Given that the season of thanks is upon us, I thought it was appropriate to take a few moments and reflect upon all that I am thankful for. From a personal perspective, I am thankful for my loving wife, my wonderful 4 children, my parents and the rest of my family, my friends, my health, the roof over my head, my career, all of my colleagues that have extended a helping hand when they had nothing to gain from it, the list could go on and on. Needless to say, I am thankful for it all, and I am thankful to get the opportunity to see another day and all the goodness (and badness) that it brings.

From a business perspective, it is important for companies from time to time reflect on what it is that they are thankful for, and then they should react on all that they are thankful for by expressing their gratitude. The two greatest assets any one company should be thankful for are their employees and their customers. After all, those two groups of individuals make or break any company. Companies should be thankful to their employees for believing in what the company stands for, for dedicating their time to making the company better, for building quality products that their customers love, you get the picture here (and it goes without saying that each employee should be thankful to the company for taking a chance on them and employing them, but I am not focusing on what each person should be thankful for, just what the company should be thankful for).

Companies should also be thankful for their customers, after all, they are the ones who pay the bills and ultimately provide salaries (and then some if the company is wildly successful) for all of the employees. There are many ways for a company to express their gratitude to it’s customers, from open letters of thanks to promotions and give aways, to discounts and rewards, these are all just simply little ways to say thank you.

A simple thank you can go a long way and can have a great impact on the individual or individuals in ways that the giver of the thanks may not imagine. So in the spirit of the Thanksgiving season, take a moment to think of all that you are thankful and make sure you tell those people how grateful you are for them and what they do.

To loosely borrow a term from the world of sports, today I bring you some serious Monday Morning Quarterbacking (well actually it started yesterday, but I am certain more naysayers jumped on the bandwagon today, hence the title of the post). So this past weekend saw the latest installment of Startup Weekend, the San Francisco treat (that is where it was this past weekend). The event got crunched on TechCrunch just like it had the previous weekend in Atlanta, and much like the Atlanta TechCrunch post, this one got slammed by all the Monday Morning Quarterbacks.

It absolutely amazes me (I do not know why it does anymore, I mean we should all be numbed to the fact that there is a large population of naysayers out there that are foaming at the mouth for the opportunity to trash something) at how so many people are so quick to pass judgment on an event that they did not participate in or better yet, know nothing about it other than what others are saying. They rush out and post a negative comment on a blog post on TechCrunch without even understanding the motivation or spirit of what is going on. Having been one of the main organizers of the DC Startup Weekend, I think I can speak on good authority on what the events are about, and it is not about the money or the company, it is about the COMMUNITY. Andrew Hyde has done a fantastic job instilling the spirit of community in every weekend event, and all you have to do is ask any of the many individuals that have actually attended more than one of these events (yes, there are several people that have traveled across the country to be a part of this, which speaks volumes about Andrew by the way) and they can back me up on this claim, it has always been and will always be about the COMMUNITY.

To provide some color to my claim that there are a bunch of naysayers out there that do not know what they are talking about, check this moronic statement:

“frankly it seems these collaboration projects are complete failures. First of all there is not much you can achieve in a weekend. Second of all these ideas are pretty much carbon copies of stuff thats been out there, so its not like they are coming up with something creative. Thirdly with 132 founders, even if a site turns out to be successful, and they end up clearing a million bucks a year, thats a mere $30K a piece, at those rates you are better off working at Starbucks” (the period was left off intentionally to further drive home the point that the naysayers are not so smart, yes the author of this fine statement does not have a firm grasp of the English language.)

Brilliant, right? They are wrong on so many levels that I cannot go into all of them. My friend Micah (who was not at this event, but was at the inaugural event in Boulder and was also at DC) posted a nice retort to the comment above:

“Lets see some quick ROI calculations:

Assumptions:
- Average StartupWeekend last approximately 50 hours;
- Average StartupWeekend attendance is 50 people;
- Average wage of a StartupWeekend participant is $25/hr. ($50k/annually)

So, more than $62.5k in work value is put into each weekend’s idea. There is a completed business plan, a network formed, a demo-ready product, creative work completed, buzz created, etc.

In 2.5 days. For no real money.

Sounds like value to me.

In addition, the concept of ROI (return on investment), bodes the question what is the individuals return on the effort. If we use the example from #1 — $30k per person, thats not bad for 2.5 days of work with little to no cap ex.

So $30k on $1325 invested work value…a simple ROI calc puts its at about … ~20x.

Man thats a bad investment for sure!”

Well put, enough said. For those out there that feel inclined to bash something before you even try it, I encourage to give it a try. Then if you do not like it, all bets are off, have your way with it. Until then, do us a favor and stay quiet.

I was humbled today and was taught a very valuable lesson about knowing what my limitations are. I ventured into an area that I know just a little about (well, enough to be dangerous and mess things up) and I managed to make a mess of things that I should have just left alone.

I attempted to add some code to this blog and I should have known better. Once upon a time I did know how to do some development, but technology advancements have long passed me by and I am a completely screwed the pooch. Fortunately for me I work with very bright engineers and was able to get the problem fixed in a matter of minutes (well that was after I spent a half hour looking like a fool). Thanks to Jason Garber for saving my day, you are my hero today!

It is important to know your limitations because it can keep you out of trouble. I am not saying that you should not go out on a limb and learn something new, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that just because you are good in one thing does not mean you will be good at the next. Everyone is good at something, and most likely that something is what you were hired to do, so stick with that and if you are feeling risky, learn something new but understand it takes time. In the meantime, stick to what you are good at and left the rest to the other experts.