a debate on whether failure helps your small business. and this oscar weekend we look at the owners of the independent movie theaters battling the big change. that and more coming up next on "your business." small businesses are revitalizing the economy and american express open is here to help. that's why we are proud to present "your business" on

msnbc. hi, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg. welcome to "your business." no matter what industry you're in, technology must be a part of it. and it will likely become a larger part if you intend to keep growing your company. so we headed out to startup grind in silicon valley to get up to speed on the latest tech trends you should know about. >> it was just like the year maybe if we got small people in the room together, something good would happen. >> derek anderson started startup grind four years ago. then it was a casual group of nine people talking about trends in the industry. today, startup grind has grown to a network of more than 21,000 entrepreneurs attending 300

events in more than 60 countries. >> startup grind is all about helping the local entrepreneur realize they can do it in their city. they don't need to new york or silicon valley or london to be success. but once a year, they do invite everyone to the heart of the digital startup world, silicon valley. down the street from google headquarters they set up a series of fireside chats where entrepreneurs are given a chance to be inspired by the tech superstars whose steps they hope to follow. >> a lot of the juice you learn from people is when -- they're actually not prepared. when you can translate vulnerability from someone who is like a tech celebrity to a room of people who are really dreaming and building, that that transmission is really inspiring. and motivating. >> bergen goldfield, president

and ce of trinet, which provides payroll benefits and hr functions for small businesses share the differences between building a company you hope to sell and building one you hope to keep running independently. >> value is what a ceo perceives that his company is worth and month importantly what he is trying to accomplish or she. valuation is what some outside person or investor or the market believes your company is worth. and there are two different thing in my mind. creating an enduring company allows you to think or act in a way that's appropriate for your market. and there's nothing with building a company to sell it. but there's something exciting about building a company that will last for a very long time. >> charles wang, founder of green throttle games better known as the popular game guitar hero, talked about how technology has made it much easier for companies to test the

markets that they hope to disrupt. >> when were we making guitar hero, that was is.75 million for a console game, playstation game, which is laughable small for that. now you can make mobile games for tens of thousands of dollars. that makes it much easier for a startup company to find a product fit by testing. you have three, four shots on goal, as i like to say. whereas in a single year for us, you could only take one shot on goal. >> hardware was also a hot topic with sessions like fit bit and jawbone. james parks, ceo and co-founder of fitby the shared with us how a smart strategy for distribution is key for a product success. >> when we started fit bit we were selling our product directly online at fitbit.com. that helped in several ways. one is we had a direct contact point with the customer. the customer wasn't buying through a retailer. there was no retailer in the middle. the second is, we got paid pretty quickly so a small company, cash flow and fast access to cash is critically important.

and obviously, the margins are the best when selling directly online. you're not giving up 20, 30, 40 percent of margins to retailers. >> while the conference was focused on the digital world the speakers were clear about one thing -- the core of what makes a good startup hasn't changed over time. >> a thousand years ago, people would do something that would solve their problems better. that was true 50 years ago, it's true today and true in another 50 and another thousand years. if you want people to change their habits and try something new, it's got to solve an important problem. if you do that and make people aware of it, people will buy your stuff. ♪ in our eight seasons on air, we've had many entrepreneurs say to us that failure is a good thing. you can't fail if you're not trying, and trying is what small businesses should be doing.

