How to Think Like an Entrepreneur - Julie Hession

In Chapter 12 of 21 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, food entrepreneur Julie Hession answers "How Has the Trial and Error Process Shaped Entrepreneur Career Choices?"  Hession shares how she has embraced the uncertainty and risk that come with learning to operate as an entrepreneur.  She shares it is like "nothing ventured, nothing gained" and details specific experiences that have contributed to her growth, including being a winning contestant on the Food Network and winning Sterling Wines Ultimate Host Competition.  Julie Hession is the founder of Julie Anne's All Natural Granola Company.  Passionate about food since childhood, Hession has developed her career by food blogging, cooking contests, and starting fine food companies.  Hession earned an MBA in Marketing from Duke University and a BA from UNLV.

When to Stop Trying New Things and Commit to a Project - Julie Hession

In Chapter 13 of 21 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, food entrepreneur Julie Hession answers "How Do You Balance Experimentation and Commitment in the Projects You Pursue?"  Hession, who owns a Julie Anne's Granola Company, learns to find balance between growing existing initiatives and starting new ones.  She finds outside projects - reality show submissions, cooking contests, a recipe blog - a good way to push herself creatively without shifting from her core business focus. Passionate about food since childhood, Hession has developed her career by food blogging, cooking contests, and starting fine food companies.  Hession earned an MBA in Marketing from Duke University and a BA from UNLV. 

How Failure Builds Entrepreneur Backbone - Julie Hession

In Chapter 14 of 21 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, food entrepreneur Julie Hession "What Role Has Failure Played in Shaping Your Career Trajectory?"  Hession notes that while starting a specialty food store modeled after Dean and Deluca ended in failure, it provided a positive learning experience and gave her backbone to start another venture.  The experience makes her more street smart, aggressive and confident.  Julie Hession is the founder of Julie Anne's All Natural Granola Company.  Passionate about food since childhood, Hession has developed her career by food blogging, cooking contests, and starting fine food companies.  Hession earned an MBA in Marketing from Duke University and a BA from UNLV. 

When to Kill Your Passion Project - Julie Hession

In Chapter 16 of 21 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, food entrepreneur Julie Hession answers "How Do You Evaluate When to Continue a Project and When to Kill It?"  She notes the challenge of abandoning a passion project.  She learns from her husband and his corporate project pursuits and the number that fall through.  Hession learns to evaluate short and long term project benefits as she grows as an entrepreneur.  Julie Hession is the founder of Julie Anne's All Natural Granola Company.  Passionate about food since childhood, Hession has developed her career by food blogging, cooking contests, and starting fine food companies.  Hession earned an MBA in Marketing from Duke University and a BA from UNLV. 

How to Start a Gourmet Food Business - Julie Hession

In Chapter 19 of 21 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, food entrepreneur Julie Hession answers "How Has Starting a Granola Company Built Upon Your Previous Food Experience?"  As a retail store owner, Hession learns how the "other side" of food makers work by attending industry conventions.  She researches different approaches and applies lessons learned when she launches her own product line.  Once established, she then encounters challenges working with large gourmet food and grocery stores and competing in a cutthroat market.  Julie Hession is the founder of Julie Anne's All Natural Granola Company.  Passionate about food since childhood, Hession has developed her career by food blogging, cooking contests, and starting fine food companies.  Hession earned an MBA in Marketing from Duke University and a BA from UNLV. 

How to Use Customer Feedback to Improve Product - Julie Hession

In Chapter 20 of 21 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, food entrepreneur Julie Hession answers "What Tools and Processes Do You Find Most Useful in Measuring Business Performance?"  Hession relies on customer feedback to evolve her product marketing.  By doing in-store sampling demos of her granola, she gathers feedback on product positioning and quality.  Julie Hession is the founder of Julie Anne's All Natural Granola Company.  Passionate about food since childhood, Hession has developed her career by food blogging, cooking contests, and starting fine food companies.  Hession earned an MBA in Marketing from Duke University and a BA from UNLV. 

