My dad used to yell at me for what felt like hours. I was always pretty sure that he liked to hear himself yell, and impressed himself with his arguments.

At least once, if not twice, during his yelling at me (I think it was often after my seventeenth mumbled “yes”) he would say:

“Micah, are you listening to me or just hearing me?”

“Shit dad,” I used to think to myself, “everyone in the neighborhood can hear you!”

“I am listening,” I would say, shuffling my feet, hoping his tirade would be over soon.

Now I find myself thinking the exact same thing when I see companies attempt to reach out to their communities. Are you listening? Or are you just hearing your community?

Today, Intense Debate, a company that I have been both publicly and privately critical, showed me that they hadnt just heard what I had to say, hoping that my tirade would soon be over and I would move on to other targets, but listened. Really listened.

Even though I know the team and investors well, and have watched them grow (and go through growing pains) ever since their time in TechStars, I chose to go with their competitor, Disqus. My decision was not based on features, it was based solely on one fact: Daniel Ha, CEO of Disqus listens and responds to his community. Intense Debate did not.

I wrote a blog post about my decision.

Offline, given the proximity of Intense Debate to me, there was much discussion. I havent changed my mind, Disqus is still on my blog. From a feature perspective, the two products are basically the same, it really comes down to preference (whether its look and feel, or a specific feature, etc.), and my preference is for a company that listens to my needs, evaluates them and innovates or iterates around them.

It seems that Intense Debate heard me. Recently, they release a feature where a tweet was sent every time a person left a comment. I wrote that I felt it was a good step, but way too noisy. Intense Debate heard and iterated. Now the commenter can decide at the point of commenting to send it out as a tweet, or not.

Great move guys. Hope to see more of it. I hope you will see the benefit of listening to your community rather than just listening.

Later in the day, I got an email from my friend Ari Newman, CEO of Filtrbox, showing me a prototype of a new feature they are looking to launch. (I so wish I could talk about it, but Ari promised to kill my dogs if I leaked it).

What was gratifying for me, was that two days ago, I IM’d Ari that I had a great idea for his product, and wanted to show him what I had come up with. Two day later, the feature was implemented. Two days.

In a very private way, Ari did what all great leaders do: listened to my suggestion, evaluated its value to the product and its users, and made a decision. He had listened me. And even more so, took the extra step Intense Debate did, and did something about it.

I am very impressed with both companies and their leadership. In the span of twelve hours, two companies, two friends, took steps to make me feel both welcome and valued, which is how all community members should feel. I hope they both continue down this path.

If you are a startup, and dont think you have the time or resources to listen to your community, you will not survive. Even Twitter finally realized the error of their ways. And, companies like Get Satisfaction make listening so simple.  There is really no excuse to do it right.

So remember, any company that hopes I become part of their community and use their product:

Are you listening or just hearing me?

—–

If you are interested in either Intense Debate or Disqus‘ comment system, they are in an open beta, head over and install. They are both great, and its even better than they can be searched from the Lijit search bar in my side bar.

If you are interested in Filtrbox, which is in a closed beta, Ari has given me a special code: douchebag. Funny Ari, very funny.

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One of the issues of a young startup is the question of innovation. Here are the questions that come up:

1) How much should we innovate?
2) How often should we innovate?
3) What should our innovations focus on?

What most startups dont focus on is: when and what do I iterate on?

The general rule is innovate or die, but thats great in words, but not so great in practice. Innovate too much, and you are unfocused. Innovate backend stuff, and it appears that you are not innovating at all. Innovate in a non-linear fashion and you lose the excitement of the innovation.

Many founders are technologists that started by trying to solve a personal problem. “I hate it when X happens, what can I do to correct it?”

The problems begin to occur when “building a business” enters the equation. Now, innovation and all the “cool shit” you develop have the sole purpose of moving the business forward.

So, what is the answer?

Like most things, its simple. Engage your community and find out the problems that your users have. Innovate around those. Dont listen to one person; listen to the rising noise around problems.

Take Intense Debate. They recently released what seems like a small feature: The ability to have a tweet sent every time I comment on an blog with Intense Debate.

This is was in response to their community asking for a way to let people know that a conversation was occurring around a blog post.

With this feature, Jon and crew did some things right. You can modify the text of the tweet and its off by default. Brilliant.

