What has been your experience as a startup in New York City? What are some of the great things about it, and what are some of the challenges?

Every day is a new challenge. As a startup, you start from scratch where nothing exists, and everything needs to be looked after and fixed daily. New York is an amazing place with a small community where everyone is very supportive, and you can get advice from anyone. Sometimes the beginning of the startup process can feel isolating, but here in NY…there’s a whole community doing the same thing. Everyone is in it together.

What was the transition like coming out of the incubator?

Sonar was started out of the incubator, Appfund, which I helped set up. When we got off the ground and got funded by a west coast VC, that’s when Sonar became its own company. Today we are still tightly connected to the incubator, and share an office with another company that’s also part of Appfund. It’s a collaborative environment and Sonar is tuned in with “sharing the knowledge.” We occasionally pull people out from other teams to help get stuff done.

Mayor Bloomberg is proactively trying to make NYC the biggest tech hub. Have you seen any changes yet from your perspective?

The NY startup scene is not this “top-down” mandate from the government wanting a bigger startup scene. Quite the opposite – it emerged organically, because New York City is a perfect petri dish for mobile innovation. The high density of users–everyone’s on their cell phones, everyone’s trying to find stuff, and your friends are almost always nearby–that’s why Foursquare works, and Gilt Groupe works because all the fashion companies are here, and Etsy because there’s a cool DIY culture. So I wouldn’t say the startup scene is taking cues from the government, but the government is wisely looking and seeing what’s happening, then doing their best to accelerate and facilitate it.

It seems like you’ve had the entrepreneurial spirit for a long time. At what age did you start thinking about becoming an entrepreneur?

For me it was pretty early. Growing up in Ocean City Maryland off the beach, I would sell sea shells to my sister at a high cost to earn a few bucks. I always liked the idea of side hustles, and seeing the opportunity to make a quick buck and then capitalizing on it. Building companies has a much longer term view. Over the next few years, everyone is going to become increasingly networked with everyone else around them. We’re going to be socially networked just on the basis of proximity and location. That’s all Sonar is…this is how we’re going to position ourselves to take advantage of it.

I see that you were very active in sports in high school and led your teams as captain…would you say that being involved in sports was a major catalyst for your drive today?

Absolutely, but I think it’s the teamwork part of it that can’t be underestimated. Some people can come into the workforce without experience in a coordinated disciplined effort. Like we are all going to get to practice on time and run laps… because if you’re not there, the rest of the team can’t get started practicing. Similar to people who are only used to working individually–they don’t understand the need to follow a time table, because they have little experience with someone counting on it. But in a startup, everyone counts on everyone else, and if any one person stops, then everything falls apart. Understanding the need for and the power of teamwork is probably the biggest gift sports gave to me.

Who has been your role model to help guide you in the startup process?

I always wished I had a mentor or a role model, but my dad was an entrepreneur always building his own things. For me, it was more of solving my own problems…I just wanted to connect with people where ever I go, and Sonar is the tool that helps you do just that.

At the NYU Startup Week Panel, you mentioned that when you look at someone’s resume, you look to see if they’ve developed anything on their own. Aside from that, what is the biggest hiring attribute you look for: a hard skill or a soft skill, to hire in a startup?

Do they care about my startup? Are they interested in it? Have they downloaded and tried the app before walking into the door?  Are they self-starters? Have they already come up with ideas for what they’re going to do here?  I’m not in here in the business of telling people what to do….everyone I hire needs to be able to figure it out, what they need to do to make the product better. I am hiring them to figure out the problem, not just to do the work. Everyone is doing their best, so if I pull someone in, I expect them to make it better than what we’ve done by ourselves. The ability to come in with ideas and a plan for what you’re going to do the moment you walk through the door–that’s what you need to be successful at a startup. Big companies already have the processes in place and only need the human capital.  Startups don’t have any processes, so there’s nothing in place to ensure there’s a uniform output and no system to make sure they got it done. I look for people that will build their own processes to help themselves excel.

Your career page on your website is very unique and different from the standard job page, listing all its perks, focusing on company culture. Is the company culture something that evolved naturally?

