By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS Celebrity trainer Scott Parker works with clients across the globe eager to lose weight, build stamina and sculpt muscles. After watching his father struggle with severe hypertension, he makes sure controlling high blood pressure is also on their list. Parker, who is based in Los […]
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By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS Donna Garlough lifted her 18-month-old son, Jonah, from his crib and kissed his belly. He babbled his morning greeting. But Donna couldn’t babble back. Things were off that morning in February 2015. Donna had blamed the splitting headache she woke up with on the white […]
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When Airbnb experienced a period of hypergrowth, it did what any company would do—it quickly hired as many talented people as it could.
However, the data science department soon noticed a problem: Almost all of the new hires were men. In a company founded on diverse collaboration and fostering a sense of universal belonging, having a key department so off-kilter from company goals was cause for alarm.
Executives quickly took action to not only amend the problem but to also address what created it. They doubled their ratio of female data scientists (now at 30 percent) and revised hiring practices to better reflect gender equality. Next, they aimed to focus on cultural and racial diversity in hiring. In the end, Airbnb’s steadfast vision for its company not only fixed an HR oversight, but it also made its team stronger and more inclusive than ever before.
As entrepreneurs, we have ideas about what our company will become. We dream about the success we hope to attain or the impact we aspire to make. We even plan for how and when we’ll reach benchmarks along the way.
But oftentimes, we’re so caught up in dealing with the individual tasks, functions, and responsibilities of running a business that we lose sight of the big picture. What many of us fail to recognize is that defining our end goals—our ultimate destination—from the start may actually be the key to reaching that pinnacle of success.
From the time I launched my company years ago, I knew I wanted to be the best in our specific area of expertise in the PR industry.
Focusing on that destination from the very beginning gave me the confidence to make bold moves and pave my own path. It pushed me to build a team that shared my vision and determination. It kept everyone on track and gave us something concrete to work toward. It also helped me avoid costly detours and harmful mistakes. Today, I can happily say my company is thriving and I’m where I always wanted to be.
Declaring your destination from the earliest planning stages will give you and your team that same laser focus when growing your startup. It will ensure your end goals are built into the foundation of your company, woven through every business plan and etched into every executive decision.
To identify and define your company’s destination, you must:
Most entrepreneurs have a vision of what they want out of their startups. Some want fame and fortune; others want power and prestige; still others want to create change. But so few own that vision.
For whatever reason, they don’t say it out loud, share it with their teams, or build it into their daily mantras—let alone include it in their business plans. Perhaps that’s one reason the four-year startup failure rate hovers around 60 percent for many industries.
Never launch your business without knowing full well where you want to go. Ensure your destination is your own vision, not some preconceived notion of how your company should be operating. Otherwise, you won’t have the passion and dedication needed to succeed. Whatever your destination, own it, speak of it often, and watch your dreams come to life.
You can’t be the best at everything. Instead of wasting your time trying, carve out a niche that you can truly dominate, then expand your horizons as your company grows. That way, you’re not one in a million—you’re just number one.
For example, PensterDocs managed to carve out its own niche in the highly saturated document management app market. The comprehensive pet-information repository stores your furry friend’s vaccinations, upcoming vet appointments, and health records. The app even has sharing capabilities in case you need to share your pet’s profile with family members, pet sitters, or vet clinic staff members.
Take a closer look at your situation, your market, the talent, and the opportunities. Conducting a SWOT analysis can be helpful here. Is there anything unique to your situation that could work to your advantage or hold you back? Are you passionate about or adept in any particular area of your industry? Is anyone on your team packing serious skills or expertise that could give your company an upper hand? Pinpointing your niche early on will set you on the fast track to success.
Building a talented, dedicated team can fundamentally change your company. Focus on hiring partners and leaders who share your commitment to your destination. That’s not to say that your office should become an echo chamber, though—according to Scientific American, a socially diverse staff will spur greater innovation. Look for individuals who can challenge your assumptions, bring new ideas to the decision-making table, and drive you toward your shared destination.
