Cool Cleveland's CIO gets some answers, has more questions

Find-A-Way is a tech and audio startup in Chargin Falls that created the new Playaway digital audio books. Recently, they were roasted by Wall Street Journal personal technology writers Walter Mossberg and Katherine Boehret the week before the big national Consumer Electronics Showcase in Las Vegas. A few months ago, The Plain Dealer did a series on Find-A-Way, focusing on the founders of the company. But in my personal opinion, none of the coverage had been as interesting —or as revealing— as The Playaway Blog. Since October of last year, Find-A-Way's marketing guy Mike Belsito had been reacting to the press coverage, as well as reflecting on a weekly basis about working for a startup. As Cool Cleveland's CIO and in charge of my own blog, Brewed Fresh Daily, I was fascinated to talk with Belsito about his blog and the company he works for. We met at one of those convenient chain coffee outlets, and immediately started talking about our local favorite...

George Nemeth: I do like Talkies because of the free Wi-Fi thing.

Mike Belsito: Yeah, I lived in Ohio City for two years – I just came from Case’s business school. That’s where I did all of my homework, my papers. Everything. Studying. I always found libraries to be a little bit intimidating to get stuff done... but I bought a set of headphones and went to the coffee shop.

It’s definitely a different environment. The energy is very different at a library. Libraries are quiet, but sometimes you just need activity around you to get your thinking going.

MB: Particularly for me. It’s different for a lot of people. I have friends that can’t study anywhere but a library. But for me, I have to have something – some kind of background noise going on.

I think there's a generational difference, too, though.

MB: You think so?

Younger generations are more acclimated to that kind of noise in the background—like the music in a coffee shop.

MB: Right.

I was reading on your blog that that your title...

MB: is Find-A-Wayer?

Yeah. Find-A-Way is the company.

MB: Right.

Play-Away is the product.

MB: Right.

But then your title is Find-A-Wayer.

MB: Literally Find-A-Wayer. As in player.

Pronounced Playa.

MB: My business card literally says Mike Belsito, Find-A-Wayer. But what I thought was kind of cool was that Christopher Celeste, who is one of the founders—his card says Christopher Celeste, Find-A-Wayer, not Founding Partner. It felt cool to come to a place—and keeping in mind that I was one of the first fulltime hires aside from the founders—here it sort of felt like people saw each other as equals. So at least their input was equal. I’m not a founder. I don’t have any equity in the company. But it’s a fun place to work. It has a perky personality that fits me personally. I came right from an MBA at Weatherhead, and you know, a place where...

I hate to say this, but you’re not dressed like your typical – you know. (Laughing)

MB: No. That’s the thing. That’s exactly right. I mean, I never felt like a typical MBA type person.

Right.

MB: I didn't feel like most of my friends there. You know? They were the typical come to class in your golf shirt tucked into their khakis or Dockers and it was just never me. And my background before coming to CASE was in sports and entertainment. So I mean even having that sort of nontraditional background, it wasn’t finance or accounting or anything like that. Finding a place where it wasn’t necessarily business-as-usual. Where things were sort of a little quirky. The company just fit me as a person.

So it seems more in line with the kind of culture a dot com would have...

MB: Very much so. Literally the term Find-A-Wayer is – I mean, if you could put it into definition, it’s somebody that can get things done. For any startup, I mean whether it’s a dot com, or just any kind of small business, that’s a common type of personality. You need to have that kind of personality or else you’ll never be successful, but it was very different than some of the places I was looking to go prior to graduating from CASE where it was just a corporate attitude, corporate atmosphere, suit and tie kind of place. I knew that kind of place wasn’t going to be for me, so...

Where did you get your undergrad?

MB: Bowling Green State University.

Are you originally from Cleveland?

MB: I’m originally from North Royalton. Went to Bowling Green. I was studying sport management. I had a slew of internships in college, all of it in sports. I worked for the athletic department at Bowling Green, but I also worked in the athletic department for Wagner College in Staten Island, New York. And for U. Mass I worked for a sports marketing firm in New Jersey. Back here I took an internship with IMG. So I had the opportunity to get some experience while I was in college. I got to see some things. I mean, in four years I spent at least six months in four different states. Even though that’s not a whole lot of time.