We thought, “what would the person we would love to hire like?” Then we thought about some of the cool things we’d want to do and just threw them all up on the site. So it’s basically a reflection of what the team thought was cool and what we thought would interest people that we’d like to work with. It’s more like a wish list: if you come here, we’ll give you all of this.

The word “entrepreneur,” sounds like a very lonely word every time I hear it. After my talk with Brett, I realized just how much deeper it can be interpreted, based from his experiences. An entrepreneur intertwines their ideas within the startup community to help develop better processes…then hires the right people who can execute the idea beyond the entrepreneur’s wildest expectations. In the end, it all comes down to teamwork, dedication, and communication for a startup to persevere.

Brett Martin is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sonar. Prior to founding Sonar, Brett conceived of and built game-changing mobile technology companies as the Director of K2 Media in NYC. Prior to K2, he and a college friend moved to Austin, taught themselves how to code, and built the Data Owl, the world’s first automated social media monitoring service for small businesses. Before that, he researched start-ups as a Fulbright Fellow in Milano, Italia.

In his previous lives, Brett has worked at VBS.tv as an Internet marketing associate and on Wall Street as an equity research associate. Other things he is proud of include getting published by Harvard Business, founding a rock band, starting a non-profit, earning a B.A. in economics from Dartmouth College, and sailing thousands of miles from Maine to Dominica in a 30ft ketch.

The Social Exchange

I am fairly active on Twitter and I am dabbling with Google Plus. Though most of my exchanges are on Twitter, there is something really nice about being able to have a dialogue on Google Plus because you are not limited to 140 characters and you can see the string of exchanges, very much like you can on Facebook. This is exactly what happened when I shared a post on Google Plus and received the following response/comment:

I loved this description of what they were looking for and I immediately posted it on a LinkedIn group for job seekers in our city. There were several people in this network who responded and at least one of the inquiries turned out to be the Goddess!

This is why it worked:

1. The job description, though brief, served as an insightful teaser for further conversation. (for more on job descriptions you can read Employers: Your Job Posting Sucks, Part II from YouTern.)

2. Because many job seekers aren’t active yet on Google Plus, I knew I had to share the opportunity where it would be found- a LinkedIn group of high caliber job seekers.

3. Most importantly, I knew the company, not well, but had been following them on Twitter for at least a year and we had shared information with each other previously. There was an existing familiarity and I was happy to help. I was also familiar with the group of job seekers, many of whom I had met. It was easy for me to post this description on the group and serve as the intermediary because I personally believed in these job seekers.

Trust, familiarity, and willingness to help. This is why social networking works!

The Employer’s Story

Now, from the employers side of the desk.  I asked Kelly Cheatle to tell her version of the story and this is what she said:

My partner and I have a pretty unusual business, we create large-scale balloon installations and balloon-based illustrations (You really need to see for yourself: www.airigami.com) Business has been going very well- but as we’ve been growing- our need for someone else to help manage all of the details that come along with that growth was becoming more and more apparent. So we spent many an evening trying to craft the perfect description of our ideal candidate, what skills they might have, etc. And we could never seem to list them all- we jokingly said we needed to hire someone who’d know what they were supposed to be doing.

When I first posted to your google+ page, in response to a discussion about hiring/job openings in Rochester, I rather cheekily said we needed a Goddess and listed a few super-powers. It was enough to intrigue a candidate to apply for the position. We hired her. She seems, (and her references glowingly agree) to be the sort of person you could put into any situation, and she’d find not only the most important things that needed to be done- but facilitate getting them done. This is EXACTLY what we need, and I’m glad we snatched her up!

THANK YOU!!

I am fairly certain, many smaller employers are perplexed and a bit overwhelmed by how to hire the right person. It is a daunting task and one they do not enter into lightly nor want to repeat. Social networking tools allow small and even large employers to tap into their networks and source candidates (for free). JobVite’s 2011 eBook “33 Essential Recruiting Stats“ cites a Burson-Marsteller study which shows the social networks being used by Fortune 100 companies.

More Proof That Social Networks Work

Jobvite’s Social Job Seeker Survey 2011 finds:

I hope this has helped convince you that using social networks to stay in contact with past employees, family members and all sorts of friends is more important than ever before- and there are tools to make it easy.  There is so much more to be said about the benefits of social networks, but the point I am trying to make is “don’t miss out” by not participating!