When I started my company Mitchell, my first full-time hire was my biggest competitor, someone who was working for his brother’s company at the time. I convinced him to join my venture by conveying my passion for building Mitchell into the best in the industry—a vision he soon shared with me. Getting him on board was a game changer. With our combined efforts and united vision for our destination, our business and our team grew exponentially.
Learning from others is a huge part of building a successful business. The best way to gather tons of useful information and unique insight is by connecting with mentors, peers, and other entrepreneurs.
Building these connections also gives you the opportunity to grow your business by establishing mutually beneficial relationships. In fact, according to HubSpot, 85 percent of professionals say in-person meetings help them forge stronger, more meaningful business relationships.
Join professional communities related to your industry. If you find there aren’t business networks in your area, consider starting a community or organization yourself. It’s the perfect way to learn from the experiences of others, build reciprocity-driven business relationships, and assert yourself as a leader in your industry.
To succeed in today’s business world, you have to be unique, hardworking, and focused on your end goals. Avoid distractions and detours by declaring your company’s destination from the very start. Then, start forging your path.
Say you are a service provider – consultant, designer, coder – and somebody offers you startup equity in exchange for professional service. I pondered this question after seeing it on Quora. I turned back to decades as a consultant, and decades dealing with startups, to come up with this sure-proof service for equity formula. Try it. You’ll be glad you did.
I dealt with this problem a lot during my consulting decades. I was based in Silicon Valley from late 1970s through early 1990s, doing business plans, business planning, and market research for high-tech companies (Apple Computer more than any other) and startups. No big established company ever offered me equity – meaning a portion of ownership – for my services. Several startups did.
I was gullible and optimistic. I worked for several startups, as a consultant, for small pieces of ownership. I learned the hard way that startup equity is an extreme long shot, million-to-one odds at best. It got so bad that I promised my wife that I would never consult again for equity.
But then something happened to trip me up. One of my service for equity clients took off. It became a big success. And I had equity. So I made a lot of money with it. Oops, There went the assumptions.
First: you decide what you’d charge without the equity offering. Call that the fair value.
Second: figure out the minimum that you’d charge in order to not hate yourself, your client, and the job if the equity works out to be worth nothing. Call that the absolute minimum.
Third: Subtract the absolute minimum from the fair value. Call that the difference
The kicker: consider whether or not you like this client, like working with him or her, will learn from the job, and experience you can gain. Rank that as a number between 1 and 10, in which 1 is a very positive job and relationship, with a lot to learn, and the pleasure of working with somebody you want to work with; and a 10 is that total idiot client you can’t stand working with, you don’t respect, you don’t learn from, and is likely to hassle you for more work for less money.a A 1 is somebody with whom you’d work for free if you didn’t need the money. A 10 is a loser who makes your life miserable. Call that number the “life is too short” ranking.
Here is my recommendation, in numbers, with formulas based on these variables:
And here’s another rendition, this time one with more difference between fair value and absolute minimum:
But wait, what? You’re noticing, I hope, that I’m entirely ignoring the alleged value of the equity involved. What a dufus! This whole thing is about the trade of service for equity. Right?
No. This is the real world. The odds on a startup getting from this point to having its equity actually worth money are about one in a million. Make your decision based on the life is too short ranking, not the value. Startup equity is so unlikely to ever generate real value that you can’t survive in a professional service doing your work for equity. Believe me.
Still, if you insist that this is a great startup, here’s how to adjust for the equity that is driving you crazy. Do this adjustment for that great startup that you love. It has a great team, great market, real potential. You really want a piece of it:
Of course you won’t be able to charge what my formula suggests for the clients in the 7–10 range in the life is too short ranking. That’s okay. You don’t want those clients. They kill your productivity for the other clients you do want. So you price so high that if – heaven forbid – they do say yes, at least your pricing has made it worth it.