But still you get a sense of the city...

MB: I decided that what I wanted to do ultimately, at least at that time, was to be a Division I college athletic director. And in my mind, a lot of the people that were sport manager majors were going right to grad school because that’s kind of what you did in the sports world. You get your career path. Yeah. Sort of. You get your Master’s Degree in sports management. Well, I didn’t want to do that though. I sort of saw being in an athletic director as more of a – having more of a business function than sports specifically. You needed to be a good business person, so I wanted to go to business school. And I wanted to go right after college. Granted, it’s not like the traditional path. Most business schools didn’t even necessarily want to talk to me at the time. Just because I was 21 years old, trying to get into a program where the average age was 27. I got into a couple pretty good programs and ended up going to business school right after college.

Sounds like you were serious about it.

MB: Yeah. The funny thing is I was serious about wanting to become an athletic director.

Right.

MB: But then as soon as I left the MBA program, I’m not even in a sports position now.

Do you regret that at all?

MB: No. I had an experience, right? In internships through college, through grad school, through business school—it was okay, but it wasn’t what I was really looking for. And I’d taken the position, kind of hoping that it would turn into a fulltime job after graduating. When I got there, the atmosphere didn't feel right. The people I was working with were – I mean they were great in their own right, but it just didn't feel like a good fit for me. It made me realize that it wasn’t sports that I was looking for. I wanted to look forward to going to work every day. I found myself miserable on the drive to work. You know?

(Laughing)

MB: I hate that, and I don't want that at all.

Sure.

MB: So it made me realize it wasn’t necessarily sports, but it was that feeling that I was looking for. So then I became a lot more open minded and what became more important to me when I was looking at companies was sort of the atmosphere and the people. I figured if I loved the people, and I loved the atmosphere and I loved the product itself or the service or whatever it may be – then I think I would like the job. What led me to Find-A-Wayer was when I met the founders. I clicked with them all right away. It was a great feeling. A couple weeks after I’d had that initial meeting with them, I committed to coming – that was in February or March. I committed to coming on in May.

Wow. So it’s only been a short time that you've been there?

MB: Yeah. It’s been about, you know, six or seven months or so. I mean May 16th is when I came on board. It was the day after graduation. But you know, I could see going back into sports at some point later on in my career. I don’t see myself in digital audio forever. Maybe I will, but you know, who knows? I’m 24 years old.

Sure.

MB: So you never can tell.

Exactly. I’m like reading your blog and trying to figure out what the Find-A-Wayer is doing for the company. It seems like it’s a lot of marketing. You know? I was reading the post about you going and getting coffee at, where was it?

MB: Borders.

Right. Sitting there and kind of observing how people were experiencing your product's display and I thought that was great. It was like, you’re not really doing market research. It’s almost like an anthropologist. (Laughing)

MB: Right.

Talk about that experience for a little while.

MB: Right now as a business, I think it’s important for us to listen to the consumer. But for me personally I think having the experience of watching somebody—like say that that coffee stand over there was a retail fixture—I’m able to sit here and people aren’t necessarily knowing that I’m around, but they’re browsing through. If they look at a specific title and they wince, or if they automatically run up to it and "go man, this is cool". Even if they don’t buy one, that’s something – that means that we’re doing something right. Same goes for the other end of the spectrum. I mean, if I see that they totally bypass our fixture, or if I see that they looked at it and they sort of just brushed it off, maybe we’re not doing something right. It’s not like I’m going up to that person and asking "hey, what am I doing wrong?" It’s sort of a – sort of on a soft level I feel like it’s pretty important.

The other thing that I wanted to ask you was kind of about blogs and how blogs work in your whole marketing mix. There aren’t very many companies who are launching blogs to talk about that experience. You're documenting the whole experience and process.

