I speak to many bootstrapping start-ups and get the same response over and over "I consult on the side to help build my company". Company founders that are sacrificing their own income to pay others in order to deliver products and grow their company are pretty special I think and good people to have on your side.

I've been consulting ever since I left Ciena over three years ago and it has worked out very well for everyone involved. My main focus and strength is to connect companies to their potential customers to answer critical questions and ultimately achieve early market success.

In some cases, my client is exploring a new product or market and needs some early customer validation. Are we building something people will buy? If not, what do we need to change? Should we sell direct, partner or OEM/white label? Important questions I help companies answer and something I'm super passionate about.

In many cases my clients are early stage companies and launching or developing the company and first product. This is an incredibly crucial time and I help them get over the hump. I even do it pro-bono for friends and ex-colleagues in many cases ... people call, ask for help and I provide it. Don't get any ideas though ... you have to be pretty special for that to happen :)

In nearly every case, my involvement led the company to realize that what they were building wasn't the right thing. Fortunately, in many cases, the customer involvement led them to realize what they should be building instead and what the business model should be.

So what do I do to achieve success for my clients?

1. Marketing collateral
Let's face it, most collateral and especially Powerpoint presentations suck ... very badly. I'm very good at this and help companies boil down their messaging to the key value proposition .... especially from the perspective of their potential customer.

2. Customer engagement
At the early stages, meeting directly with potential customers is key. I tap my extensive network of contacts that range from media companies to Telecom carriers as necessary to help initiate a first meeting.

I have often led the initial meetings, including presenting the company or product. I dig in deep and become part of your team. After the initial three or four meetings with a particular customer, I tend to move to the background to promote a deeper relationship between your company and the customer.

3. Pre-sales
I don't do pure sales for companies but have been directly involved in the pre-sales aspect many times. This includes research (who are the potential customers, names and numbers, hot buttons and customer motivation), strategy, collateral creation and initial customer interaction.

I have deep experience in the Telecom world and dealing directly with carriers but my last four years have been focused on the web including on-line strategy, video, social networks and media, and e-commerce. I blog and tweet heavily and am deeply entrenched in on-line worlds. FaveQuest is a social media platform which helps brands, especially those in the media and entertainment space, tap social networks and utilities.

Feel free to check me out on linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/allanisfan or better yet google me :)

Cheers,
Allan
allan.isfan[at]gmail.com

Been a crazy summer with Bluesfest in July then an incredible vacation in Europe with the family. Financially not great timing but mentally could not have been better.

In the midst of all that, I was asked to join a proposed panel at SXSW on Social Media ROI. Check out my blog post on the Favequest corporate site to get some perspective on this interesting topic. I touches on only two ways to generate and measure social media ROI. Many more to come.

http://bit.ly/mGprD

Cheers,
Allan

I once asked myself: "what is the one thing that you would like to do more of but just don't get a chance to?". If you haven't asked yourself this question, you really ought to.

My answer: experience live music.

I used to have a band practice in my basement, have held outdoor parties with live music and pretty well live at the Ottawa Bluesfest every year in July. I also like to head up to the Black Sheep in Wakefiled as often as I can. That is actually where I discovered Lindsay Ferguson (http://www.lindsayferguson.com/), an amazing musician that I invited to play at this years Isfan Palooza (June 27th).

Entrepreneur's often advise you to follow your passions when it comes to business and I must admit I didn't heed their advice soon enough. However, FaveQuest is now deeply into the live music business with the launch of the Bluesfest Viewtube and we have many more surprises on this front coming imminently. It feels good. I highly recommend it!

It makes so much difference to be involved in a business and domain you are passionate about. It feels right, you have much more energy, have better ideas and push yourself that much harder. I think the passion also shines through and your customers see it. They see it when you pitch them and they see it when you over deliver.

Do you have something you're really passionate about that could be a business? I bet you there is! Please share and I bet you there's something I can do to help you (motivation, ideas, connections ...). So drop me a comment and let's chat.

Cheers,
Allan
PS. I'm also passionate about new communication tools and am fortunate to have been selected as a "character" at the 140conf conference in NYC June 16 & 17th.

Hey Everyone,

I have a new blog and some new blog posts I think you will find interesting specifically about FaveQuest. I will continue to blog here on startup issues, which reminds me, I've organized another Founders and Funders event on May 20. More information here http://www.startupottawa.com/?p=1118 (I'm a contributing blogger on Startup Ottawa

Ok, so here's the FaveQuest blog

http://favequest.com/blog/

Cheers,
Allan

Nasty three way tug of war

There's a three way tug of war going on in mobile and it is going to create massive disruptions in the web which is great news for smart entrepreneurs and great for consumers. Read on.

Two major and radically different worlds are about to collide: the fixed web and the mobile web. We're not quite there yet. A number of websites are not quite easy to navigate on a smartphone (even the iphone), there are missing components on the security side which prevent me from logging on to a number of accounts (I can't do banking for example) and so on. We're not there yeat but we're really close and what will result is one superweb.

Furthermore, accessing this superweb from a mobile device will provide some extra features and services that only make sense with a mobile device: GPS, presence, mobile coupons, mobile payments and so on (many of these services already exist). So while the mobile web is inferior to the fixed web for now, accessing the superweb from mobile will allow us to actually do more. I think that is really cool.

Actually, it is more than cool, it is HUGE
The significance of this superweb coupled with all the app stores popping up everywhere, is that anyone can now provide value to mobile customers in the form of applications and services and with value shift comes a shift in dollars. But how are the dollars going to shift?

Handset manufacturing playing tug of war with carriers
Mobile carriers (Rogers Wireless, ATT, Verizon, Orange, Vodafone ...) have traditionally controlled the end mobile consumer in terms of the critical piece: billing. Any service on your mobile (long distance, voice mail, text messaging, ringtones) was payable to the mobile carrier. However, handset manufacturers are wrestling that away from them with things like app stores. Nokia even announced that it will be including skype with some phones (will start with N97). Nokia might as well just put up their middle finger to the carriers.

An even more concrete example: I bought a twitter app from the app store for 99 cents and my carrier got absolutely nothing for that (Apple and the app developer share that revenue). Add webservices that bypass even the app stores and you can easily see the danger carriers are in: becoming the big dumb pipe. Of course, they hate that. All is not lost for the carriers of course,they are doing some cool stuff too, but that is the subject of another post (I don't think carriers are evil BTW).

Web developers playing tug of war with handset manufacturers and carriers
This one is less obvious but hang on for a bit, I'll explain. Right now, wireless bandwidth is still poor, mobile browsers are sucky and people haven't yet figured out how to build good mobile websites. Apps provide far superior functionality and usability on a mobile phone which explains why they are doing so well. This walled garden is not going to last more than a few years. PCs are now moving more and more to web services in the cloud instead of on-board applications you have to download. This same trend is going to happen in mobile devices since after all, they are simply very small, always connected little computers.

So basically, all seems fairly quiet with everyone catching up to Apple and all major handset dudes positioning themseleves to cut out the carriers from the applications market. While that is happening, bazillions of web people will ultimately be able to reach the consumer directly and cut out even the handset dudes. Fun stuff. Will be interesting to see how it will shake out .... either way though, it will no longer be business as usual which hopefully creates opportunities for you.

Cheers,
Allan Isfan
CEO, FaveQuest