Hannah Morgan, aka @careersherpa on Twitter, provides advice and insights for job search, personal reputation management, and social media strategies via her site Career Sherpa.net. As a Career Consultant, Hannah draws upon her experience in Human Resources, Outplacement Services and Workforce Development to guide those new to job search through the process and towards their goals. Feel free to follow if you like what you see here. You can also find her on Google +, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

I could be the world’s worst feminist.  I just think that we accomplish what we want to accomplish, regardless of the obstacles – real and self-imposed – we face.

There is no doubt that women and other minorities in today’s predominantly white male-dominated white-collar business world face discrimination. I just think too many of us use it as an excuse instead of finding our own, maybe new pathways.

For example, one of my clients is a venture-capital firm that was founded by three women. They were all incredibly successful in their previous jobs in investment banking because they are smart, worked extremely hard and knew how to stand up for themselves. Today, they’ve raised hundreds of millions of dollars and invest in exciting technology companies – all on their own terms. And I’ve never heard one of them blame the male establishment for their having gone their own entrepreneurial route.

Whenever I encounter someone who I suspect has defined me by my gender vs. my professional skills and strengths, I view it as a personality clash.

Frankly, I probably wouldn’t want to do business with someone so close-minded and judgmental anyway, so I instead seek out clients and partners who have the personal attributes I respect.

Laura Grimmer is a communications strategist with nearly 20 years’ experience, and  Founder of Articulate Communications. Laura’s clients have included industry-defining companies like USinternetworking; leading services firms such as Sapient (NASDAQ: SAPE) and Pricewaterhouse Coopers; and enterprise software solutions leaders like CDC Software (NASDAQ: CHINA), Manugistics (NASDAQ: MANU), MAPICS (NASDAQ: MAPE) and Microsoft Great Plains.

She works closely with every Articulate client to define corporate messages and ensure the programs clearly align with business objectives. She is an active resource for every team and client for ongoing or special projects.

In addition, Laura also taps her wide network of best-of-breed service providers to deliver various counsel as needed, from investor relations to crisis communications and presentation training.

Laura leverages her experience for clients as a journalist, including positions as a reporter and senior editor with The Associated Press, the world’s largest news organization. She honed her expertise in technology at a Boston-based mid-sized PR firm in the 1990s, opening and running its Washington, D.C., and New York offices before launching Articulate in 2001.

Laura earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina.

This weekend we had a wonderful time hosting our first ever open house! It was a wonderful evening in our new space and a time to show our colleagues, friends and family all the hard work putting it together.

I have to say I was a little nervous…this is the first time we have had a huge company event. I wanted to make sure the space looked perfect! There was food and of course…wine and beer!!  The set-up took a little longer than I thought it would, and we ended up cutting it a little close before everyone started to arrive.

That day we hung the final sign, which was my Grandfather’s main sign that hung over his cabinet shop. My parents have been storing it in their basement for over 20 years! My mom is quite the saver, and keeps all our papers, notes, etc…over the years, I do have to say last evening I saw the sign in a new perspective. I am so lucky to have over my desk a sign that is over 100 years old, and has been in family ever since! To me it represents how strong the Whiting name is, and the heritage and strength of how entrepreneurship passes down from generation to generation.  Also, this week by chance my mom was cleaning out an old box, and found all my notes and receipts for my first business called, “The Wedding Day.” The box contained everything since I started it, when I was 12.

I have written in previous posts how I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but seeing it on paper and from such a long time ago…it reiterated my passion for being a woman business owner!

More importantly I am so grateful for the turnout the other evening! To have such a great team and to see all the smiles, laughter and excitement about the space and the business as a whole, makes me very excited for what is to come!

Thank you!!!

P.S.- Go to our Facebook page to view additional photos from our event.

In business and in life I think we sometimes make a process harder than it has to be. I for one don’t like to reinvent the wheel – I am constantly looking around for ideas or suggestions on how to make a situation or process easier. But there is something I think we have lost with all our cool technology and how we have evolved through commercialization and getting the best deal etc… We have lost sight of the fundamentals and keeping things simple.

