When is the last time you walked somewhere? You see more when you walk, the world moves in slow motion. You become closer to your environment. Speed is the enemy of insight in the real world. Ideas happen when you stop and watch them instead.
Slow down, see more.
Greatest lie of all time:
Our ability to learn decreases with age. Bollocks.
We fill our hardrive with crap & use our ram as a funpark…
“…I would have, but I’m not very good at maths”. How many times have we heard that? I love quadratic equations and differential calculus as much as the next guy…
Good news bulletin: Simple Maths rules the business world.
If you’re familiar with the following symbols you’ve got all the number skills you need.
+ – x / % < >
You only need grade school math. But, you’ve got to be quick with your numbers, know which ones matter, understand industry averages and which ratio’s to look for – top of mind. The most important of all these symbols is %.
Everything that matters is represented as a percentage:
Gross margins
Net margins
Rates of interest
Return on investment
Price earnings ratios
Growth rates
Quick ratios
Debt to equity
Get to know your key financial indicators. Simple tools used on the share market are your best friend even for a small start up. Fundamental analysis is always based on ratio analysis.
Your company will only ever be what it earns and remember these two things that entrepreneurs often forget:
– Revenue must exceed expenditure
– The crocodile always gets the biggest piece!
Creation has a mindset. It is instinctive. It is in all of us, and that’s why we live in civilizations. We’ve created new ways, new things.
People often mistake the emotional rewards of consumption with creation. When people are consuming they’re living vicariously. We replace the instinct to create, with consumption. This world rewards creators. Business is about creating, which is why it can be rewarding. Conversely, most people associate success with consumption. Consumption is an illusion we’ve made or done something useful. It’s a shortcut. Hence, conspicuous consumption often exudes a sense emptiness.
Is this why we see so many balanced and satisfied craftsman, farmers and artists? People creating things have a sense of contentment. A sense of self reliance. Even if what they are creating is a simple vegetable patch which feeds their family.
It’s because the true rewards in life come from the act of creation. Consumption is a poor substitute. Create something.
There’s many emotions associated with being an entrepreneur – seldom discussed is the fact that it’s a lonely business.
If we can’t deal with being the guy in photo above, then we’d be better off in the office of conglomerate X.
No one knows, cares or even thinks about what we are doing until we’ve arrived. During the lonely journey we’ve got to stay busy, remain active and get out in the world. We’ve got to get out of the ‘lab’ work mobile and stay social. If we islotate ourselves too much during the ‘lonely’ evolution period, we risk losing the ability to make the cross over to ‘leader’ when our startup gains momentum.
Here’s some simple website advice from Johnny Cussen:
1. What do we want to user to do?
2. What does the user want to do?
3. And what is the page telling the user to do?
Web startups ought ask these questions every day and every time they review their site.
I really like the idea of ‘small’ – Making the macro, micro. 12 secondsTV does it: www.12seconds.tv
As far as marketing insights are concerned it proves that categories don’t converge – but split.
We recently used it for rentoid to kill a few birds with one stone:
The cool thing is that we’ll publish what people think about rentoid good and bad – so then we have to act on any mooted improvements. Check it by clicking here:
So in the spirit of involvement – I’d love to get a 12 seconds.tv spot from the startupblog crew – ‘yes that means you’ with any piece of business / entrepreneurship or life advice you feel approporiate.
Put your 12 seconds link in the comments and I’ll put it up as it’s own post with a link to your blog / startup / business or whatever.
Get on it.