Author: Nick Armstrong

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone more knowledgable about music in Fort Collins than Julie Sutter. An avid concert-goer, Julie’s experience with several music-based startups makes it no surprise that she’s the Community Manager at The Music District.

Julie’s main squeeze at Techstars Startup Week and ARTup Week Fort Collins is The Music District’s free Sonic Social on Saturday, March 2nd.

Julie, tell us about yourself!

I am Julie Sutter. I am the Community Manager at The Music District. I’m also the content captain for the music track for ARTup week sessions, which are a part of Techstars Startup Week Fort Collins.

What are you most excited about in terms of the music sessions you’ve seen so far?

This year we are combining The Music District’s Sonic Social, which is kind of an immersive open-house, with ARTup week. So on Saturday, March 2nd, we’re going to have this big celebration at the end of ARTup week that invites the public to plug in, turn up, and geek out.

It’s a themed event that incorporates science fiction, fantasy, video games, and it has music at its core and it’s going to be super fun.

There will be two sessions that are related to music production and sound engineering and tech as well.

We’re going to see some geeky bands in Northern Colorado come out and play?

That is the hope. We are working on booking some live performances for Sonic Social as we speak. We’re working really hard to make sure that we are inclusive, which is one of the key values that we’re exploring via Start Up week in general this year. Inclusivity and access.

Do you see access and inclusion as big challenges in the Northern Colorado music community?

We always have work to do around that. It’s important that we are mindful about it. Music is by its nature, inclusive. It’s one of our shared languages that you don’t have to work very hard to understand each other through. It’s good to be very intentional about access and inclusion and make sure that you are exploring the opportunities you have to invite more people in.

If access and inclusion aren’t the biggest issues, what are the biggest challenges for the Northern Colorado music community?

We have challenges surrounding abundance and making sure that we’re getting through, and I’m really not trying to make a pun here, all the noise. That’s a challenge for anybody producing any sort of event or wanting people to explore the art that they’re sharing. There’s a lot of competing interest and we are especially blessed in Northern Colorado with lots of choices of fun things to do. There are some challenges around just making sure that people know what you’ve got going on.

Musicians and artists also have different approaches to learning about technology, and we’ve got a session on how to leverage technology to advance your career that’s geared towards musicians and presented by the Fort Collins Musicians Association.

Who’s doing the coolest things in Northern Colorado?

I am a big fan of the Downtown Artery. They are one of our most creative venues and do such a wonderful job of combining artists and music. They are always doing something that pushes boundaries.

The Lyric Cinema is also amazing. They have so much going on in terms of movies, but they also have music outside on their patio, and they’ve designed some pretty interesting art installations within the cinema itself.

If you could tell a Northern Colorado creative one thing what would it be?

Don’t forget that if you are exploring this as an entrepreneur, if you are trying to make your art a business, you are a business person already.

One of the challenges that comes up for the artist is this idea that if it’s something they enjoy doing that somehow they don’t deserve to be paid for their work. Or they shouldn’t view themselves as trying to earn a living form it. That’s just wrong, you can do both things. You can both have a gift and be rewarded for that gift.

Have you seen any good examples of a business integrating with art and music?

The Poudre River Public Library District.

They do such a good job of inviting in so many different people in the community. I know that maybe they don’t look at themselves as a business but they serve lots of businesses. Whether it’s through helping people learn how to navigate the nonprofit world or just by having a business librarian. They also manage on top of all that to bring in some really good elements of thinking about weird stuff, and I love that about the Library. And it’s for everybody.

I admire what they do and I continue to learn about things that they do that are really cutting edge, more than people would think. When you think, sometimes, about the Library you think about a place for books, but it’s a community-connected place with lots of things other than books.

Where can we find out more about you and the work of the Music District?

TheMusicDistrict.org – we have an events listing for all the things going on over here. We’ve got artists in residence, we’ve got ongoing events, and most of our events are free to the public. We’ve got some business development type workshops. And, of course, we teach how to protect your art and the craft of music.

About The Author

Julie Sutter is the Community Manager for The Music District and a content captain for ARTup Week’s music track.

The Music District’s Sonic Social is Saturday March 2nd at 4PM.

Tyler Brooks, founder of Analytive, wants you to make sure your marketing is converting. He believes until you know your customer and how your products fit in the market, you can’t scale up.

His talk at Startup week is How to Market to Your Dream Clients on Friday March 1st, 11:00am-12:00pm @ Cohere Coworking.

Tyler had a lot to say about digital marketing. Let’s check out the interview!

My name is Tyler and I founded a digital marketing company called Analytive about three years ago. We focus largely on the B2B space as a conversion-focused agency, meaning that when I work with clients, my goal is to always get them revenue, leads in the door, or sales.

Our focus is on revenue, we’re not a branding agency or a creative agency in the strictest sense. Obviously, there’s creativity in what we do, but I love working with clients who have a strong desire to build a marketing funnel that will provide resources and revenue over the long run.

What would you say to a startup that was just coming out of the gate?

To borrow startup lingo, find that product market fit. I’ve worked with a lot of startups, established agencies, and established companies, but one of the big challenges is always finding the product market fit.

Where it isn’t quite established yet, they think, “Oh, we can go out and we can outsource marketing,” so they come to us or they go to other agencies and say, “Well, you’re a marketing agency. Here’s our product. Figure out how to sell it. Figure out how to get it in front of the right people.”

We’ll usually ask them, “Who are the right people?” If you have this software as a service or you have this manufacturing or you have this consulting service, who are the right people for you? Until you know that and until you know your product’s a great fit for the market, you’re really fighting an uphill battle. Before you spend any money on marketing, one of the most valuable things is to make sure you have the right product reaching the right market. Then once you sort of get that traction, that’s when the scale up can really happen.