How Female Entrepreneur Learns to Scale Food Business - Julie Hession

In Chapter 21 of 21 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, food entrepreneur Julie Hession answers "What Have Been Your Learning Milestones Starting and Growing a Food Manufacturing Business?"  Hession shares the challenges she has faced letting go of responsibility and embracing support.  As additional products emerge and her core granola business blossoms, she learns to maximize the time she spends in each area.  Finally, she learns to manage expectations within a budget and make a profitable, high quality product.  Julie Hession is the founder of Julie Anne's All Natural Granola Company.  Passionate about food since childhood, Hession has developed her career by food blogging, cooking contests, and starting fine food companies.  Hession earned an MBA in Marketing from Duke University and a BA from UNLV. 

Networking Advice for Women Professionals - Kyung Yoon

In Chapter 8 of 19 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Kyung Yoon answers "How Do You Use Your Network to Get Help Making Career and Life Decisions?"  Yoon notes how she focuses more and more on connecting young female professionals.  Over her career, she learns to make networking a priority.  She shares her learning experience and offers advice to young women wanting to improve networking skills.  Kyung Yoon is the executive director of the Korean American Community Foundation (KACF) in New York City.  An award-winning journalist and documentary film producer, Yoon earned an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in History and Political Science at Wellesley College.

What Makes a Professional Women's Network Valuable - Kyung Yoon

In Chapter 10 of 19 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, non-profit executive Kyung Yoon answers "What Makes a Professional Women's Network Valuable?"  Yoon shares how networks provide women professionals a chance to support one another based on shared experiences, positive and negative.  By helping empower one another in a network, Yoon shares how participants are then able to more powerfully pursue careers.  Kyung Yoon is the executive director of the Korean American Community Foundation (KACF) in New York City.  An award-winning journalist and documentary film producer, Yoon earned an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in History and Political Science at Wellesley College.

Jullien Gordon on What Gets Easier and What Gets Harder

In Chapter 1 of 16 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, motivation teacher Jullien Gordon answers "What is Getting Easier and What is Getting Harder in Your Life?"  Gordon, who shares his recent engagement to be married, notes how a progressive challenge is staying balanced as his relationship becomes a larger part of his life.  He notes how not forcing things and being present in the moment is allowing him to live more fluidly, productively, and stress free.  He notes the big moments have come through relationships, most often through being true to himself.  Gordon is the founder of the Department of Motivated Vehicles, a personal and professional development company that helps clients identify purpose and map it to successful outcomes. Gordon has written five books and speaks regularly to college students across America.  He earned masters degrees in education and business from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree from UCLA.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What’s getting easier and what’s getting harder in your life?

Jullien Gordon:  Wow!  So I just got engaged about two weeks ago, yeah so I’m excited about that.  So what’s getting more difficult is, how I actually shift my business model so that I’m not traveling as much as I currently do so definitely looking into the productization of the things that I’m doing and how to scale that via licensing, training the trainer etcetera.  So that’s definitely getting more difficult is holding that balance now that I’m committed to another person and of course in the future other little persons.  So really just thinking about that now before it gets out of balance and out of control. 

What’s getting easier is…what’s getting easier?  I don’t know if anything’s getting easier.  What’s getting easier is me not forcing things and me just being very present in the moment, being who I’m being and trusting that things will come.  I would say when I started out on this path a lot of things were forced, I was pushing, pushing, pushing and now as I’m moving through the world in a great alignment with my purpose I really feel an attraction based –yeah, I had like – when I look at all my deals and relationships and things like that, they’ve all come through just my relationships.  They haven’t been me doing SCO optimization or advertising on Google or great designs of flyers and banners.  It hasn’t been any of that that has led to the business that I’ve been able to generate and so I realize that as I’m more of who I am and making my – being clear about my unique contribution that opportunities are coming out of every different direction and so I come into the new year and like yeah I think my business is gonna go in this direction and then all of a sudden these two opportunities come and I’m in this direction and this direction still doing my purpose but in ways that I couldn’t even imagine on my own.

Jullien Gordon on How to Personalize a Leadership Lifestyle

In Chapter 4 of 16 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, motivation teacher Jullien Gordon answers "What Does It Mean to Be a Leader in What You Do?"  Gordon shares the stages of his own leadership journey and how experiences have shaped his approach to being a leader in his actions and ambitions.  Gordon is the founder of the Department of Motivated Vehicles, a personal and professional development company that helps clients identify purpose and map it to successful outcomes. Gordon has written five books and speaks regularly to college students across America.  He earned masters degrees in education and business from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree from UCLA.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What does it mean to be a leader in what you do?

