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”

When Carsten and I launched LTLprints.com it was our goal to be transparent about who we are and what we do. We want to celebrate our business, our customers, and our successes, while continuing to be open an honest about our failures.  In this case, I want to talk about the latter.  Yup, we made a mistake.  Fail!

I look to a number of companies for advice on how we should operate and do things correctly.  One of our customers and a company that I have great respect for is Zappos.com. Zappos is known for their amazing customer service. For example, they offer free shipping for any product returns. They do a great job of taking care of their customers.  When I think of how we should run our customer service I often look to Zappos for insight.

When we make a mistake, I want to make it right.   We care about the product and our service and I won’t settle for anything but the best.  Some people talk about it but we make it real.

Recently we received an order for 5 Kanji symbols.  We printed and cut out the black symbols on our unique fabric material.  The prints turned out great, except for a couple which had small white boarders, due to a cutout issue (the blade was off by a millimeter).  This caused a white “halo” around the black prints which obviously is a no-go, especially when installed on a dark red wall.

I’ll let our customer Steve tell you the rest of the story in his own words.

“When my order of kanji decals arrived from LTLPrints I noted a couple of problems with the registration of the print vs. the cut. I wrote them an email and within 5 minutes Kendall called me with an apology and an offer of a free replacement. In order to satisfy me they completely updated the process they use to produce the decals. Excellent job and excellent customer service. I will most certainly be referring LTLPrints to my partners.”

Best Regards,
Steven Wright

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

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.

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

A few years ago I recall riding on the subway in New York or Atlanta and seeing a sporty new Lexus speed past the train. As much as I had liked for it to have been a real-life version of James Bond chasing down bad guys in the same tunnel I was commuting in…it wasn’t. The speedy new Lexus turned out to be nothing more than a speedy new Lexus in a advertisement being illuminated off the subway tunnel wall…basically a far superior childrens flip book. The proof of the genuis in this at the time new form of advertising is probably tied to fact that I still remember this Lexus ad 3 years later. And it wasn’t even the Super Bowl.

Being someone that is obsessed with marketing, advertsing, and old propaganda posters I

a) am truly a good hearted person

b) decided to look further into this commuter advertising idea

Turns out the the idea was more innovative than inventive. Many something years ago an American shaving cream brand called Burma Shave would place a series of witty billboard ads with sequeled messages along popular highways.

Jump many something years later and Burma Shave is now defunct but their advertising ingenuity lives on. So the moral of the story is as follows: In a world buzzing with marketing noise, winning advertising is often innovative advertsing.

When I first came across LTLprints I saw a really cool product that could beautify living spaces but when I thought about businesses and their needs, I started to think along lines like this.

Tags: Burma Shave, James Bond, Lexus, LTLprints

I have a secret that I’m going to share with the LTLprints community. I’ve been with LTLprints for quite some time now, and I finally feel comfortable sharing this personal part of my life. I’d like to thank Kwan (our community evangelist) for helping me get to the point where I can talk about it. Let me take a deep breath first - okay. Here goes nothing.

I hate stickers.

Phew! That feels SO much better. Now, before everyone goes crazy and asks “don’t you work for a sticker company?” let me put you at ease. I do work for LTLprints - but we create oversized, “larger than life” customizable WALL DECALS - not stickers. The material is cloth, and it’s removable and reusable. Don’t you worry - I totally looked into all this before applying for the position:)

So back to my weird phobia. I can admit that it’s not normal. But I’m not the only one! I hate the apples and fruit that have stickers on them, and refuse to touch the stickers. Ask any of my close friends who have to peel the sticker off for me (thanks guys.) When you behave well at the dentist and they try to give you a big smiley face sticker - I run. Yup, I’m that cool. In my Public Speaking class at Susquehanna University, we were asked to do a 5 minute speech about something you HATE. I of course, chose stickers. After receiving numerous strange looks as I made my way back to my seat after speaking, I was quickly comforted. The next speaker did her entire speech on velcro. At least I’m not the only one with a weird phobia.
Kendall, Carsten, and Kwan are a bit intrigued by my phobia of stickers.  Leave a comment if you know of any other weird phobias, please, as it makes me feel better about myself:)

Tags: Carsten Petzold, Kendall Schoenrock, Kwan Howard, Larger than Life, LTL, LTLprints, LTLprints.com, Sticker Phobia, Susquehanna University, Trish Noel

For Philadelphia sports fans, there aren’t many times when you’ll hear the above statement, but for right now, Philly is on cloud nine:) What a month it has been for this city! Philadelphia has cheered the Phils along to a World Series championship, the Eagles have won three straight, and our country has elected the FIRST african american president. October/November have been busy!

Wanted to share a few quick videos with you that have been passed along via email this week. First, a group of extremely talented students who express the importance of voting (if i ever have kids I’m sending them here!), and the second is a phenomenal catch by Ryan Howard during the Phillies parade (check out the video footage of that parade on our blog!

Possibly the coolest part of this month though has been the launch of www.LTLprints.com. It’s both exciting and a relief! It’s great to see the launch and all of the team’s long hours paying off - but it just means that things will get busier! I can’t wait to see our 6-color large format printing churning orders like crazy. Exciting!

Quite a picture above, eh? That awesome picture can be credited to the talented Mr. Matthew Gutberlet, a very close friend of mine and someone who is ridiculously good at everything he does - even photography! Matt grabbed that shot at the Phillies parade last Friday.

Before I sign off, just a reminder that the CMA Awards (COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS) are this Tuesday night. Everyone should definitely sit down to watch my boyfriend, the talented Kenny Chesney, in all his glory. I’d trade the World Series for him:)

Tags: Carsten Petzold, CMA Awards, Election, Kenny Chesney, LTLprints, LTLprints.com, Philadelphia Eagles, Philadelphia Phillies, Phillies Parade, Ryan Howard, Trisha Noel

The team at LTLprints is lucky. No, not because nearly everyone has a naked wall that LTLprints can fill, but rather because we are not selling software for dollars - we’re selling prints. When you sell bits and bites you deal with the ease of data replication, and with that ease comes software piracy. Software piracy and copyright infringement is a hot subject these days. End users see it as a victimless crime and the “norm.”

I was going to hunt down a few ways that you should NOT deal with software piracy, but instead I thought I’d focus on one example of how you should. If you want a good way of dealing with software piracy look no further than our friends at Ripitapp.com. Ripit is “The simple DVD Ripper for Macs.” And Ripit works really well. So well, in fact, that people were starting to steal it. Instead of going on a rant the company made one simple blogpost that sums things up quite nicely. May we be so lucky to have more people like those who did RipIt…

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Tags: Business Software Alliance, Copyright infringement, DVD ripper, Hacking, Indy Hall Labs, Intellectual Property, Rip It Aps, Ripit, Ripit Apps