That’s where we love coming in with companies when they are just starting to get that product market fit and we can take what’s already working and we can help them scale it. We can spend money on ads knowing that we’re gonna get a return, we’re not just kind of shooting in the dark, but we’re actually trying to drive real revenue because we know that it’s the right product and we’re getting it in front of the right market so that those people begin to convert.

What percentage of businesses would you say start out with the wrong type of marketing?

Most companies aren’t quite as far along that journey as they think they are. If you think you’re at 70% or 80%, realistically maybe you’re at 50% or 60%. If you think you’re only 50% of the way there, you’re probably only at 20% or 30% of the way there. Until you’re pretty confident in your product market fit, don’t spend money on marketing and scaling.

What do you see as the biggest challenge for a startup that’s looking at doing marketing for the first time?

One of the things that they miss most often is the message. Because you are working in your company all the time, it’s easy to talk about the features of your product and instantly begin to nerd out on the features or the technical aspects of whatever it is that you are trying to sell. The problem is that nobody really cares about the technical aspects by and large. That comes later in the sales process. What they actually care about is the benefit that they’re going to gain if they use your product or service.

So I think that’s one of the things, even today I had a lunch meeting with a guy and he was talking all about the technical aspects, the features, how much you get, how much it’s gonna cost, but he didn’t talk about the benefit, the actual benefit to the end user and to the potential customer. So that’s the number one thing I see. Everyone likes to focus on the media, so they like to talk about oh, we’re doing Facebook ads or we’re doing Google ads, but until you have the right message and the right market, you’re actually getting in front of the right people, the decision makers, only then should you really look at the media and which channels you want to be on.

Yeah. I think Seth Godin made the point of whose it for is the most important question in marketing. It seems like that’s a common refrain with what you’re saying as well. When it comes to whose it for you also have to think about how they’re looking at the benefits or the problem itself that you’re trying to solve.

For sure, for sure. Actually, in my talk at Startup Week, I’m gonna break down … our topic is how to market to your dream customer, we’re gonna talk about how you start to define who that dream customer is, again, asking that and answering that question who is it for.

So about Startup Week, what are you most excited for?

Well, I love Startup Week. I have participated in the Fort Collins Startup Week, I spoke I think two or three years ago, I’ve attended many events there and I’ve also participated in even Denver’s Startup Week which is a little bigger than us, but we’re growing as well, and I’m really excited about that.

I love seeing the creativity and the opportunities to solve real problems that come out of Fort Collins. The other thing I love about Fort Collins is because it’s not a major tech hub, a lot of the companies are starting to be revenue positive right out of the gate, so you’re not necessarily funding these massive companies with millions of dollars in venture funding, but these are real startups that may or may not ever get to that billion dollar mark, but they’re actually gonna make a dent in the world if they can get their product traction and get it sort of off the ground. To me, that’s really exciting. I love what we do, especially in the health care and the biotech space, that isn’t necessarily happening as much in some of the bigger startup hubs where they’re focused perhaps on consumer products or consumer software services.

How do you change your approach when it comes to those different industries? Because Fort Collins is rife with all sorts of different businesses.

It’s a matter of first of all finding the right audience. Who are we actually trying to sell to? What are we trying to … who are we trying to reach? What is the message? What is the problem that they have that they’re trying to solve? Only then do we actually think about what we put in front of them as far as the messaging that we’re putting in front of them.

So for me, it’s a lot of research. It’s a lot of really deep understanding. We have clients in the manufacturing industry and myself and our team, we get the industry newsletters. We understand what is happening in that industry so then we can go out and say, “Oh, here’s the problems. Here’s what we’re seeing,” and we work with then the CEO or the division manager or the marketing manager, CMO, whoever we’re working with, to say, “Okay, let’s get in front of the right people.” We can now do just crazy level, individual level targeting on that so we’re not wasting ad spend or branding on people who won’t ever care about the product.

Marketing dollars are so hard to chase down when you’re in startup mode, it’s important to use every dollar to its last, that you can and squeeze every bit of value out of it.

Exactly, right. If you’re a software as a service marketing to Fortune 500, Instagram probably isn’t quite the right channel for you, maybe even Facebook isn’t. Maybe that’s more LinkedIn or high intense searches on Google. Where does SEO fit into all of this? We help them sort of sort through that, because it’s easy to be overwhelmed with the amount of channels that are out there. There’s always a new channel, always a new social media network, always a new ad platform, but how do you come back and say, “Well, wait a minute. Let’s first figure out who our people are, then let’s figure out where they spend time.”

Yeah, not just channels but I would argue that the analytics have gotten overwhelming for an average small business owner as well.

And people don’t understand there’s a cost to analytics. Yeah, the software might be free, sometimes it’s not, if you want more advanced analytics, but the time it takes to actually go in and analyze the data that you’re gathering actually takes marketing time, it takes marketing dollars and analytics are really important, love them, they’re super valuable, but I see a lot of companies spend too much time and effort on analytics and not enough actually getting their message out and that’s a danger as well.

Who do you see in the B2B space that’s absolutely crushing it in terms of marketing in Northern Colorado?

The truth is, if they’re doing it well, I would probably never see it. Right? If I’m not in their target market. I think that is the other beautiful piece of this is that when you’re not marketing to everybody, John Smith on the side of the street doesn’t know who you are, but do the people who are going to buy know who you are? The answer should definitely be yes.

Beyond your panel, whose panels are you looking forward to most at Startup Week?

