I originally posted this at my personal blog on June 5, 2007.  I thought it was worthy of a repost.  Leave a comment and let me know if you agree.  - Kendall

Startups are stressful. By nature, they remove many of the safety nets that larger companies can afford. Distractions are deadly and losing focus for a small amount of time can be devastating. Finding the right people to fill the correct positions while balancing their needs with the companies needs is a difficult task and one that many entrepreneurs and CEOs struggle with, regardless of their history. There will be moments of anger and frustration and it is important to be aware of how you redline, no matter what position you fill.

Let me tell you a personal story of my days at TurnTide, a situation that pushed me to the redline and how I handled it. TurnTide was an anti-spam company that was a spin out of a privacy and consulting firm I was working for right out of college. Continue reading “Be Careful How You Redline”

A few weeks ago, we received a call from Meg Havern from TicketLeap.com.  TicketLeap was looking for an easy and affordable way to have their logo displayed at the entrance to their Center City Philadelphia Offices.

This request made us smile for several reasons. First, Ticket Leap is an awesome company!  For those of you who may not have see their TechCrunch article, TicketLeap made inroads in the highly competitive event registration and ticketing software market by choosing to cater to small companies and events.  Ticketleap not only allows their clients to sell tickets online, but they offer box office solutions through the additional reporting and tracking services available on their website.   Second, TicketLeap shares our vision in beginning a start-up adventure here in Philadelphia.  Lastly, TicketLeap is comprised of a great team.  They recently landed Blake Jennelle as their Director of Marketing and have brought on several others that round out their already fantastic team!

Kendall decided to hand deliver their print since their headquarters is only blocks away from ours.  Within hours of receiving Meg’s phone call the TicketLeap crew was standing in their office admiring their Larger Than Life prints logo with pride.  Kendall was able to spend time with their CEO, Chris Stanchak discussing their most recent purchase.  Here is a video of Chris and his team finishing installation.

(This post brought to you by Gloria Bell on behalf of LTL Prints.  Please direct any questions to gloria@LTLprints.com)

Tags: Customers, Logo, Startup, Ticketleap

It won’t come as a surprise that Larger Than Life prints is a big fan of Twitter.  Since LTLprints was a smudged idea on a whiteboard we knew that customer and community interaction was a key part to the success of our company.  Recently there has been some intense debate that has taken place at the Larger Than Life prints headquarters regarding this question, “are we miss managing or under utilizing the @LTLprints twitter account?”

The debate originates with our desire to balance the increased exposure to the company, but also add value. And do so without blatantly self promoting or forcing a hard-sell. We believe the fundamental reason that twitter is powerful is that it adds value to the users.

The way that I normally solve problems like this is to investigate the ways other companies have utilized new technology. Also I seek advice and feedback from others that I respect.  One suggestion was that we should use @LTLprints account to “celebrate our company”.  This includes discussing interesting prints, designs, customers, and lastly, being open about the trials and tribulations of starting a business.  But we also want to hear from you.  How do you manage your company’s Twitter account? What specific goals have you set? How do you interact with your own private account i.e. @Schoenrock and @cpeLTLprints? What advice do you have for @LTLprints?

Update -  We are going to try out @cotweet and see how it goes!

Tags: Business, Debate, Larger than Life, On the Web, Online Communities, Social network, twitter

7:15 AM - Iphone alarm goes off.  I hit snooze…

7:27 - First read through of email, in bed, on my phone.

7:43 - Made it downstairs to the gym in my building.  Ran 2.6 miles and wailed on my shoulders, bi’s and tris.

8:49 - Fresh and Clean.  1st chat with Carsten regarding daily tasks and goals.

9:16 - Answerd most pressing emails while having breakfast at my desk.

9:24 - Left for Independents Hall to work for the day

9:50 - Settled in at IndyHall and snagged my first cup of coffee.  Spoke to Alex Hillman and David Spears about DreamIT and cool Philly momentum in the startup world.

11:09 - Answered 2 phone calls from headhunters regarding placing their people in a new job opening at LTLprints.

12:40 PM - Finished the first draft of the 1 pager proposal I’m writing for a meeting tomorrow with a local design firm.

1:32 - Snagged another cup of coffee not wanting to take lunch until my proposal is finished.

2:29 - Answered an inbound request for a custom quote.

2:58 - Almost done with the proposal.

3:12 - Sent the proposal to Gloria Bell for proof reading. She rocks at a ton of stuff, by the way.

