Startups, Is It Better To Be Loved Or Needed?

Written by Tyler Prochnow, co-founder of Think Big Partners.

Written by Tyler Prochnow,
co-founder of Think Big Partners.

I’ve just recently finished reading "The Business of Happiness" by Ted Leonsis.  I submit that for all of the acclaim that he has received, Leonsis is still one of the most underrated entrepreneurs in history.  Based on his pioneering views of the role of technology in our business and personal lives alone, he should be a household name like Jobs and Gates.  Never mind that he coined the phrase “new media.”  The fact that he doesn’t roll off the tip of most people’s tongues when naming the most influential innovators of all time is a testament to his lack of ego and his laser-like focus on building successful teams.  But enough of my editorial.

                                                                                                                     

In his book, Leonsis raises the question of whether, as a company, it is better to be loved or needed.  He raises the question in regards to his vision for AOL.  When he ran the company and led it to its highest of highs, he constantly urged his employees to create features and content that would be loved.  Even as the Internet grew and it became something that most people “needed”, his unending focus was on creating a company people loved.  Companies that are loved, he argues, provide an emotional connection with their customers that is invaluable.  Like a family member who lets us down, he states, that love can overcome numerous mistakes the company may make, keeping loyal customers for life.

I am such an admirer of Leonsis that I would never imagine arguing or disagreeing with his core principles.  And while I am not saying he is “wrong” by any stretch of the imagination, it has been a long time since I’ve had a question elicit such a conflicting range of emotions.  He cites as his example, your electrical utility.  You need electricity, but you don’t love the company.  Every time there is an outage, consumers curse the company, not the circumstances that created such an outage.  And while that is all well and good, the last time I looked, my electric company generated a pretty decent amount of cash and a profit margin that would make most companies jealous.  Likewise, companies such as Cisco and AT&T, which I would argue are more needed than loved, have obviously been very successful. 

I’m not kidding you, this question is driving me crazy and making my already gray hair even grayer.  My own personal business experiences suggest that Leonsis is right.  I’ve had businesses that were needed by my customers and some of them have done quite well, but my most successful ventures were those that were loved by our customers.  No one “needed” to buy tickets for an Arena Football game, but our fans “loved” our game, our team, and our organization.  They came out week after week and gave a piece of their hearts to the team.  It was as simple as that.  The two years I owned the Brigade, we finished at or near the top in attendance and overall revenue, because our fans loved us.  

So naturally, I thought I would fall firmly in the love camp.  But as I’ve pondered the question, I can’t get this nagging thought out of my head, that being “needed” is pretty great.  If my customers need me, how are they going to leave me?  If they need me, don’t they have to live with my mistakes, not just tolerate them to a point?  Isn’t the entrepreneur graveyard filled with the tombstones of companies that people loved, that never figured out a profitable business model?

It’s been a couple of months since I read the chapter on love versus need.  After walking all the way around this question and looking at it from every angle, it is quite clear to me that there is no “correct” answer.  Obviously in a perfect world, it would be great to be loved and needed.  But since only a very small handful of companies are in fact loved and needed (see Apple and Facebook [post IPO stockprice notwithstanding]), most entrepreneurs are not that lucky.  No, the bottom line here, I believe, is that it doesn’t have to be a zero sum game.  You should strive to create that emotional connection with your customers, but if your company produces a product or service that is needed, your chances of success are substantially greater.

I apologize for going in circles with this article.  I fully intended to quit being a fence straddler, take a position, and make the case for it.  But as I kept writing, I kept coming back to the virtues of the other side.  So rather than take a stand, I’m going to wimp out and go all Dear Abby on you.  I want you the reader to let me know what you think.  Is it better to be loved or needed?

                                                                        Signed, Confused in KC

Maybe Janis Joplin was Right...

WRITTEN BY TYLER PROCHNOW, CO-FOUNDER & SENIOR PARTNER

While I’m sure Janis Joplin was not thinking about small business and entrepreneurs when she sang “Take another little piece of my heart now baby”, the refrain has served me and many other entrepreneurs well as we focus on finding customers for our businesses.  When we launched the Arena Football franchise in Kansas City in 2006, the Commissioner of the League, David Baker, was kind enough to share some advice with us.  Of course, I almost always welcome advice from successful leaders and try and incorporate their suggestions the best I can.  But this time, it was different.  Baker stands 6’ 8” and is a self-described “couple of twinkies short of 400 pounds.”  When a man of that size speaks, you listen.

The Commissioner told me that the League was asking us for four things.  They were going to ask us for our time. They were going to ask us for our effort.  They were going to ask us for our money (the most important item).  But they were also going to ask us for “a piece of my heart,” because that is what our fans, our players and our community deserved.  Every week, our fans would come out and give a piece of their heart to the team and regardless of how many games we won or lost, we failed if we did not give a piece of our heart back to them.

Now I am not a touchy, feely, emotion-rules-the-day kind of guy.  I’m not into any of that new age; it’s all about feelings philosophy.  But I can tell you that we took the Commissioner’s advice to heart (no pun intended) and I believe that was a huge reason we were so successful in connecting with our fans and selling tickets.  Nearly every decision we made as an organization was with the fan’s heart in mind.  We put ourselves in their shoes (which was not difficult because at the end of the day, that’s what were: fans) and developed a product that spoke to their hearts.   Since that day, whether consciously or subconsciously, we’ve tried to incorporate that attitude into every business venture we have launched.  This is obviously easier in some industries as there are many businesses that would find it difficult to establish an emotional connection with their customer.  Yet I honestly believe that no industry and no business and no customer engages in a transaction without some emotion.  How often have we worked harder on a deal because you “like” the other side?  How often have you killed a project simply because you didn’t “like” the people you were dealing with?

