As a surfer, today I was devastated to learn that former world surfing champion Andy Irons died. He was 32.
It’s a poignant reminder that waiting is for fools. Andy only had 32 short years, but managed to surf the world and be the best at what he did.
But the key question here isn’t about whether you are, or ever will be the best. Rather, it’s about knowing if what you are spending your days doing is what you actually would dream about being the best at.
Start now.
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.
Listening to an interview with Jerry Seinfeld he said something which sounded like good advice for Startup Entrepreneurs.
Here is what he said verbatim:
“Your write and you write, and you don’t know if it is any good. You have to get up in front of an audience to find out if this is any good. You always have to try things, and the audience kind of writes the act for you in a way. They say, keep this, get rid of that. And you use them as a judge. They are the judge.”
It seems success in most enterprising professions are about being guided by your audience or customers. Testing, refining and constantly iterating.
Startup blog says: Real market feedback, is the only way to test any written plan. It beats research every time.
I just got back from the gym, and tonight I saw what I see every time I go for a workout. A very out of shape person doing some kind of ridiculously complex exercise for a particular body part. Which any experienced trainer will know is clearly a waste of time.
The reality of weight training is that the entire body can be trained incredibly well with 5 simple exercises:
Bench press
Chin ups
Squats
Shoulder press
Running
Everything else really is only for the hardcore and professional sports people. Problem is this truth doesn’t sell books, personal training sessions or gym memberships at locations which look like a NASA astronaut training facility. Success in gym programs is more about eating well and doing simple exercises which well executed with good frequency.
There is actually an important human psychology associated with such behaviour in the gym. We think there is some kind of secret formula. That success is associated with a complex algorithm which we must try and find, unlock and use. That success in the gym is rare because it is difficult to know how to do it. That when we find these special trick techniques, our success will come much quicker. That we’ll be transformed overnight.
As humans in the 21st century we have a preference for irrational complexity. We know the truth, but we’d rather pretend it isn’t so. We’ve been so shaped by the media and a lack of hands on experience that we often believe success is hidden behind secret walls. And so we look for get fit quick schemes (Get rich quick scheme anyone?) rather than a get fit slow routine, which requires a consistent diet and a lot of sweat.
It’s pretty much the same in startup land. There aren’t great deal of tricks out there either. The formula is hard work, a lot of sweat, serving customers well and using the age old business maxims which were written about by Adam Smith over 200 years ago.
Reading about Craigs list the other day I started thinking about business history and strategy. As entrepreneurs we often get fooled by the deception of history. And it’s easy to see why. All the business books and articles we read on success are based on what someone or some company we respect did. The problem with this is that the world lives in a state of flux, and what worked then, most certainly wont work now. This is where the Craig’s list example comes to the fore.
Would a 3 color page of hyperlinks which looks like the internet did in 1994 work today? Highly unlikely. Craigslist works now, because it worked well then. It had things working in it’s favour like the ‘in crowd’ in the Bay area spreading the word. That it was first to market with an on-line classified. Now these legacy issues become a strategic proposition which is worth maintaining. What it doesn’t mean is that it’s a strategic template worth copying for Startup X. It’s also less likely we’ll get the support needed from the web community or the investors needed.
The same can be said for pretty much any startup with an interesting history.
A social networking site which is set up for alumni of an Ivy League University probably wouldn’t work.
A trading website where auctions are used to develop the perfect market place probably wouldn’t work.
An on-line retailer which aims to sell every book available in the world probably wouldn’t work.
As entrepreneurs, what we are better off understanding is the insights into why things worked, and try and leverage human behavior in developing a strategic direction to launch our business.
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.
As published in Australian Anthill this week.
I was thinking about business and at what point it becomes possible to believe you have a good chance of winning. I came to the conclusion that four elements pave the way to start-up success.
The four elements are:
If you work through these four elements, then success is inevitable. Of course, all of these elements need some explaining.
1. Your concept has been validated in market
Firstly, let’s look at the last two words in this sentence – in market. This means you have launched, you are live, and you have customers and revenue. We have gone beyond the idea (the easy part) and launched something, which makes the original business launch plan a historical and irrelevant document. Until this point, there is no proof that anyone actually cares about your idea; that anyone will buy your thing.
Concept validation – this occurs when people are buying what you sell, as well as any positive coverage you receive. Positive coverage includes people and media talking about what you are doing – not what technology you have used, or how you bootstrapped your business (which is not concept validation, but method validation), but talking about the benefits your business is providing customers and the problems you are solving. This coverage is about them, not you. At this point, you know the business has potential and isn’t a stupid whim.
2. You know what to do
You’ve been doing what you do – selling what you sell – long enough to know the crappy parts of your business. You know what you must improve to make your semi-broken yet still alive start-up better. You’ve worked out where the original model and plan was terribly wrong. You’ve also been around long enough to gather feedback from the market, which gives you a good indication of how to improve your ‘thing’. Until this point, innovation, location, good people and lots of saying sorry has kept you alive. But time has nearly run out, and you’ve learned what must be done to grow and eventually thrive.
3. You know how to do it
Not only do you understand the above conceptually, but you actually know how to make this stuff happen. You’ve gone beyond ideas for improvement, such as make the website more usable, reduce the price of the widget, create national brand awareness or increase distribution. Now you actually have an executable plan in place.
So what is an executable plan? An executable plan is a set of projects that are achievable with the immediate resources you have at your disposal, in a reasonable timeframe. Financial resources, human resources, organisational infrastructure – an executable plan that you can deliver to the market, not a pipedream of appearing on Oprah or getting funding from Sequoia Capital. You have the team with the skills to bring the improved offer to market. It may not require huge financial resources, it may involve more creative solutions, but you know you can do it.
4. You are actually doing it – right now
The plans have been put down as discussed in parts two and three. In fact, you won’t even need to look at them again. They are now ‘historical documents’. Instead, your team is fully engaged in implementing what you have agreed is the correct strategy. The steps to completing the projects are known. They are live projects the team is actively engaged in on a daily basis, which will fundamentally change the marketing mix of your business. The projects have budgets and deadlines and you will not rest until they have been completed. Only then will you need to go back to part two again, and work out what to do. Then go through the process again. In fact, this process never ends. In continues in perpetuity. The important thing is that you implement strategies before re-viewing them. There is nothing more counterproductive than constantly re-assessing what to do. The only way to know what works is to experiment and do it.
When we do this – we are on the path to success. This should perhaps be defined as: “Success = the progressive realisation of a worthwhile ideal.”