Jullien Gordon:  Wow!  What does it mean to be a leader?  For me leadership has always been defined as creating more leaders and if you’re not creating more leaders then -- well actually that’s the external version of leadership.  I think leadership actually starts with self leadership and actually directing your life in the way that you want it to go and then from there, by that example, you actually inspire others to take control and full responsibility for the decisions and the choices that they’re making. 

So I definitely think leadership actually comes back to are you taking full responsibility for your choices, or are you letting life and other external factors actually influence your choice and therefore your choice being inauthentic.  Leadership is I think this space where you are actually continually making authentic choices based on what you think is best for you and those around you.

Erik Michielsen:  And how have you learned about leadership as your career has developed?

Jullien Gordon:  In undergrad I actually was a student leader of various organizations.  When I graduated I actually became executive director of a program called the Shake program where I was managing 32 part-time undergrads plus a team of volunteers and so that was my first real experience of full time leadership, then I went to business school and then I worked with MLT for quite some time. I developed a team there at MLT and from there I’ve been building my business on my own for the past few years now.  I would say that it’s all been about self-leadership for me. 

I haven’t figured out how I’m gonna take full responsibility for a team of people and still have the balance that I want in my life so I haven’t really committed to that responsibility.  I have part time people who work with me on various things. I have administrators, assistants, legal team, sales team etcetera but they’re all part-time so in terms of leading other people I haven’t been in that space for quite some time where I feel fully responsible for the life of someone else or for the economic future of someone else and so I’m still exploring that and do I actually want to have a big building out like the ones out here in New York is that ultimately my goal or is my goal actually time freedom. 

As I’ve navigated my journey over the past three years I’ve realized that it’s not about financial freedom for me it’s actually about time freedom which gives me the freedom to make choices and spend my time the way I want to spend it and that means that my business also isn’t necessarily about profit maximization. 

I’m actually using entrepreneurship as a vehicle to create a lifestyle that aligns with who I am and what I want and so as I think about my leadership it’s really been about time freedom and so a lot of leadership has been with self and not necessarily leading hordes of people or teams.  Of course when I’m speaking, at my speaking engagements, I’m leading people for that given time or if I’m doing a training for a corporation or a college, I’m leading people in that moment but I haven’t – it hasn’t been – it’s been a while since I’ve actually been responsible for leading people on a daily basis.

Jullien Gordon on How to Use Your Network to Make Big Life Decisions

In Chapter 8 of 16 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, motivation teacher Jullien Gordon answers "How Do You Use Your Network to Get Help Making Career and Life Decisions?"  First, Gordon makes it a point to establish a network and one way he creates this is by hosting monthly potluck dinners.  Second, Gordon chooses to "network up" and build relationships with a select group of more experienced advisors.  Lastly, Gordon makes sure to find quiet time to reflect on what he learns from his network and how he applies it to career decision making.  Gordon is the founder of the Department of Motivated Vehicles, a personal and professional development company that helps clients identify purpose and map it to successful outcomes. Gordon has written five books and speaks regularly to college students across America.  He earned masters degrees in education and business from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree from UCLA.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  How do you use your network to get help making career and life decisions?

Jullien Gordon:  First and foremost I make sure that my network or what I actually call my community is there before I need them.  So by hosting monthly potlucks at my home over the past four years in New York, I’ve met over 400 people through that space. And so these are 400 people who know who I am, know my vision, know what I’m about and are there to support me when I need them. 

When I think about tough decisions, I actually use my network up, that’s what I like to call which is my personal board of directors.  So these are my mentors, these are my advisors, these are seasoned professionals, these are experts in certain areas.  So I reach out to them for advice on certain decisions.  At the end of the day they don’t necessarily influence the decision, they give more information to consider, but the ultimate decision actually has to come from me and the best way I like to make decisions is by getting in a place of stillness and quietness after I’ve gotten the information that I need and then making the decision from there.

