In the next couple weeks, I’ll be off to Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics, where I will research data privacy in new forms of communication among young Chinese.  In particular, I will be following intranet forums in Beijing to look at how information is shared securely, and potentially look into the repercussions when such security is breached.

As an East Asian Studies major at Yale, this type of research comprises a lot of my work.  Sometimes I even write papers about the significance of sports in Chinese society.  So I’ve naturally received a lot of questions this summer about how my research is relevant to what we’re doing at Rapleaf.  I hope the following points shed light upon the relationship between the two.

First, the concerns surrounding privacy and transparency at Rapleaf are surprisingly similar to things I’ve studied in China.  Often the challenges and solutions we’ve encountered here at Rapleaf parallel issues faced by Internet companies in China.  However, while those sites often have to deal with government influence, our single goal is to maximize the privacy and security of our users.  Sometimes this even means applying more stringent privacy policies than American law requires.

Second, Rapleaf has a clear hope for the future.  We at Rapleaf believe that our new approach to information collection, management, ownership, and privacy will have a ripple effect throughout the global Internet ecoystem.  We believe that if we are open about our people search and information aggregation, and allow people control over their information, others will follow suit.  Having data on people has historically been Black Hat; we believe we can change that - and not only in the States.

In my study of China, I’ve found that the most profound and sweeping social movements often begin in places you would least expect.  The tagline of a recent film on contemporary Chinese art captures this: “Sometimes the biggest events are telegraphed by the merest of harbingers.”  At Rapleaf we’re beginning to realize our vision of increased user privacy and control, and hopefully our vision will contribute to increased transparency in user information collection both locally and abroad.

During my time here, I’ve been involved with and contributed to Rapleaf’s attention to detail, strong work ethic, and the desire to always improve on the status quo.

Going in-depth with recruiting

As a college student, I had no idea the lengths that companies would go to find talented college grads. Here at Rapleaf, the process is second to none. We spend hours and hours a day posting jobs, sourcing and emailing candidates, collecting and processing resumes from candidates, recruiters, and referrals, and interviewing/screening. We go through, in a typical month, 5 to 10 times the number of candidates as a typical start-up our size. Not only do we go through more candidates, we put them through more hurdles. Through our unique process of both traditional and alternative methods of screening, we here at Rapleaf do everything we can to ensure that employees are the most dedicated and dynamite engineers. This process is labor intensive and time consuming, but is critical to the success of any business. People need not only the right skills but the right attitude to make a company successful. It is this aspect of the recruiting process that Rapleaf takes extra care, bringing candidates in for in-house interviews to meet the entire team, preceded by multiple phone interviews with various other individuals. By the time a candidate is given an offer, they have been through a very comprehensive interviewing process.

Taking full advantage of Google Adwords

Startups need to take the time and effort to learn about the complexities and nuances of using Google AdWords and implement them into their marketing plans, recruiting, business development – any area of the business requiring publicity. Google AdWords is the most robust keyword and content advertisement engine on the planet. Blogs and literature quickly digress into talk of quality scores, phrase matching and conversion tracking. I’ve found that the most critical aspect is your click through rate (CTR). This is the lynchpin for the internet marketer – it affects your costs, your placement and effectiveness of your online presence. Without it, your ads will suffer in the dregs of Google search pages and your costs will skyrocket. Worst of all, you won’t get your message across to your audience. For an excellent beginners guide to using AdWords, check out Google AdWords Made Easy.

Recognizing and boosting email deliverability

It’s a no-brainer for companies that send mass mailings or newsletters to check the deliverability of the emails they send out.  Not enough startups run these checks themselves. Many companies pay a great deal for others to do it for them; here at Rapleaf we do it ourselves using Deliverymonitor.com, while saving a lot of money at the same time.  This inexpensive service allows you to see what’s being delivered into what ISP’s inboxes and manage the whitelisting process at these ISPs in just a few minutes. Before Rapleaf, I’d never heard of it. After performing the checks and working with it, it is hard to imagine companies not using a service like this. Seemingly trivial, this can mean the difference when trying to reach the right people for your business. Go here to check out what else we do when it comes to boosting email deliverability.

