A Path for PSL - One Man's Take - Thinking With Brian

A Path for PSL - One Man's Take

Last night, Philly Startup Leaders held a fishbowl event. Members of the community came together to discuss the future of the organization both in principal and in practice. A lot was said, and a lot was shared. At the end of the night, many words had been expelled from people's mouths and keyboards, but I'm not sure that anything had fundamentally shifted. Though I'm loathe to stroke Alex Hillman's ego by quoting him twice in the same week, I'm going to do so via the tweet pictured below.

While I genuinely believe that last night was both engaging and worthwhile, I am concerned that anything that comes from a group that large will be neutered by the process of consensus building. With that in mind, I thought it would be valuable to contribute my specific, actionable vision for the changes that the organization should make.

The Problem Statement

PSL is an organization with a clear mission statement that does not clearly align with the "boots on the ground" reality. The mission statement is tuned to a small, focused group with common goals and motivations. The actual organization is broad (1000+ members), with a wide range of motivations represented by vendors, entrepreneurs, mentors, students, etc. The leadership is guided by this mission statement and therefore is running a group that doesn't actually exists. Analogously, they are setting the ground rules for a small college class and then are trying to apply them to a raucous high school auditorium. The problem isn't the rules or the audience, it's the mismatch.

The Philosophy of the Change

The problem can be solved through honesty, transparency, and boundaries.

First, PSL (in both leadership and membership) needs to openly admit that it is a broad community serving more than just leaders of tech startups. PSL serves everyone who actively participates. I'm going to pick on Fred Wilf of the Baer Crossey law firm for a moment. When Fred presented at the fishbowl, he was openly mocked on the live chat because he was a vendor. While this may (or may not) have been in jest, the underlying view was that vendors are only there to leech off of the group. From speaking directly with Fred earlier in the evening, I believe that he would feel a sincere sense of loss if he was no longer able to participate in PSL. This reflects the fact that PSL gives Fred an opportunity to participate constructively in the community, and that is valuable to him beyond any business that might come his way. In that respect, Fred is served by PSL. We should all honestly come to grips with all facets of his and other vendors' various roles in the community.

Second, PSL needs to be transparent about who is in the community and why they are there. We've explored Fred's role above. Another attendee last night was Kirk Watkins. Kirk is an experience businessman who participates in PSL to help younger entrepreneurs refine and grow their businesses. When you speak to him, he is very clear about why he participates, what he hopes to give (a lot), and what he hopes to get back (not much). The organization needs to give Kirk, and everyone else a more public and systematic way to express the role they play.

Thrird, PSL needs to create some boundaries. Once we've established different roles in the community, it's natural to admit that not every event is appropriate for every role. There are times when entrepreneurs need to be able to take off their public face to express worries they'd only share with their peers. Vendors, and even mentors, detract from these events. There are other times when startup leaders are looking to expand their networks and learn from those who have been there. Both vendors and experienced business people add great value in these situations. PSL needs to help manage these boundaries so each event can blossom from the proper mix of attendees.

Brass Tacks: How To Get It Done

Roles, Dues, and Segmentation. That's it. If those three things are addressed, then the sky is the limit.

Every member should have to identify the role they play in the community. The roles are clear and simple. The board should have final decision making power if a member is improperly categorized. All existing members should be required to re-register by January 1 and should select a role through that process. Without further ado, here are the roles:

Startup Leader: Any member who is actively participating in a day-to-day role in a company that was legally registered less than 2 years ago and personally owns over 20% of said company.

Startup Member: Any member who is actively participating in a day-to-day role in a company that was legally registered less than 2 years ago and does not own over 20% of said company.

Sustained Business Leader: Any member who is actively participating in a day-to-day company that is more than 2 years old and personally owns over 20% of said company.
Supporting Partner: Any member who intends to solicit members of the community regardless of any other criteria that might put them in another category. The leadership will need to actively address members in other categories that should be Supporting Partners.

Student: Individuals actively enrolled in an undergraduate or post-graduate program at a local college / university.
General Member: Everyone else.

Now for the controversy... Dues. All members should pay dues. The objective here is to weed out the passive, casual member. This modest barrier for entry will lighten the load of having to support a 1000+ member organization when we really probably have a 400 member organization with 600 hangers on.

Now for the hedge... In Kind Participation. All members should have the opportunity to contribute to events instead of paying their cash dues. For example, a Supporting Partner might participate in a panel event and be given a $100 in kind credit. A startup leader or student might help setup or tear down an event in return for a $20 credit. The board should determine the need for participation and relative compensation.

Dues:
Startup Leaders & Startup Members: $60/year
Sustained Business Leaders, Students: $20/year

General Members: $80/year
Supporting Partners: $500/year or $5,000 for an entire company

Finally, the organization's events and communications should be segmented based on the roles above. Certain events might be open to all, while mentoring events might be just for Startup Leaders and Sustained Business Leaders. Similarly, the mailing list should be replaced by 3 groups ("Everyone", "Startup Leaders Only", and "Startup Leaders-Startup Members-Sustained Business Leaders"). Whether we leave the mailing list technology in place or go to a forum or LinkedIn group is merely an implementation detail.

