Interview with Proposable Founder James Kappen from SproutBox on Vimeo.

I recently interviewed Proposable founder James Kappen about the upcoming launch of Proposable, the current Sprout-in-development. Proposable is a web-based proposal system that will soon be revolutionizing the way sales people interact with their partners, co-workers, and prospects. For updates and more info about the launch, visit http://www.proposable.com.

In my role in business development for Sproutbox I see a lot of entrepreneurs and business plans – some good, some not-so-good. Rather than give entrepreneurs a laundry list of suggestions on how to make a good application, I figured I’d borrow questions from one of my favorite authors on entrepreneurship, Amar Bhide.

Bhide believes(and I agree) that there are really three major questions that every entrepreneur must answer:

1. Are my goals well defined? This is the biggest thing I look at when I’m looking at a business plan, and also the place where I often see major mistakes. If you haven’t clearly defined your goals, even in broad terms, then you aren’t there yet with your business. We use our unique application process for new sprouts to review how an entrepreneur has thought about their goals. When I read a business plan or talk to an entrepreneur I’m usually looking for a few highlighted points under this question. For example, does the entrepreneur show that they have their heart in their business, but do they balance that with the need to earn revenue? Does the entrepreneur have a tolerance for risk? Does the entrepreneur know what it means to be scrappy to focus on the goals at hand? At Sproutbox we look for highly dedicated entrepreneurs who want to make money and will stay focused on the goals of their business in order to keep moving forward.

2. Do I have the right strategy? This is really one of my biggest jobs at the box. When an entrepreneur gets going they often haven’t been able to clearly define what the strategy is, how they’re going to grow the business and how they intend to sustain that growth. Sure, I’m biased, but this is one of the best things that Sproutbox offers our Sprouts. Once selected, we take long hard looks at the businesses, their market opportunities, the costs of customer retention and acquisition, and how, based on our experience, they can experience off-the-charts growth. We want our Sprouts to not just succeed, but to dominate their markets, so getting this right is unbelievably important.

3. Can I execute the strategy? At our foundation this is how we work with our Sprouts. There aren’t many good ideas that can be executed without a great team. We realize that our Sprouts don’t have the resources to build and launch their software on their own, and that’s the central service we provide in exchange for equity. Once the product is built, do you have the skills to build an organization and grow market share? If you can’t confidently answer this question, you may want to think about adding a co-founder with complimentary skills. At Sproutbox, our job is to look at an entrepreneur’s answers to these questions and to help them achieve their dreams via their responses. We’re here to help build, guide, and shape businesses for success.

So, have you thought about these questions? More importantly, do you have what it takes to make a new business grow? We hope so, and we hope you’ll apply to build your business with us. Applications are online at http://www.sproutbox.com/apply and will be open until December 5, 2009.

Sometimes designing a logo and branding a product can be difficult for a designer to grasp. Honestly, even with a decade of experience, I still struggle sometimes. But like all good designers must do, I’ve learned to buckle down and keep working to hone in on the process.

The first step to creating a great brand or logo, is devising a memorable name. It needs to be something simple, that grasps attention, but most importantly, it needs to represent the product or company. One way to brainstorm names is to write down words that describe the product. Free associating these words can help you come up with a name that captures the essence of the brand. Trust me, eventually the right name will come to you.

The second step is to sketch out some logos. This is the big one. I know it’s easy to just jump in and start working in Photoshop or Illustrator, but it’s really helpful to get your ideas down on paper first. This step will save you a lot of time and headaches down the road. Your drawing ability doesn’t matter, at this stage even stick figures will help. You just need to get the ideas moving in your mind.

For my third step, I start selecting fonts. This can be the third or fourth step, it’s up to you, but I prefer to get it out of the way. Font selection and typography can be a huge weakness for designers, I know sometimes it is for me. These tips might help you with selecting a font that captures the essence of the brand.

I highly recommend getting a font management application. They are very useful, especially when you have a large font library like me. For Apple I recommend Linotype FontExplorer X, and for Windows I recommend getting an Apple… Zing! Just kidding, I recommend Linotype for Windows as well. It’s awesome, it makes it easy to add fonts, and it has a set creation feature for organizing individual projects. Once you get your fonts added to your library, just start adding ones you like to your project set. It doesn’t matter if you use them or not, but it will help with your design process. If you are having trouble finding fonts you like, there are tons of free font sites out there.

Here are just a few I’d recommend.

• http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
• http://www.dafont.com/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/category/fonts/

On to the forth step: color. Color can be just as tricky as fonts, especially for projects that need to be both a print piece and a website. My recommendation for designers who need to make a logo that can straddle the line between print and web is to design first in CMYK and move it over to RGB later. The theory behind this approach is the same one that applies to resolution in images: “garbage in, garbage out”. You don’t want to res images up, you want to start with quality. The same principle applies in color. Good print colors are harder to hone in on, you need to get the hard stuff set up and move to a more forgiving color range, i.e. RGB.

Fifth, we get to the meat of the project: bringing it all together and creating your artwork. Depending on your skill set, you may find its better to keep the logo fairly simple. Often times it’s easy to get carried away and design a logo with a lot to it. However, you may find that the most simple logos are the most effective. The best rule I ever learned was k.i.s.s. “keep it simple stupid”. Just because your company is selling widgets doesn’t mean you should show that widget in the logo. Using a font and a nice color scheme can be just as a effective as a graphic.

Finally we get our end result, a completed logo and brand. In the case of CheddarGetter it took lots of meetings and work to get a final result that everyone was happy with.