For the record, this post started as my answer to this question on Quora: My client wants me to work partially on equity, how do I calculate my costs?
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By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS Potentially dangerous artery problems considered common as people age may actually be avoided or delayed well into the senior years, according to new research. The risk for high blood pressure and increased blood vessel stiffness, which both increase the risk of heart disease, may be […]
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The Oversized hybrid that Cobra quietly displayed at the PGA Show has a release date.
Complementing, and if you so desire, pairing beautifully, with last season’s KING OS Irons is the new KING Oversized hybrid.
As the name suggests, the King Oversized is a large hybrid designed for the Super Game-Improvement market. It features a big, wide, dare I say, oversized, footprint. Speaking directly to the demands of the category, the Oversized is a high MOI offering that includes Cobra’s PWRSHELL Face technology for more speed across the face - the first time PWRSHELL has been put in a hybrid. Cobra says the OS Hybrid is the largest, most-forgiving hybrid its ever produced.
For those of you playing along at home, Cobra is suggesting the King Oversized Hybrid hits the trifecta; it’s long, straight, and forgiving.
Of particular note, the KING Oversized features a TeXtreme carbon fiber crown; the same material used in Cobra’s drivers and LTD Fairway wood. Carbon fiber crowns in hybrids were basically unheard of before this season, but that’s changing rapidly. PXG (0317X), Callaway (Epic), and now Cobra, offer carbon fiber in at least one of their hybrids.
In the case of the Oversized, the material saves 8 grams vs. steel. That may not sound like much, but with the larger footprint of the Oversized design, and that savings is what allowed Cobra to push the center of gravity comparatively lower and deeper than it could have with a steel crown.
While it was only a matter of time before two key Cobra technologies (TeXtreme and PWRSHELL) would find their way into a hybrid, it's a bit of a surprise that they're debut in an SGI offering. More often than not, firsts are reserved for flagship products, and that makes me wonder if the hybrid wasn't originally designed to be part of the LTD lineup. I supsect we'll see both technologies in Cobra's 2018 fall offerings.
Also of note, unlike Cobra’s most recent super game-improvement offerings, and even recent mainstream releases, the King Oversized hybrid lacks baffler rails (like the LTD fairway). That's a bit odd considering that Baffler technology has been a near constant inclusion in Cobra's SGI offerings. In fact, while the profile says SGI, the aesthetics, the TeXtreme crown, and that lack of rails, suggest a club that, if not for its footprint (and arguably its audience) would scream KING LTD.
That's not a bad thing. We're talking about a tech-rich hybrid, with a clean and classic look that just happens to be a little bit on the large size.
The Cobra KING Oversized hybrid is available in 3-4, 45, and 5-6 models. With Cobra’s MyFly8 adjustability, that’s a range of 19° to 29° across the line.
The stock shaft is a UST Recoil 460ES graphite, available in lite, regular, stiff, and X-stiff flex.
Retail price for the hybrids is $249. They can also be purchased as part of an 8-piece Cobra Oversized set for $1099 (steel shaft irons) or $1199 (graphite shaft irons).
Availability beings Friday, June 2, 2017.
For more information, visit CobraGolf.com.
We refuse to believe that putter innovation is dead. -Toulon Design
According to Bloom’s Taxonomy, synthesis (“putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole.”) represents one of the higher levels of thinking. I view synthesis as the connections between the disconnected. You take knowledge from seemingly unrelated areas, find the connections, and build something novel from the union of the components.
If you take a moment to think about it, there are a number of current pieces of golf gear out there whose designs are exercises in synthesis.
Think about the Callaway XR line of drivers. What was the “big deal” about the XR? Thinking back to the 2016 PGA show, Callaway had a giant airplane in their booth to promote their partnership with Boeing in designing the XR. Callaway and Boeing were combining knowledge to produce a better driver. Boeing engineers’ expertise in aerodynamics helped create a driver shape with less wind resistance, which enabled faster head movement and thus produced longer drives.