3:22 - Snagged a slice of Pizza for lunch (negating the hard work on the treadmill this morning).

3:48 - Phone conversation with Carsten regarding production, my final proposal, the design competition, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Philly Startup Leaders Meetup, and updates on pleased customer feedback.

4:12 - Stopped to thank Gloria for her help and chatted up a some cool new peeps at IndyHall.

4:20 - Read through my twitter stream

4:29 - Setup an e-voting script for the upcoming design competition. It’s going to rock.

4:43 -  Worked with Dallas Shaw to get her designs into the catalog and entered into the design competition.

5:11 - Was invited to dinner at National Mechanics with Gloira Bell some of her friends.

5:39 - Ceaser Salad (due to the late lunch).

6:35 - Left to attend Philly Startup Leaders.  We wanted to be there early as Gloria volunteered to help with sign in.  Did I mention she rocks?

7:15 - Philly Startup Leaders starts cranking and I meet a ton of interesting people.

9:07 - I left a little ealry as I was pretty tired and I wanted to walk home. It’s unusually warm in Philly tonight.

10:15 - Day recap with Carsten and discussing key events for tomorrow.

10:49 - Checked email

11:43 - Wrote blog post while watching a rerun of the witty show The West Wing.

12:14 AM - Contemplated if this post sums up how much I enjoy what I’m doing.

Goodnight all.

Tags: Carsten Petzold, Gloria Bell, IndyHall, IPhone, Online Communities, Philly, Philly Startup Leaders, Startup, West Wing

Today, I received an email from Lynsie at Showclix. Showclix is search engine for local live music events. Any band or artist planning to give a concert can submit the event to the site for FREE. Anyone looking for a venue to attend can search for cool stuff in his neighborhood. Showclix also provides ticketing services. In short Showclix is a great platform for artists to promote their invents. Get some more detailed information here.

Lynsie, her cofounder Josh and I go way back to spreadshirt - where much of the marketing success was due to Josh’s and Lynsie’s hard work.

Lynsie posted these pictures of her installing the Showclix logo print they ordered last week from LTL on the shlog. Lynsie’s comment in an email to me really encouraged me: “I actually put it up by myself… that’s how easy it was!. Thanks agian. The print looks great on the wall :)”

So there you go community. If Lynsie can install the print - anyone can do it

Tags: Carsten Petzold, Events, Logo, Lynsie Camuso, Music Events, Showclix, Ticketing Service

A few weeks ago I was at a meetup in Philadelphia when a young guy pitched me on a startup idea he had.  And I guess that makes sense.  People hear about Carsten and I starting LTLprints.com and see that as a opener to pitch me their  ideas. On the whole this pleases me and I’m grateful for the conversation.  Most are truly interested in my response, other times they just want me to tell them that their idea is worth pursuing.  Occasionally I get the sense that they want me to drop everything I’m working on and start working solely on their idea because it’s just that awesome!  In nearly all cases, my response is never far off from the following:

Stop just talking and thinking about your idea and start moving towards making your idea a reality. Take the first step - even if it’s in the wrong direction you’re moving and moving is better than standing still.

After delivering the following advice, normally with some sugar, I help the person to make the next step actionable.  I’m not telling the people they shouldn’t share their ideas, but rather I think people wait way too long in the planning stage before taking the first step. Do your homework, plan, but make it actionable and put yourself on a timeline. How do you get from the idea on the whiteboard to a nascent startup?  The same way you run a marathon, one step at a time.

What do you think?  What tips might you have for breaking out of the planning stage and getting started?

Oh, and if you’re feeling stuck with your idea perhaps an hour or so with Philly’s own Alex Hillman from unstick.me is just what the doctor ordered.

Tags: Alex Hillman, get started, getting started, startup advice, startups, unstick.me

From Slashdot:

A couple of times a year, I pull up the following and read it, trying to realign my thinking process. I don’t know who originally wrote it; I’ve had it for years. I apologize for the long post, but it’s worth it.

Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.I read the examination question:

“SHOW HOW IT IS POSSIBLE TO DETERMINE THE HEIGHT OF A TALL BUILDING WITH THE AID OF A BAROMETER.”

The student had answered, “Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building.” The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try. I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on. In the next minute, he dashed off his answer which read:

“Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^^2, calculate the height of the building.”

At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving my colleague’s office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were. “Well,” said the student, “there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building,and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building.” “Fine,” I said, “and others?” “Yes,” said the student, “there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units.” “A very direct method, of course.”

