I’ve decided to run a few guests posts on startup blog.
I’ve never done this before and on the surface it my seem to lack purity. But here’s what I think.
The blog isn’t about me, it never has been. It’s about providing valuable information to those interested in the topic (startups, entrepreneurship, marketing). Which the guests posts will do. Heck, it might even facilitate spreading the startup blog word a little further and connect a few people…. Yep, that would be cool.
It’s what we create for the people who care. The truth is we never know how hard it was to deliver the right product, at the right place at the right time. We only care that it was.
What we (the entrepreneurs, producers, marketers) had to go through is not part of the consideration set. It isn’t charity, it’s about them. So if we nail it and deliver the project quickly, we needn’t feel guilty or less deserving. Likewise, if it took us 5 years of hard working weekends and nights, that’s also no reason to feel a level of entitlement. We need to feel what they feel – underwhelmed or overwhelmed with what we deliver, how we got there is far less important.
There is more good than bad in these hilarious Ali G pitches to Venture Capitalists.
What to look for:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48TR0vUPQCs]
I’d seriously recommend this video on how to pitch versus most other examples we see on the web so long as we understand the context.
Spreadsheets cause far more problems in business than they solve. When we sue spreadsheets too much we start to believe our business is the numbers we make up to fill in the columns. Turns out the numbers on the tidy little sheets have very little to do with our business. Our business is about people, emotions and serving needs. It’s about human movement and insight, not predictions and forecasts.
In recent times brand managers and entrepreneurs have become spreadsheet managers. Busy forecasting, doing profit and loss statements for upcoming launches and estimating sales revenue and market share for the upcoming quarter. The problem with most of these activities is simple, they are predictions. They rarely turn out to be correct, and they suck time we should be investing in getting our products to the market, talking with our customers and promoting what we do.
In startup land there are only two colums we need. Expenses and revenue. Once we have these we just need to make sure the revenue side is greater than the expense side. After that we ought leave the spreadsheets to our accountants.
We are all born entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is inextricably linked to human behaviour. To explore, to understand, to invent and to embrace take risk. Risk which results in a better situation for us and our stakeholders. Knowing that we will fail, and even learning to endure, no less enjoy that as part of it. Civilisation and evolution of humans is due to our entrepreneurial nature. It’s why we live in houses, drive cars, have climate control and everything we enjoy today. It’s part of our genetic code. It’s what differentiates us from all other creatures.
The word Entrepreneur
en⋅tre⋅pre⋅neur
Noun: A person who organises and manages any enterprises, esp a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.
The word origin is from 1875-80 coming from the French word ‘Entrepren’ – meaning to undertake. To do something. Also the word Enterprise. Is about entering and taking. Enter / prendere.
To be entrepreneurs is it about doing. Not over replanning or talking. It’s about action. Learning on the job. The most insightful ideas and poignant moments I have had in my life haven’t been while writing or typing, but when I’ve been acting.
Our code must be acted upon. Go act out your code.
BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are the buzz word in business for good reason. In the good news for us small entrepreneurs is that access is no longer limited big players. The internet has made it possible to have a global work force from launch date, and the same cost advantages that multinationals have had since they started exporting labour to China and other parts of Asia since the 1960’s. Anyone can do it now.
Before you worry about the ethics of ‘off shoring’ there’s some stuff we should know. Exporting labour overseas is ethically sound. It is beneficial both to the recipients and the providers of such work (us). The average computer programmer earns around $1000 a month in India. In the USA and Australia it’s more like $7000 a month. Unethical? Not really. The $1000 a month versus the average in India of $85 gives new information workers in India and very high standard of living.
When we inject money into developing economies we are increasing the living standards not just for our employees, but for their economy in general. In addition we have the option to pay them above market rates to create strong loyalty. We have the option treat our people well and create important cultural exchanges and relationships.
Other peoples time is what we must leverage for startup success. A simple business fact time immemorial. Only now we have both currency advantage and access. The issue of moving jobs overseas is a crock. We live in a global age, an internet economy. We all buy goods everyday from overseas. Geographical barriers simply wont exist shortly. So we should just get on board. Protectionist attitudes are outdated. No one is sending kids down mines with digital offshoring. If local people are getting put out of jobs, then they’ve been earning too much for what they’ve been doing anyway. Their outplacement is inevitable.
Startup Blog says:
Why we still have so many of them is beyond me. We know they waste a lot of time. We know they probably cost us more revenue than they generate. So what if we actually tried to quantify the real cost of meetings. Especially those with a cast of thousands, or say 5-10 people. Let me break it down.
Cost of meeting with 10 people in it:
10 people with an average annual salary of $100,000
Total salary of human resources = $1,000,000
Weekly cost of the salaries = $19,231
Cost of $480 an hour. So a 4 hour meeting costs just under $2000 to conduct in pure wages. Not to mention the cost of stuff not getting done while the meeting is happening. Or the cost of another weeks wages while people go away and think about it, before returing next week with the same 10 people to make the final decision.
Here’s an idea. Put the $2000 in the middle of the table (the cost of the meeting in wages). If it finishes in half the time split 50% of the money between the participants. If it finishes in a quarter of that time, split 75% of the funds amonst the participants….
Startupblog says: the best decisions are those that get made. The decisions which have a chance of being wrong so we can cross them off the list. Having expensive meetings just elongates the process. Avoid them where possible.