We built our house seven years ago. And, of course, all our appliances are starting to get the seven year inch. We bought them at a “Big Box” store which will remain nameless, and when our washing machine and dryer started to go they would not come out and fix it.  Now we bought the appliances there because their price was right (cheap) and they offered extras like not having to pay for a year, no interest, and 10% coupon off for building a house… I could go on and on… But after the transaction was completed, you no longer mattered …It felt a little like “see ya later and good luck with all this stuff you bought!”

Back to the future seven years later; a lot of these appliances have decided that they are not so interested in working properly. I should mention now that my hubby and I are not the handiest of folks. You will not come to my door and have my husband answer it with a wrench in his hand!  I am talking with my Dad about the issues we were having with the appliances and he tells me to call the “guy” on Main Street, and he can probably fix it.

Sure enough after six months of having a leaky washing machine the local store fixed it.

I decided to go pay the repair bill in person. The store has not been updated probably since the 60′s. It was a hand written receipt. There were no fancy promotions or gadgets in the store… You have to pay for the product up front…(with the cost of appliances these days is not easy for everyone). But do you know what they do have? He has been in business for over 50 years, he wears a tie to work every day, he knows his products inside and out, along with what the big chains are selling. He was responsive, he showed up when he said he was going to…and by the way, he fixed our problem that no one else cared to fix!

The guy keeps his process simple…He develops and thrives on customer loyalty. He wants to earn your business and wants you to be a repeat customer. He used to be one of the only games in town for years, but he has been able to survive the “Big Box” invasion because of his ability to focus on his fundamentals and never forget that a delighted customer is a customer for life!

So the lesson here to my fellow business owners is: look for the simplicity in business. Sometimes we make it harder for ourselves than we need to…

Discounts are cool …gadgets are fun…but to me, true fundamentals don’t change!!

Here at Whiting Consulting, we are approaching our 10 year celebration of entrepreneurship as a woman owned business. Along with celebrating our 10^th anniversary soon, we are celebrating the ideas and inspirations of female entrepreneurs in the startup space. During college, I never would’ve thought that I would be working in the startup space. Once I fell into working with startups, I had never seen so much passion before for an idea someone has. It’s very refreshing to see and hear everyone’s enthusiasm, especially attending startup events down in New York City. Many of the women within the startup space have inspired me and helped me come to the realization of the difference we can all make in the economy for pursuing a small spark that’s burning inside, eager to make a difference in the tech community.

In a recent Fast Company article, Women-Led Startups are the Key to New Job Creation, only 35% of startup business owners are women. Marissa Evans of Go Try It On, stated that more and more women are becoming business owners, and becoming better at what they do.  Rent the Runway’s, Jennifer Fleiss, believes that this percentage will increase to over 50% in the next five years.

In the article, it stated that women don’t have the same network and role models as men do in the steps of starting their own companies. I asked some of the following panelists who their role models were when they were going through the startup process.

Gauri Manglik of SpotOn, said that Art.sy founder, Carter Cleveland, was her role model. She found some inspiration from him, because they are around the same age. Gauri was also looking at Apple and Instagram products as guidance, and how they’ve become established in the marketplace.

Marissa Evans sees any entrepreneur who contributes and gives back to the community by speaking to alumni as a role model. Her top pick is Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, because of the great success of growth in his company.

Jennifer Fleiss was very fortunate to have great mentors along her journey which include: Carley Roney, founder of TheKnot.com, Dan Rosenweig, CEO at Chegg, and Marc Lore, Co-founder of Crunch Base. What helped made Jennifer’s journey a success was teaming up and having a great partner along the way.

All of these ladies had someone that inspired them. I believe anyone can go where they want to go, as long as they have some sort of inspiration to help them along the way. I also think that having the same network as everyone else isn’t going to make or break your startup. It’s how you leverage your network to get where you need it to go.

At the NYU panel, I asked these ladies what advice they could give to other women who want to start their own courageous path. Everyone’s overlaying message was: Learn everything you possibly can, and just go out there and do it. The best thing is to expose yourself, read blogs, and be open to new ideas.

