Karmaback is now live!
http://www.karmaback.com

Go, earn, spend.

What is Karmaback?

Simply put, it is a REWARDS program that gives you prizes, discounts, and more… just for sharing your thoughts, comments, preferences, etc.

That’s it.

Right now, you can win some awesome Blu-Ray discs (The new Star Trek)… and our grand prize right now is a pair of AWESOME $299.99 headphones:
Psyko 5.1 Headphones (True 5.1 sound on your head with truly 5.1 speakers!!!)
Here is where you enter to win:
http://karmaback.com/spend/prize/5-1-headphones/

We engineer-types tend to want to ‘give all the evidence’, to ‘explain the results’, and to ‘build scientific consensus’. Sometimes we just need to say more with less.

This means 3 things for me:
1.) shorter blog posts – I’m going to shorten what I say.. probably still be long-ish every now and then… but I’ll do better.

2.) stop selling when its sold – I have a real problem with this one… I tend to keep going purporting benefits, even when there are already enough benefits!

3.) use more pictures – pictures say more than words.

So, here you go, need I say more?

photo attributes: Sexy_Mouth.jpg: Nyki m derivative work: H005

One of the best books on building teams is Rich Dad’s Advisors: Building a Business Team That Wins. It talks about making not just a ‘company mission statement’ or a ‘values list’…but a “code of honor”. For those that read this blog, you know how important I believe company values and mission statements are. When I read this book, it took my feelings to the new heights (Picture at right is from my capsule at the top of the millenium wheel in London, 2009). I’m so lucky to be able to start a new business and bring some of the ideas from my last venture (Bigfoot Networks) into the new one (Karmaback), and also to heighten them with new ideas such as “A Company Code of Honor”. So far, all the employees of Karmaback have agreed to the code of honor, and it is working well. Here is how Karmaback’s code of honor works, and publicly, here is our code of honor. We live this code not just with each other, but also with our suppliers, partners, end users, and customers.

Karmaback’s mission:
Karmaback is dedicated to developing new technology that combines rewards with social media and customer feedback to deliver new and unique buying experiences. We believe in being an ear-piece rather than just another mouth-piece.

Here are the rules of our Code of Honor:
We, the Employees of Karmaback, subscribe to a code of honor. A code of honor is a set of common beliefs and rules that we agree to hold ourselves and our peers to in all of our dealings (each other, our partners, and our customers).
We “call it” privately, when someone violates this code by telling them about their discretion ASAP.
We “reward it” publicly, when someone upholds the code in a novel or successful way.
We “accept it” internally, when we are called on it, or rewarded for it.

Karmaback Code of Honor:
We take complete ownership of our assignments.
We never abandon a team-mate or partner in need.
We always offer a chance for redemption.
We always celebrate wins as a team.
We are always direct and honest with everyone.
We never squash or punish ideas or opinions.
We are always passionate about our individual contribution.

What is your code of honor? What do you think of ours?
Have you ever worked in a place that not only ‘said’ these things, but believed and lived them?

To me, a great place to work is one where ownership is clear, direct, and everyone is passionate about their contribution.

Companies that do not wise up to the fact that measurement is MORE important than spending money are going to die. The ones with more cash (Apple, Microsoft) will die slowly. The ones with less cash on hand (start-ups, struggling businesses) will fail quicker. Marketing and advertising can be up to 40% of annual expenses, but very few companies measure their effectiveness. How can you ‘correct’ what you cannot measure? Why would you spend $10,000 on a banner ad, and then only measure how many ‘clicks’ it generated? Companies need to measure the effects of their activities in terms of the whole system, including sales. I believe so strongly in this, I started a company, Karmaback, to try to help businesses solve this problem.

Engineer-types understand the word hysteresis. The idea is simple: for any measured system, where the output is not ‘easily’ predicted by its input… under-correction and over-correction create a ‘ringing’ pattern called hysteresis. Anyone who drives a car understands this intuitively: it’s the steering-wheel micro-adjustments you make while you drive. You see the car is going a tad too far right, you steer a tad to the left and vice versa. In business, we have many steering-wheels (knobs), and going the way you want is, hopefully, growing sales not clicks.

I leave you with 1 last thought. Any banner with a hot girl or an outrageous claim is going to get clicks. What knob, however, is going to get sales, and how are you going to measure it?

photo attributes:

I started a new company called Karmaback. It is still mostly ‘stealth’, although we are just about ready to launch. I will of course write more about the company in the future, but today I just wanted to explain why I started a new company. It starts with this: many people think I prefer to be a technologist over a businessman. If you read this blog, you probably know that is bunk. I switched over to business ever since I made my first $1 Million in revenue as CEO of my last company. So, why did such a hard-core engineer turn truly into a businessman? Why did I decide to start on this adventure AGAIN?

1. I love to teach. This sounds crazy, but leading a company for me means getting to teach my employees, my partners, my customers, the press, and you. It’s a true passion.
2. I believe in company culture. I don’t necessarily think I have the best culture of all time: but I know I have a good one for me. More than that, I enjoy the challenge of building a team to fit the culture and growing the culture for the better over time. A healthy company really is like a child growing up.
3. I genuinely want to help others succeed. This probably ties in to teaching, but I really enjoy seeing others win. I like my customers to win. I like my employees to win. Heck, I even like helping other peoples unrelated businesses to win.
4. I want to make a mark. I’m not fame-hungry, but I do want to make a difference in this world. I believe that having a successful company living and growing, creating jobs, and contributing to community… will make a mark in my small part.
5. I enjoy the tremendous challenge. Without doubt, I get bored easily. I’m not the best engineer in the world, but I can logic my way out of almost any box. Figuring out a pricing strategy now, that is true challenge! (click the link if you can help!)

Stay tuned for more on Karmaback.