Punchbowl Blog

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO, @mattdouglas

I am excited to announce that Punchbowl will host the first ever Punchbowl “Mixer” event. This exclusive event will bring together entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, social media marketers, and others who help make Boston a great place to build a web company. Punchbowl Mixer will be held on Thursday, November 11, 2010, from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at The Estate in Boston, MA.

Punchbowl Mixer is an exclusive event and attendees must be on the RSVP list to be admitted. Guests will enjoy free drinks, special giveaways, and other exciting surprises. Punchbowl Mixer is a ‘can’t miss’ event for anyone connected to the Boston web community.

Click on the envelope below to view the invitation and RSVP.

Punchbowl Mixer comes on the heels of our acquisition of the Punchbowl.com domain and a fresh, new look for the site. In addition, we recently unwrapped the unparalleled Digital Invitation Studio—a beautiful collection of free, pre-packaged online stationery sets for events and celebrations, complete with invitations, envelopes, liners, rubber stamps, and postage.

Punchbowl is proud to be a pioneer in the web community of Boston and we’re excited to host Punchbowl Mixer to celebrate the accomplishments of those who help make Boston and the surrounding areas a great place to build a web company.

I hope to see you there!

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

Last week was a big week for the Punchbowl team. After many months of hard work, we unwrapped our new Digital Invitation Studio. To celebrate, I decided to make a fun treat for the team: delicious chocolate cupcakes!

To lighten things up and give the team a well-deserved laugh, I decided to top the cupcakes with edible faces that I ordered from our partner, Oriental Trading Company. The cupcakes ended up being a big hit, and they were really fun to make.

It’s great to work at a place where you can work hard, accomplish great things, and take a few minutes out of the day to stop and enjoy some cupcakes.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

As you probably know by now, it’s been an exciting week for Punchbowl. We announced that we reached 1 million registered users, we acquired the domain Punchbowl.com and will now be known as Punchbowl, and we added Michael Waxman-Lenz, the former GM of AmericanGreetings.com to our Board of Directors. You can read about our news on TechCrunch.

But that’s not all the excitement we’ve had this week at Punchbowl. As if things couldn’t get any better…earlier this week we had a visit from two representatives from Cadbury who walked into our office with a mysterious box. They explained to us that they were giving us an entire box of Swedish fish as some kind of promotion. They set the box down and walked out the door, without much more explanation as to what was going on. With excitement and curiosity, we opened the box and to our delight found hundreds of Swedish fish and a simple note that read: “These are Swedish fish. Please eat them.”

Naturally we are all wondering WHY? Is this part of some bigger marketing campaign? Will there be something else to follow? Regardless, thanks to Cadbury from the entire Punchbowl team. We love our Swedish fish!

Once in a while we like to use the company blog to post something fun (or unusual). This is one of those cases. We’re excited to present to you an informative (and amusing) blog post that we asked one of our software developers to write. You’ll see why we asked him to write this blog post in a moment — and hopefully you’ll learn a little bit of what it’s like here at Punchbowl HQ. So sit back, and enjoy this rare treat: one of our great software developers contributes to the company blog:

This post written by Darren T., Software Developer

It recently came to the attention of my peers at Punchbowl that I’d never seen the movie Office Space. It was fortunate that they were sitting at the time because Office Space is one of the most often-quoted movies at Punchbowl HQ. Needless to say, they were shocked and saw this as a grave deficiency in my appreciation of pop culture references in the office.They then forced—I mean, asked—me to watch the movie in my spare time and write a blog post comparing the culture of Punchbowl with that of Initech, the fictional software company in the movie. I started my assignment by watching Office Space three times in one week in order for the full hilarity of it to sink in. I’ve had plenty of time since then to compare and contrast the company cultures. Here’s my analysis:

Merit-based social structure
One of the most obvious differences between the cultures of Initech and Punchbowl is the relationship between our job titles and our social structure. At Initech, upper-management does not mingle naturally with other employees, and they are given special privileges that separate them socially from those they manage.At Punchbowl, scarce resources are distributed based upon need and the good of the team as a whole. Our CEO, for example, does not have a designated parking spot. Similarly, desks and locations in office are distributed by need, rather than role-based privilege. For example, offices are given to employees who make lots of phone calls, to minimize their disruption to others.