Working at Rapleaf has made me realize just how much is involved in a start-up. The number of projects and changes sitting on everyone’s plate at a given time is enormous. Having heard at the outset that I would have my hands in many pots, I knew there would be a lot on my plate. The depth and variety of these tasks is incredible, and is what keeps Rapleaf on its successful trajectory.

Rapleaf started as a portable reputation platform and a tool to find information about one’s self and others on the social web.  Like many great companies, we’ve evolved over the last two years.   Now we’re embarking on the next evolution that will benefit the greater community while guarding people’s privacy.

Starting today, only you will be able to search your information on Rapleaf.com.  Also, information about consumers will be more secure and only authorized developers/companies will be able to access information about consumers.   We are making these changes in order to better protect consumers.   We strive to: (i) help companies better understand their users in order to provide a better consumer experience, (ii) help consumers find and manage publicly available information about themselves.

Our mission is to enable new services and applications by supplying trusted vendors and businesses with access to data about their consumers that they already have a relationship and interact with.  And we empower consumers by providing them a view into their public online identity, enabling them to manage access to their information.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments.

In my first meeting with my supervisor Vivek, he told me to get ready for a crash course in entrepreneurship.  I figured he was referring to the steep on-the-job learning curve - which he was - but he was also referencing the approximately 5,000 pages of reading thrown my way over the last month.  Readings range from academic textbooks to sales essays, recruiting tips to popular science.  Each book and article provides insight into the skills needed to successfully run a startup.  For this reason, I thought I would share some of my favorites and my takeaway with relation to Rapleaf and startups more generally:

Recruit or Die (Chris Resto, Ian Ybarra, & Ramit Sethi):  I figured this book was an appropriate place to start: recruiting.  Three young authors provide an insightful look into how to compete with established brands in recruiting, and keeping, the best talent.

Takeaway:  Always recruit.  This is a mindset, and something we’ve certainly adopted here at Rapleaf.  When you’re a startup you can’t afford to recruit seasonally (i.e. when college recruiting fairs occur) or when you’re in need of a specific position.  Instead, you need to constantly seek the best talent in the form of both active recruits (those looking for jobs) and passive recruits (those who think they’re happy…until they hear about an exciting new opportunity).  Also adhere to the concrete recommendations such as taking recruits to a basketball game or sending a personalized card welcoming each employee.  These small touches show employees their value.

The Entrepreneurial Venture (Ed. William A. Sahlman, Howard H. Stevenson, Michal J. Roberts, Amar Bhidé):  The meatiest of our readings so far.  Essentially an academic textbook, the essays in this collection are intended to guide you from concept to product.

Takeaway:  For me, the most valuable lesson from this text was purely psychological: the notion of risk.  At Rapleaf we’re truly blazing new trails and this comes with a requisite level of danger.  The essays in this text stress that entrepreneurs take on an inordinate amount of risk in the economy, and are rewarded (or punished) accordingly.  There’s also valuable advice on writing business models and plans, but as I recently discovered, such documents are becomingly increasingly outdated in the tech world.

Don’t Make Me Think (Steve Krug):  Now we’re getting to the interesting stuff.  How to have visitors use, and actually enjoy, your website.  Krug, an expert in website usability, provides concise tips on how to increase users’ time on your site through maximal clarity and minimal clutter.

Takeaway:  Too many useful tips to include in a short takeaway!  He boasts that the book can be read in one plane ride, and with that brevity, it would be a mistake for any web startup or brand looking to improve its site not to read Krug in its entirety.  But the most important point is to think like a user.  We don’t read websites like we read books…our eyes jump around the page and look for specific keywords or images.  Websites should optimize for this type of audience, focusing upon ease of use and navigation.