Alexis Goldstein of aut faciam, told the audience that if you have an idea and see a particular need not being fulfilled by anyone else, give it a shot. It’s okay not to succeed at times, but you have to be able to make a decision to believe in yourself.

Other times you need to make risks, and think how it’ll benefit you in the long-run. Jennifer Fleiss and her co-founder, agreed to never write a business plan, because starting a business should be about tests and risks, then growing from what you’ve learned:

“In my opinion, there are four keys to success that I discovered early on that were fundamental to Rent the Runway’s launch that can easily be applied to other business models: (1) Test the Marketplace, (2) Show by Example, (3) Build a team, and (4) Realize that “No” means “Not Right Now.” …Starting a business is a series of iterative tests. Each test eliminates some of the risks of starting one. It is best to just believe in yourself and jump right into it, test it out, and grow by learning.”

The experiences and advice the ladies on the panel shared were very captivating and inspiring for the audience. The tech scene is a welcoming community, and will be seeing more and more women take the stage in startups. Any woman who has an idea should let their dreams run wild with it. Estee Lauder summed up her experience that can apply to any woman with a spark for an idea to pursue: “I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it.“

Photo credit: Wikipedia.com

Post written by Julie Skowronek, Assistant Marketing Manager at Whiting Consulting.

I have been traveling down to NYC the last couple of months and have been attending the NY Tech Meetup’s which have been awesome. I have loved all the presentations, but there are hundreds of great people to meet and sometimes I don’t know where to begin!

At July’s event I was really impressed with a new start-up called Sonar, which lets you connect your LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook accounts and then allows you to see people you’re connected to who are in the same location radius. How COOL is that…. I thought this was an app that I could leverage greatly at every networking event, because usually I go into a networking event filled with new faces to meet. I immediately downloaded this app right then and there!

Since July I have been experimenting with this new way of connecting. With Sonar by my side at networking events, I can go into a room and feel more at ease knowing industries people work in, what they do, and how I’m connected to them. This is a tool that I wish I had over a year ago, right after I graduated from college and jumped right into attending events alone.

Going into an event, for anyone, can be a bit nerve-racking at times. For me, it was a challenge to find the right people within the same industry to target and connect with. For some events if it was possible, I would research who was going and what they did. Great for small gatherings, but at a large event it was like finding a needle in a stack of needles.

The Sonar app can guide my way through a room, and make it easier with just a few clicks to find industry-related people that I can network with in person. It can also be a great conversation starter by letting the person know what friends you have in common.

When I was at a recent NYU Women in Startups panel, I got a Twitter shout out from another Sonar user, stating that we had 85 similar connections. He was sitting in the same event as me, and looking to network. (Unfortunately my phone has its own mind, and decides which Twitter messages should appear on my home screen!) If I had seen his Twitter response sooner, we would’ve had a great conversation about startups at the panel…We are looking to connect at the next NY Tech Meetup. I’m excited to go into the next meetup and have a connection already introduced, out of a large roomful of 700+ new connections waiting to be found by Sonar.

It’s amazing what technology can do now! Sonar is an app that helps you make introductions to people who are connected to you in all different degrees. Now you have no excuse becoming a wallflower at events! Sonar is a dynamic tool that I’ve used to leverage all of my connections on social media in specific locations looking for new people to network with. How will Sonar build your network?

Post written by Julie Skowronek, Assistant Marketing Manager at Whiting Consulting.

I decided to give the office a different look and feel and bring out the pink girly-girl in me. The design concept for the office first came from the space itself…I was going to have a ton of natural light and high ceilings.  The building was built in the 1880’s and it has a lot of dark wood and character.  It is an open space, but with a lot of “defined” areas where I knew I would be able to differentiate them with different uses of color.

I bought this fabric about 6 years ago for one of the first pieces of furniture that I recovered.  It was a little stool my kids used to stand on to wash their hands in our powder room.  In our old office the walls were grey…and I am not a grey kind of person.  I love color and light and need that to feel productive. So I knew right off the bat I wanted the walls to have a bright color palette. I decided to pull greens, blues, and pinks for the space…similar to the colors in our logo. I also used a green hue – Laura Ashley Sage Green that I used in my dining room at home – I think it is good if you can to leverage color that you live with all the time in other spaces…it looks different at the office than my house because of the light. I also painted the inner walls a yellow green to make the green pop and to feel like sunshine.