Openness and transparency
At many companies like Initech, “transparency” is an empty buzzword thrown around to make it seem as though the company values open communication. In Office Space, the employees of Initech are clearly not granted insight into the workings of the company at any level of the organization. In fact, there’s an apparent disconnect between the values of “the management” and the rest of the employees, as exemplified by the shock they experience when they realize that Peter, the movie’s protagonist, has been offered a substantial pay raise and promotion immediately after admitting to the company that he does as little work as possible each day. Not only does it reflect on the values of Initech’s management team, it also shows how little the employees understand the true values (if you can call them that) of Initech’s upper-management.

By contrast, we do several things at Punchbowl to foster open communication. Case in point: we have weekly lunch meetings where Matt (our CEO) gives us status updates and shares pertinent Punchbowl news. This meeting also consists of a presentation that covers a new topic each week. Topics range from site metrics to new features to marketing—the idea is to inform employees about an interesting topic they might not otherwise have known about and give them an opportunity to ask questions or challenge an established mindset. Everyone is encouraged to contribute — even our interns.

Results-based workplace
At Punchbowl, employees are evaluated by the results we produce from our work. If you’re not delivering, you will not be rewarded. Conversely, if you do great work and cooperate with everyone else, little else will keep you from the good graces of everyone in the company, including upper-management. This makes it a great environment for driven, self-motivating employees (”start-up” mentality), and it’s a start contrast from what we see of Initech in Office Space.The events that take place in Office Space make it abundantly clear that Initech’s management is far more interested in conformity with organizational minutiae than real productivity. For example, at Initech, it’s a big deal if an employee doesn’t use the correct cover letter in the “TPS” reports. This is exemplified in the opening scene of the movie where Peter is lectured multiple times about the need to use the company’s newly designated cover letter for his (seemingly meaningless) “TPS” report. This is despite the fact that he had already identified and corrected the error.

Friendship and camaraderie
At Initech, everyone seems to believe their job is more important than others and the only clear traces of camaraderie are the result of bonding over how much they all dislike their management—a tenuous kind of friendship at best. Watching the movie, we get the sense that when push comes to shove, everyone just looks out for themselves. Even if they wanted to support each other more directly, it seems that the lack of communication between managers and other employees would be prohibitive to change.

By contract, we have a pretty tight crew at Punchbowl. We get to know each other because we eat lunch together every day. We tell jokes, share details of our personal lives, and share in each others celebrations. What’s more, we share a solid sense of both collective and personal involvement in Punchbowl’s mission. We’re all “in this together” and seek to support each other graciously. We all know the importance of each others’ roles, and we seek to stay in sync with each others’ roles, tasks, and responsibilities.

The bottom line
Office Space resonates with employees because it provides a chilling reflection of the sense of alienation and frustrating inefficiency that so often plagues large organizations, with their seemingly endless expanses of office space and dearth of human connection. Initech represents the kind of working world that I always dreaded becoming a part of as I grew up. I wouldn’t last six months in Initech without becoming overloaded with boredom and angst. I can’t work well in an environment where I’m not encouraged to connect and cooperate freely with my coworkers. I vastly prefer the kind of close-knit meritocracy that’s more commonly found at early-stage start-up companies like Punchbowl, and I consider myself very lucky to be part of such a great start-up.

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO

I believe that every great company should have a high-level strategy that can be explained in two minutes or less. A company’s strategy is the blueprint to success, and a great strategy helps connect every single employee to the vision of the company’s growth.

