ÜBERCEO

Coming straight out of college to start a business without an established network was no barrier for Jordon Goldman, CEO of UniGo, an online community platform for high school students to find the college that’s right for them. Jordon realized that if he wanted UniGo to succeed, he would need to harness the internet to get the right people with the right skill-sets to help him build his business.

We asked Jordon how, with his initial lack of contacts, he was able to pull together an impressive advisory board that includes the CEO of TiVo (NASDAQ: TIVO), Tom Rogers, JetBlue (NASDAQ: JBLU) board member, Frank Sica, and Chief Revenue Officer at Bankrate.com (NASDAQ-GS: RATE), Don Ross. He shares a few secrets:

1. Start off with your own alumni network and look for people you admire. Jordon sent a cold email to the CEO of TiVo and invited him to lunch. While it took several months and a few emails to get the first meeting, he used the first meeting to get a second meeting. It was only after he’d built up a relationship over time did he ask Tom to be on the advisory board.
2. Reach out tangentially to connect to the right people. Use Facebook and LinkedIn to see who is connected to whom. Ask for introductions, without being obnoxious.
3. Use the same approach with employees. Do the research up front on people who would best benefit the organization. Jordan was then very aggressive about convincing them that UniGo was the right place for them.
4. Understand that the process takes months, not days, so take that into account for your product roll-out.
5. Use any resource available to you to connect with those you respect and want on your team. By using the internet you can find the email addresses of your targets or even a profile.
6. Even if you do meet up with them and they decline, still use their expertise in an unofficial capacity. Jordan still meets informally with several senior executives to get their advice. He shares his vision then asks them to challenge it to discover the flaws in his model.

While Jordon admits that getting in front of the right people is harder than convincing them to be on the advisory board, Jordon doesn’t take no for an answer and hasn’t let youth or lack of a network prevent him from success.

Jose da Veiga is the CEO of start-up KlickSports, a live sports game where participants make real-time predictions of sports team and players. Like many young companies, the current economic climate is making the start-up world even more challenging. But Jose is surviving by getting back to basics.

He shared with us some tips on how he’s making it through the tough times:

1. Do the best you can do with what have and never try to bet on what you might get. For Jose that means asking for favors, using his network and that of his employees, and encouraging staff to come up with ways to cut costs without compromising quality.

2. Understand there will be sacrifice, both personally and professionally. Being a CEO is not a glamorous job. You’ll need a supportive family, especially if there’s going to be a time when you don’t have a salary. It’s not going to be a sane life.

3. Never hire inexperienced people. If you do, they won’t last long in this environment. Hire people who stick to it and can bring in a special skill-set that allows them to solve problems in a creative way. It will breed more innovation.

4. Seek people who can change as quickly as the business environment changes. Get rid of everything and everybody that is focused on a different future outlook. Remember that some people are great when you’ve got funding but not so good in an opposite environment.

5. Rely on a network of people who have gone through this experience a few times before and talk to them often. Using people who don’t have a stake in the game, but have similar experiences, bring a great perspective.

6. Hire vendors and people that believe in your company and its cause. A CEOs job is to make them believe.

 Jose says that in this market survivability is key. “As long as there’s progress being made, you’re doing OK. The lesson is that you should be going back to the fundamentals, regardless of the current economic situation.”