The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell):  This book became a huge hit due to Gladwell’s unique ability to synthesize dry academic articles into exceedingly interesting vignettes.  He explores how products and ideas spread between people. If you like this, you should also read its predecessor, Everett M. Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations.

Takeaway:  This book is really instructive in terms of marketing and sales.  At Rapleaf, we always discuss the idea that every connection is a potential company evangelist.  This is particularly important in customer service.  Even the customers that seem most upset with your brand or product can become your biggest allies when treated honestly and with respect.  Gladwell’s example of Lois Weisburg, the nondescript woman who seemingly knows everyone, is instructive in this case.  Sometimes the biggest influencers are not marketing managers—they’re everyday people like Mrs. Weisburg.

Bit Literacy (Mark Hurst):  This book provides an interesting, and often surprising, look at the inefficiencies brought on by our age of information. As Hurst points out, tools like RSS feeds and even email can be useful, but also paralyzing.  Hurst outlines various methods to make information a tool rather than an obstacle to increased productivity.

Takeaway:  Startups have to optimize!  Rapleaf has adopted a lot of Hurst’s tips both company-wide and individually. I agree with his recommendations that you check your email on set occasions, never treat your inbox as your task list, and prioritize digital tasks according to weight.  Some things are over the top– Hurst’s even adopted the DVORAK keyboard in lieu of the inefficient QWERTY–but generally the advice is to optimize your information flow, and never mistake activity for efficiency.

The Four Hour Workweek (Tim Ferriss):  Ferriss has become something of a counter-corporate icon in the past year, sparking interest among employees, entrepreneurs, and the unemployed alike.  The appeal stems from Ferriss’ conception of the “New Rich,” essentially referring to those who refuse to slave 9-5 and defer enjoyment to retirement.

Takeaway:  Ferris provides some interesting tips on maximizing efficiency and profit for any company, but I’ve learned more by exploring his marketing strategies.  Before the release of his book, he brilliantly befriended prominent bloggers who then posted about his work upon release.  It was this use of UGC that propelled his book to best-selling status.  At Rapleaf, we’re constantly seeking new methods to increase brand awareness without spending advertising dollars.  Ferris’ strategic networking provides an interesting example of how to increase publicity with a minimal budget. [His marketing of the book is not the focus of the book.  Independently of the book, you make a good point, but make sure you stay on point and highlight some of the things the book stresses – being more efficient, think in terms of opportunity costs and set a value for your time and find someone to do it cheaper, etc.]

The Starfish and The Spider (Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom):  Their one sentence summary perfectly captures the driving force behind this book: “If you cut off a spider’s head, it dies; if you cut off a starfish’s leg it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish.”  Now apply this comparison to companies and you’ll see the future of companies, and not only in the high-tech space.

Takeaway:  This book is primarily interesting on a theoretical level, as it reveals the inherent advantages of decentralized communities versus traditional, top-down corporations.  However, there are concrete examples here as well.  At Rapleaf we use a community-edited internal wiki system to track changes in the company.  We also have an open team structure, and as I blogged about before, we manage up.  It’s these tools, according to Brafman and Beckstorm, which insure that names like Wikipedia and Digg will define the next incarnation of corporate America.

These books provide insight into the way we do things at Rapleaf, and I hope the brief descriptions above are helpful for any startup.  If there’s one theme throughout all these books, it’s that entrepreneurship is primarily about risk and release.  Risk is self-explanatory.  And by release, I mean the entrepreneur’s ability to release attachment to habits and notions that decrease efficiency.  In some cases, this means a willingness to let go of the founding vision or business model of a company.  In others, such as the examples in Four Hour Workweek and The Starfish and the Spider, it simply means relinquishing control to the community.  Sometimes the best companies, these books reveal, are able to eventually run themselves.  From what I’ve read and what I’ve seen, for entrepreneurs, particularly those who initially took on so much risk, this release can be the most difficult part.

