Winston Churchhill's War Leadership

The Book: Winston Churchill’s War Leadership, by Martin Gilbert (Vintage Books, 2004).

Why you should care: An examination of the elements of leadership, without the business buzz words.
It’s something of a cottage industry in America. Pick a famous name—almost any name—from the past, and it’s likely someone has written a book about how this person’s leadership skills would have served him/her well had he/she been a businessperson.

This goes way back. During the roaring 1920s, businessmen could kick back with a bathtub gin cocktail and pore over Bruce Barton’s The Man Nobody Knows (1925), which portrays Jesus as a perfect exemplar of fundamental rules of successful business and advertising.

Jesus isn’t your cup of tea? Well, then, how about Lincoln? Washington? Roosevelt—Franklin, Teddy, or Eleanor? And you’re not limited to Americans. In a slump? Take a few hints from Julius Caesar. Machiavelli could prove useful as well.

Which brings me—finally—to my subject. Any number of such books have been written about Winston Churchill. No one disputes that Churchill was a great leader, but do we really need to read about how his leadership skills would have played out in an entrepreneurial setting? Yes, there are such books, like Churchill on Leadership: Executive Success in the Face of Adversity and Winston Churchill, CEO: 25 Lessons for Bold Business Leaders, but at over 225 and 280 pages, respectively, I couldn’t bear to plow through either of them. Instead, I chose the pure, unadulterated account, which at 97 pages distills the elements of Churchill’s leadership skills without finding it necessary to speculate what would have happened had Churchill been at the helm of General Motors in the early years of the 21st century.

The author, Martin Gilbert, has made a career out of Winston Churchill. Not only is he recognized as Churchill’s official biographer, but as a young man he also spent years actually working with Churchill. Here’s a guy who knows his subject well. So, what does Gilbert say underpinned the leadership of the man who, arguably, saved Western Civilization? In a word, optimism. He had an “implacable opposition to defeatism.” As one friend observed, “There is no defeat in his heart.”

So, entrepreneurs, take note: Could it be that optimism is the secret to success, whatever your endeavor?

Featured Comic: Friends, Family, & Fools (7/25/11)

Will New Top-Level Domains Provide Opportunity, Heartache, or a Big Nothing?

Once again, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the nonprofit organization responsible for, among other things, maintaining registries of Internet protocol identifiers and management of top-level domain names, or TLDs (e.g., .com, .org., .gov.), has authorized the expansion of TLDs. Apparently, it has decided that the currently available 22 generic TLDs approved for general use, plus a bunch of country code TLDs, are not enough, or maybe it has determined that there is simply no reason to limit the number of TLDs.

In its most recent action, the ICANN Board of Directors voted to open all the gates to allow registration of virtually anything as a TLD. The expectation is that companies will apply to register their company names or major brands, while others will apply to register generic names, such as .law, .hospital, or .park, with the intent to charge others to use such TLDs. The one-time fee for the application is $185,000 ($5,000 payable at the time the application is requested and the balance upon submission of the application), plus an annual fee of $25,000. Initial applications will be accepted from January 12, 2012 through April 12, 2012, with subsequent application periods to be announced.

For a good beach or cabin read, check out the new gTLD Applicant Guidebook. No need to hurry. It’s still a draft and, I believe, under revision for the fourth or fifth time. The current version is 352 pages. I’ve only skimmed the document (guess I haven’t had enough down time at the cabin lately), but noticed that the estimated evaluation period for the first batch of applications is somewhere between nine and twenty- two months! Also, additional fees and costs might be required during the course of the evaluation.

As with domain name registrations, the gTLDs will be granted on a first-come, first-served basis, but only if the first in line has completed the application process before a subsequent application is filed. Where there are two or more pending applications for the same gTLD, the subject applications will be assigned points in various categories and the one with the most points will win. If there is a tie, the gTLD will be granted to the highest bidder. The owner of a company name or brand represented by the gTLD is not guaranteed to win, but will be entitled to some preferential treatment.

Any interested party can file an objection to any application during the evaluation process for an as-yet unknown fee.

I’m surprised at the number of people who think there will be a rush to register these new gTLDS. Does McDonalds really need a personal TLD to identify its official site or prevent confusion with others? Who even searches using TLDs? Is this a golden opportunity for budding entrepreneurs to become registrars for .health, .law, or .doctors? Before jumping on this, consider how often you see the use of some of the lesser known TLDS that are currently available: .aero, .pro., .name. Will we lose competitive ground if we don’t register gpmlaw.law in addition to gpmlaw.com? Is this just another opportunity for the scam artists to inundate me with warnings about others trying to register my name or brand as a TLD?

