Kaizen-ing as a way of life
Nineteen years ago in January 1997 I was fortunate to attend a 30-day Total Quality Management (TQM) program in Japan, sponsored by the Association for Overseas Technical Scholarship (AOTS). Our group of 40 managers and executives visited Osaka and Tokyo to meet various Japanese companies like Kirin Brewery, Japan Airlines, and others to learn about TQM, quality circles, and Kaizen.
ˈkīzən/
noun
Definition: A Japanese business philosophy of continuous improvement of working practices, personal efficiency, etc.
What I have learned has allowed me to maintain a running philosophy of continuous improvement, both in my personal and professional life — trying to learn from mistakes and lessons learned. Two examples I am highlighting today are interviewing and fundraising.
- One of my personal goals coming to the US 18 years ago was to get better at presenting. I found interviewing to be a perfect vehicle to try different stories, learning from what worked, and make the next interview better. I signed up to interview with as many companies as I could, probably in the few hundreds, by the time I finished my MBA @ Tepper/Carnegie Mellon.
- I tried so many versions — from chronological, to telling an industry story. Should I focus on the sales/marketing experience pre b-school, or the internship on Wall Street? Should I pursue the general management 2-year Corporate America program or deep-dive into a smaller, more hands-on work with a start-up? At the end, I learned to be comfortable with the story I was telling, and after all, things happen for a reason, joined the Sillicon Valley office of Alibaba.com in its early years.
- Fundraising. Oh- fundraising! Probably one of the most frustrating, stressful, and rewarding times in building 71lbs.com (I’ll write a longer, more detailed future post on this topic). After pitching 71lbs a few dozen times via coffee meetings, pitch competitions, cold emailing, et al, with no success, I took fundraising as a personal challenge. Instead of pitching a Powerpoint presentation, we decided to build a pre-beta site that we could show to potential investors and prospect customers. The first couple of customers signed up. Some investors showed signs of interest. A few more customers came in. The first checks from outside investors came in from Kevin, Mark, and William! (Yes!)
- More pitching and more ‘this is interesting, but let me know when you achieved X’. A big milestone for us was getting accepted into Excelerate Labs (now Techstars Chicago). The last 30 days of the 3-month program was all about preparing for Demo Day, in front of a few hundred investors at the house of Blues in Chicago. Sam Yagan and Troy Henikoff would grade us after every pitch, and we were always a 5 or 6 out of 10. One night I practiced for a few hours in front of a mirror while recording every practice pitch. Hand gestures, facial expressions, voice intonations. Next day Sam gave us a 9!
We ended up closing our seed round shortly after Demo Day. We put our head down, got more customers, and built our team. A year later, we closed our Series A round. It’s been a long journey of too many No’s, and a few Yes’. Always trying to learn from the rejections, tweaking and improving our message to present better the next one around. It’s a never-ending journey. As the good saying in this entrepreneurial venture goes, Always Be Raising.
-J
Always working on being a better version of myself.