Ever since arriving here, Ben and I have been amazed by the type of things we see and learn from day to day. Having worked in several large cities before- Philadelphia, London, and Boston - San Francisco is like nowhere else I’ve ever experienced. The difference is in the thinking, foreign to these former centers of ‘innovation’, where big business and static products stamp out the new; radical ideas are fostered and encouraged here in Silicon Valley. The foresight of the people in this area has been driving the evolution of the internet for years now, and I am getting to see for the first time just how incredible it really is.

Having worked for a tech consultant firm in Boston, I was exposed to several different areas of tech – but this exposure was next to nothing like the inundation of technologies and startup ideas I have heard about in my month in San Francisco.  Outside of Philadelphia, working for a pharmaceutical marketing company was an entirely different experience, with barely a trip outside of my cubicle. No social events were on my agenda, no launch parties for new pharmaceutical companies or drug lines. The tech industry is filled with an energy that is simply not a part of any other industry. London was perhaps the most difficult, watching person after person walk by with their head down, uninspired and void of any gusto, almost like an army of clones marching around up and down Victoria Street.

The subway systems are also a good representation of their respective cities. Boston, clinging to an outdated and rickety system, is unreliable at best. On the Tube in London, perpetually late and over-crowded trains are bursting with people covered in blank stares, lacking any form of inspiration or zeal. The BART of San Francisco is the exact opposite – filled with all kinds of new and different energies no big city in the world can offer. The newest of gadgets, brainstorming of new ideas, eclectic mixes of people – all aboard each and every train. Efficient and on time, the BART is home to more than a few ideas that have changed the face of technology.

For over five years, I’ve read and used CNet forums. They are the most comprehensive site on the internet when it comes to product reviews and downloadable software, one of the first reliable user-generated content sites I can remember. Their office? A block away. Never in a million years did I think I would be working down the street from their office, just a few hundred feet away from people who existed to me only in cyberspace before. For the first time, it dawned on me how rooted the tech ‘movement’ is here, and how that affects the mindset of the people. Here, ideas are supported and followed through with until they are perfected. And then – the launch. An unpredictable, exciting and learning experience for everyone (speaking of which, I’m attended the Firefox 3 launch party last Friday).

The environment at Rapleaf, which seems more and more like a microcosm of the tech industry here, is drastically more diverse than the traditional places I mentioned. Everyone here has come from such a unique path that it’s hard to think that we’re all working towards the same goal. It only adds to the dynamic atmosphere that is San Francisco. Both the pace and the workload of Rapleaf far outstrip anything mature companies have to offer. I used to sit around on Friday afternoons and wait for 4:30PM to roll around. Now, working till 8PM on a Friday seems early. Long weeks are followed religiously by ‘networking’ events that can last well past 3AM. How entrepreneurial.

It is an exciting time to be working here in San Francisco – feelings of innovation seem to permeate every aspect of the city. And definitely inspirational to be around.

During my internship here at Rapleaf, I’ve discovered that it is crucial to have very high standards when recruiting.  Not only are you finding the best, but this is also a great way to retain employees from the start.  Our CEO Auren has written about our desire to hire only great candidates, not just good ones.  And recently he’s been stressing the value of actually underselling an offer to insure incoming employees are completely committed to the culture and direction of a company.

A Wall Street Journal article found that companies large and small are increasingly looking at employee retention as a measure of success.  They’re being reactive, in a sense, by linking executive bonuses to employee retention.  I don’t think startups can afford to do this.  One of my takeaways is that it’s important that any company, regardless of size or industry, be proactive and set expectations from the beginning and maintain expectations (see Auren’s advice in the links above).  By ensuring that your employees are committed to the culture and direction of a company, you don’t have to worry about retention quarter after quarter.

Despite being in a ‘revolving door’ industry for talent, as the tech industry can be, I’ve seen that we’ve been pretty fortunate to retain the best people, and I can vouch that a lot of it has to do with setting expectations from the start.