but really is that just a rationalization or can failure be positive? that the subject of today's small biz reality check. les mckeown thinks that's a ridiculous concept. he says there's not an upset to failing. jessica heiren is the founder of stella & dot. thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> thank you, j.j. >> les, i think going to start with you because fail fast is a mantra that so many business entrepreneurs are talking about now. you say don't even think about failing. >> i wouldn't say that. i would say that the phrase fail fast and fail often is nonsense. it's part of the shenanigans of culture, that you get people say i want you to fail fast and fail often. it's nonence. if you just kept failing fast, never succeeding, and somebody

kept encouraging you to do that, well, they're investing in the wrong person. >> well, succeeding is the end goal. but jessica, to get there, do you have to fail? >> i think the big thing you don't want people to be so afraid of trying that they don't start at all. actually if you put out there that they cannot fail, you encourage people to be small-minded avoid risk and you won't get innovation and big ideas. i'm encouraging the idea that people need to iterate their ideas to get to success. i certainly agree with les, the last thing you're not wanting to encourage is sloppy shipping. you're not trying to learn on the customer's dime. >> yeah. i want to say that the opposite of not saying fail fast and often isn't saying don't fail. if you fail, you fail. you learn from failure. that's the key thing. but if you put this dumb mantra, fail fast, fail often, in front of a bunch of kids who have been

helicopter helicoptered, parented, i'm not putting any money in that pot. >> les, you're from silicon valley and jessica you're from the west coast. you meet a lot of people who tried stuff and failed. nobody is looking down on them. the idea of failure in silicon valley is quite different than the traditional idea of failure. >> you know, j.j., i'm not sure that's true. when people are looking to hire, they're looking at people's track record. one of the key hiring mantras is key to success. they've done something beautiful and made great product. what it doesn't mean, though, is that you're going to rule out someone who tried a bold idea. it didn't work first, then they iterated it and made it into something special. so i don't think failure is promoted as the end goal in silicon valley and it doesn't matter if you don't have a track record. so i agree with les that you do not want to promote this idea

that, yeah, you just go for n d mediocrity mediocrity. i do think that most people have to recognize, most people are governed by fear. you don't want to dampen out their quest for greatness. i'm aligned on one point. but when we encourage people to fail fast, we're really saying, listen, you got to look at the results and you don't want to be wrong for long. when means when you get customer feedback, be open to ideas and iteration, and that is not the same as saying fail often and only fail. >> so, les, do you think there's a problem with the messaging? i think you would agree with jessica that we're all go together fail at some time. the whole ethos behind this fail fast is change it. learn from what you did and change it. so is there something wrong with the whole message of fail fast? >> yes there is. it's a subset of the whole concept of saying something that's counterintuitive. but dumb. it's just dumb.

succeed fast. succeed often isn't dumb, all right? if you have to fail to get there, that's fine. let's just talk english. we don't have to come up with stuff that rhymes or falls off our tongues. just a mature working environment where people can make mistakes. what we want do is succeed. but leading with this nonsense is a dreadful waste of everybody's time. >> jessica, great to see you. hopefully next time you'll be here in new york with us. >> see you in person, j.j. >> les, great to have your point of view on this as well. >> thank you. >> the stars are watching the red carpets for hollywood's biggest night. the 86th annual academy awards will honor the best films of 2013 from historical dramas to 3-d outer space stories. what you don't know is many of those people who exhibit those films are small business owners and small theater owners, entrepreneurs who have to be

very creative to compete against the big theater chains. ♪ >> everybody's talking about the academy awards. so, i love it, it's just generating so much interest. >> i'm right in the front taking tickets. they tell me this one's good. this one stinks. so i know pretty much what everybody wants to see. >> want the real scoop on the hottest movies? then you need to go to the front lines where independent theater owners like these hear it directly from the fans like these. >> we have a lot of the same customers week after week. >> welcome to the small business side of the big-time hollywood glamour machine. >> the problem with being independent is you have to spend a lot of money to keep up with the chains. >> jesse and greg are two brothers who own and operate the atrium in staten island. it's one of the few remaining independents in new york city. >> independents, it's a dying breed. the old guys are looking to move on and there isn't too much new blood out there. the big chains really put a dent in it. >> with only one location in a major market, see they themselves as small fish

struggling to survive in a tank of whales. >> i believe what you want to know how does a small business, family-oriented business function among the regales, the amcs? >> he's right. and according to greg, part of their secret of surviving along the big guys is that they study and imitate the upgrades done by the big chains. >> we make sure the seats are new up-to-date seats. we change the music equipment. the sound equipment, the movie equipment. we renovate the lobby. >> keeping up with this can result in some confusion for the customers which is exactly what they want because ticket buyers are thinking of their theater in the same league as the big chains. >> it's not necessarily one of those old time, you know, independent theaters. it's current. hence, they think we're part of the chains. >> maintaining state of the art appearances isn't easy.