MB: The Play-Away blog was set up by me. It was the idea of Derek and I— Derek's a guy who's another Find-A-Wayer. He’s my age. He just graduated a couple years ago. Now he's accepted a scholarship at U. C. San Diego, so he decided to move on and we still keep in touch. Hope I get to see him soon. But we created the blog as a separate part of the company. I mean, it’s not even paid for — it’s on my credit card.

Well, that’s how entrepreneurs do things. (Laughing)

MB: Right. But you know, what we didn’t want to happen was that we didn't want people to see Play-Away as something that was sort of just a corporate brand, and that it didn't really mean anything. We just wanted people to know that yes, there’s people like Derek and me working there. I’m 24 years old and live downtown, and I think it’s really cool to do what I’m doing. I just kind of wanted to get more of a feeling. It’s not like it was the birth of something that came out of a board meeting at Find-A-Wayer. But it’s something they’re supporting me with. I don’t take my blog to them and have them edit it or anything like that. You know, on the other hand I tell them what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to blog them about anything that’s giving company details. You have to be sensitive in that part of it. I don't want to get fired.

A lot of big corporations are starting blogs, but they don’t have policies in place. In that sort of startup environment, you have to have a high level of trust and communication, between you and the people involved in it.

MB: And that’s what I think is so cool about being a Find-A-Wayer. Everybody is totally cool with me doing this. I've only been there six or seven months, so for them to say "You know what, Mike? This is cool. Go with it. We hope it goes well. You know. Hopefully people will think it’s pretty cool." I think that says a lot about them. To me, I respect them more for that. I don’t even know if I would do it if it was a situation where they said, "Well, take the blog to us before you post it, and we’ll let you know what you can and can’t post." At that point it’s not real. But the fact that it really is me, and it’s my opinions, and I’m able to even give little chip shots about the BGSU beating Kent State.

Again, that’s part of the whole startup thing. Right?

MB: Yes, and I hope that it doesn’t get to a point where this personality and this style – the startup style, the Find-A-Wayer personality – ever changes. Because it could. The company – maybe it doesn’t do well, maybe it blows up, and grows to a few hundred employees. But if it does ever get to that point, which who knows? I don't know if it will. I just hope that we don’t lose that. I don’t think we will, but...

Well, the culture really had to be created by the founders.

MB: Totally true.

If that’s their intention, I think it’ll be okay. Let me go back to the whole marketing and blog thing. Did anybody in your experience at CASE talk about blogs, and using blogs? Because CASE is an example of a university that makes all that stuff available to people.

MB: Right. I really don’t recall CASE ever mentioning blogs and their impact, in terms of marketing. Although I think that blogs certainly do have an impact, or they at least can. But CASE never really touched up on that. I hope right now that they are, but you know, again, I – I don’t even see, I’d hope that my goal with this wasn’t necessarily like as a marketing aspect or anything like that. But it was just like, again for people to see the company in my eyes. Because newspaper articles have come out, and things will come out that will be great and they’ll say one thing. I just wanted people to remember, it’s real. It’s real people in there, and they’re just like me, they’re just like you potentially. You know. It’s – that was my whole intention.

It’s really interesting though, because I read a lot of blogs that talk about marketing and word-of-mouth marketing and I just find it really interesting that that’s not even your intention with this. You just kind of want to document your experience. It’s very genuine. What kind of impact do you think you’re having or what kind of impact would you like to have?

MB: I don't know what impact I’m having right now. I know that people who are familiar with the company are reading the blogs. Probably equates to my bosses and my girlfriend.

(Laughing)

MB: But what kind of impact do I hope it has? Again, I just hope that people see it and they know that I am a real person in the company. That it’s not like we’re all in a board room saying "What decision can we make today that increases profit margins and decreases..." Of course, we need to run our business and we need to stay in business. But we’re having fun doing it.

Let’s talk about the product a little bit. How do you guys pick titles? Is it just like kind of what’s popular and you convert it to a Play-Away?

MB: First we wouldn’t have titles if we didn’t have a publisher’s relationship. So we were able to enter into publishing relationships. What happens then is once you have an agreement with a publisher, you pick the titles that publisher offers. A lot of that comes from certain data that's out there and that come from the buyers themselves. If somebody’s not buying it, then we’re not selling it. It’s not as scientific as you think.