I also decided I wanted the office not to look like an office but more of a comfortable sitting room – so I went with a French Country theme… and started shopping – another one of my favorite hobbies!  I also decided to buy local, so I hit the area Antique stores, thrift stores and Craigslist….

I got such joy in buying an ugly, beat up of piece of furniture for 10 to 50 dollars and making it beautiful with paint and fabric…

So where do you start?  I started with the fabric and style…I knew I wanted a farmhouse table for our conference room ($45.00)…I also knew I wanted a floral fabric for the chairs…I wanted a turn of the century camel back couch (which I found in a local antique store for $150 dollars – that was the deal of the century). Instead of office furniture I utilized dressers and credenzas for storage and places to put printers…

It took me about 5 months to buy all the pieces and my garage and my mother in law’s garage looked like a used furniture store. We started at the beginning of the summer refinishing furniture and painting…my big splurge was having two chairs reupholstered, a trade that I wish I new…but boy was it worth it and I love the chair in my office – it is one of my favorite corners in the new space.

All in all I spent less than $2000.00 on furnishing a 1,600 square foot office.  It was a very exciting process…I am going to have fun picking pieces of art and little odds and ends for the space…I love having a place that is pink and has shades of green and patterns that I can’t use in my own home. If you are a business owner have your office be like a second home – it sure does feel like it sometime…look for pieces and color palettes that will inspire your staff and get them excited about coming into work each day.  I think decor really does matter and makes a first impression when you have a candidate walk into your space…If your employees feel comfortable in their surroundings they will want to come to work and feel motivated to do a great job for the business….

Don’t go to your regular OfficeMax; think outside the box…think about your brand and who your company is and what story does your space tell…Use your creative side…for me it was so fun to see what had been in my mind for a long time become a reality.

So if you haven’t noticed we have not written a blog in over two months – we apologize for that ….however, we have been busy getting ready for our office move.

The adventure started some 7 months ago when we realized we had out grown our current space (which was a two room office suite).  Even though we loved being part of a traditional old town main street – we were growing and needed to spread our wings. I was not looking for the typical office space. Since we spend a lot of time at the office I wanted a unique space that had character and that I could decorate…..

I heard about a couple of historical buildings that were being taken over and made into office space. When I first looked at the new space it was down to the bare studs and lath (something that I have not seen since my parents redid there 1828 house)…I was not sure – I could not figure out how this building was going to come together…

Greg O’Connell, a local businessman that restores old buildings and has been very successful in the revitalization of the neighboring town Mt Morris, purchased the building. Greg was awesome throughout this process…he really let me design and customize the space to my needs.  He knows that a happy tenant is one who will stay for a while.

We decided to open up the space as much as possible – making the doors wider and adding glass and keeping the old finishings to keep the building in its native state….We ended up with an office for me (24 foot ceilings), an open environment for our recruiting and sourcing center that could fit 4 desks, a sitting area, a conference room, break area and kitchen – we more that quadruple our space….

Over the last several months as Gregg’s restoration team went to work it really all came to life.  First, the lathe was covered up and we had walls!  Amazing!  Then, color on those walls that really helped define the space.  Finally, the original floors were refurbished to their natural beauty and the space all came together!

When redoing a space you need to think about flow….as a business owner I needed to think about what I really needed – how did I want communication and energy to flow throughout the space….I wanted an open office concept…our business thrives on energy – I wanted big windows, natural light – no more fluorescent light bulbs for me….I wanted normal looking furniture….I did not want to be surrounded by everything looking like an office…I wanted a space that would encourage productivity and an environment where people wanted to come to everyday and be their best.

We have now been in our new space a week…still have a couple of things to iron out – not used to walking in high heels on the hardwood floors – but to be surround by great colors, beautiful sunlight (natural light on those grey days) and pieces of furniture that have a story to tell have been awesome. I look forward to our next blog where I will talk about how I decorated the space on a budget by utilizing many of our local antique stores and consignment shops.