for one thing it take a lot of money. >> you've got to go out and get rid of all of your equipment, hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of dollars of equipment and throw it away. and put in a new digital projector for more hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of dollars. some of the smaller guys just can't afford it. it's not cost effective for them. >> that's how these two got into the movie business in the first place. the previous theater owner couldn't keep up after a big chain opened a complex nearby. >> when regal came and opened up, it took away a good portion of this business. probably 50% of the business. now, he struggled. he was an old operator. he wasn't a young guy. >> the previous theater owners threat to abandon the business would have been a disaster for the landlord. >> he pretty much threw in the towel. thinking i'll ride this out as long as i can, i won't reinvest into the operation anymore. once it's time to leave, just turn in the key, that was it. that's essentially what he did.

>> that's where greg and jesse came in. they thought the problem of the theater wasn't the competitive market but the rundown condition of the facility which was turning off the customers. they've been running things for seven years and upgrading slowly as they can afford it. like many business owners they say upgrades is one of the keys to their success. >> give back. put back into the business. that's the secret. >> but that's not all. the other theater success is their own hard work and attention. >> we do everything. i take tickets most of the time, i clean theaters, work the candy stand. whatever has to get done. greg made the right connections with the movie companies. it took some time. they knew it was a good location. that's the whole thing. and we just started doing it ourselves. it pretty much worked out pretty good.

♪ when we come back, tax mistakes that small businesses need to avoid. and tips on getting customers to day on your website once they get there. plus, jim blasingame with other ways you can engage customers to win their loyalty. if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone. there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does.

it was my job and my company's job to figure out a way to force the media to focus on footwear. we made a sandal that's been dubbed the million dollar sandal. we brought it into the suite at the academy awards. and a beautiful actress wore it. laura lana herring. this shoe which was encrusted with hundreds of diamonds it was the focus on the red carpet. it was incredible. that picture and story wept and the world. my name went with it, of course. let's catch up with three things you need to know about small business this week. alarming news about health care. the centers for medicare and mirror cade services 11 million workers who were employed by small businesses will see their health care rise under the affordable care act. on the positive side the record said that 6 million would see their rates decrease. >> brutal winter weather is

having an impact at small business cash registers. a survey by the "wall street journal" and vistage says 1 in 3 small businesses say winter storms have forced them to lower their first quarter sales. they say the snow and cold caused delivery delays and kept customers at home. and the proof that being a small business owner is suddenly hot. at new york's annual toy fair, mattel unveiled the new entrepreneur barbie. the latest in their career line, she wears a pink dress and carries a smartphone and tablet. it's time now to answer your questions. les mckeown is back with us. and tonya uking. >> let's go to someone who wants to change the way things are done in their industry. >> as a law firm looking to disrupt the legal practice area with a fixed fee model, how can i use social media to help me

better attract customers as well as promoting my brand? >> interesting. well, you talk about social media, so you can talk about analytics. but this is a change in the way the legal profession usually bills, and one that a lot of people would welcome. >> sure. based on the idea, what i'm hearing you want to bring transparency and move all the hidden "gotyas" in the world. and social media is a perfect way to establish that. i would suggest, other than talking about the effort itself, i would say putting out content that's going to be valuable. and establishing that as a trusting source of a source for anyone out there looking. social media say perfect way to understand who has these questions and how to receive them. >> as a law firm, you have an endless amount of concept, right, les? >> sure, but law firms are behind the curve with social media.