I’m sure that you can cite other examples of golf gear synthesis. There are numerous examples of disconnected industries coming together, and producing something new as a result.
Today, that connection is between putters and racecars.
Introducing the Indianapolis, our first foray imto the world of super-high MOI mallets. This design has been in development for well over a year, and every single detail has been examined and perfected. When we first started developing Indianapolis, we knew we wanted to create something that was revolutionary in terms of performance and aesthetics.
In other words, Toulon Design (and Odyssey Golf) has tapped into the world of Indy Cars to design the new Indianapolis mallet, connecting the materials and even the shapes of the Indy Car to the putter.
Today, we are going to dive a bit deeper into the Indianapolis, exploring the connections Sean Toulon has made between the car and putter realms. We will take a look at the racecar tech incorporated into the putter, and I’ll give you my impressions from my test drives with the Indianapolis.
We channeled the engineering spirit of IndyCar racecar technicians, past and present, and crafted a design that incorporated four different materials. The face is made up of aircraft grade 6061-aluminum, giving you a soft, crisp feel. The sole is made up of 303 stainless steel, giving you maximum stability. The crown is made up of a lightweight carbon fiber composite, giving you a sleek look, while allowing us to distribute weight more effectively throughout the putter. Two 303 stainless steel or tungsten weights located on the back wings boosts the MOI to unbelievable highs, making this the best performing putter we’ve ever created.
Usually, when I am listing materials for the spec sheet, I have one, or maybe two, materials to list. Today, there are four different materials. Toulon has really pushed the envelope here. While this is supposed to be a connection to car design, the materials used and their specific locations around the putter remind me of more of modern driver design. Golf engineers have incorporated different materials into drivers to move weight around, influencing MOI and other play characteristics. The Toulon Indianapolis pushes the boundaries of multi-material construction in a putter beyond what we have previously seen.
Each of the different materials has a purpose. The face is aluminum for feel, the sole is stainless for weight, the body is carbon fiber for “non-weight,” and the tungsten and/or stainless plugs in the fins keep the whole thing nice and stable through the stroke.
I’m not sure that this putter design would even be possible with any other composition. Maybe it could all be milled from a billet of aluminum, but I some of the angles the carbon fiber allows for would prove troublesome to mill, and you would likely still need stainless or tungsten weights to bring it up to a comfortable playing weight. Bringing together the different materials allows for a unique putter design.
The Indianapolis doesn’t just have the components of an IndyCar, it has the looks too. The silver finish of the aluminum face contrasts beautifully with the matte black shade of the carbon composite crown, making it incredibly easy to align properly. The Indianapolis also features nine prominent lines in the design that are either parallel or perpendicular to the target; add all that up, and you have one of the easiest putters to line up ever.
The Indianapolis has nine parallel and perpendicular alignment lines in its design to help you aim. I know that you are saying ‘There is only one line there”, but if you allow your eye to wander along the edges of the putter and the edges of the body cavity, I bet you can see more of the lines/edges.
The silver face does stand out quite dramatically when compared to the black body. This gives the Indianapolis an almost blade-like profile at the front end. I’ll give you my take on this later, but this silver perpendicular rectangle could also help someone line up putts to target.
Our unique pattern was designed after rigorous testing of 25 different mill patterns. The deep cross-hatch grooves control the sound and feel by channeling vibration and the small groove inside each diamond pattern is designed to improve the quality of the roll. The result is a putter where the sound and feel are tuned to match the distance that the ball rolls.
I found the feeling at impact with the Indianapolis to be very muted. There is a tone, but it is a deep/dull one as opposed to a bright click or ping sound. No judgment there, just pointing out that it has a lower resonating impact. The tone of impact does change when you wander the face, with the edges sounding harsher.