There’s a couple marketing ones, Nick. I want to actually come by your panel as well. I really have to dig into the schedule. This week I’ve started to map out some of them that I’m looking forward to. I always go to the marketing ones. I always go to the investor ones as well. I think the investor ones are really interesting because if you are a startup raising money, you are selling to your investors, and even though they’re not customer dollars, you’re getting your startup in front of them and you need to have actually a marketing plan in place to actually pay them back and grow and exit the business in whatever form that looks like. Those are usually the two tracks that I spend the most time on. I think there’s a lot of really talented marketing folks here in Northern Colorado and so I always want to learn from them and in the Rockies Venture Club and all the work that they’re doing. I’m super happy.

I actually was at a pitch event for them, a training, even though we’re not raising money and don’t have any plans to raise money, I still like the persuasive elements of it and I’m learning all I can from them. Those are kind of the two broad tracks that I’m looking to spend time on.

You want to tell us about your talk?

Okay. When I talk, and right now I’m speaking I believe on Friday at 11:00 a.m. at Cohere, I think, so I’d love to see you guys there. At my talk, I’m really gonna talk about how to market to your dream customers. Now, we’re gonna talk about putting a message together that really resonates with them. We’re gonna talk about actually using media and using some of the really detailed targeting available today to get in front of the right people, the people who can actually pay you money, and then we’re really gonna help people put together meaningful strategies and kind of have some checklists and some go-to guides so that they can actually start using these marketing and promotion strategies today.

My goal is that whenever they’re spending marketing dollars, they’re actually making money. Now that’s not easy. It’s very, very, very hard. I think everybody, especially if you work in the marketing industry like we do, people will tell you, “Oh, it’s just so easy. You throw out some Facebook ads,” but 90 plus percent of the time, it’s not that easy. But I do want to equip people so that they can start on the journey of discovering what their message is, what their market is, what media they should be using so that they can actually get in front of the customers that are gonna drive revenue for their business.

Any last words of advice for a newbie startup?

I guess what I would say first is I love Startup Week, but it will be like drinking from a fire hose, especially if you go to several of the sessions a day. I’d say one of the most valuable things is whether you come to my talk, hopefully you come to my talk, hopefully you go to a bunch of other talks as well, is at the end of it, you gotta prioritize. You’re a startup with limited resources, go back, make a list of the things that you need to do in the next week, even the next day, the next week, the next month, whatever those are. Because I’ve seen so many times, even with myself, I’ll go to Startup Week and I’ll get so excited about so many new opportunities that are out there but then reality hits, I gotta answer emails from clients and customers and you’re producing blog content, everything just kind of hits you and a lot of times it’s never put into action.

So the one thing I would recommend to people is throughout the week as you’re in these sessions, take notes but then as soon as Friday hits, Saturday, maybe the first thing that following Monday, make a list of what you want to get done and then follow through with it, because if you don’t, it’s just sort of gonna be honestly a waste of time. Not because the content wasn’t good, but because you’re probably … if you’re like me at least, you’re not gonna get much of it done.

Ben Brickweg helps business owners figure out their exit strategy through his company, Sagewood Transaction Advisors. Whether you love your business or you’re ready to move on, a good exit plan can make sure your legacy lives on (and that you have the best possible chance for a great exit).

Ben’s Startup Week talk is called Building a Valuable and Sellable Business, it’ll be Friday, March 1st, 12:00pm-1:00pm @ Innosphere.

*A full transcript of Ben’s podcast is coming soon.

Jean Ginzburg is a content marketing expert who thinks that you – YES, YOU! – can create better content. Not only that you can, but that you MUST. Jean’s talk at Startup Week is called Creating a Lasting Content Strategy for Your Business Using Tech Platforms on Friday, March 1st, 10:00am-11:00am @ Cohere Coworking.

Let’s get to know Jean.

Hi there, Jean Ginzburg here, digital marketing expert, and CEO and Founder of JeanGinzburg.com. My company is all about digital marketing and we work with startups, entrepreneurs, and small to medium-size businesses to help them find new customers using digital marketing strategies.

Tell us about your session at Startup Week.

The session is called Creating a Lasting Content Strategy Using Tech Platforms. We cover foundational pieces like identifying your ideal target market and a little bit about branding. We’re going to get into the content. I also have a content hack I’ve been using for my business and my clients’ businesses that’s been working really well.

One of the challenges that I see a lot with businesses and entrepreneurs is, “Hey, I need to create all this content.” The hack I use is to create one piece of source content, then repurpose it in many different ways. Then we get into tech platforms, social media, and distribution. Basically, it’s a content strategy to streamline the process for you.

What would you say to people who say that there’s too much content out there already?

There is a lot of content out there. One thing I stress is that you want to create valuable content, not just content about cute kittens, but content that actually helps and serves your community, whatever your community is. It’s not about volume necessarily, it’s also about quality versus quantity.

You’re going to cover that in your session?

It’s all about creating valuable content in general. I mean, it’s kind of a 10,000-foot view, but yes, that’s going to be part of the session as well. How to create valuable content that actually serves your community, that actually helps instead of just random stuff that you put out there on YouTube.

Do you work mostly with Northern Colorado businesses?

I am pretty familiar with the entrepreneurial startup community in northern Colorado, but I have clients all over the country.

What are you most excited about in terms of Startup Week?

Every Startup Week is a great way to bring the startup community and the entrepreneurial community together, to make connections, to network, to learn, of course. That’s what I’m most excited about, just bringing a lot of enthusiastic people together, who are interested in doing business, who are interested in serving their communities.

Beyond flooding their social media feeds with pictures of cute cats, what do you see is the biggest challenge for businesses in Northern Colorado?

Identifying their target market. That’s not just a challenge for Northern Colorado, but also for a lot of businesses that I interact with. Really honing in. If you’re marketing to everybody, you’re marketing to nobody. Get as niched down as you can when it comes to identifying who is the community that you’re looking to serve.

In terms of Northern Colorado specifically, I would say creating more content is a big challenge. Valuable content, not just kittens and cute puppies, which of course is entertaining for five minutes, but it’s not going to really help you grow your business.

