another birthday.  Set up a fundraising page for them and spread the word to others. You’ll be amazed at the outpouring of love, generosity and support that will follow.  But it requires courage to take that first step.

Dear Excelerate Class of 2011,

Last summer, we participated in the first ever class of Excelerate Labs. At the end of the program all these smart people wanted to give us money. It was pretty awesome. Here is my guide on how to win at Excelerate.  I hope this summer is awesome for you too.

Love,

Ethan

PS – Excelerate is broken down into three distinct months:  Mentor Month; Mini-MBA Month; and Pitch Month. I’ve broken this love letter down into a three-part series (in part to correspond with the different months of the program but mostly because I’m too long winded to get my points across succinctly in one normal-sized blog post).

First off, we’ll start with How to Win at Mentor Month and in future posts I’ll cover How to Win at Mini-MBA Month and Pitch Month.

How to Win at Mentor Month

STEP 1: DO YOUR HOMEWORK

At the beginning of the summer you’re going to get a list of mentors.  Do your homework. Google them, read their blogs, their Twitter feeds, their LinkedIn profiles.  Find out what their interests are and what you have in common with them. You create your own luck.  The more prepared you are for your mentor meetings, the more likely you are to connect with a mentor and create a long lasting relationship.

Super-Awesome Pro Tip:  There will be days when you meet with 6 or 7 mentors in a row. You’re probably not going to have time to do 20-30 minutes of research on each person.   On days like this, split up the cyber stalking between you and your co-founder and then brief each other before the meeting.  It’s not as good as doing the research yourself, but sometimes there’s just not enough time.

Super-Awesome Pro Tip:  After each meeting, make sure to send a thank you email within 24 hours.  (This is probably an obvious point to most people but worth noting).

STEP 2:  LISTEN MORE THAN YOU TALK

Your mentor meetings are short, typically about 20 or 30 minutes long.  So naturally, you’re going to want to cram in as much about your business as possible.  But trust me on this one, it’s more important to listen than to talk.

During your first 20-minute meeting, chances are you’re not going to  solve any of the world’s problems.  Your goal with the first meeting is to simply to get another meeting.

How do you do this?  You let them do all the talking.

Seriously, mentors love to tell stories and talk about themselves.  How do I know?  Because I’m mentoring some young entrepreneurs at a company called JoinStart right now and I absolutely love, love, love to hear myself talk and say awesome stuff!

Last week, when I met with the JoinStart founders for the first time, I already knew I liked them.  Why? Because they didn’t try to spend the whole hour talking about JoinStart.  Instead, they  asked a few questions and then let me ramble on for an hour telling stories while they took notes.  By the end of the meeting, I knew a decent amount about their backgrounds, about where they grew up, and what motivated them to start this business and they knew an absolute TON about me.  I still didn’t know a whole lot about their business, but that’s okay.

The reality is I liked them because they listened to me and most importantly they thought I was cool (obviously true). If they ever want to schedule a second meeting, we can get down to real business then.

Super-Awesome Pro Tip: If you have a 20-minute meeting here’s a basic breakdown of how to spend your time.  Spend the first 3 minutes chit-chatting about common interests. Spend the next 2 minutes telling them about your business. Then spend the last 15 minutes listening to their stories and advice.  And take notes! It will give you stuff to talk about in your thank you emails.

STEP 3: SEND OUT UPDATES ON YOUR PROGRESS

In the startup world, you hear the word “traction” thrown around all the time. Traction is really just a schmancy word for progress.  i.e. does your startup have revenue and paying customers?  If so, you’re in business. Investors love to see these things because they’re looking to mitigate risk.  The more traction your company has, the less likely it is that their investment in you will go belly up.

Now, if you want any of the angels, mentors or VCs that come through Excelerate to invest in your company at the end of the summer, you’re going to want to show them some traction. But don’t wait until Demo Day to pitch them. Build rapport with them throughout the summer by communicating your company’s progress.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to periodically send out a simple email newsletter to the mentors, angels, and VCs you have met.  But remember, these mentor types are busy, so keep it brief. 4-6 bullet points should do the trick.

Super-Awesome Pro Tip: Of course you want to highlight the important stuff in your newsletter, but that doesn’t mean it has to be super dry and chock full of  business sounding words like “margins” and “Lifetime customer value”.  Investors like to laugh just as much as the next guy.  Show them that you are  a real human by throwing in a quick joke every so often and you’ll be amazed at what a better response rate you will get.

STEP 4:  DON’T BE AFRAID TO SHOW YOUR CARDS

When we went through Excelerate, we often wondered how much info we should disclose to our mentors.  Mentors are like doctors.  They can only diagnose your business if you are 100% honest with them and they fully understand your problems.  If you have a purely mentor-protegee relationship with them, then you obviously want to disclose everything to them.

On the other hand, if you envision that some of your mentors are potential investors do you really want to show them all your cards?  Now, I’m sure others probably disagree with me on this, but I say show them what you’re holding.  Think about it this way: if a mentor is going to take the leap and invest in your pre-revenue company, what she is really doing is investing in your team. At such an early stage, she doesn’t have enough hard data points to make an informed decision based on the economics of your company, so she has to base her decision to invest on whether she has a solid understanding of what is going on inside your head and in your heart.  If you don’t open up and share these things with her, you’re all but closing the door for her to invest in your company.