There is also a bit of vibrational feedback when you hit the heel or toe. That’s a nice way of saying it feels like crap when you hit out there. The lesson there is that if it hurts when you poke your thumb in your eye, then stop poking your thumb in your eye.
So what did I think when I took this out on the course?
Regarding alignment, I found that the Indianapolis took some adjusting to at address. The black carbon body and the aluminum face set up quite the contrast at address, and that was a bit too much contrast for me.
When first rolling the Indianapolis, I was not totally sure where my eyes should go at address. Do I focus more on the silver face, or on the large white alignment line on the body? After the first few rounds and practice sessions, I came to view the Indianapolis as a small silver blade with some black stuff hanging on the back that keeps it stable. Though it’s a large mallet, the Indianapolis feels more blade-like to me.
Even with this perception swing, the more I played with the Indianapolis, the more I wished that it was all black. Though I knew to focus on the front part, I still needed to remind myself to focus on the front part, thus adding another thought to my pre-putt routine. Additionally, the sun’s glare on the aluminum at noon was almost unbearably bright. On that hole, I didn’t care about putting as much as not going blind while looking at the putter. This alternative focus probably isn't helping me to hole putts.
Glare aside, once I became more comfortable with the looks, it was very easy to get the ball rolling along the target line with the Toulon Indianapolis. Rarely did I find the ball wandering to someplace unintended. Obviously, this means that I made every putt. Well...
Truth be told, I had a problem getting the ball to the hole. Though the copy says that the “sound and feel are tuned to match the distance the ball rolls,” for me, that distance was typically short. After a few rounds with the Indianapolis, I had a putting instructor watch me putt, and he said my issue was deceleration. In close, the tempo was fine, but when the putt got longer, I tended to put on the brakes mid swing.
I was a bit surprised with this assessment because I found the Indianapolis to be so easy swinging. It is amazingly balanced and stable through the swing, yet something was causing me to not finish at pace. Aware of this, I proceeded to blow balls past the hole by yards. Given time, I thought this would change, and it has a bit, but even after a few weeks, I’m either a bit short or way past with the Indianapolis. Just can’t quite dial in distance.
This is especially maddening for me because although the feel changes as you wander the face, the roll distance is pretty darn consistent. Misses go the same distance, likely due to the huge MOI keeping the mallet from moving much at all at impact. I know that if I can dial in that distance, that the tech of the Indianapolis design would help correct for my poor strikes. Unfortunately, I can’t quite get that distance dialed in enough to where the putter will fix my follies. Perhaps one of the counterbalanced versions of the Indianapolis might help with the pace issue.
The multi-material design on the Toulon Indianapolis is going to set you back about $170 more than a traditional Odyssey mallet (O-Works 2-Ball retails for $229.99). Yes, that does mean that the Indianapolis costs $399, with the counterbalanced models running the price up to as high as $499.
While I’m not going to argue that $400 for a putter is not a lot of money, I do see how the Indianapolis needs to cost more than a traditional Odyssey. The materials are different, and the design and build times required for the Indianapolis are likely much longer than a cast Number 7.
All in all, I found the Toulon Indianapolis an enjoyable putter to drop into the bag. The stability of swing and the alignment designs both fall deeply into the plus column for me. Distance control was off for me, but the miss was consistently short. This may be something that improves with continued use or something that might be reduced if I switched to the counterbalanced version of the putter. I’m hitting my line every time, just not the hole. It’s a bit maddening.
The only real lingering criticism I have with the putter is the reflective nature of the glossy aluminum at address. Its brightness is consistently distracting to me when the sun is overhead. Your mileage may vary with this, but I would recommend some outside demo with the Indianapolis before purchase. I am seriously considering sending this putter off to Labworx to have them do the front in their black armor. I’ll lose the blade with a wing look that it has now, but I believe that the loss of reflection and increased continuity through the head will make this putter look amazing.
Regardless, get out there and take the Indianapolis for a spin. I’m interested to see what you think. You should be able to find one in a shop near you after May 17th.