Leslie Na is the founder of TruthBomb, a customer research company that focuses exclusively on small businesses and solopreneurs. Her insights into customer research and consumer behavior will knock your socks off.

Leslie’s startup week panel is called Customer insights and research (why it’s mission-critical, how to conduct your own) and will be Thursday February 28th, 3:30pm-4:30pm @ CCC Gallery.

*A full transcript of Leslie’s podcast is coming soon.

Seth Silvers is an expert in business storytelling. The founder of StoryOn, Seth knows that businesses have far more stories than they think about on a day-to-day basis. Seth is also the host of the Small Business Storytellers podcast which features stories from small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Seth’s panel at startup week is called The Blueprint For Building a Lasting Brand Through Storytelling and happens Thursday, February 28th, 12:00pm-1:00pm @ Downtown Artery Performance Venue.

*A full transcript is coming soon!

Ethan Bach is the artist behind Alt Ethos, a design firm behind some of Fort Collins’ most iconic technology art installations. He’s passionate about teaching fellow artists ways to treat creating art like a business.

You can get to meet him during the ARTup Week Panel: Notes from the Field: Using Technology to Advance Artepreneurship – Thursday February 28th, 3:00pm-4:30pm @ Downtown Artery Performance Venue.

*A full transcript of Ethan’s podcast is coming soon!

Katrina is a creative catalyst, an empath, and a writer. She’s a creative’s creative and the founder of Creative Katrina.

You can check out Katrina’s Startup Week panel: Find the Root of Creative Blocks and Learn to Break Free on Thursday February 28th, 2:00pm-3:00pm @ The Articulate.

Let’s get to know Katrina!

I’m Katrina Pfannkuch and I’m the owner of Creative Katrina. What I’m passionate about is using my professional writing skills and my coaching skills to help people tap into where they need to grow in their own life so they can be more successful in their business.

I know that sounds nebulous, but in essence, I’m helping support business owners on their transformational journey. The cool part is that as a professional writer, I can help them with the content part and then as a coach I can help them with the mindset part and the two of them go together really nicely.

Do you find that it’s more useful to start creative coaching early on in the business vs later on in the business?

A lot of people, when they’re starting out, feel stuck and that’s a mindset, right? If you can shift that mindset in the beginning and get more clarity, then you’re using your creative energy towards the things that you really want to build rather than deconstructing a lot of stuff at the same time.

When you’re building something, we can work on that. If you need to deconstruct, we can work on that too. But the sooner you get in the game, it becomes clear what you need first.

What would you say to a business that doesn’t necessarily associate themselves with a creative industry? Can they still use your services?

Every entrepreneur needs to be creative in their own business. Whether it’s how they’re approaching their marketing, the way they connect with their clients, the way that they want to present their services, or even just how they create the services they offer.

Each of those have a creative element and even when you have an entrepreneurial spirit, sometimes it just feels unnatural for people to get that creative juice going. We can connect with each other in a way that shines a light on where you may be stuck and to me, there’s always a creative solution. Creativity is an option in all elements of a business.

What’s been your toughest creative challenge so far to tackle?

Creative people will ask, “Am I really doing something that someone wants? Is there a value in my creativity?”

Your heart breaks a little when you hear that because you want people to feel really authentic in expressing themselves. That’s a process for everyone. For entrepreneurs across the board, there’s always an area where they don’t feel they are enough or that they can’t authentically express themselves without either having to put on a show or fall in line with what everyone else is doing.

That’s a struggle for a lot of entrepreneurs, me as well. I sometimes feel I should be on social media more, but I eventually remember I’m just very selective about how I do that. Every business is different.

When it comes to creative challenges, who’s just smashing it out of the park in terms of Northern Colorado businesses?

I don’t think there are really enough eyes on creative businesses. I don’t necessarily see many people asking, “Who are the really creative, talented people here in the community that are doing a breadth of different stuff?”

How can a musician influence your business even though you don’t have anything to do with music? Maybe you need a jingle or maybe you need just some inspiration.

I recently met a coach that helps people write little mantras through songs. He plays music and they make up a little mantra just to help coach them through whatever challenge they’re working through, it’s an amazing idea.

Unfortunately, that’s in Boulder, not Fort Collins, but there are opportunities for creative crossover that I don’t think we’re leveraging as well as we could. In essence, that’s just the communities that we’re sorted in to: you’re a creative person, you go over here, you’re a business person, you go over here. Well, that’s not helping creative people thrive as businesses or business owners thrive creatively and I’d like to see more crossover.

Beyond cross-collaboration, what do you see as the biggest challenge for small businesses in Northern Colorado?

Networking. People are afraid to do that. Sometimes those communities are contained and it’s not that you can’t intermingle, but the feeling is there are very few events that I can go to that are a mix of both business and creative things and creative people and business people together.

I would suggest if you’re in a position where you’re feeling bored, why don’t you start a new event? Create one of your own. We need more diversity in the way that business owners and creative people are connecting with the community.

Many creative business owners are multipotentialites or active across a number of different fields. How do you get a client like that to settle down and focus?

We work on a unique process that works for their lifestyle. For some people, I ask, “Are there certain days of the week that you focus on certain things?”

It’s one of the simplest things that multipotentialites can do right now.

For example on Mondays, I write my own blog content, work on my own podcast, editing, do all of that stuff for myself. I don’t take client meetings, whereas other days of the week I schedule and plan for that.

If someone has multiple talents, which means as a result that they’re meeting with a variety of people and doing lots of different spaces, first I ask, “Are all of these skills viable and how do they fit together?” We create that picture, that clarity first, and then we set up a way for them to integrate it in practical terms.

