Taking a Walk Down Trizoko Lane

Wednesday, September 13, 2006 at 11:40am by David Askaripour in We're Talkin'

Wow, I can’t get enough of the Trizoko crew. Their upfront and down to Earth approach to entrepreneurship continues to bring a smile to my face as I read their content on a daily basis. They aren’t trying to impress you or even convert you to their ways of looking at the business world; they are simply telling you how they see it happening. Their amazing business journal, Trizoko, has become more than a blog to me, but a true business guide that helps me see learn more about entrepreneurship, minus the bullshit and fluff.

Tell me about your first entrepreneurial experience and how you came about creating trizle. Is there an explanation for the name “trizle”?

My first business was a sports journal I created when I was around 12 years old. It failed big time. I’ve learned a lot since.

As for Trizle, we started it as a computer business — competing with Dell and HP. Bad move. I brought a college buddy on with me, but we could never penetrate any business markets. Knowing however that we wanted to build something that helps the world in some way — as cheesy and idealistic as that may sound — we then ventured into building software that improves businesses, then with my background in business: finally to providing total business solutions.

The “Trizle” name came from the area I grew up in — a big hip-hop community. Others call it the “ghetto”; I affectionately call it “home”. I grew up listening to Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tupac, Run DMC, and Bone Thugs. So with Snoop’s -izle talk, I combined that with my last name (It was only me in the business then.). It’s a way of saying that no matter what happens, I’ll always remember where I came from — my roots, if you will.

Not too many of my childhood friends made it out okay, so as weird as it may sound, I feel like there’s a higher calling telling me to give back since I somehow made it through the cracks. So the name “Trizle” will always remind me of the philosophy behind the business.

So you’re in the web development business. Can you talk to us about how you tackle the difficult task of customer service and growing your client base? What works and what doesn’t?

Our site, and we’re totally embarrassed by it, is a little outdated. We’re progressing toward more of a “business solutions” firm. That is, web software is just one of the services we offer to improve our clients’ bottom line.

One of the ways we attract initial customers is offering something we coin a “guaranteeth” (i.e. guaratee + teeth). That is, we guarantee businesses that our solutions will increase their bottom lines, or we’ll refund everything. 100% of our clients are happy references, so things are going okay so far.

But really, something else drives us to want to tackle customer service and grow our customer base. It’s a little warped — well, according to those “business experts” out there. Instead of all the “strategic customer acquisition” and “penetrating markets” crapola, we just focus on one thing: helping as many people as we can.

With the advent of wordpress making it easier to maintain and create large sites, have you incorporated wordpress as starting point for any of your projects? If so, how has that worked out for you and your clients?

Open source applications is definitely opening doors for everybody to compete with larger firms. But then there’s a conundrum: Because you have so much technology at your disposal, how much do you use?

For any tech project, we focus on providing business solutions that boosts our clients’ bottom lines. (That’s our focus, so your company’s purpose might be different.) An increase in bottom line means that we’re helping them improve customer service, become more efficient, manage their finances better, or many of the other things that plays a factor.

Most tech projects provide a negative ROI, and we’re embarrassed that our peers continue to praise tech like it’s some magic formula that improves the heck out of businesses. It’s not. And unfortunately, most businesses are wasting their money on tech stuff that won’t do a thing for their bottom line.

So with WordPress, or whatever else open source technology you use, we urge that you to not use technology for technology’s sake. It’s a path to failure. Instead, know where your business wants to go. Know its purpose, its goals, its strengths. Then, seek them.

And then if a technology product such as WordPress can get you there quicker, by all means: use it.

Where do you see the web development industry heading as it’s becoming increasingly easier for people to create their own sites? Will there still be a need for developers down the line and why?

I think the web development industry is heading toward the direction of how the car industry once went — albeit, on a smaller scale. That is, the basic guts (i.e. “busy” programming) will move toward being outsourced, but the design ( i.e. web design, interface design, strategic programming) will stay with the brightest in the world — whether they live in the U.S., Australia, or Zimbabwe.

So if you’re a web development company in America, and you want to stay in business, don’t let your offerings become commoditized.