Steve Jobs arguably built one of the most dynamic companies in history by combining cutting-edge technology with emotional appeal.  The outpouring of emotion when Jobs passed away was not because people loved Steve.  Most people had never met him.  But his products spoke to people’s hearts in a way that they became part of the company.  If you owned an Apple product, you were part of Apple.  That is a lofty goal for all of us.

I know one of the first lessons they try and teach you in business is to leave emotion at the door.  Look at the opportunity purely through an economic lens and decide whether the opportunity has merit.  But is that really possible?  Establishing an emotional connection and reaching out to your customers or your partners is the very essence of building brand loyalty and more importantly, customer loyalty.

So whether you are a first time startup with a golden idea, or a serial entrepreneur with another new business, I would urge you to fire up your iPod, put a little Janis Joplin on your playlist and look into your customer’s heart to find the magic ingredient for success.

Follow Think Big! @ThinkBigKC

Entrepreneur Tackles a Business in 120 Days

We’ve all heard about “accidental” business success—just look at the famous story of Kingsford Charcoal: today’s leading manufacturer of charcoal in the United States was accidently developed from Ford Motor Company’s factory wastes in the 1920’s.  Or take a look at Play-Doh: this non-toxic, non-staining, reusable modeling compound was originally wallpaper cleaner until kids began molding it to make Christmas ornaments. 

But were these stories really “accidents” or did these entrepreneurs succeed simply because they had no idea what they were up against?  Did each entrepreneur simply have luck on their side, or did they become a success because they didn’t see the option of failure? 

Tyler Prochnow seems to think that perhaps its a little of both.

Tyler Prochnow
Founder of Kansas City Brigade
Co-Founder of Think Big Partners

To say that Prochnow knows how to launch a business is an understatement.  As co-founder of Think Big Partners and current President of two other companies (Connexsus Technology Solutions and ACS Properties), entrepreneurialism runs in his blood.  But it’s Prochnow’s greatest success story that proves that anything is possible if you don’t know what you can’t do.  In 2006, Prochnow launched a successful Arena Football League Franchise, not in one year, not in 6 months, but in 120 days.

After conducting due diligence for an 11-year NFL veteran with an interest in investing in an AFL team, Prochnow's eyes were opened to the world of Arena Football.

“The very things that the AFL promoted were the things that I believed Kansas City supported—family entertainment, giving back to the community, players that were accessible, and most of all, football,” says Prochnow.

Over the course of several months, Prochnow studied the League, did due diligence on the Kansas City market, and made a presentation to the League's owners on the viability of a Kansas City team.  Prochnow was approved as the owner of the expansion franchise and was set to begin play in the 2007 season. 

This is where fate intervened.  In the fall of 2006, the AFL New Orleans VooDoo team suspended their operations due to Hurricane Katrina.  Prochnow saw a business opportunity as well as a chance to help the city of New Orleans. 

Prochnow made a presentation to AFL owners about starting play a full year earlier than anticipated.  The League agreed.  And the rest of the word, according to Prochnow, "happened overnight."  And so began the development of the Kansas City Brigade.

Prochnow began hiring immediately and was able to put together what he calls, "the best front office staff ever assembled.  They were the ones responsible for the remarkable success of the franchise."  Even with a world-class staff of people who rolled up their sleeves and worked around the clock, Prochnow found himself putting in 60-hour weeks, often times until 2:30 in the morning.  His days were flooded with up to 100 phone calls and countless meetings.  But he and his team were determined to see the Kansas City Brigade become an AFL success, even if that meant no sleep and an overdose of Coca-Cola.  In other words, living the life of all entrepreneurs launching a new business.

“Anything is possible if you don’t know that you can’t do it,” says Prochnow.  “Looking back, we probably should not have been able to pull of what we did in such a short period of time, but it never crossed anyone’s mind that we couldn’t do it, so we focused on our goals and made it happen.” 

And happen it did.  The first Kansas City Brigade game, held just 120 days after the League gave them approval, attracted over 16,500 fans, even when the capacity at Kemper Arena was only 16,200.  From then on, the Brigade averaged over 15,000 in attendance per game and exceeded 16,000 fans in attendance for more than half their games that season.  To say that Prochnow’s hard work paid off is an understatement. 

“Virtually everything I do in my current business endeavors came from lessons we learned when we launched the Brigade,” he states.  "We made a lot of mistakes, but we learned from every one of them, and that was crucial to the success of the venture."

From hiring talented managers to listening to the customers, Prochnow implemented his business knowledge gleaned from this nearly-impossible business venture into his current business endeavors.

See what amazing things can happen in under 120 days? 

See what amazing things can happen when you Think Big?  

Written by Allison Way.  Allison is a writer and videographer for Think Big Partners, Kansas City’s mentorship-based business incubator and startup accelerator.  To read more of Allison’s work, check out the Kansas City Entrepreneurship Examiner as well as her articles on Helium, BrooWaha, eZine and Newsvine.