I Said, OK

I joined SocialFlow this week as VP, Marketing.

For me, the story of SocialFlow is a mix of, “wow, that’s genius and it makes a lot of sense to do,” and “you can do what?!” But, the more meaningful story to me began five years ago when I moved to New York City (it’s quite a long one, so bear with me or just skip to the bottom to find out more about SocialFlow).

One of the first things I did when I moved to New York was to find a Muay Thai gym. Muay Thai is a huge passion of mine. Over the years it has become a big part of my life. When I moved here I asked my friends and trainers at Fairtex, my gym in San Francisco, where I should train in New York. Everyone told me I needed to find Phil Nurse at The Wat.

Frank Speiser was one of the first people I met when I started training at The Wat. For the first few months I don’t think we talked about work or our careers. We’d train and most of the time not really say that much to each other. I even got to meet and work out with his wife, Kelly, a few times (I have to admit, it was a bit strange kicking her).

We did end up talking about what we did for work and it was a nice coincidence that we’re both in the technology industry. When we’d talk about the industry and what we did, it became apparent to me very quickly that Frank is quite simply one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. Smart in a way that he would talk about problems and solutions with logic and a mathematical mind that is quite foreign to my own thought process as a marketer. But, he’s also extremely grounded in the real world and business. That had been really rare in my experience.

Over the years we’d meet up and talk about our new jobs and ventures (oddly enough, he told me about an idea he had to provide water to developing nations for farming at the same time I was thinking about the feasibility of creating a network of farms around the world to produce high quality, organic produce). We had explored working together on a couple of projects but things didn’t work out for one reason or another. He became CTO at a few start ups and I went on to head up marketing at KickApps, and after that, did a brief stint back in the marketing agency world.

A little over a year ago we had dinner and he told me about his latest project, SocialFlow. He explained that by analyzing language that people were using in Tweets, he could help people construct Tweets that are more likely to get people’s attention and thus they’re more like to do something with it, and that he thought he could figure out a way to pick the right time to send out that Tweet that’s based on when topics and conversations peak on Twitter. OK…

Next thing you know, he tells me that he’s built the prototype and has a paying customer. Then, he’s gotten funding from Betaworks (a remarkable company itself, here’s an overview of Betaworks), proven his theory with a real product and has a bunch of customers.

When I realized it was time for me leave my job, Frank asked if I’d join him. This is one of the easiest business decisions I’ve ever made. I can’t be more excited.

What is SocialFlow?

SocialFlow helps companies communicate better on the social web. Its software marries science, etiquette and social convention to produce audience engagement on services such as Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz. With SocialFlow, messages go out at the right time, using language that’s most likely to produce desired responses.

How does SocialFlow work?

SocialFlow listens carefully to the natural flow of conversations on the social web to help you craft conversational Tweets and posts that are then released at the right moment to get people’s attention (an impossible task these days) and produce desired responses (e.g. clickthroughs, RT, follow, mention, etc.).

In short, it removes the guesswork out of constructing a Tweet or post and when to send it out. Rather, the release of the Tweet or post is timed to fit within the natural flow of conversations on the social web. By doing so, you’ll be more relevant to conversations and people will be more likely to click on your links or share your messages.

Oh ya, and it works.

I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about SocialFlow and the adventures we’ll have along the way. In the meantime, here’s an interview Frank did with Robert Scoble a few weeks ago about the company.

Teamwork is dependent on trusting the other folks to come through with their part without watching them all the time. But trusting that they’re gonna come through with their parts. And, that’s what we do really well. — Steve Jobs, D8 Conference, 2010

I’ve been a fan of Liverpool Football Club for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories as a child was learning the names: Kenny Dalglish, Ian Rush, Craig Johnston, Bruce Grobbelaar (not easy for a 5 year old who had trouble with language and speech), Graeme Souness and Kevin Keegan.

What excited me about the club is that it won a lot in the 80s. They were the best team in the English league and while Dalglish and Rush are possibly amongst the game’s best individually, they played amazingly well together. The Liverpool team of the 80s won league championship during the the 1979-80, 81-82, 82-83, 83-84, 85-86, 87-88, and 89-90. That’s seven championships in 10 years.

They built a great team.

My second favorite team is the New Zealand All Blacks. The All Blacks are legendary in the game of rugby and are the most successful international side in the history of the game.

A friend once told me that rugby is the ultimate team sport. It’s 15 players, playing together in unison. Executing both strategy and tactics for 80 minutes. Each man has his role. 15 individual roles that have to come together to win the game. When there are breakdowns in a rugby game, the consequences can be immediate and devastating.

I’ve been thinking a lot about teamwork and what it takes to win lately. Not in the kumbaya sense, but in how assemble a group of people that are excellent at what they do and get them to do it in a way that creates value. Value that is a large multiple of the individuals that make up the team.

From what I can tell, you need a few things:

1. Something that ties it all together. A vision. A direction. A cause. A mission. A belief. A fight. Everyone has to buy into it. It has to be a unifying force that gives us, as humans, something to go after.

2. Brilliance. Excellence. Anything short of that from any part of the team can be fatal. Sure, we all have our bad days and that’s fine, but you can’t have an A-Team made up of people that are C-players, even a few of them. The worst thing that happens is when others end up having to take up slack time and again because of non-performers. Don’t settle if you can.

3. Desire to win. Ability to win. Knowing how to win. I’ve seen this quite a bit lately where some people just don’t know how to win. In sports, not winning is often a physical thing. But, it’s also a mental thing. I’ll say it again, there are people that just don’t know how to win. You see this in business too. The thing that kills me is when I see people who aren’t willing to learn to win.

Of course there are many more variables in sports, business, and in life. Luck’s a big one sometimes. Getting people to work with each other, smart or dumb, can be challenging.

To me though, these are the key ingredients that you need to put together or be part of as a winning team. When these pieces come together well, you get the trust that Steve Jobs is talking about and hopefully a tiny bit of his success. Without it, well, we can talk all about what happens another time.

Now, if only Liverpool would stop breaking my heart the way they have over the last 20 years.