Quite often I’ll be looking for a business solution. A solution to a problem. But most times I really don’t know what I am looking for until I find it. But when I see, hear it, or touch it, I know it’s exactly what I need. If I waited to start until I knew what I wanted, I think rarely would I find a solution at all.
I know it sounds crazy, but I really think we should get started before we know what we are looking for.
You are in a room full of people.
You are speaking to them on stage and have their full attention.
You tell them to pretend all the people in the world are in this room
You ask the people who believe they have ‘above average intelligence’ to raise their hand.
All the people in the entire room raise their hand.
The fact is, exactly half will be above and half will be below… we all assume we are the smart guys, the good guys, the people make things better…. we all believe we are adding positively to the collective intelligence.
But collective intelligence has a slight nuance. It only works when we let people with specialist knowledge fill in our own knowledge gaps and or take the lead in areas of expertise. If instead, we take the average viewpoint of the collective audience we usually end up with a pile of crap. Collective intelligence can only occur when we segregate and allocate information requirements, not when we aggregate. The latest proof of this is Youtube.com
Once upon a time youtube was a reliable source of cool and important videos. Circa 2005 the most viewed, most discussed for the day, week or month was an intelligent reflection what mattered. Now it’s a mish-mash of over produced pop songs, inane comedians, and soft porn. A sad failure of the digital ‘Wisdom of crowds’. Youtube is still incredibly valuable, it just takes a little more digging these days.
The point for entrepreneurs is this: The crowd is not always right. Taking all advice from the crowd on how to iterate your product, service or website could result in a very average product. Intelligent design is usually the work of intelligent people.
One of my favourite business quotes of all time is from marketing Polymath Al Reis who was co-author of the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (A must read for all entrepreneurs) and it is this:
This is really a key for anyone no matter what our life is. Decisions from the desk are rarely as insightful as decisions made from the filed. For all the reasons we are aware of such as message dilution , the grape vine et al.
I have been witnessing this first hand as I have invested the past few weeks out on the road visiting my business customers for www.rentoid.com. Put simply I’ve learnt more in the past few weeks than I have in the past few months. Incredible insights as deep and wide as web usability to asset management.
I’ll I can say to startups is this. Get out there and press the flesh and make sure you are not ‘Office Blind’.
As entrepreneurs the natural temptation is on inventing new markets. Creating dramatic change and going for the trophy ideas. This stuff is incredibly difficult, which is why when we do it well the financial rewards can be significant. The interesting thing is that by being optimists with big ideas we really develop some amazing skills just trying. Regardless of our success or lack of.
Creating markets is much harder than getting a share of an existing market. There’s so much more to do to make it work. Things like building an entirely new supply chain, accessing unique raw materials, developing distributions channels and educating consumers of the benefits of this alternative.
Imagine for a moment that we focused our skills on something simple. Something for which there is already existing demand. A market with which there has been very little innovation for a long period of time. Imagine for example…. selling potatoes.
Selling potatoes would not be as difficult as inventing entirely new markets. Sure there would be incumbents in the game, maybe some very powerful players. But the one thing we can be sure of, is that people do business with people they like. Every industry has room for new players. Every business has some suppliers which they are not happy with. Imagine bringing some new world thinking into the potato trade. Integrating some Cluetrain ideas into this business, and really winning over some customers by doing things just a little differently. There is a new business waiting to happen in boring old market.
I often think that we ignore old areas because they are sexy enough, when all we need do is bring some new ideas in to sexy it up. And there is nothing more sexy than financial success in start up land. In addition our probability of success is certainly larger in an existing market than developing a new one, even if the financial gain is smaller. Maybe we can garner some success Selling potatoes first, before we try our trophy idea. It’s easy to be better than it is to be new.
Maybe your next business should be selling potatoes.
Yesterday I caught up with Fiona Boyd who is an incredibly successful internet entrepreneur who started and sold www.artshub.com.au
She gave me some great insights into entrepreneurship and here are some of the sound bites I was so compelled with I had to write them down.
“When asking for input into your business or startup, never ask for more that 2 pieces of advice. Ask them for advice which is both perceptual and low cost.”
‘Think about your business in terms of the sequence of events. This is more important than the model itself.”
“The right words, in a certain order, make people do stuff.”
“Free creates lose caboose behavior. Think of your business like a nightclub. Free entry makes us feel as though what’s inside isn’t as valuable as when there is a cover charge.”
‘What can you do to bring the money forward? It might be as easy as asking your customers.”
‘What are the steps to money? How can you reduce the number of steps?”
Absolute gold as far as startup blog is concerned. Fiona has also written a book called ‘Niche Content Millionaire’ which I’m guessing (I haven’t read it yet) is full of awesome ideas…. simply because she has the runs on the board and has done it.
“We’re living in a hyper accelerated era where advances in technology have doomed our culture. Before anything interesting can develop it’s blogged to death, marketed and raped until the next hot thing comes along, then repeat process”
Annon – As found in the comments section of www.nowtoronto.com
In large companies there is a paradox of leadership. The paradox is closely related to the fact that
Most often employees and decision makers are stooged by the person self promoting, than the person who does the real leadership stuff. In large corporates the sycophants usually win, not the leaders.
In startup land we have the opportunity to lead others because management isn’t holding us back from leading. What we must do is remember all the bad managers we had because of the ‘Paradox of Leadership’ and not be like them.