Simon Baker, CEO of RealEstate.com.au and MBA graduate from Melbourne Business School (MBS), was recently featured in Smart Company. In a Q&A with Amanda Gome, he talks about how he’s spent the last seven years turning RealEstate.com.au around.

The article provides some excellent insight into entrepreneurial strategy, particularly for an e-commerce company. For example:

Basically we’ve got two ways you can grow this business. One is through organic expansion – throw up a new website and then start from customer number one. The other is through acquisition. Now in 2005 we weren’t 100% sure which was the best way to go. We were, in terms of expansion overseas, babes in the woods, so what we said was ‘well let’s do something simple’.

He also talks about people, culture, and other HR issues. Overall, it makes for a fascinating read.

Jason Calacanis wrote a really good post called How to save money running a startup (17 really good tips). And, while I don’t agree with him on all of his tips — like “Buy Macintosh computers” or “[ask for 10-30% off] from each of your vendors every 6-9 months” — it’s a really good list.

His basic point is: Don’t focus on “stuff” that is needlessly expensive or will take you away from the work you’ve set out to do. For example, “Outsource accounting and HR”, “Use Google hosted email”, and “Buy cheap tables and expensive chairs”. Focus instead on people since your money is better spent on them. That is, let your people work when they want to, where they want to, in the way they want to and throw in some perks that make the work environment really cool. For example, get them all second monitors and get “an expensive, automatic espresso machine”.

Working in a Startup

As you’ll read in Calacanis’ post, there were some complaints about tip #11 which said “Fire people who are not workaholics…”.  This happened mainly because he didn’t clearly explain what he was trying to say and so people naturally assumed that he meant the worst. What he meant, of course, was that you should fire (or, better yet, not hire) people who are not passionate about their work and are not willing to work hard because, really, you can’t run a proper startup with people who are there work in a nice, cushy job. ‘Cushy job’ and ‘startup’ simply do not go together.

I say that from experience because I’ve worked in startups for most of my life and have found that (a) as a startup-oriented employee you don’t get true job satisfaction and (b) as a startup owner/manager you can’t run a startup properly until and unless everyone there is passionate about the work that they’re doing. And if you’re not willing or are not wanting to work odd hours or weekends, or do all sort of tasks that were never part of your  original job description, then maybe the startup life isn’t for you.

To give you an example, my job as General Manager (Islamabad) and SAT/GRE/GMAT teacher at The Princeton Review, Pakistan was really hard. I did GM work during normal working hours and my teaching work after 3pm for the SAT courses, 6pm for the GRE/GMAT courses, and on weekends for all of the courses. And if it hadn’t been for semi-flexible working hours, almost complete freedom in how I ran the place, a office-purchased laptop, and so on — basically, a 2004 Pakistani version of the perks that Calacanis talks about in his post –  working there would have been a lot less rewarding. (Of course, it helps that I love teaching and it appears to be something that I am good at.)

Now, I don’t know what kind of job I’m going to doing six months from now but what I do know is that, if I end up working for a startup, I had darn well better be willing to put in the ‘hard yards’ (as the say here) to my job done. And if I’m not willing to do that, then I shouldn’t have applied for that job in the first place. And, in that respect, Calacanis hit the nail on the head: fire the people who aren’t willing to do that. At the end of the day, it really is that simple.

More and more companies are starting to understand the benefits of social computing. If not the benefits, at least they’re starting to understand the risks of not getting serious about social computing because, increasingly, their customers are demanding a two-way discussion with them (and the companies that do offer this two-way discussion stand out).

However, the companies that want to get into social computing/media/networking [1] don’t always know how to go about doing that. From my personal experience I’ve noticed that when companies have gone in to “the whole social media thing” without any real experience, expectations, or strategy around social computing, they’ve often made a mess of things.

What Mess?

One typical outcome is that they start by not doing the research on what their consumers want, how their consumers want and prefer to communicate, and what kinds of communication the company itself can and wants to support. Because of this, they end up doing something inadequate like installing a message board on their website and, well, leaving it at that. Then they wonder why it’s not working.

At this point they either fix things — usually by doing some research and getting an idea of what is and isn’t working in their industry — or they give up.

Why Does This Happen?