(Laughing) I want it to be scientific.

MB: (Laughing) I think right now as far as feedback on the titles, people seem to say we have a good collection. What we try to do is make sure that there are different types of titles out there. A handful of best sellers, a handful of business types, a handful of children’s titles, a handful of language titles.

I was actually looking at the titles available. I was surprised to see the Neal Gaiman book on there.

MB: Yeah. Anansi Boys?

And also the Stephen Hawking book, too. That’s cool.

MB: They go from graphic novels to The Da Vinci Code to Stephen Hawking. Totally different types. Or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Where God Was Born.

I've got an iBook. I've got the camera. I've got my Treo 650. I'm using an MP3 recorder to do this interview. I've got an iPod. Is this product targeted at the general lifestyle of people who want audio books, but don’t want to invest in an iPod, or...?

MB: The type of people we’re going after, if you think about it, would vary based on contact. Because basically what we’re selling is the content itself.

It’s not the technology...

MB: That’s what we hope people see – I actually brought a title. I don't know – I don't know your taste, but I wanted to give it to you. I hope that it’s something that you’ll like. I just brought Jack Welch, Winning.

Oh, okay.

MB: That’s sort of iconic, but when people see them in the store, they don’t see digital hopefully right away — they see Jack Welch. As far as what the market is, we look at it this way—we provide another way for somebody to consume something. They already consume digital audio. If you think about consuming food, or something like that, you could buy a pineapple in a store for say $1.00. Right? Or you could buy the same kind of fruit, you could buy canned pineapple and maybe it’s $1.50. But it’s more convenient because you could cut it – or you could buy fresh pineapple that’s ready to be eaten, served with a spoon, for $3.00. So all we’re really doing is just offering another way to consume what’s already out there. I mean, this is already out there in CD and cassette. But for people that don’t necessarily want to deal with — this title in particular, is 11 hours. So this would be 11 CD’s or cassettes. If people didn't want to deal with 11 CD’s and cassettes and switching it in their player, or if you think about downloading it onto your iPod, that’s still great. I mean, like we all have an iPod at work, and we’re all downloading music. But you know, you probably know downloading a three-minute song is a total different experience than downloading an 11-hour audio. It might take you two hours to download an 11-hour audio. So for somebody that doesn’t want to go through that, we just offer another option.

I wanted to ask you about the distribution of it, too. Office Max sells it, Borders sells it — Barnes & Noble?

MB: All three of those retailers are selling it. Office Max, it’s over 300 locations. Barnes & Noble, it’s less than that. It’s a test that we're working on with them. So if you’re in some major metropolitan cities, you might see it in a Barnes & Noble. If you’re in a rural area, and there happens to be a B&N, you might not see it there. Office Max. You know, we’re in a decent number of Office Max locations.

Here’s my question. My question is, I love the whole Amazon.com experience. I like looking for a title. I hit a one-click button and it arrives at my doorstep. That’s the kind of shopping experience that I want. Are there any plans for that in the future?

MB: Definitely. OfficeMax.com will start selling Jack Welsh Winning soon. That’s a situation where you select a title. It’s at your doorstep as long as you want to pay for shipping.

Is there any such thing as bad publicity?

MB: I think that there could be such a thing as bad publicity. There’ll always be people that will have an opinion. There always will be different people to have a differing opinion. There’ll always be people that are in the middle. I think that's true in the blogosphere and in the real world. You’ve got to live with that.

As with all the interviews, I ask some questions, get some answers, which in turn generates more questions. I also invite you to ask some of your own. I bought 2 Playaway titles as Christmas gifts this year for $35 to $55 each. I have to agree with Walt Mossberg—I had sticker shock. My first question is: Do you think the price points on these are right? Should they be higher or lower? If you visit the Playaway website, they promote the idea of exchanging titles. Who would you exchange them with? Are these something that you'd borrow from the library?

From Cool Cleveland Information Officer George Nemeth hidden-email:trbetr@pbbypyrirynaq.pbz?

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