Change Agent

Thursday night was crazed in our house. Two sons were preparing for their last day of finals, followed by packing their trunks for summer camp, in turn followed by packing their suitcases for a pre-camp vacation week in Maine. My wife and I each had piles of unfinished work, followed by our getting packed for vacation. And we both needed to be out of the house before the boys awoke for early morning business meetings. Late at night, I turned on the Boston Celtics game fully expecting it to be over, having forgotten the ridiculously late tip off time. When I saw The Green down by over 20 points I shut it off immediately; Sunday would be another day.

As I headed up to join my wife in bed, I caught site of the huge pile of ironing which I had planed to get through during last Sunday’s game. Knowing that I needed some of these clothes for next week, I reluctantly headed to the basement to iron away. I first turned to a rebroadcast of the last inning of the 2007 Red Sox Mothers’ Day Miracle game; though I’ve seen it a dozen times, it never looses it’s appeal. I switched back to the Celtics only to discover them down by only 11. Wait; could they really pull this off? The rest, as they say, is history. The more I ironed, the more the Celtics scored. When I got through the pile, I didn’t dare stop ironing, my Irish superstition taking over. I ironed everything in sight — dishtowels, hankies, anything that allowed me, and the Celtics, to keep going.

So on Friday, listening to sports talk radio during my early morning drive to my 7:15 meeting, when caller after caller lamented not having stayed up to see what was being dubbed by many the greatest comeback game in NBA Final history, I was pleased that a pile of ironing allowed me to be one of the few people I knew who actually saw the game live!

I don’t think I’m a ‘new car snob’ – I’ve driven plenty of old cars, but each I acquired new.  So why – 35 years after my first car, a showroom-fresh Toyota Crown – is this used, full size Buick LeSabre sitting in our drive?  Two reasons.  First is our family’s April Fools ‘perfect storm’; the first week of April four things happening that decreed our small Volvo S40 – augmented with an antique 1964 Rambler Ambassador – would no longer suffice: My work location moved from just blocks from our Lexington home to downtown Boston; My wife’s new venture took her out of public transit and into a car; Our middle son got his license; And our oldest son returned home from college.  (Not to mention that a month earlier we adopted two large greyhounds.)  Clearly we needed another car! But why not a used Honda or Toyota, the ‘kids car’ of choice for most Lexingtonians?  The second reason for picking a Buick is the warning we received at Skid School, which both sons have now attended. In addition to teaching young drivers how to ‘handle the unexpected’ at highway speeds, Skid School teaches – lectures, really – parents that young drivers should only drive cars equipped with both ABS and side-impact airbags.  Although few used Hondas or Toyotas available for under five grand have both safety features, American Caddys and Buicks have been so equipped for years.  So, no, we don’t have distant, ancient relatives visiting us for the summer; that old bomber in the drive is our ‘new’ car!

Executives Online, a firm specializing in placing interim C-level executives in Europe, reports today that the demand for CEO / COO to perform Change Management has increased 220% in on one year. They attribute this dramatic increase in demand to a combination of the impact on all types of businesses of the problems in the financial markets, as well as the US recession.

This is good news for people (like me!) who specialize in interim ‘Change Agent’ type assignments.

I’ve finished my assignment as interim President and COO (reporting to the founding CEO, Omar Khudari) of independent video game developer, Cecropia. When I arrived in 2006, I managed a team of 75 that created The Act, a new style of video game that combines the appeal of an animated film with a simple game mechanic that anyone can enjoy — a video game that appeals to “the rest of us.” As a team, we navigated the challenge of finishing the game on time while simultaneously downsizing the operation significantly. As a company, we learned about creating a powerful, emotional connection between game players and interactive characters. Building on this knowledge, we have transitioned the company to where it can now develop a new kind of interactive advertisement, a Flash Comedy Skit, which could, in our view, become a key component of the Facebook strategy of large consumer products companies.

Check out two things on our updated web site: Under the Projects tab you can play games that are completed and get a ‘sneak peak’ of games in development. And under the Blog tab, read the 12 March 2008 post to answer the question we get asked every day, “What happened to The Act?

The recent MIT Enterprise Forum ‘Interactive Entertainment SIG’ event was another example of a side benefit of doing interim CEO / COO assignments – when each assignment is over I get time to ‘network’ at events like this (or the recent MIT / Polaris Venture event.)

This particular SIG is the brainchild of Michael Cavaretta member of the business-only law firm Morse Barnes-Brown Pendleton. Last summer The Boston Globe’s Hiawatha Bray wrote about how Boston has emerged as a video gaming hub, challenging similar regional hubs in Seattle and Austin. In his work, Michael sees many of the deals – both investment deals and development / publishing deals – being made by local game companies. Since the Boston-based game industry has historically operated in stealth mode, Michael formed this SIG as a way to promote the success of these local companies.

This meeting’s subject ‘Getting Started and Succeeding’ was addressed by a stellar panel of successful local game company CEOs including: Read the rest of this entry »

Last week’s “Triumph in Tech” event at the R&D Pub in MIT’s Stata Center was a success. Polaris Venture Partners and the MIT VCPE (Venture Capital and Private Equity) Club hosted the ‘round robin’ dinner – we changed tables after each course – with the purpose of bringing together three types of people: Venture Capitalists (looking to meet this year’s top graduates); MIT Sloan School MBA students, most from the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program (looking to find a start-up that’ll hire them); and seasoned CEOs – people like me who Polaris asked to speak directly to the subject of the evening, “How Great Teams Come Together and Break Through to Success.”