Anyone who works at Punchbowl Software has heard me talk about our company’s strategy countless times. During any significant meeting, I’ll typically repeat our strategy complete with visuals on the whiteboard. Fairly often in these meetings, I’ll ask someone to explain our strategy in their own words. I believe the best way to learn is to put the concepts in your own words — it’s a powerful thing to listen to someone else describe the company’s strategy. No one is immune from being asked to repeat the strategy — from the developers to the financial people, and even the intern (sorry Jill).

Most around me would agree that I repeat our strategy a lot — probably to a fault. In fact, it’s become a company joke to make fun of the “pyramid” that I draw on the white-board. To me, this just tells me that I’ve done a good job at getting everyone on the same page.

So why do I repeat the strategy so often? Well, here are my top 5 reasons to repeat your strategy:

1. Get everyone on the same page: Whether your company is big or small, it’s important to make sure everyone understands the high-level strategy. Repetition is one way to make this happen.
2. Build ownership: The more each individual in the company feels ownership of the strategy, the more buy-in each person will feel in the company’s overall success. That’s a great way to build team unity.
3. Guide small decisions: There are countless small decisions your employees make everyday. If everyone truly understands the strategy, then all of these decisions will be made with your objectives in mind.
4. Keep your employees on message: Each employee is a window to the outside world. As you repeat your strategy, you’re also helping shape how your employees talk about the company with the outside world. Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool — and strategy is an important part of your overall message.
5. Impart your vision: As I’ve written before, great managers are the ones that can step away from the office for a week at a time and know that the team is moving the company forward. As CEO, my vision and the company’s strategy are closely aligned. That makes it easier to take time off and re-charge.

And for all of the smart Alec’s out there — I’ll spare you the trouble. No, I’m not going to repeat this blog post. But you might want to read it again and ask yourself — can I repeat the strategy of the project/company I’m working on in less than two minutes? Why or why not? Perhaps a few more repetitions of the strategy are in order.

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO

As a CEO of a startup, I believe it’s really important to stop what you are doing and take some time out to say “thank you” to your employees. After all, they work long hours and are often under a deadline. So how do you show your appreciation?

What I like to do is pick an afternoon to take the team out to lunch and then choose an activity together. In the past, I’ve taken the team to an IMAX movie (dinosaurs) and we’ve also carved pumpkins during the fall. These days always make for great memories, and they help bring the team together.

This past Friday, I gathered everyone in the office for a quick impromptu meeting in the morning. I told them how much I appreciated how hard everyone had been working — and I announced that it was “Summer Day.” We closed the office at noon, and I took the team to have lunch (at a great Asian restaurant in Natick). After lunch, I arranged to have a group brewing session at a local “brew your own beer” place. We had a great time.

For those of you who haven’t taken the time recently to show your team how much you appreciate them, allow me to provide you with a few benefits of planning an afternoon out of the office:

1. There is no better way for team members to get to know each other than in a non-work situation. It fosters team unity that lasts.
2. An activity out of the office provides a shared experience that will be remembered for years to come.
3. Invariably, humor will come from these events — and that’s a great antidote to relieving some everyday stress.
4. A small investment in time and money will pay back many times over. Employees who love to work at the company are priceless.
5. It’s a great way to enforce that your company believes in a healthy work/life balance.

We had a great time brewing beer together, and we’re all looking forward to bottling and tasting our creation in a few weeks (that will happen outside of work hours). Here’s a great shot of a few of our employees working together to brew the perfect beer.

This post written by Sean Conta, Founder & CXO

Is there an unwritten rule about how quickly one should respond to an email?

I received an email from my brother today with a simple, unimportant question that was anything but urgent.

Here at Punchbowl we have continual access to our email. Not only do we use it in the standard manner, we use Gmail chat to send quick notes and links as well.  So while some people check their email maybe a few times a day at their job, we check our email about 6,000 times a day (actually it just updates itself).

So when I received this email from my brother I could have responded in about 3 seconds. But I didn’t. I thought “that’s just a little too quick”. Is it me or is there a sort of grace period that you apply (depending on the person and the subject) when responding to emails? On the other side of the coin, have you ever received a response to an email waaay too quickly?

