I Won! And so did children across the world...

So, it looks like I was one of the winners for the contest Shel Israel was holding last week.

It started out as a Facebook flyer test and it turned into over $1500 being raised for Room to Read. This money may not seem like a large sum here in the States, but in Sri Lanka it could build more than half a library, or put a number of Nepalese children through school for a year.

I'm honored to have been part of this process and in return I not only got 2 hours of consulting time from Shel (who I'm a huge fan of), but I also got to do something good for an amazing organization.

This "contest", if it could even be called that, inspired me so much that I'm actively speaking with my partners on how we can use our web sites, blogs and newsletters to help this organization and others like it. So I want to put it out there to other bloggers reading this (especially my NYC blogging brethren) - this amazing medium we have and the ability to self-publish must not be used solely for selfish reasons.

We should be focusing on "self-less" publishing as well.

So if you have it in you to write posts about your company's current marketing strategy, or a new product you're launching, then take some extra time to write a post about a charity that you'd like to get involved in. And it doesn't have to be a global charity like Room to Read, there are plenty right here in New York that deserve our attention too.

Look at what Fred Wilson has been doing with Donor's Choose.

Or check out New York Magazines list of local organizations that could use our help.

If Shel was able to raise $1500 in one week by himself, what could everybody in the nextNY community raise together over the course of a month or two? $15,000? $150,000?

I don't know the answer - but I do know that with the collective creativity, brain power and reach of this community, something very special could happen here.

I'm definitely going to be doing plenty on my end to contribute to some of these causes. But if anyone is inclined to get the ball rolling on something like this on a larger scale, I'd be happy to help in any way I can. Would love to hear your thoughts - I can be reached at: wayne at tickerhound dot com.

Creativity Defined

Been thinking a lot lately on what makes a "great" start-up.

You obviously need a good idea and to solve a real problem for a large amount of people.

You need a talented team and access to resources (technology, capital, etc.).

But what else gets a company from a pipe dream to a multi-million dollar enterprise?

Rock solid execution, that's what!

And I guess that's one of the things I've been wrestling with as my product gets closer and closer to launch. There's so much inherent risk in operating in unchartered waters; how is a founder to know what to do every step of the way? How can we mitigate this risk?

Well, there's no formula - if there were then everybody would know it and successful founders would be no different than anybody else.

My feeling is that many successful start-ups and founders all operate within a certain unteachable thought framework - a framework that marries logical reasoning with creative problem solving. Now, the "logical" part of that framework isn't very difficult to grasp....

If we have this much money, then we can buy this many servers and hire this many staffers, etc. etc. No sweat...

But the "creative" aspect of this framework is where one founder shines and another flops.

When a founder, a CEO or any stake holder in a project thinks creatively and critically about a problem they tend to not only find new solutions, but they gain an edge over other players in their space.

For instance, when James Hong, et al. first launched HotorNot.com they got so much traffic that their server was crashing all the time. They had no money and no time to raise capital. So what did they do?

They got creative!

They negotiated a deal with Rack Space where they gave Rack Space free advertising on their site and in turn Rack Space gave them free hosting for a year!

A month or two ago Hong participated in a panel where he quoted somebody else (I forget who) as defining "creativity" as:

"Creativity is what happens when you chop a zero off the end of a budget".

I was reading Shel Israel's blog tonight and he had a great quote from Steve Larsen:

"Constraint spawns creativity"

And I really have to say that both of these quotes are amazingly accurate - and why shouldn't they be, they're both spawned from experience in the trenches.

I think most entrepreneurs would agree -- our best decisions have been made under less than ideal circumstances. We've created the most successful features, we've cut the best deals (sometimes) and we've hired the best people all under circumstances where others might've just folded their cards and went home.

And that's what I think differentiates a successful businessman from a bad one - the ability to creatively construct solutions to problems.

Some may call it luck, but Sam Goldwyn said it best, "The harder I work, the luckier I get."!