Though I enjoyed talking about the teams I’ve pulled together in early-stage start-ups, turn arounds, or ‘growth-phase’ companies both here and in Europe, I enjoyed even more learning new ‘tricks of the trade’ from my contemporaries. Unfortunately I suspect some of the students did not enjoy the advice given by many of the CEOs: since start-ups don’t have the luxury to groom, you’ll not likely find a start-up willing to hire a fresh MBA grad for their executive team. So land a position – preferably in Bus Dev and / or Product Management – at a large, well run company with a strong management training program. Then come back in ten years and seek out your start-up.

This event was one of those win / win situations where all in attendance – the Polaris VCs, the MIT MBA candidates, and the CEOs – benefited.

Every CEO with a Series B coming up in the next 6-12 months would be wise to use this post from Jeff Bussgang (General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners, formerly known as IDG Ventures) as the ‘roadmap’ for his or her actions. Instead of learning what VCs will require from trial end error, using Jeff’s roadmap would allow a CEO to provide — on their first Series B presentation — exactly what the VC expects. And rather than waiting until the Series B time arrives, the CEO should today put a list on the wall of Jeff’s required items; then put together an action plan to obtain each item over the next six months.

Preparing a company for a Series B (which I’ve done a number of times, often in the role of interim CEO / COO) reminds me of preparing for a ‘phase review’ when I was a product manager years ago. Though some people dreaded preparing for such a phase review, I found that — if my product development program (including the go-to-market component) was under control — then providing all the data requested at a phase review was not difficult.

Similarly, for a start-up company, the data Jeff says is required for a Series B is really the data you should normally have to operate the business in the Series A phase: an accurate sales pipeline; customer references; a product road map; financial projections; market analysis / potential, etc. are really all things that should be part of your normal operations. If that’s the case, then pulling together the Series B package will be a reasonable process.

If you’re a CEO facing a Series B in the next year save yourself a lot of pain and heartache and follow Jeff’s advice.

Added 17 March 2008: IDG Ventures announced their third fund ($280 million) and a name change to Flybridge Capital Partners. Check out Jeff Bussgang’s post for the reasons why.

I don’t consider myself an ‘interim kind of guy.’ But I’ve completed numerous turn-arounds in the last decade, usually as interim CEO / COO / GM. Earlier posts discussed the benefits of interim executive management from a company’s point of view, as well as from an executive’s. Another post described the process I use my first week to determine the real problems and to begin to come up with solutions.

Though each company’s situation has been different – different products, different markets, different problems, and different teams – each situation has been the same in that, somewhere around day ten, the ‘powers to be’ ask to switch the role from interim to permanent. Why do they ask? And why do I say, “No?”

They ask because – for the first time in a long time – they like what they see happening. They like the transparency of knowing what’s really going on. They like seeing that bad apples in the management team have been shown the door. And, most importantly, they like seeing key players revitalized and charged up about the company’s future. (It’s these ‘revitalized key players’ who are the foundation of any turnaround.)

So why do I say, “No?” Because, though things have changed for the better at each company, what’s not changed is the reason why the assignment was made interim in the first place. Did they want to keep open the option to sell the company? Did they want to clean the place up to attract an industry-specific, name brand CEO? Did they want to have more time before committing to significant further capital investment? At each company, the reasons for making the assignment interim in the first place have still been valid, hence my response.

My current assignment as interim President of Cecropia will transition to a board position shortly. With this mission accomplished I’ll soon be considering companies for my next gig. Will it be permanent or interim? That depends on the situation!

A site focusing on the area of Interactive Video used these words to describe the first product from Cecropia’s new direction, Flash Comedy Skits. Cecropia – where I’ve been interim president since 2006 – first developed a coin-op product, The Act, which proved that the building blocks of sketch comedy – characters, personality, and story – could be used not only as the setting of a video game, but also as the actual game play. We learned how to create a powerful, emotional connection between game players and interactive characters – particularly among people who previously were not game players.

While experimenting with this genre, Cecropia made an unexpected discovery – personality games may be ideally suited for branded interactive entertainment.

So we have transitioned the company to become a developer of a new kind of interactive advertisement, a Flash Comedy Skit, intended to be a key component of the Facebook strategy of large consumer products companies. To help companies reach today’s Facebook consumers, Cecropia has developed a new kind of interactive advertisement meant to be shared virally. Unlike videos, which are already shared virally, Flash Comedy Skits are interactive. And unlike traditional ‘advergames,’ playing with a skit causes the consumer to interact meaningfully with the company’s brand. Our first Flash Comedy Skit is on our web site with two more to follow early in the year. Play each one until you achieve the goal.

For a great Saturday night out, repeat what we did last Saturday. Take in Ronan Noone’s Irish / American play, “Brendan” at the Boston Center for the Arts and then catch the last six innings at the Sox game over dinner at Coda.

Louise Kennedy’s review in today’s Boston Globe called Brendan, “Fluid, funny, and heartfelt.” My view? We saw many great plays the four years we lived in Dublin where the government encourages the art by allowing actors and playwrights to live tax-free; Brendan is up there with the best of the Irish works.

A cross between a bar and a restaurant, Coda (329 Columbus Ave, by Dartmouth) was a perfect place to watch the Sox beat Cleveland in game six. (Their burgers are often rated the best in Boston.) And after the game was in hand, we were treated to great surprise when the entire cast and crew from Brendan showed up for a late night bite.

A play and the Red Sox over dinner in one night? A strange combination but in this case it worked out perfectly. Give it a try.