And while percolating on the now unlimited options one has for TLDs, remember that .xxx will now be available for individual monopolization as ICANN recently approved this suffix as a TLD .xxx for use by providers of adult content sites. Policies have not yet been finalized for implementing this new TLD, but it appears certain that trademark owners outside the adult entertainment industry will be given an initial opportunity to file a blocking application to prevent others from registering their name or brand with the .xxx TLD during a “sunrise” period. This period is currently scheduled to begin in September. While the fee for filing a blocking application is expected to be less than $1,000, costs could mount up if a company has several brands, or tries to cover all variations of a company name or brand.

Before you panic about the protection of your name or mark, think about a third party’s use of the .xxx TLD. Will a client or prospective client really not know if we are gpmlaw.com or gpmlaw.xxx? Will I accidentally end up at gap.xxx when looking for that cute Baby Gap® outfit? Will I believe that Pillsbury has finally gotten the Pillsbury Doughboy® to pose nude at Pillsbury.xxx?*

Once again, there is likely to be much ado about nothing, but that’s not to say that both established businesses and budding entrepreneurs should not be thinking about these things and whether or not there is a real concern to be addressed or opportunity to pursue.

*Before you get too excited, a fully-clothed Doughboy® only wears a scarf and a chef’s hat.

The FDA Thinks Your Smartphone May Be A Medical Device

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has delivered on its promise to issue guidelines this year regarding “medical apps” that are being developed and issued daily across the United States. A press release regarding the Draft Guidance for Industry and Food and Drug Administration Staff—Mobile Medical Applications was posted yesterday and the proposed regulations can be found in their entirety here.

The draft has been issued to encourage feedback from manufacturers, health care providers, and others on how the FDA’s proposal may support the balance between promoting innovation and assuring safety and effectiveness. A good summary of the draft can be found here. The FDA is seeking public input on this approach. Once posted, comments can be submitted for 90 days online or in writing to: Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.

The FDA has focused on three primary segments of how to distinguish regulated “apps” and “manufacturers”—(i) mobile platform, (ii) mobile app, and (iii) mobile medical application. According to this summary, a mobile platform is a commercial off-the-shelf computing platform “with or without wireless connectivity” that is handheld. Mobile apps are software that can be run on a mobile platform or a Web-based software application that is designed for the mobile platform. Finally, a mobile medical app is one that meets the definition of “device” according to the FD&C Act, but also must be “used as an accessory to a regulated medical device” or “transform a mobile platform into a regulated medical device.”

Here are some examples of regulated mobile medical apps:

• Apps that use a mobile platform to upload electroencephalograph (EEG) recordings and automatically detect seizures


• Apps that use the built-in accelerometer or other similar sensors in a mobile platform to monitor the user's movement (useful in connection with measuring heart rates and detecting sleep phases, sleep apnea, falls, or other motions related to other conditions or diseases)

On the other hand, the FDA does NOT consider mobile apps that are solely used to log, record, track, evaluate, or make decisions or suggestions related to developing or maintaining general health and wellness to be mobile medical apps for purposes of these regulations. Examples of such apps include dietary tracking logs, appointment reminders, dietary suggestions based on a calorie counter, posture suggestions, exercise suggestions, or similar decision tools that generally relate to a healthy lifestyle and wellness.

For nothing short of real entertainment, frequent the FDA Web site for the public comments over the next 90 days.

Start-Up Wineries Prove There’s No Such Thing as a Typical Entrepreneur

The conventional saying goes something like, “If you want to make a million dollars making wine, start with ten million dollars.” Barriers to entry, including huge up-front capital investments and specialized knowledge required, are high. And yet, according to the Wine Institute, between 2000 and 2010, the number of bonded wineries licensed by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau in the United States more than doubled, from 2,904, to 7,626. Certainly, some of these new wineries are the result of new brand concepts from large corporations operating in the industry, such as E&J Gallo and Constellation Brands, but plenty more are like HammerSky Vineyards in Paso Robles, California.

Lately, it seems like every time I learn of a new winery, it’s marketed as the long-held dream of an ex-Wall Street investment banker or lawyer or physician come to fruition. Not that I blame them. Seeing pictures of Napa or Sonoma Valley vineyards, with their rows of green vines surrounded by mountains, is enough to make anyone want to dump the briefcase in favor of grapes and oak barrels. There is even a new annual Wine Entrepreneur Conference held in Washington, DC, that began in 2010, which suggests to me that the number of entrepreneurs in this industry continues to grow. What is it about the wine industry that appeals so much to people’s entrepreneurial spirit?