In my opinion, this mess-up happens because they haven’t really thought through their objectives of getting into social computing or even what the point of social computing is. A major factor in this lack of planning — or, worse still, a lack of awareness — is that they haven’t hired the right marketing and communications people (ultimately, all of this is a marketing exercise) and this is where the Forrester Research report called ‘How to Staff for Social Computing‘ comes in.

Two Crucial Roles

As Jeremy Owyang, the report’s author, mentions in his blog, staffing for social computing boils down to two crucial roles: (1) the Social Media Strategist who pushes for social computing internally (convinces management, gets resources, etc.) and (2) the Community Manager who actually runs the community itself (which he wrote more about in an earlier post).

Of course, all of this sounds pretty simple when put like that — you have to pay $279 or be a Forrester client to get the full-detail version — but, at one level, it really is that simple. You need the right people — who will do the right planning, the much-needed internal advocating, and the crucial open and honest external communications — to get the job done properly.

I’m glad Forrester has published this report because something like this is much needed and will be really helpful to people like me who advocate the use of social computing in organizations and, often, simply end up banging their heads against a wall.

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[1] Or, if you want to use the unfortunate buzz word, “Web 2.0″.

I followed up on the management job openings I posted yesterday by phoning Sean Smith from Michael Page. It turns out that most of these job openings have a 2-4 week lead time associated with them — tending more towards the 2 than the 4 — and so, obviously, I’m out of the running for these particular ones.

What I mean by “lead time” is that, if you want to be in the running for a particular job that’s been advertised, it’s best to either (a) apply almost immediately after the job is posted or (b) already have your information on file with the recruitment agency that posted the job. Of course, it’s best if you occupy the top-of-mind position with the recruitment consultant that’s handling that position. That way, you’ll be one the first candidates they think of and try to match to the role.

I’ve heard from other people that other recruitment agencies — and companies in general — have the same 2-4 week lead time for the jobs they advertise. What that means for me is that I can’t start applying for advertised jobs for another month or so. Bummer.

Let’s just hope, then, that my job hunt, instead of being nice and predictable, turns out to be a brilliant and wildly exciting photo finish!

Ross Dawson, in his ‘Trends in the Living Networks’ blog, points to last week’s BRW feature on the digital space in Australia and comments on how doing this kind of analytical journalism is cool in an industry that is typically hard to put down on paper:

Foad Fadaghi, the technology editor of BRW, has come to the media business from the research industry, having held senior analyst and director positions at Frost & Sullivan, Jupiter Research and IDC. This way of looking at the world results in the BRW Digital issue showing how journalism at its best is becoming a lot more like analysis, creating real value-add and insights that can’t be found elsewhere.

Why is the Web 2.0 space to difficult to analyse? Dawson answers (quoted from the article):

The costs involved in web 2.0 development are so low it has spawned a large number of small one and two-person companies that can be profitable with a small user base, Future Exploration Network chairman Ross Dawson says. This means web 2.0 development is unnoticed by venture capital and other investors.

Which makes articles like this doubly useful since there isn’t much else out there in terms of hardcore research and analysis on this industry sector.

So far, most of the job openings I’ve talked about on this blog have been for business analyst (BA) or consultant roles. Last week, thanks to Michael Page, I came across two job openings for project management roles that seem to suit me — i.e. my interests, experience, qualifications, and career progression — better.

The first is for a job with “one of the premier employers in the Information Technology and Internet space”:

E-Commerce Manager

Working across various e-commerce solutions your role sees you managing and consulting across your designated countries online solutions portfolio.

This includes managing all portal products and online product streams.

And the second is with “one of the most successful and longest standing players in the web” and, specifically, for “one of the best ranked sites in Australia”:

Product Manager – Web

Working as a Product Manager, you will be responsible for the day to day management, enhancement and innovation of leading products for the web. You will work with a talented team of creative and technical staff and have full ownership of a particular product stream with the business manager.

Your role will see you utilizing your extensive knowledge of the web and product life cycle management to provide best practice process and methodology across all new and existing products in your command.

I’m tempted to apply to both, even though I’m still eight weeks away from the end of my current study term. Of course, before I do that I’ll phone Sean Smith, the recruitment consultant in charge of both of these openings, and ask him about the closing date and expected start date for these jobs. Here’s hoping he says two months.