Let’s jump into trizoko, your business journal. What separates your content from the other business blogs on the net? You seem to have taken the no-bullshit approach, what was the reasoning behind going that route?

Business is our passion. We love it. We love to study how societies and organizations thrive, and how they unfortunately destruct.

With that said, we felt tired with the get-rich-schemes, and the if-you-don’t-write-a-biz-plan-you-will-fail crowd. We knew business bloggers could offer so much more — that is, advice that actually works. Just because something sounds good doesn’t mean it works.

So, we started Trizoko.

Young entrepreneurs are popping up left and right, what do you make of this sector of new business minds? Are we next to change the world with ground-breaking innovations?

I think if you look back to our economy, you’ll see a persistently thriving society. Ford broke new ground with democratizing the automobile in the early 1900s. Fleming brought us Penicillin in the 1920s. William Shockley brought us the transistor in the 1940s. We saw Sputnik in the 1950s. The 8-track in the 1970s. Then the Walkman in the 1980s. Then of course the Internet in the 1990s.

In that way, it’s more of a “passing of the torch”. With a society that’s geared to perpetually generate new ideas, you’re bound to see pretty cool ground-breaking stuff in the coming years from young entrepreneurs, like yourself.

Talk to me about failure? How does it help the entrepreneur come back bigger and better?

One of our mottos: The more failures you have, the more successes you’ll find.

I think most “soon-to-be-entrepreneurs” are wired a little differently from the rest of the world. They’re the overachievers you see in class, the ones getting straight As on their report cards — “the perfectionists,” if you will. They tell themselves that they’ll start businesses when they find the “perfect” idea, so they’ll wait for the “perfect time” to develop their ideas. That rarely, if ever, happens.

Waiting for perfection drives you to procrastinate, which in turn drive you to do nothing. During that time, somebody else is developing your idea. And before you can get in the game, they’ve captured your targeted market — or worse, your idea will become obsolete — as all ideas will.

If you’re wrapped in the whole “perfection” attitude, here’s our biggest recommendation: embrace failure like it ain’t no thang but a chicken wing on a string. Failure drives you to do something. It gets you acting, and it moves you forward.

Apple still improves its computers. Microsoft still improves its operating system. WordPress still improves its blogging software. 37Signals still improves its project management application.

Embrace their mindset: Forget perfection; settle for something that “works”, then continuously improve it for your customers.

What’s your take on this whole “Web 2.0″ concept? Is it a bunch of “blah…blah…” or does it hold any merit?

I wouldn’t call the “Web 2.0″ concept “blah”, but it’s definitely over-hyped. If you’re doing business as a Web 2.0 startup, it’s better that you understand how people work than learning about XHTML/CSS coding. If you look at MySpace, the design sucks according to the so-called Web 2.0 crowd. But, it’s thriving because MySpace understands how people congregate, how people build communities, and what makes people tick.

Ironically, the next great Web 2.0 startup won’t be the most technologically advanced. Instead, it’ll be the one that understands the human mind most.

What’s an entrepreneur to do: read as many entrepreneurship and technical books as possible or just get out there and do it? Or both? What do you read?

My best advice is just to go out there and do it — then use books to guide you as you’re on your way. As you’re doing stuff, you’ll hit roadblocks. You want those roadblocks. Without roadblocks, you’re probably not challenging yourself enough. When you hit those roadblocks, use technical and business books as much as possible to guide you over those barriers.

I think, while well-intended, most business books are just glorified puff pieces. Most tell you your business can’t live without a business plan. That’s false. The overwhelming majority of Inc. 500s (and Fortune 500s) never started with a business plan. A business plan prevents you from doing. If you’re not acting, you’re not progressing.

So as great as they can seem, take most business books with a grain of salt.

As for the books I read, I usually venture out of the “business” genre. A social psychology book can teach you more about management than 99% of management books out there. Likewise, an Abe Lincoln can teach you more about leadership; Thomas Edison can teach you more about entrepreneurship; and college football can teach you more about marketing.

And a definite must for your library: any good economics book.

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