It must be a little bit draining as a creative yourself to constantly help fuel other creatives’ creativity. Where do you get your inspiration from to help your clients?

I love yoga. I do a lot of yoga, walking, nature, and animals.

I created a podcast: Flirting With Enlightenment. It’s a creative expression of mine where I get to really connect with who I am and what I want to say.

It’s awesome when I look at the numbers; I realize people really listen to the podcast and that’s awesome. There’s a certain love in that when you’re creating something that someone else shows love by listening to it.

All the different options for creating content can be overwhelming. Creating a podcast for a lot of people is a big project because there’s so much stuff that goes into it. How do you sort of get past those creative blocks and guide them to a content or a medium that works?

Part of what I do is not just listen to the words that are coming out of someone’s mouth, but also actively listening: what are their facial expressions as they’re talking, what excites them versus when do they look deflated. Some of this is the intuitive work that I do.

There are so many tools and options. I help you pick the right ones where you know that you can shine right now. You don’t have to do everything, but where do you have a propensity to really get excited about doing something or really enjoy doing something. Start there and let’s work a plan so you can really connect in that space.

There is a limitation of what one human physically can do. There are only so many hours in a day.

What resources do you like to recommend for creative or small business owners that are just looking to get started or getting more knowledgeable about adding creativity into their processes?

I would say read my blog because I’ve been writing about creativity for years.

I’m not trying to promote myself specifically, but I do write about how to overcome specific obstacles. There’s the creativity piece that matches directly with your mindset piece and if you aren’t really tuned into how your mind works and how to get yourself relaxed, it’s really hard to tap into the creative piece unless you’re in that late night manic inspiration mode.

When you’re like, “I’m super inspired. I’m going to do everything right now,” that works sometimes. You don’t have to do a lot of work to get there, but if you want that consistency, it definitely helps to develop a mindset. “Okay, I’m going to do a little meditation, I’m going to listen to some music, I’m going to build a little routine about it.”

The tricky thing that I love, I don’t like being stuck into a schedule and that’s why crafting a schedule that you know works for you is so empowering as a creative person because you’re willingly stepping into this and not feeling resentful of having to do it in someone else’s way.

I am not an advocate for waking up at five in the morning, but maybe that works for some people. There’s a different way for everyone to craft a schedule.

There’s a time and a place for everything that you haven’t gotten to yet and it’s called 4:00 AM.

Yes. I’m generally pretty asleep by then.

What would you say to a small business owner just getting started? What would your number one piece of advice be?

Observation and listening. You already know in your heart the things that you’re excited about and what you want to do. Start going out into the community and ask, “Who else is doing what I’m interested in doing? How do they talk about what they do? How can I connect with it? Is it necessarily doing the exact same thing but has a support service or has worked with similar folks?” I want to say in a way it’s not necessarily shadow them but sort of from a distance and see, “Okay, well if I was going to be them for a day and do all the things that they do, is that feel good for me? Is this something that I’m interested in doing?” I feel like that goes a long way with sort of shadowing someone before you have to jump in with both feet because I know that I’m probably not the only person here that has tried other things before I came to do what I’m doing now, like we all have to put our feet … Get our feet wet and figure out some things and observation and listening is the best way to do that because it helps you get a little bit farther ahead than just going forward and not really having a lot of perspective.

The SBDC, the LCBD, the SVA, they all recommend having certain documents. What would you say to a business owner who’s just like, “I don’t like doing it that way. I’m not going to do it that way. I don’t need that document. I don’t have it. I’m just not going to do it”.

Those resources are great because they give you all the things and then you get to pick what works for you and maybe something that doesn’t work right now, six months from now you’re ready because you’ve gone through the process. You’ve gotten straight and clear in your head about like, “Okay, I’ve tried it my way. Maybe I do need a little extra support” and honestly, timing really is everything because when we’re fighting something, there may be a fear underneath that that we don’t realize is there and that’s what’s creating that pushback for us or a really old pattern that we’re stuck in our head about that we don’t realize is there and having a little time with it can certainly support that. But I would absolutely suggest when it comes to legal documentation and setting up your business, you definitely want to be right about that. You don’t what to mess around with the paperwork because they can come back to bite you.

When helping develop creative processes for small business owners, how do you keep them focused on some of the boring tasks?

There are obviously ways that you can outsource some of that stuff. Like for me, I love my bookkeeper. She’s the best human in my life because I do not want to do any of that stuff. But at first I had to do it myself because I didn’t have the funds to support someone to do that. So I think when you’re in that space and you can look at your budget and say, “Okay, there are a few things that maybe it would be best that someone else can help me with or do for a short period of time or just in on-going in the future, that’s when we’d look at it”. But in reality, I think it’s really important for all business owners, whether you’re a creative person or doing like straight up business stuff that you have to really look at having your fingers in all parts of your own business.

Because let’s say I never checked in with my bookkeeper, she can be doing all sorts of stuff. Like you can’t be that hands off. You need a base understanding of how all the pieces of your business work and when I invite people to look at it that way, it’s like, “Hey, you have options”. Like we’re all different as business owners, so it’s really important to identify what that stress is behind that thing and then find a way to deal with it. It’s just we often just get caught up in the feeling and the emotion of it and that we don’t even know why we’re blocking it out or neglecting it.

Who are you paying attention to in the Northern Colorado community in terms of their creative capacity?

I love Franklin Taggart. He’s so lovely and he’s agreed creative resource I think for not only the community because he works at the Loveland Business Development Center, but just because he has a lot of really great perspective and he can support people in that way. I would also say that Patrick, at the articulate. He’s very multitalented and he’s also trying to openly create a community where creatives or fellow creatives can be together and just shine and doing what they do and being next to each other doing it. I think that and of itself like spaces where we can teach and learn together or be together with other creatives is an expression of the most creative thing that we can do in this community.