STEP 5: UTILIZE TROY, SAM AND BRIAN

After just one year, Excelerate Labs was already ranked the third best Startup Accelerator in the country behind TechStars Boulder and Y Combinator. And the reason is simple. It’s all about the team running the show.

Sam, Troy and Brian are incredibly passionate about helping the Excelerate companies succeed.  In terms of strategy, they’ll give you honest, no BS and often times blunt feedback.  In terms of connections, between Sam and Troy they know just about everyone on the planet.  Seriously, these guys are the best mentors you could ever ask for. If you’re not talking or emailing with Troy, Sam and Brian on a daily basis, you’re not getting your money’s worth.

I work at a company called GiveForward that helps people fighting cancer and other illnesses to pay their medical bills.  A few weeks ago I was invited to participate in a blog tour called “What’s Your Calling” that explores the notions of calling from religious and secular perspectives.  So when I started thinking about the question of calling, I first thought that my calling is to help people fighting illnesses.  But as I thought about the question more, I realized that as passionate as I am about helping people, my calling in its most basic form is simply making people smile.

Every day I  go to work, I realize how blessed I am. I get and do something I am absolutely passionate about, and I get to share this experience with an incredibly wonderful group of co-workers who bring smiles to people’s faces everyday.  I couldn’t think of a better job.  But if you asked me ten or twenty years ago what I’d be doing today, never in a million years would I  have guessed it would be this.

You see, when I was six I wanted to be a real estate developer.  Yep, a real estate developer.  I don’t know how this crazy notion popped into my  head, but for the longest time I thought this would be my calling.  I was going to develop commercial real estate.  Seven years later,  my dad passed away from colon cancer, and  I came to the conclusion that life is too short to develop strip malls and parking garages.  I wanted to do something to help people.

So in high school I started volunteering for a cancer organization called Kids Konnected that helps children cope with the loss of a parent to cancer.  I enjoyed it, but at the time, I didn’t feel like it was my calling.  When I entered college I continued to volunteer at cancer organizations, but like most college kids I was more interested in keg stands and beer pong than I was in helping people with cancer.

Towards the end of my junior year I started to think hard about what I really wanted to do with my life.  Most of my friends were in the undergraduate business program and were going off to New York to become investment bankers.  As a political science major with less-than-stellar math skills, this was not an option for me.   Instead, like every other political science major who doesn’t know what the heck to do with a liberal arts degree, I applied to law school.

Law school was a challenge for me.  After my first year, I remember coming home for the summer and telling my mom that I wanted to quit and become a river raft guide.  I loved being outdoors and when I thought of my happiest times, several of them were river rafting.  Maybe this would be my calling?  Well, my mom wasn’t having any of this river raft nonsense so I begrudgingly went back to law school the next fall. I worked hard and made Law Review, but for the first time in my life I couldn’t just breeze through classes, cram at the end of the semester and then ace the exam.  I actually had to study.  And I found out that no matter how hard I studied, there were always people who would do better than me on the exams.  It was very humbling and it made me realize that I wasn’t going to succeed in a career where you had to always out-smart your competition.  I needed to find a career where you could simply out-care the competition.

Fortunately, while I was in law school, I finally discovered my calling.  During my last year of law school, my buddy Ned convinced me to train for a marathon.  I had never run more than five miles in my life, but I decided to give it a shot.  And since, I would probably never run another marathon I decided I might as well use this opportunity to raise money for a good cause. So I signed up to run for St. Jude, which raises money to fight children’s cancer.

St. Jude had given me a personal fundraising page and I gladly spammed all my friends and family with email updates about my training and asked them to donate to my page.  Within a week I hit my goal of $1000 and it was such an incredible high that I decided to up the goal to $5000.  But then I hit a wall. Once I raised about $2500, I had tapped out all my friends and family and I realized that if I was going to hit my goal, I was going to have to get creative.

I had always been good at making people laugh and I thought to myself, if I can get people to smile, I can get people to donate.  I had a banana costume lying around my apartment from the previous Halloween and decided to dust it off and start doing my training runs up and down the streets of Washington, DC in this costume.  I handed out little cards to people on the street promising that if I hit my goal of $5000, I would run the marathon in the banana costume.  Well, people got a kick out of seeing some goofball jogging around DC dressed as a banana giving out high fives and business cards to people.  Word spread quickly and within a few days of my first banana run,  dozens of $10 and $20 donations starting pouring in from all over the country. I ended up surpassing my goal and raising over $6000 for cancer research. Finally, I had found something in my life that I absolutely loved.  I was having fun, doing good, and helping others.  Now, if I could only make a career out of this, I figured I’d be set.

One of my biggest takeaways from my marathon experience was just how phenomenal a tool these personal fundraising pages were.  I had never seen a personal fundraising page before this and I was absolutely blown away by how effective it was.  The problem with the marathon, however, was that runners could only choose from one of about twenty-five official charity partners if they wanted to raise money.  I ended up raising money for children’s cancer but if I had had the choice to raise money for anything, I would have raised money for colon cancer since that is what my dad had passed away from.  I thought to myself why limit it to just the twenty-five official charity partners of the marathon?  Why not open it up so that every person that cares about a particular cause has access to a fundraising page?