i really like the point of more of using it to engage audiences, to get information, and building a pipeline. good for building a brand, a hygiene factor, and gives people who are probably going to give fixed fee offering will be a bit more innovative. don't think it will build a massive pipeline of new business. >> it's clearly a modern way of thinking about billing, so is matches the idea of thinking of people in social media. >> i would say one cautionary tip, social media is not an atm. you can't treat it like a cash machine. it's really all about establishing interest and making sure you put that content out there first. >> let's go to the next one about hiring new employees. >> i'd love to ask experts about how to best manage hiring at a time of large growth so that you're efficiently handling that process while still managing your business during that period of growth. >> it's a great idea, right?

if you need a lot of people, you may end up hiring a bunch of bad people, people who aren't great fits. how do you do it? >> i think one of the stations of the cross is getting away from hiring with their gut. it's successful for small, growing business. you sit down with people, you see their attitudes, and you think we can mentor and coach these people and get their skill deficits up. the business gets to a sign where you're not personally going to work with these people. and then leaving them unmentored, uncoached. i would say be clear about what the must-haves and must-dos are on the job. use panel interviews. you have the veto at end, but use three people to do the interviewing. but move away from hiring with your gut. that's a point in all companies

that's tough for an owner to move to, but vitally important. >> how do you keep yourself from -- because the need is to great to bring people in the office and just put people in seats, to keep yourself from hiring people who aren't right just because you need them? >> sure. that's something that we just experienced because we've gone through significant growth. one is that you can compromise on everything almost shared values. you can sometimes be blinded by one person because they're a wonderful speaker but generally someone else won't have your blind spot. so that's critical. another thing that's been successful with us is working with people in a contracting basis to start out with. particularly, when you need the help very quickly, you can see how fast how someone is going to show up in your office, what attitude they're going to bring and their energy. that's something sometimes you can't always weed out in an interview process. >> the idea of shared values

is so poblgd mtd next week, we actually have a piece about how this company had to hire a lot. has a really strong culture which makes it much easier. let's go to the last question. it's about high bounce rates. >> people who come to our website maybe after two click also immediately leave, or on the first click. i'm trying to understand what is the behavior behind that. what is it that we're missing that will allow -- that's not allowing them to continue and engage on our website? >> all right. you have the background in a analytics so i'll let you start. >> sure, if somebody has come to your site whether it's by a search or a link. that has drawn them to find more content. they're arriving on the site but they're not getting it. the first thing you need to understand what is it that brought them to the site. how can you make sure you position that content front and center. generally, people will arrive, if they don't immediately find what their looking for. then they'll turn away.

that's exactly what's happening. >> that's terrible for seo, too if you have high bounce rates, you won't come up high in search listings. what's neat today and having it on the web is that you can work with services online where you can watch people and ask them what they're doing. >> it's usually the disconnect between what i was expecting to see and what i've seen. overall that disconnect has grown and web traffic in general, it has with become so pervasive that you read an article and it has a link at the bottom, you click the link and you are taken to something that has nothing to do with what you just read. don't overthink it. put a bunch of people in a room that you trust and ask them to go through the steps and the website and then just ask them afterwards what happened. >> exactly. it's not that complicated. it's about changing things and testing things. you can do a.b. testing and move on from there. great. thanks so much for the help with these questions, really appreciate it. >> thank you. filing taxes for your small

business can be complicated, and not doing so correctly can be costly. here are five common tax mistakes you should avoid. one, not keeping track of expenses. you can't deduct what you can't document, so keep records as you go. two, avoiding the home office deduction. there's no reason not to take it. if you do qualify, you can right off a percentage of your home expenses including rent, utilities, and insurance costs. three, mixing equipment and supplies. things that you use during the year like printer paper and pens count as supplies. while equipment is usually typical of higher value items that will last longer than a year, like computers or printers. filing these expenses incorrect ly can lead to losing out on the deduction. four, choosing the wrong legal entity. your company structure affects how much you pay. talk to a tax adviser or cpa.