They missed on the real value of Twitter. That twitter is a two way conversation, not a circus barker for the crap I am posting online. Where they could provide real value is in generating a conversation not just a notification that comments are occurring.

Also, from a publisher perspective, the feature is either on or off and I cant select the specific comments that get tweeted, rather they all get tweeted, or they all dont.

Interesting innovation. The type of innovation that is indicative of the early stage Intense Debate is in. The type of innovation that a true hacker technologist bangs out overnight.

But, Intense Debate is a business. Where they will win with this innovation is the speed of the iteration.

And thats the answer: Innovate. Listen to your community. Then iterate.

It’s really that simple.

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I recently was engaged in a Skype conversation with my friend Aaron Brazell. Aaron recently left b5media where he was the Director of Technology, and has decided to change careers. Of all the things he could choose to do, Business Development happened to be on his list.

So, probably because I am the coolest person in the world (in addition to my status as the #1 douchebag in the world), I asked Aaron to try his hand at Business Development at Lijit Networks.

Its been fun over the past week or so talking to Aaron about publishers and Lijit, but more interestingly is the discussions we have had about business development.

So, back to the Skype conversation.

Aaron and I were discussing a plan of attack for a large publisher. One that neither of us had a warm introduction into. As the conversation continued, I began to explain to Aaron the difference between business development now and during the Great Dot Com Bubble of 2000.

In the “old days,” business development was more about strategic alliances, which was a silly way to say, “lets find a way to drive traffic to each other.” (Notice the word traffic. I didnt accidentally substitute that for the word revenue.)

Many companies owned a certain space and could demand many things for the access to their traffic or data. Business Development was really just sales with out the quota. It was all about traffic and eyeballs, and there was little to no focus on creating bi-directional relationships. As I just explained to another friend:

Business Development is about working with people who want to make your company better while you work to make their company better.

And that, in a nutshell, is the difference in todays world.

The world is smaller. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and the like make it easy to interact with people all times of day and builds a level of understanding and connection that is unprecedented.

So, what advice would I give a new business development guy? What advice did I give Aaron? Here are my three rules to being a fantastic Business Development guy:

1. Be yourself. You are now intertwined with the brand of the company you are pitching. If you are fake, then the company will be seen as fake. Just be yourself.
2. Do what you would do normally. If you are not a blogger. Dont blog. If you dont like twitter, dont tweet. Basically, chose the communication medium that best suits you.
3. Look for connections. Not just between people, but between companies. Does it make sense for Lijit to work with hardware manufacturers? Probably not. So think of connections in three ways:
   1. Direct: These are people that you know directly or can be introduced directly. In this case, you are looking to directly pitch the person on your product or service.
   2. Indirect: These are tangential connections, where you want to pitch your product or service to someone because of the people that like, follow, respect the direct connection.
   3. Enhanced:  Dont really have a better word for this, but its basically a connection where there may be no immediate business to pitch, but since the two companies are like minded and the product or service is complimentary, that a connection will enhance both companies.

The first type, Direct, is the most like sales. You have something you want someone else to use or pay for, so you explain the features and benefits, and you are off to the races. The second, Indirect, is very much like a Direct connection, but your target isnt the initial person, its the intial person’s fans and friends.

Both of those are necessary for the growth of a company. As long as one is open and honest about it and straight forward, there is nothing shady about the practice.

The third type, enhance, is the most difficult and esoteric for most people. People that are successful at Enhanced Connections usually dont work for commission. They usually arent great sales people. But, they see the potential in both their company, and the target company, and understand that together they are stronger than individually. And most importantly, they understand its about sharing and giving, not just taking.

I also often joke that my title is VP, Favors and Introductions. 99% of my job doing favors, giving introductions or asking for favors or introductions. To me, the only capital I possess is my reputation and the trust my friends have that I will introduce someone that is worthy and wont waste their time.

The key to being successful at this is understanding one simple thing:

To get, one must give, and trust that the gift is compelling enough to have the other give in return.

And that one sentence, is what Business Development in a Web 2.0 World is. Its not wineing and dining, or business trips, or even expense accounts. Its being in a state of constantly giving, making sure that you have given more daily than received. And, most importantly, if, at the end of the day, what you are giving away (whether it is time, connections, a product or service, or even just an ear to listen) is not worthy of the people you are giving it to, and not given freely, you will lose. Every time.

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