Which leads us right into startup week. So tell us about your panel for startup week.

Well, I submitted a topic on breaking free from those limitations in our mindset. Like how do we break through those creative blocks? We don’t always know if they’re from our mindset, if they’re from emotions that are stuck within our hearts that we don’t see or they’re just a fear there. So the presentation I’m going to be giving has a little workbook with it and I’m going to help people sort of change their perspective on how they see where they’re stuck and why. Because when we get too hung up on our minds about it, we don’t move forward or as if we can embrace and look at the block in a different way, it might open up in a whole idea and understanding that we didn’t realize was already there.

What are you most excited about in terms of startup week?

I love the topics this time round. There’s a lot of really good niche-related topics, especially when it comes to the artistic parts of things.

Any last things that you want to tell a small business owner or a creative in our community?

I’m excited for you. If you’re in the space where you’re ready to learn something and explore more of who you are and share that with the rest of us, we’re excited to meet you. So come out to startup week, connect with us, learn, ask questions, and just be part of the community that you want to learn and grow from.

Raj Kumar is a dancer, an engineer, and a technology developer for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. He’s a dance instructor for the Kalapriya School of Dance in Fort Collins teaching Bharatanatyam and Bollywood styles. His story is a fascinating one and you can hear it in person at the ARTup Week Panel: Sharing Your Personal Culture: Where Dance and Music Intersect on Wednesday, February 27th, 5:00pm-6:30pm @ The Music District Living Room.

Raj, tell us about yourself!

My name is Raj Kumar. I am originally from Bangalore, India, where I was born and I grew up there doing my degree in dance. I lived there until I was 22 years old. Apart from doing dance, I also completed a degree in engineering and I also had a dance class of my own where I taught students after obtaining a degree in dance.

Then I moved to United States in 2008 to Indiana and the University of Pennsylvania for a cultural exchange program. Then I decided to move to University of Wyoming to pursue a master’s in engineering as well. For a semester or two I taught dance at the University of Wyoming Fine Arts as an extra credit course, but then the recession kicked in and then I had to stop teaching there.

I also work as a technology developer for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

Between engineering and dance, which is the thing that takes up most of your time?

When I was 16, my decision was that I would choose dance as a career, but as I started to grow in that domain, I realized that even though there were not a lot of male dancers.

I did get a lot of attention from several different dance groups all over the country, but I saw that in order to keep myself unique I had to learn skills that most commonly the dancers wouldn’t have.

I looked at people who were performing abroad and realized that their knowledge about technology was what they used in their dance which made them a lot more consistent and better performers. That’s when actually I decided to go into engineering. I had my degree in dancing when I was 17 or 18 but after that I decided to take up engineering. My original goal was to support dance.

When I came to the United States through cultural exchange program, I spoke to quite a lot of dancers and engineers and I realized that there’s a small part of me that also wanted to do engineering. That’s how I decided to pursue my masters. I’m trying to at least spend an equal amount of time for both dance as well as the engineering.

Do you find that the two skills complement each other?

The dance keeps my focus. There’s a lot of stress in engineering. Being a technology developer isn’t a stress-free job. It comes with its own huge amount of stress. Dance helps me de-stress quite a bit. It allows me to remain calm even under the most stressful situations.

The engineering appears most of the time in my choreography, I try to use a lot of different patterns and the logic that comes from having a strong engineering background. It does help me think outside the box.

What are the biggest challenges when it comes to being a professional dancer?

I came from very poor family. We were not even middle class when I was a kid and started learning dance. The fundamental barrier right there was paying my fee while I was learning dance, but as years flew by we were better off financially, we moved from a lower class to a middle-class family.

I could still learn, but now the problem was I couldn’t get better-performing stages, meaning to say for example, every song that you learn typically in India is priced, and it’s not easy for a middle-class person to actually buy all of these songs or buy the teachers time to do individual or a personalized choreography.

I had to learn mostly from common choreographies where the teacher choreographs for a general class, not specifically for your strengths or effectiveness. This taught me how to actually look into myself and see how I can modify some of the movements to suit myself at an earlier age than most people would.

I couldn’t use live music because of the fees as well, so, I mostly went with recorded music, which again cuts down the amount of creativity you can express or the amount of individuality you can express in a dance.

It’s more relaxed now, but back in the 90s and early 2000s, I had a lot of advice from very different people not to pursue dancing as a career because they sincerely believed that dance is not something that a male would actually pursue as a profession.

It was kind of down looked upon. Even when I entered engineering and I used to perform, the first thing that the cultural coordinator mentioned was that I’m going to get booed off the stage and it’s going to be very embarrassing.

There’s a lot of stigma that comes from society trying to push you away from this particular barrier.

It also has advantages since there are a limited number of males, you’ll always have a chance and you’ll always have opportunities, you’ll always have people asking you to come down to perform new roles, new characters that allow you to grow as a dancer. The downside of it is, there’s a lot more pressure for you to quit this particular dream.

At some point, even my parents felt that the dance was not something that they would like their son to pursue. I had to overcome. Finding a strength to keep up with the stigma and also find innovative ways to personalize and have better teaching experience despite having shortcomings in finance.

Do you see those shortcomings happening here too for your local students?

Financially, I’ve not seen somebody come to me and say they’re not in a position to pay for the class, because the classes at this point are not as expensive as one would expect. I believe it’s affordable to the communities at least in Laramie and Fort Collins.

As to the stigma, I actually haven’t taught a male dancer at all either in Wyoming or in Fort Collins, so, I guess that’s the other side of it. People here, instead of a stigma, the default assumption is that male students probably do not learn classical Indian dance here. I’m not sure I understand the psychology behind it, but I haven’t had the opportunity to train any male dancers in the United States yet.