If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building,in principle, can be calculated.” “On this same tact, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession”. “Finally,” he concluded, “there are many other ways of solving the problem. Probably the best,” he said, “is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent’s door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: “Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer.” At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think. The student was Neils Bohr.

Dear Nick,

I read about your Yahoo – Taco Hiring Event on TechCrunch and was impressed.  The paper TokBox logo you taped to the truck, however, grabbed my attention.  I thought I would use this opportunity to introduce you to my company, LTLprints – Larger Than Life, and show you a better way to put your logo on taco trucks and walls in the future.

A few months ago TechCrunch asked us to print some wall decals for their August Capital meetup.  We had your logo on file from that event and thought, in the holiday spirit, we would send you some LTLprints love.

For your next event feel free to use our TokBox prints. Or if you’re really pumped we could print one that’s up to 7 feet wide and 4.5 feet tall.  Don’t worry, our prints won’t damage your walls and the prints can be pulled down and moved over and over again.

Please contact me directly or visit LTLprints.com for any custom print needs TokBox might have.

I wish you Happy Holidays and continued success with TokBox in 2009

Carsten Petzold
Founder, LTLprints.com
Twitter: @cpeLTLprints

Tags: August Capital, Jobs, LTL, LTLprints, LTLprints.com, Print, Prints, Tacos, TechCrunch, TokBox, twitter, Yahoo

I’ve had this blog post for a while in my ‘to be finished and to be published blog post’. Last week I read on TechCrunch this post about a TokBox recruiting stunt. At first my attention was grabbed by the headline. ‘Just got fired’ somehow grabs everyone’s attention during an economic crisis, right? Then I learned that TokBox gave Tacos to ex Yahoo folks in order to interest them in the company and to maybe recruit some of them. [You can debate if this is a tasteful or distasteful idea – but this is not the point of this post] Looking at the picture I realized that TokBox taped their logo to their taco truck. (see the red circle)

I thought to myself: ‘A LTLprint would have done a much better job here.’ Instead of taping a paper-print to the truck next time just get an LTLprint. It will look much better, the logo would be contour cut, the logo could be much bigger (up to 7ft), and when you give the truck back you simply could re-stick your logo to a wall in the office.

I am not sure how successful the recruiting stunt was. TokBox has still a variety of open positions posted. But the stunt grabbed my attention and I learned about a new cool company. TokBox allows you to talk with your friends over live video for free. You simply post a link to your facebook profile, blog or website. When someone wants to talk to you they click the link and you guys video-chat. Learn more here and on the TokBox blog.


I am sending them a LTLprint with their logo – next time their truck will be decorated a lot better…

Tags: Carsten Petzold, Hiring, Jobs, Logo, LTLprint, LTLprints, Tacos, TechCrunch, TokBox, Yahoo

As a Philadelphia based company, LTLprints is thrilled when other startups in our area have success. This past Friday, DuckDuckGo.com, a new company focused on making it easier to find the stuff you are searching for online, was featured on TechCrunch. TechCrunch, for those of you who don’t live in our startup tech world, is a technology behemoth blog with millions of readers and companies mentioned there usually get a massive spike in traffic, affectionately known as “being TechCrunched.”

I first met Gabriel Weinberg, the founder of DuckDuckGo, at BarCampPhilly a few weeks ago (we made LTLprints for bcp08). I was also able to catch his fishbowl presentation at Philadelphia’s FounderFactory (we printed the name badges and signs for FF08).

Kudos also to Gabriel for diving into the mob over at TechCrunch. I’ve found that the people who sit on the sidelines love to throw darts and they have little understanding of the difficulty that goes into bringing a company from the whiteboard to fruition. You can tell that he’s passionate about his project and that goes very far with us. I’d love to see more founders take such a transparent role in building their company.

So take a moment to watch this video, then follow Gabriel’s twitter stream @yegg and @duckduckgo. Then come back and leave us a comment on what you think about DuckDuckGo and on Gabriel’s Philly startup passion.

Rock on Philly - something good is brewing here.

Make sure you’re catching all the Larger Than Life action by following us on twitter! @LTLprints, @schoenrock, @cpeLTLprints

Tags: BarCampPhilly, cpeLTLprints, Duck Duck Go, DuckDuckGo.com, Founder Factory, FounderFactory, Gabriel Weinberg, Kendall Schoenrock, Larger than Life, Larger Than Life Prints, LTL Prints, LTLprints, Philadelphia, Philly, Schoenrock, Tech Crunch, TechCrunch, yegg