So, that's my take on some simple, actionable steps towards moving the community forward. Congratulations on making it to the end!

Posted

9 months ago alexknowshtml (Twitter) responded:

I think your problem statement is reasonably accurate, and in line with the "identity crisis" I outlined in my post. I'm glad to be hearing this stuff from somebody who was on the ground last night, and has a clear head and very few of the biases/baggage that many others have.

I want to call out a couple of things: the exclusion of and condescending attitude towards "service providers" isn't a new PSL problem, but one that came from the roots. The intention, it seems, was to keep "pitching" down, but all it did was push away contributors to make room for a different kind of pitch.

I remember one anecdote where Dave Speers, an early Indy hall member, was denied membership because he was a freelance marketer. Dave, however, was running one of the first blogs about entrepreneurship our community had seen, and was looking for people's stories to share. He was eventually admitted, but realize that this was the membership director who was proliferating the belief that even though he wanted to contribute, he was a marketer and therefore not welcome.

A similar situation showed up a couple of years later on the email list. I wrote about it here. If you read it - you might see some themes that look familiar. Again - these aren't new problems. I've been vocal about these problems for MUCH longer than I've removed myself from active PSL membership.

Beyond that - I generally like the ideas you've laid out. I'm particularly keen on the notion that PSL needs to start over. Fresh blood. A stronger (and contemporary) vision for the Philadelphia startup community. Clearer membership expectations. These are all good things for Philadelphia.

While I do believe in some membership levels, I'm not really into the ones you created. They create a maintenance as well as a designation problem. Somebody (the board) becomes responsible for keeping membership levels up to date, and that people are properly self designating.

Instead, I'd propose membership based on levels of participation, since that's the other challenge on the table to solve, we can kill two birds with one stone and avoid "artificial" designations.

1) If you're an email list member, there should be a small fee to cut down on the "less serious" members you mention. Students are a good caveat to consider. I think "sponsorships" could be made available for people not in a financial position as well. But if you can't afford $25/month to be a part of a group of people who are starting businesses and are going to save you time/money starting your own, there's probably a mismatch in the first place.
2) Events members pay a higher fee than listserv members but get list access and basic member benefits. This is a social type of interaction, but as you and others have pointed out, the value of these groups is getting to know people. Knowing people has value to your business bottom line.
3) Workshop participation pays a higher fee than the other two and get all of the same benefits. This gets you deep discounts tickets to the workshops that are otherwise open to the public at a market-rate workshop prices. People who attend workshops are clearly looking to learn the most and stand to gain the most as well. They can pay proportionally and help support the organization along the way.

I also think that it's important that board members should NOT be exempt from membership fees. I've been paying a full time desk membership at Indy Hall since day 1, not because my $275 makes a difference, but because I get the same benefits of every other full time member. I'm not special to get free membership.

From the Communities of Practice Wikipedia page, "Actions to cultivate a successful community of practice":

3- Welcome and allow different levels of participation - Wenger identifies 3 main levels of participation. 1) The core group who participate intensely in the community through discussions and projects. This group typically takes on leadership roles in guiding the group 2) The active group who attend and participate regularly, but not to the level of the leaders. 3) The peripheral group who, while they are passive participants in the community, still learn from their level of involvement. Wenger notes the third group typically represents the majority of the community.

9 months ago Brian Glick responded:

Alex,

One of the small group conversations we had last night touched on a missing aspect of the discourse on PSL, which is an individual's background / context. With a group this large, I think it's hard to keep track of everyone and what their backgrounds, experiences, motivations are. Because of that, we don't have any context to identify the value of their advice.

I know that Google gives a lot of this, but it's hard to work that into the day to day flow of the list. This is a problem that is specific to larger groups and not one we encounter (right now) at IndyHall. One of my hopes with categorizing people was to solve the problem the same way that hospitals do. Doctors wear one thing and nurses wear something else. When we publicly label members of the community (with uniforms or membership categories), it provides an important shortcut to interactions.

Perhaps the vendor pitch issue is a problem better addressed by accepting that the behavior exists and letting it be. In that case, it would be plausible to roll that group into general membership and address the most egregious spamming case by case.

I went back to your 2009 post, and I agree that policing can create heavy handed responses that cause flareups (like the exact same one from a few weeks ago.) I don't however think that careful policing and natural culture are diametrically opposed. Society at large has worked out pretty well with a combination of enforced rules and natural innovation. Judicious rule enforcement does occasionally impact the "innocent", but it also allows for the free flow of information in the large.

Using IndyHall as an example, there are certain cultural mores that I'm assuming you'd interpret and enforce as rules at the appropriate time. If there was someone who yelled on the phone for 8 hours a day, something would need to be said. If there was someone with unclean personal habits who was impacting people's work, something would need to be done. The fact that this hasn't happened much is definitely a testament to the culture that the core members have built, but I don't think that changes the fact that these mores may eventually need to be enforced.

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A Path for PSL - One Man's Take