Fast forward a year  — I had graduated law school  but I still couldn’t get this idea out of my head.  So I began doing some research and planned to start a company where people could create a fundraising page for any non-profit cause.  I had told a handful of people of this idea but unfortunately none of my friends were willing to quit their jobs and start this company with me and I didn’t have the guts to do it by myself.

Then in February of 2008  I got a phone call from an ex-girlfriend in Chicago.  She told me she met this woman, Desiree Vargas, at a Super Bowl party who had a similar idea and was starting a company called GiveForward where people could raise money for anything, not just non-profits.  She gave me Desiree’s number, and after a couple of weeks I finally decided to call. Within the first minute of our phone conversation I  could tell Desiree was incredibly passionate about her idea. We instantly clicked, and without so much as giving it a second thought, I packed up everything I owned into two suitcases and moved  half way across the country to help start GiveForward.

That was three years ago.  Today, GiveForward has helped thousands of people raise over $4.5 million for their loved ones’ medical expenses as they battle cancer and other illnesses.  It has been a wild journey so far and I couldn’t be happier with the direction of where the company is going.  But what I am most proud of isn’t the amount of money we’ve helped people raise.  What I’m most proud of is the small things we do each day to bring smiles to people’s faces.

Every day, all GiveForward team members (from the CEO to the interns) are responsible for giving out at least one “virtual hug” to a customer on the site.  Usually this is just a quick email that may include a joke, a quick pick-me-up or some words of encouragement.   But these small gestures can mean a world of difference for someone battling cancer.  And it is this ability to touch people’s lives that makes our jobs so fun.   So, while I am incredibly passionate about fundraising and even more passionate about helping people with cancer, neither of these things are my calling. My calling is simply making people smile and GiveForward is the platform through which I get to do this everyday.

I’ll admit it’s a bit odd to think that my journey started because of a silly banana costume, but that’s my reality.  I am a banana person and there’s no denying it. Since that initial banana man marathon, I’ve run two other marathons, countless half marathons and even took a polar plunge in the banana costume all to raise money for cancer organizations.  I do it because cancer sucks, but mostly I do it because it’s fun and I like giving out high fives.  Now, I sincerely hope that one day I will be remembered for more than just being the weird jogging banana dude.  But to be perfectly honest, as long as I make a few people smile along the way, if I’m simply remembered as the banana guy, well, I’m okay with that too.

At GiveForward we’ve always been very focused on customer service., and we have a rule that every person in the company (from CEO to intern) is responsible for giving out one virtual hug per day to a user on the site.  Basically, a virtual hug is just something that makes a user smile e.g. a $1 anonymous donation to their fundraiser, or a few fundraising tips,  or even just a nice email with some words of encouragement.

I just want to quickly share a hug that one of our team members sent out to a user raising money to do a volunteer medical trip to China.  Enjoy, this one is funny!

Step one:  go to Google Maps

Step two:  enter directions from Japan to China

Step three: scroll down to direction # 41

Step four: smile and share this with someone who could use a laugh.

Spoiler Alert:  If you are too lazy to follow the directions above, you can skip right to the chase [see picture below] but I promise it won’t be as funny as if you discover it on your own.

Last month GiveForward was nominated for a World Technology Network Award (in association with TIME and CNN) for our innovative solution to medical fundraising.

We were nominated in the category of finance and were up against guys like Reid Hoffman (founder of Linkedin) Jeff Bezos (founder and CEO of Amazon) Max Levchin (co-founder of PayPal) Paul Graham (founder of Y-Combinator) and Ron Conway (Silicon “super angel”).   Ultimately, we lost to Marc Andreesson (co-founder of Netscape aka the dude who helped invent the modern Internet). read more…

Here at GiveForward, we hope Santa brought you everything you asked for.  Today we got the best present of all — a wonderful note  from one of our users who raised money on GiveForward a year ago for his cousin’s cancer treatment:

“I wanted to update you that a couple of months after my fundraiser ended my cousin Jessica’s cancer went into remission.  While she still has to take chemo periodically as an insurance policy, this has been fantastic news and her prognosis is pretty good but they still have to watch her liver function closely.  In many ways, this makes my fundraiser even more important because she lived to face all the bills :)  How much worse would it be to face that financial situation alone while you are still ill from chemo…

- Tim”

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It’s hard to believe, but Saturday was the two-year anniversary of the launch of GiveForward.   We couldn’t be more grateful for all the wonderful people who have been a part of our community thus far and just wanted to send out a quick thank you to everyone.

nom nom nom!

During this time, we’ve helped 1300 families raise almost $2 million for things like chemotherapy treatments, organ transplants and out-of-pocket living and travel expense. None of this would have been possible without our amazing community getting involved.  We appreciate the fundraising tips you have shared with us over the years, your positive (and occasionally negative) feedback and most importantly your willingness to spread the word about GiveForward to others who can benefit from our service!
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