The industries that first come to my mind as being dominated by entrepreneurs are software, medical devices, and other technology-based industries that grow and change through ideas of brand-new or improved products and services for an entrepreneur to provide to the marketplace. These are not the characteristics of the wine industry. In fact, producing wine could not be more traditional, having been invented literally thousands of years ago. The processes and technology related to winemaking have evolved over time and will continue to do so, but the wine itself is still just, well, wine.

Still, wine excites people. The idea of owning, running, or investing in a winery feels glamorous and romantic, whether or not it is financially successful. Given the same facts as to capital required, industry prospects, and projected margins and revenues, who wouldn’t choose to invest in a winery (or, for that matter, a Broadway Musical) instead of, say, a real estate investment trust or an oil company?

What is motivating entrepreneurs to take big financial risks with discouraging odds in the winemaking business? Given the differences in the industries, particularly in the pace of change within the industries, I think there must be some different qualities than those that motivate entrepreneurs in the technology space. Where a new invention in software could lead to explosive growth in sales or licensing and could change the way entire industries conduct their business in a matter of a year or two, a new winery will almost never have that kind of acute impact so quickly. Even a successful new winery’s growth in its production is highly dependent on the vineyard’s yield of grapes, costly oak barrels for aging, and other physical limitations.

Thus, a winemaking entrepreneur has to be looking for something other than overnight success and exerting influence on an industry, which is why winemaking looks to me like a personal endeavor that happens to also be a business. It must be fulfilling something in the people who do it other than (or at least in addition to) their financial goals.

While I assume that most new winemakers hope to at least be able to support their families with money earned from their businesses, I doubt they are planning on five years of start-up operations before being sold for millions of dollars to a larger competitor or a private equity firm in an M&A transaction. Instead, I think their aspirations tend to be more along the lines of long-term family operations and driven more by creating a product that they personally enjoy consuming (and making) than one that will sell the most.

This demonstrates that entrepreneurs are people first and their personal goals, interests, tastes, and sometimes unrealistic dreams are often far more motivating than financial projections and the latest scientific studies. Entrepreneurs cannot be studied or quantified, and this is why there is no such thing as a “typical” entrepreneur.

A Post by Alyssa Hirschfeld, Guest Blogger

Cleantech Open Offers Great Opportunity for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

The Cleantech Open just recently announced its semi-finalists for this year’s competition. I was honored to be able to participate as a judge for the North Central region, and can report that there are several intriguing companies vying for this year’s prizes.

For those of you who don’t know, the Cleantech Open, founded in 2006, is a national business plan competition for aspiring entrepreneurs in the clean technology space. The Open’s mission is “to find, fund, and foster the big ideas that address today’s most urgent energy, environmental, and economic challenges.” Almost 400 teams have come through the Open’s programs, with approximately 80% remaining viable today. Cleantech alumni have raised over $280 million in private capital and created over 2,000 new cleantech jobs.

The competition is currently divided by seven regions, including the North Central region (which consists of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin). Contestants submit their applications by region and into one of six categories: (1) air, water, and waste, (2) energy efficiency, (3) green building, (4) renewable energy, (5) smart power, green grid, and energy storage, and (6) transportation. Initial applications were due by May 27th, and semi-finalists were announced on June 15th. Twenty teams from the North Central region—five of which are from Minnesota—were named semi-finalists.

The semi-finalists will compete at regional competitions in early October, with opportunities to win in excess of $20,000 in cash and professional services. The regional winners will then compete at the national final in November, with an opportunity to win up to $250,000 in cash and professional services. In addition to these prizes, the Cleantech Open also provides mentors to its applicants, focused business clinics on important topics (angel investing, intellectual property protection, finance, marketing, legal, etc.), and excellent networking opportunities with investors and professionals in the cleantech space.

The Cleantech Open is a great opportunity for new and emerging companies in the cleantech sector to get their business plans and ideas in front of experts in this area. Even companies that are not named regional finalists will have had an opportunity to focus on improving their business plans and to receive feedback and advice from investors and other professionals in their unique space. This experience should prove invaluable as these companies seek to gain funding for their business ideas. If you did not have an opportunity to apply this year, I highly recommend that you consider applying next year.

Even among the group of companies that did not advance to the semi-finalist stage in the North Central region, there were several that had interesting ideas and strong teams. The fact that several potentially viable companies did not even make the semi-finalist round in the Cleantech Open is a sign that the cleantech sector is maturing and attracting highly skilled and motivated entrepreneurs. Thanks to the Cleantech Open for bringing together entrepreneurs, investors, and other professionals and providing a catalyst for the development of strong cleantech businesses.