Have you seen an uptick in interest in dance as pop culture dance shows take hold?

The amount of students that you see in a cultural dance class is relatively fewer. Most importantly, the amount of floating population, people who come try it out and then don’t continue in this particular art form is higher.

The kind of dance we do is very methodic, very penalizing on the body, especially for beginners. You often see a lot of people who come in not stick for multiple years, because it takes a lot of commitment from you, it builds a kind of muscle memory and some of the students who come in also go to other classes. The muscles that we train don’t often complement their other extracurricular activities that they love to do so the students have to prioritize which they really want to do and sometimes they quit for that as well.

Pop culture and the other extracurricular activities that happen inside Fort Collins do have an effect on us. It plays a significant role keeping the number of students in these classes low and not as high as one would expect.

Tell us about your Startup Week panel.

I want to present on how challenging it is to actually keep a startup company going from a classical dance point of view, how hard is it to actually keep this class open, how much a company has to modify teaching so that it actually fits the modern era students who actually use technology and who like to keep things simple, and also how to actually keep your muscle memory trained despite the fact that most of these kids don’t have enough time to actually come in three or four times a week to develop the muscle memory.

I’m trying to present those challenges that would help any other startup company coming up for teaching this class to be better prepared when they open the class so that they can continue sustaining students and sustaining their business.

In terms of your business what is the biggest challenge? It sounds like turnover.

Yeah, that is correct. One of the things Ranjani and I have been trying to do is find a balance between what the students need to learn the dance versus what the students expect out of this dance.

We have had students come back and tell us that cultural dances don’t enjoy typically the amount of enthusiasm from the crowd that you would get from let’s say, a K-pop song.

There are a lot of claps, a lot of sharing that goes on when you look at a very beat-full song. We really have to make these dances more attractive to the crowd, a more applause-gathering kind of dance that one would expect. That’s kind of hard to make, we have to maybe deviate from the general rules of dance in order to gain the additional beats. For example, we sometimes add in modern music equipment that cultural dance does not actually allow you to have.

The other challenge here is keeping up with the expectations of the parents and the kids with respect to the current age.

Most people want something fast paced with fast learning curves, so, it’s very hard to build muscle memory in a very short period of time, especially when the number of classes are pretty low.

If you could tell a startup business that is similar to your dance company, what would you tell them?

Mingle well. In order to move this art form to non-Indian communities, we need to modernize dance to be more catchy for people from other countries to come in and learn.

Jenny Morse is an expert in business communications and the CEO of Appendance, Inc. When she’s not teaching the generations to communicate more effectively and convey their credibility in written form, she’s contemplating the deeper meaning of emojis and trying to make emails more human.

Jenny is presenting an interactive panel on improving your email skills: 5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Email (and other business writing) on Tuesday February 26th, 11:00am-12:00 pm @ The Articulate.

Let’s get to know Jenny! 😀

I’m Jenny Morse and I am the founder of Appendance, Inc. Appendance means to add to in writing. It’s a little weird as a name, but then with the explanation, I hope it helps explain what we do.

We started originally freelance writing and editing, project-based stuff, and that sort of morphed into training in business writing, so offering seminars, full-day and half-day sessions in anything from grammar to how to write an email at companies around the state and that’s grown to around the country.

We also offer one on one coaching, so working with individuals to help them advance their skills, their communication skills.

Do you offer an emojis business writing class?

Not yet.

I do talk about emojis in my class because that’s sort of where we are right now is trying to figure out how to write professionally while writing nicely.

I developed a new class two years ago called Write It Well: how to write more positive and more concise messages.

Basically, if people write too short, it sounds curt. Writing already has this negativity effect where it sounds meaner than we intend, which is why we invented emojis so that you can see people’s faces in their messages and not interpret it too negatively. I’m sure we’re headed to an emoji class at some point, but not there yet for professional writing.

Do you find that there’s a generational component to help folks interpret different messages?

The generational part is that our culture has gotten more informal over time and writing changes. I mean, written language is this sort of infinite system and this moving system and it reflects cultures. It changes over time and it changes fast enough that we experience the change within our lifetime, which is sort of fascinating, but slow enough that differences develop in what the expectations are.

A lot of what I’m teaching people is what are, right now, the standard expectations in writing. How do you approach people, build relationships with people that you don’t know?

Most of that depends on establishing your credibility, which means engaging in a formal way, a professional way at the beginning, using all of the rules and things to show people that you know those roles, that you can be trusted to understand those roles, and then adapting to that audience as you build that relationship.

A lot of it is about understanding the standards for professional writing. Things like, we don’t use emojis right now in professional writing.

The one thing that younger people have is this amazing ability to adapt to their audience. Because they’re used to interacting on different platforms with all kinds of different people, they have a really good understanding of the idea that we shift our language depending on who we’re talking to. It’s just they don’t know what the rules are for making themselves seem professional to older generations, which means engaging in a more formal kind of way.

They get that they have to change how they’re speaking and writing. They just have to be taught what the expectations are for the generations before them.

Who do you see who’s doing the best job teaching their employees to communicate well?

Government organizations seem to recognize this, as well as a lot of really big banks. I worked for CoBank down in Denver and a few other banks who depends on their ability to demonstrate that every single one of their employees is credible and trustworthy.

There are groups that invest in professional development that way on a regular basis, but a lot of the companies that I’m working with are really trying to think about how they can build their credibility.

If there are new businesses like we’re working with at startup week, they’re thinking about how do they build relationships and what does that look like and how can they use techniques and writing to establish their credibility?

Whether that’s the copy that they have on their web page or the way that they communicate in an email, or the way that they communicate on LinkedIn or other sorts of networking platforms. We can help with how to present yourself as credible before you know the audience or they know you. From there, once you have an in, it’s a lot easier because you just start adapting to whatever that other person is doing. If they start using emojis, then you can start using emojis.