five, mixing personal and business expenses. avoid trouble by establishing a company account from the start and maintain separate records. if you primarily use gmail, our website of the week can turn your inbox into a tool. streak.com allows you to organize your client relationships right from gmail. stay on top of your sales, group e-mail from the same customers, and schedule e-mails to send later without having to switch back and forth between gmail and a different system. you can share selective parts of your inbox with your team and track work flow. our next guest says that customers are changing the way that business is getting done. he sees a massive shift in customer expectations. and businesses are going to have to be extremely relevant in order to survive. here to talk about different ways in had which you can meet your customers' growing

expectations is our good friend, jim blassingame, creator and host of the weekday radio program the small business advocate show, and the author of the new book "the age of the customer: prepare are for the moment of relevance." great to see you, jim. >> hi, j.j. good to see you again, too. >> so this is a shift. you say it used to be the age of the seller. you created companies basically in order to create a customer. >> for 10,000 years the seller had control of the relationship between the customer. that's changed. >> okay. so what made it change and how do we prepare for that change? >> 1993 you and i could go on the internet for the first time. everything changed from that moment on. it's been 20 years, right? but so many businesses -- you would think 20 years, everybody should know about this by now, companies should be ready to go. they should be prepared to meet customer expectations. big companies, little companies, are still holding on to those old dominant paradigm ways of doing business from the age of the seller. >> so give me an example of something we would have done in the age of the seller we can no longer do today in the age of the customer?

>> you can no longer presume that if a customer comes in and does business with you that they're just going to come back because they now know you. you know about the clutter, all the stuff out there in the way. you have to follow them home. if you find someone, if someone meets you and they say, hey, i i bought your stuff, i like your stuff, see you, well, you can't presume they're going to come back. can i follow you home, j.j.? how do you like to be connected? can i send you an e-mail? do you mind if i text you? do you prefer twitter? what do you like? you have to think of your website, your website and your storefront is no longer a destination. it's more of a distribution center. >> okay, so we talk about that a lot, engaging with your customer and creating a relationship with your customer. what else does it mean to be in the age of the customer? what else do you have to do? >> this competitive relevance thing is so important. for 10,000 years, for the entire age of the seller, having a competitive advantage was the holy grail. that was the corner of the realm, right? price, product, service, all that kind of thing. well, today you may never get to tell them about that stuff or

show them about that stuff before they've already ruled you in or out. so how do you look -- when they try to find you the first time, when they try to find you when you don't even know they exist like on mobile phone, right? smartphone, or they're searching for something, wherever they may be. if you don't present yourself the right the way when they first try to find you before you even know they exist in a way that's relevant to them, then you may never get a chance to even know they exist. and so all the competitive stuff you do doesn't matter. >> all right. well, jim, congratulations again on your new book. thank you so much for stopping by. >> good to see you again. >> you, too. >> thanks so much for joining us today. we he hope you learned a thing or two. if you want to catch any of the segments again you can find them on our website. it's openforum.com/yourbusiness. we've also posted some web exclusive content with more information to help your business grow. we're on twitter as well. it's @msnbcyourbis. don't forget to become a fan of

the show on facebook. next week, a babysitting service that bends over backwards to support its artist employees. >> our clients obviously are super important but in a lot of ways i think that our sitters are equally important if not more important. without great caregivers, i can't provide anything to my clients to begin with. >> how creating a strong company culture translates into good business. until then, i'm j.j. ramberg and, remember, we make your business our business. if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone.

there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. the wild things. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start with this, the right, the far right, the far out right. the wild things were out there as far as the eye can see. mitch mcconnell waving a rifle. lindsey graham blaming things on benghazi. both pandering so far to the right, they are about to land on their butts. meanwhile, at a meeting called the