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

Our marketing intern started yesterday (Monday morning). More on that in a future blog post…

In preparation for her arrival, I set up an old Dell computer for her on late Friday afternoon. While I’m currently an avid Mac user–and have been for at least five years now–at one point in my life I used PCs for both work and home.

I didn’t think setting up the Windows-based computer would be a big deal. I figured out where all of the cords went, and everything looked good — but then the monitor wouldn’t turn on. What could I have done wrong? Well, plugging it in might have been a start. Gimme a break though… it was Friday afternoon and that cord was mysteriously missing from my pile.

But what takes the cake is that once I got everything up and running I noticed that the task bar was up at the top of the screen, instead of at the bottom where most people are used to seeing it. (Note the blue task bar at the top of this image):

I know I’ve made this change before on my previous PCs but could not figure out how to do it. A couple of other people in our office tried (even one of our Mac engineers!) with no luck. It was pretty hilarious to watch a few people try to move the task bar without success.

For the record, you move the task bar by *left-clicking* and slightly dragging the mouse…. Ah, Windows.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

I’ve been at MyPunchbowl for almost five months and I’m happy to say that I finally ordered my business cards–yesterday. You might be wondering what took so long…

It goes back to my first or second day when I asked Matt about my phone. Until only recently the company had just one phone with one line. Unfathomable, right? But with only a handful of employees, most of whom had no need for a phone, there wasn’t really much need for more than one line. And as an internet company, shouldn’t we do most of our business online anyway? Matt thought about my question, looked at me and said, “Now you know what it’s like to work at a start-up.”

While I’ve been able to manage without my own line, it was clear that we needed to resolve the issue of the phones. But who would do it? We don’t have a dedicated office manager to take care of these things. Should the CEO spend his time on this issue? Or the engineers whose time is precious. Somehow I ended up with the undesirable task of figuring out the company’s phone system.

After considering landlines, cell phones, and other services, we ended up choosing VoIP with Packet8. So far so good. We’re still working out the kinks regarding the number of lines we actually need, conference call needs, etc.  But it is nice to finally have a phone at my desk!

And I’m still learning what it means to work at a start-up but having this experience early on prepared me for what to expect.

This post written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO

How do you judge your success? Do you value how others view your success or are you content with your own measuring stick for your accomplishments? I’ve been reading a book recently that deals with these questions, and I believe it’s an important concept for a startup like MyPunchbowl to consider. The book introduces the concept of an “Inner Scorecard” vs. an “Outer Scorecard.” Here’s my quick take on how this concept applies to our daily work on MyPunchbowl:

Inner Scorecard: How we judge ourselves, relative to our own goals:

• Satisfaction of our employees (in their daily work)
• Traffic and metrics relative to our plan (are we hitting our monthly and quarterly numbers?)
• Funding based on how much we need to run the company (Just enough and not too much)
• Costs and revenue according to our plan

Outer Scorecard: How we judge ourselves, relative to others:

• Employee satisfaction at other companies (Google has free lunch everyday!)
• Traffic comparisons to other companies (using tools such as Alexa or Compete)
• Press coverage and general internet buzz of MyPunchbowl relative to other sites (e.g. how many times your competitor appears on TechCrunch)
• Comparison to other companies who have raised money (e.g. How the ^%@&# did Chacha raise another $30M??)

Here’s my take: if you are a person (or company) who constantly judges your success based on comparisons to others, my guess is that you spend a lot of your time unhappy. I try to have a clearly defined “Inner Scorecard” so that we measure our success by our own metrics. It’s fine to compare yourself to others once in a while, but if it dictates your decisions, it’s probably a sign that your internal goals are not clear enough.

So keep your head down, your goals clear, and stop judging yourself by what everyone else is doing. Take care of business using your Inner Scorecard, and you’ll be happier and more successful.