Jullien Gordon on How to Take Action on an Inspiring Moment

In Chapter 14 of 16 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, motivation teacher Jullien Gordon answers "What is Your Process for Designing Career Learning Products and Programs?"  Gordon goes into detail on how he takes action on inspiring moments and creates learning products and expeirences that help others.  Gordon shares the step-by-step evolution of that idea and how he packages the idea and delivers it to an audience.  From this, Gordon, develops an annual framework that allows him to continuously turn new ideas into learning and career education products.  Gordon is the founder of the Department of Motivated Vehicles, a personal and professional development company that helps clients identify purpose and map it to successful outcomes. Gordon has written five books and speaks regularly to college students across America.  He earned masters degrees in education and business from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree from UCLA.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What is your process for designing career-learning products and programs?

Jullien Gordon: The first process is for inspiration.  For instance, the Route 66 tour started out of being inspired by a statistic from the National Association of Colleges and Employers in 2009, that only 20% of college grads had jobs on hand at graduation and I had two little brothers who had been through college and that was inspiration.  I was just like, you know what I have to do something about this, this is a huge problem. 

From there I wrote a blog entry called 66 things to do before you graduate then I tried to share that blog entry with as many people as possible so I reached out in the National Society of Collegiate Scholars who I was a member of during undergrad and all I originally wanted them to do was send it out to their membership. When they saw it, they invited me in to come share it as a presentation.  They loved the presentation and we formed a partnership and that became a tour.  So that’s kind of been processes starting with being fully inspired and committed to solving a particular specific problem, from there packaging it or creating some sort of comprehensive way of delivering it. For this instance we chose a book and a presentation and a tour and then from there just going and doing the work. 

So I noticed that I have this rhythm in my life that has been occurring for the past three years, which is in the summer is like my down time when I’m actually in creation mode.  That’s when The Innerview was produced, that’s when 8 Cylinders of Success was produce, Good Excuse Goals, Route 66, those were all produced in this summer type area and then I go out in the fall and I try to test them.  I test them in small places at first and then to see if they work in those test markets and once I get proof that they work then I commit the rest of the next year to actually expanding them and spreading them as widely as possible. 

So I have this rhythm in my life of this creation phase like in June, July, August, this experiment phase towards the end of the year and then this execution phase from January to June of the next year.  So that’s kind of been my cycle and my rhythm of creating the products that I’ve created.

Jullien Gordon on How to Make Great Products

In Chapter 15 of 16 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, motivation teacher Jullien Gordon answers "What Have Your Experiences Taught You About What Makes a Product Great?"  Gordon explains how he has refined his products by listening to how users are using the products each day.  This allows him to iterate the products and tailor them to core user needs.  Additionally, he looks for multiple product uses that fit into an ecosystem.  He offers an example from one of his books, "Good Excuse Goals" and the learning programs that connect the book content into his other products.  Gordon is the founder of the Department of Motivated Vehicles, a personal and professional development company that helps clients identify purpose and map it to successful outcomes. Gordon has written five books and speaks regularly to college students across America.  He earned masters degrees in education and business from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree from UCLA.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen:  What have your experiences taught you about what makes a product great?

Jullien Gordon:  The number one thing for a great product is knowing that it’s never done and that there’s constant iteration that needs to occur. So for instance, the Innerview is actually an iteration of the career change challenge, 101 things to do before you graduate is an iteration of what I experienced on the Route 66 tour but the only way you can iterate properly, because you can constantly iterate, but the only way you can iterate properly is by listening very carefully to the people who are using your product on a daily basis and seeing how they’re using it and what issues that they’re having in order to make it constantly better. 

So there’s constant improvement in regards to a product development.  The next thing is I think creating an ecosystem.  When you look at for instance iPod, right?  You have iPod and then you have iPod speakers, you iPod cases, you have iPod this, headphones etcetera.  You create an ecosystem around a product so that people can use it in different ways.  I like to use the notion of the snowball and ice cream scoop, right?  So a snowball scoop sells in the winter.  Ice cream scoop sells in the summer but when you look at their physical definition they’re actually the same device and so you can figure out how to use this one device and actually create multiple use cases for it kind of like baking soda as well.  Baking soda is used for toothpaste, to clean things, to keep your refrigerator smelling good. So when you think about all the uses of your products I think and build an ecosystem that allows people to use it and access it in different ways I think that that’s what makes a product great.  So iteration and an ecosystem.