How about templated communications – like phone system menus. “Our menu options have recently changed so you’d better listen carefully” and the like. What types of templates are helpful versus harmful when it comes to communicating with customers? A lot of this communication is repetitive, but templating out the communication seems like it would also be not super helpful for a customer service perspective.

I haven’t been asked to work on any of those, but I do find templates to be really risky. It’s one thing for us to have sort of standard greetings that we use, which is something that I teach. The most formal greeting that we use in writing is dear with the person’s title, like Dear Mr. Smith, slightly less formal with Good afternoon Mr. Smith, and then less formal, Hi Mr. Smith. Those are sort of standards and we have that kind of templated out. Everybody’s going to use a greeting within that sort of range.

Because templates aren’t adaptable, they don’t really work beyond the basic formal things that we expect to see in communication. Just think about like when you start a conversation with somebody and you run into them in the morning and you go for like, hey, what’s up, or hi, how are you?

That’s sort of the standard way that you start a conversation, but then the conversation takes on its own individuated subjects and you sort of move as that conversation evolves into other things. There’s ways that you can start it and end it that can be templated, but beyond that you’re sort of reacting to the other person.

One of the things that we know about how people communicate is that face to face, those faces give us so many cues for responses that we don’t have when we’re writing or we’re not face to face with people.

How do we read or respond to other kinds of cues that are not physical, that are not facial expressions or body language? We still get those hints in writing. We still get some kind of sense of how a person wants to be communicated with. They’re just not what we do on an everyday basis, because mostly when you have a conversation with somebody, you are naturally responding to their body language.

We don’t use enough questions when we write to each other to imitate the conversation, but questions have a literally more positive tone. They go up at the end. When you use them in writing there improving the tone of your overall message, if you use a question or two, but they also show that you’re thinking about the other person, right?

Just by using the question mark, they show that you’re paying attention to your audience and thinking about how they’re going to respond and expecting them to respond so that you’re putting something out there and you’re going to wait for them to write you back in some way and communicate with you.

When it comes to humor, beyond just be careful with what you say, what advice would you have to incorporating humor into your writing?

Be careful with what you say is a good one. Humor really doesn’t work until you know your audience in writing, and especially because what we teach is professional writing.

Written records mean that people can look at it later, then it can be passed around. There’s a lot of danger with that. People can’t understand, they can’t read humor in the same way, which is why emojis become so important. I would say don’t use humor unless you can also use emojis.

If it’s that audience, you can get away with it, but otherwise, you probably shouldn’t be doing that in writing, especially at your business, which is a little depressing, but it encourages face to face communication. Get up from your desk and go talk to your coworkers.

You’ll be less legally liable in that way.

Exactly. That’s a lot of what I do is teach people how to avoid legal liability. It’s even in grammar.

Get up and talk to people. Otherwise you’ll be talking to lawyers.

Right.

Tell us about your panel for startup week.

My business partner Katie Hoffman and I are running a workshop actually, where the two of us are going to help and go through some just quick tips for how to improve email, things that matter, so going over how you write a good subject line that’s focused on what your audience needs to know from that subject line.

What are some standard greetings and closings to use? How do you organize the screen so that people are more likely to read?

One of the concepts that I use a lot in my seminars is the idea that nobody wants to read anything, which is a little sad, but true. We’re inundated by information constantly and no one wants to read anything. What are some strategies we can use to organize the words on the screen in order to encourage people to read? We’re going to go over those things to help people sort of tailor their email a little bit.

There will be interactive content and then us helping people just sort of revise some emails, reading over their shoulder and giving them, try this, what do you think about this kind of strategies, so that people can walk away from the workshop feeling like they can immediately write emails a little bit better than when they came in. That’s what we’ll be doing.

They’re literally coming in going, “I have this really mean email that I need to send a client, can you help me?”

Yes, sure. We can work on the how do we make it sounds like it’s a nice email even though it’s demanding?

I really don’t like you, but please pay me. Right? That’s the goal.

Right. I do that all the time. You think about, how do you motivate other people? Instead of saying, you know, I did this work, you need to pay me … That’s not motivating to anybody else. You have to tell them what they’ll get out of it. Right? I did this work and you need to pay me so that I will leave you alone. You think about what can you offer to that audience that will help them sort of comply with whatever it is you want them to do.

If you could tell a start up one thing, what would it be?

It’s think about credibility. From the very beginning, think about how you are presenting yourself. Every single thing that you’re doing is about demonstrating that you know what you’re doing.

The biggest thing is just to make sure that you know how to present yourself as credible. Whether that’s dressing the part or being able to speak about it appropriately, having your references sort of in your head, like who knows you or who have you worked with, and also just being comfortable selling yourself.

Over the weekend, I was meeting a lot of new people. This group of people were talking about how uncomfortable they are selling themselves and that’s what being a startup is. You’re selling yourself all the time. I think the idea is focus on what’s objective, what’s factual. Your credibility is established by what you’ve done. We’re all looking for that so much.

We each deal with a lot of big corporations on a regular basis. Just think about companies that we have to call the customer service and all you need is one tiny little question answered and you’ve got to talk to five people and go through all the lines.

Most of us are just looking for like where is the person? Where is the person here that we can trust and have a real conversation with? I think startups need to be that person. They need to be personable, that we can trust them to do whatever it is that they’re saying they can do.

Where can we find out more about you and your business, Jenny?

Probably the easiest place is our website, Appendance.com. It goes through all of our services, the writing and editing projects, one on one coaching. Then what we’ve been doing the most of is the consulting, so going into businesses and doing half day or full day sessions, training a group of employees in a writing or communication related subject.