Erik Michielsen:  Give me an example of how an ecosystem works for one of your products.

Jullien Gordon:  So I have my book, Good Excuse Goals, right?  And it’s not just a book there’s actually a community of people who are in 30-day do-it groups around the country who are using this methodology in their lives.  So the 30-day do-it groups work kind of like alcoholics anonymous which I talked about last year where you get in a group of people, you set one goal for the month, it’s called a new month resolution and you hold each other accountable to that one goal that you set.  So that’s an ecosystem that’s built as another layer beyond just the book, right? 

The Innerview is not just a book there’s also videos and at Indiana University and at Cornell there’s actually a class that I come and help teach in order to deliver that curriculum.  So it’s constantly layering on value to the base product which is the book or the formula but you know a lot of people write books, self-help books but what’s the next layer, what do people need after they’ve read and digested the information that’s gonna support them to actually integrate those insights into their lives on a daily basis.  So constantly layering, which is the iterative process, and then ultimately once you continue to iterate that creates an ecosystem of other things to use.

How Work at Home Parent Stays Productive - Marc Ferrentino

In Chapter 4 of 16 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, cloud computing technology executive Marc Ferrentino answers "How Do You Manage the Balance Between Working from Home and Being a Parent?"  Ferrentino shares home office challenges, including face time with colleagues, and benefits such as eliminating a commute to spend more time with the kids.  Over time, he learns discipline that increases his productivity.  Ferrentino is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of cloud computing at BMC Software.  Previously, he was Chief Technology Architect (CTA) at Salesforce.com.  Previous to Salesforce.com, Ferrentino worked in mobile and Internet startups and at Goldman Sachs.  He earned a BSEE in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan.

Learning Holistic Leadership Working at Salesforce - Marc Ferrentino

In Chapter 5 of 16 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, cloud computing technology executive Marc Ferrentino answers "When Are You at Your Best?"  By working at Salesforce.com, Ferrentino learns to blend the creative side of creating and sharing a vision across a company with working with various teams - sales, marketing, product - to execute upon it.  Through the process, he learns on the job to understand how this integrated approach translates into on-message, seamless customer product experiences.  Ferrentino is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of cloud computing at BMC Software.  Previously, he was Chief Technology Architect (CTA) at Salesforce.com.  Previous to Salesforce.com, Ferrentino worked in mobile and Internet startups and at Goldman Sachs.  He earned a BSEE in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan.

How Vision Enables Technology Leadership - Marc Ferrentino

In Chapter 6 of 16 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, cloud computing technology executive Marc Ferrentino answers "What Does It Mean to Be a Leader in What You Do?"  Ferrentino believes leadership in software starts with setting a vision and building a corporate culture around it.  He notes how setting the vision in a large organization comes with challenges of scale not seen in startups.  Ferrentino is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of cloud computing at BMC Software.  Previously, he was Chief Technology Architect (CTA) at Salesforce.com.  Previous to Salesforce.com, Ferrentino worked in mobile and Internet startups and at Goldman Sachs.  He earned a BSEE in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan.

How Corporate Leadership Creates Innovation Culture - Marc Ferrentino

In Chapter 7 of 16 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview, cloud computing technology executive Marc Ferrentino answers "What are the Challenges of Applying an Entrepreneurial Approach in a Large Company?"  Ferrentino notes how it is more challenging to make change in an established company than in a small one.  He notes innovation blockers such as political barriers, including fiefdoms, as well as concerns about meeting Wall Street expectations as a publicly traded company.  He shares how some companies can create innovation or incubator groups and how that can work; however, in fast moving industries such as software, the innovation must be embedded in culture and that, he shares, is a top-down executive responsibility.  Ferrentino is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of cloud computing at BMC Software.  Previously, he was Chief Technology Architect (CTA) at Salesforce.com.  Previous to Salesforce.com, Ferrentino worked in mobile and Internet startups and at Goldman Sachs.  He earned a BSEE in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan.