I think therefore I am!

Well, eventually, Mr. Descartes was sitting alone in a world where everything may not be as it seemed but then, instead of looking outward, he looked inward at himself, and realized that at last, there was proof.  The fact that he could think, that he had thoughts running through his consciousness, those thoughts proved he existed.

He came to a powerful conclusion.  ”I think therefore I am.”

Around about now I’m sort of expecting a big “So what?” from people reading this…

So what right?

Descartes thought he existed, therefore he existed.

Being an entrepreneur and a successful one at that, starts at exactly the same place as our half crazy Mr. Descartes.

He thought he existed, so he did. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur you need to have that inward belief too. You need to know you are a kick ass, no holds barred, no obstacle to stop you, world shaking, entrepreneur.

You will have failures “guaran-damned-teed” and we live in a culture where failures are looked down on to the point where we deploy spin to prove they weren’t really failures but success….sometimes we even fool ourselves. Spin, dodge and weave but in reality, a failure is only truly a failure when you fail to gain education from the experience .

Maybe you hate failure, but how do you feel about education?

Probably pretty good huh?

Thomas Edison made over 9000 light bulbs that exploded and failed to workone after another

The 1^st light bulb *POP* failed!

2^nd light bulb *POP* failed….dammit!

Now you and me, maybe after 10 pops, perhaps 100 pops maybe even 250 pops we’d have raised our hands and said “I’m a failure! This is never going to happen!”

When Edison was asked if he minded having 9000 failures rumor has it he answered,

“I didn’t have 9000 failures, I learnt 9000 ways not to make a light bulb…”

So as you start your business seize onto those failures, both small and large, and understand them, dissect them, know them even more intimately than your successes…they may not keep you warm at night but it’s the lessons you learn, that help you to be a stronger entrepreneur and lead you towards your success.

And if you really want to gain the best education from these failures make sure you OWN them.

Make them yours.

What do I mean by that? If something goes wrong,  if there’s a failure don’t push responsibility for it onto someone or something else.

That makes you a pawn, a person pushed around by forces beyond your control.

That is not you…that is not an entrepreneur.

YOU are responsible for your successes and your failures. You are COMPLETELY responsible. WOW – doesn’t that take a weight off? Now you don’t have to worry about who to blame?

And now you also own the education and learning you get from these experiences.

So now you can use those thoughts to move yourself towards greater success because…

“You think therefore you are”

…So if you believe you are going to create your own success…

You will. Mr. Descartes proved it more than 350 years ago and a dead Frenchman can’t be wrong.

Do you think I’m half crazed? Let me know with your comments – does any of this strike a cord with you?

Descartes

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Startups Should Focus

The definition of a startup means you have very few resources to employ and little time to get them to do something valuable. The clock is always ticking, and the money (if you even have any) is running out by the day. With so little to leverage, you need to make sure that the focus of your company’s product offer is as razor sharp as possible.

Don’t be all you can be. Be as little as you can be.

Most startup companies fail because they try to be too many things to too many people right from the onset. They think of every possible option they could load into their product offer. While this may give them the feeling of being one of the “big boys,” the grim reality is they are not. In fact by trying to be too many things from the start, these companies often end up delivering no real value at all.

Instead of trying to be all things to all people, try being one thing to all people. Think of PayPal, the highly successful startup that allowed users to e-mail money over the Internet to each other. PayPal could have chosen a million options for their offer. They could have become an on-line credit card company, an auction site, a loan provider and so on. But what made the company successful was their focus on only one offer – e-mailing money from one person to the other.

PayPal did one simple thing so well that the industry giant eBay purchased them for $1.5 billion in 2002, even after eBay had already built the same service themselves. PayPal is a great example of a company keeping a sharp focus one doing on thing right even when so many great opportunities could have easily distracted them.

Bite off less than you can chew

Delivering your product to market is an amazing feat to begin with. Even still, a common problem among small companies is their inability to predict what it will take to actually support a product once it has gone to market. It’s easy to conceive complex products with lots of features. But actually bringing that product to market and supporting its use with customers is a whole different story.

Instead of trying to roll out everything and the kitchen sink in your approach to market, just roll out the sink. If you find that you can support your product just fine after it’s been successfully selling in the first year, then go ahead and add to it. It’s a lot easier to add features along the way than it is to support features you don’t have the resources for to begin with.

You have ten seconds to get it right

Your customer has a life, even if you do not. They are being constantly bombarded with marketing messages from the latest movies releases to the newest type of shampoo. They don’t have the time or energy to stop their entire day to focus on just your product. So if you are lucky enough to have ten seconds of their attention, you had better make good use of it.

The exercise of developing your value proposition in ten seconds is a great way to distill down your feature set to those items that will get people’s attention right away. If it’s not going to add value to the ten second pitch, it’s not critical to your product’s success. If you can’t get your customer’s attention with the one key benefit to your product, the rest of your features will never see the light of day to begin with.

Stay on target gold leader

Your product launch is just the beginning of keeping your focus. Once you have brought your product to market and enjoyed some early success, it may become even harder to stay focused. Now you have customers calling you and recommending (or demanding!) features to be added and services to be provided. All of these distractions make it even harder to keep you and your team focused on a single goal.

Fortunately the process of keeping your resources focused post-launch is entirely the same. You need to pick your battles and allocate your resources toward the few initiatives that will be best served to do the one thing right that is truly driving your company. Serving the needs and whims of every customer sounds great, but it can also be a terrible detour when trying to keep the forward progress of your company moving.

If at any point during your journey you’re unsure whether or not you’re spending your time and resources effectively, just ask yourself one question, “Is this driving the core benefit of our product?”. If the answer is “yes”, you’re headed in the right direction.

About The Guest Author

Wil Schroter is a serial entrepreneur, author, and public speaker. His latest book “Go Big or Go Home” was available in 2005.  Will is the founder of Go Big Network.

++

Thanks to Will for this article. What do you think? Should a startup be absolutely lazer focused? Getting your feedback would really help us to focus in on what you want to see. What is your one question on startups today?

Consider joining my email list for more startup tips and help.

Andrew

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Related posts:

1. Product Development: From Winning Idea to Startup (Step 3)
2. Product Development: Qualifying YOUR Winning Idea For your Startup (Step 2)
3. Product Development: Creating A Winning Idea For YOUR Startup (Step 1)

Huge swaths of new businesses don’t get past their first Anniversary – not one candle on the cake to be blown out.

And it doesn’t matter how great your business model is or how passionate your first few customers are – much of the early success of a start-up can be put on the shoulders of a company’s early founders – you have to be passionate, driven, nearly manic – sometimes to the exclusion of what most would consider logical or any degree of common sense. Even people that love you (the girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husbands and parents) will not be shy about telling you how crazy you are and how unlikely it is that you and your baby business will be anything more than a complete and abject failure.

And despite it all, you, the founder need to have a supreme confidence, deep in your gut and your chest – even when almost everything (and everyone) seems stacked against you.

Any of this sounds familiar?

Now here’s the one caveat when it comes to being passionate and confident, manic and closed minded about your new business – Be Confident, Not Stupid.

Huh?

Let me explain what I mean…

Be confident, know that some way or another, you and the people that decide to come on this startup journey with you will overcome the challenges and obstacles until you create something of which you can all be proud.

Did you notice the most important element of that sentence?

“…you will overcome the challenges and obstacles…”

Being the founder of a startup is NOT ignoring the weaknesses in your own business, it is not being blinkered and unaware of the challenges and the obstacles – I’ll write that again – being a founder is not being blinkered and ignoring the obvious issues, if anything, it’s being SO self aware that you know exactly what the business suffers from…even more so than all those nay Sayers on the outside who are telling you, you’re going to fail. You know even better than those doomsters, just how close you are to failure and what you need to focus on to be able to overcome these challenges and obstacles.

So, as a founder, be passionate, be focused, even be a little blinkered – just as long as you are self aware and know exactly what you need to do to take a potential catastrophe and convert it into a real business. Like I said in the beginning –

Be Confident…Not Stupid!

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The first posting “Product Development: Creating A Winning Idea For YOUR Startup (Step 1)” included techniques to create your own winning startup idea, and the second “Product Development: Qualifying YOUR Winning Idea For your Startup (Step 2)“ gave some tips on how to qualify the idea to make sure it’s really the one that you should be investing your heart, soul, blood, sweat…well, no need to labor the point, I’m sure you get the idea…

So what do I do next when moving a Winning Startup idea forward?

If the idea has really grabbed me, my temptation is usually to start figuring out all of the pieces that are needed to move it from idea to a real business.  This mean thinking about the people I’ll need to find, figuring out how to test the idea, how much money it’s going to need and the 101 other moving parts.  It starts to expand like one of those towel tablets you would put in the bath as a kid.

It’s at about this time when you need to figure out a few things before you really start getting carried away.

Like what? Well – Normally at the top of my list is how do I fit in with this idea? Sure, I had the initial idea but is that justification enough for driving it forward? Every day, you need to ask yourself, “Am I the best person to drive this business forward?”

What’s important is giving the idea ‘life’ – so always try to keep that at the forefront of your mind and try…(and its tough) to put ego in the back somewhere…

Products and Services tend to have a different approach – For a product let’s consider just a few of the different steps in the process from idea to real, actual product:

• Developing product drawings (Engineering Skills)
• Developing a prototype (Engineering skills)
• Prototype testing (Engineering etc)
• Determining how to produce it in larger quantities (Engineering)
• Testing the Market (Marketing)
• Determining Price Point considering the margins required by the different sales channel (Marketing & sales)
• Sanity checking the numbers (Production costs vs. price point to sales channel) (Finance)
• Understanding and selling the product into the sales channel (Sales)
• Marketing the product to retailers and the end consumer (Marketing)
• Managing the invoicing, customer service, tracking cash (Finance etc)

These are just a few incredibly broad steps on the road to making a product idea real – It’s by no means all inclusive.  The point here is that there are multiple component parts necessary to build a business whether it’s a product, service or website.  When you are sure this idea is the one, begin to map out what the idea needs and to overlay that with your own strengths and capabilities.  This will act as a pointer for you ~ it should help make obvious who you will need to find to join the team either actually or virtually.

One of the common mistakes with most first, second and third times entrepreneurs is not knowing what you shouldn’t be doing – the temptation is often to try to do it all yourself – either to cut costs or because you are so passionate about getting it done, that you take a shot at whatever the task might be, instead of looking for the expert. Your job, oh founder, is to go FIND! Find the people who know what they’re doing in each area (Marketing / Sales / Engineering etc) and if you trust that you have the right people – trust them to do their job properly once you’ve mapped out the objectives / targets.

Thankfully whether your winning startup idea is a product, service or website there are some relatively fixed ‘categories’ that need to be considered whatever the business – product or service.

Here are some of the key categories and a few thought jogging questions, there are many more:

The Customer:

• What are their needs?
• What are they prepared to pay for? How Much?
• How do they buy products like this? A store / website / telephone / television? 

Competition:

• Where do customers currently buy or go to use products like this?
• What products or services do they offer?
• How much do they charge?
• How do they sell and market their products?
• How many competitors are there?

The Product:

• What does it need to do?
• How will it be much better than what the competition offer?
• Who can prototype and build it?
• How much does it cost to produce?
• What is necessary to produce it?
• Who will produce it?

Sales:

• Where will you sell this product?
• Who will sell it for you?
• How will you pay them? Salary or commission or both? Yes, there are sales people who will work for just commission (Blog Post to come)

Marketing:

• How does it meet the customer need?
• How is it better than what the competition offers?
• How much can we reasonably charge?
• Are we looking for volume of customers or a select group of customers?
• What do customers need to know that will make them want to buy it?
• What are the ways to tell potential customers about the product?
• How much do they cost?
• Are there any ways of telling potential customers about the products cheaply?

Some of these questions may not work for your idea but most should.  As you go through them more questions should pop up. And don’t worry if you don’t know all of the answers, you won’t. Fact.

But you will probably be able to make some really good educated guesses in the areas that relate to your personal strengths and won’t have a clue in those areas that are too far out of your own skills and experiences ~ another good pointer towards the types of people you will need to go find to flesh out the idea and really start the tactical planning of “How to Launch Your Winning Startup Idea” and turn it from an idea into an actually, living, breathing Startup. But again, that is the subject of another blog posting.

I hope this posting helps. Again, questions, comments, relevant rude remarks always welcome and ‘Yes’ this posting could have included much more, in fact, it could have gone on for at least another 50,000 words but like most entrepreneurs I have a tendency towards A.D.D. and another 50K words would take a good six weeks or so to write.

Let me know where I should dive deeper and I’ll do my best! Honest!

How did you like this post? Any comments?

Andrew

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Related posts:

1. Product Development: Qualifying YOUR Winning Idea For your Startup (Step 2)
2. Product Development: Creating A Winning Idea For YOUR Startup (Step 1)
3. Product Development: Get Creative, Get Frustrated, Get Started!

Just as a reminder:

1. Product Design New Application: Think of how one product or design can be re-deployed to solve other problems
2. What If?: How could a great product or business be a ‘world class’ business? How does it need to change or improve?
3. The Pissed Off Brainstorm: If only X did it this way….why couldn’t they just do Y?
4. The mashup approach

Great!  Have you found that idea that makes sleep near impossible?

THE idea that is now starting to bloom and grow in your brain whether you want to think about it or not? 

If you are reading this and even now the idea is demanding attention, then maybe you’ve actually found your own Winning Startup Idea. 

Is that all there is too it?  Of course not. This is just the beginning but it is one of the most challenging elements…

The frank reality is that the idea you’ve just conceived is at the start of it’s life and I can promise you that as you move it forward, it will shift and change to the point where when it becomes ‘real’ you probably won’t even recognize it as the same idea. 

That’s OK.

Every winning startup idea grows up eventually when it hits the real world and spends some time with it’s initial customers. These initial steps are what this post is about  — Initial steps to take a fantastic and very personal winning startup idea and make it real and ready to be shared and experienced by it’s customers.

So here it is, your very own winning startup idea – what’s next?

At this stage, I normally take a look at myself and examine whether I’m passionate enough about the idea to really grab a hold of it with both hands and push it forward no matter what. 

Stop there – Its important you consider if you are SO passionate that you will make it live…No matter what!

Any obstacle, any person telling you you’re crazy, that you may as well not waste your time, that you should stick with the safe life…that it won’t or can’t happen – know that you’ll push through it all and nothing will stop you!

There are always people who will tell you 101 reasons why your idea will fail – some of them people that love you, and don’t want you to fail but perhaps they don’t want things to change, or to risk — some might whisper “Don’t do it – play safe” even as they see your eyes glow, like they haven’t in, perhaps years. 

But this is the time when you need to decide if this is going to be the idea that you’ll make a reality.

If you are only half hearted about it now then sooner or later you’ll run out of steam and waste all the time you’ve invested…You’ll have wasted your own time (forgivable) and other people’s time (unforgivable). 

So this is usually the point where you might decide to sleep on it. YAWN!

So morning comes, the cock crows inside your head and your idea smacks it upside the head and tells it to be quiet while it pounds your resistence into mush…

OK, so you e slept on it and the first thought that pops into your head when you wake up is your winning startup idea…if even while mentally sweeping out the cobwebs of sleep your brain starts to turn over the idea and look at it from different directions, then you are well and truly hooked. Sorry and congratulations – your life may never be the same.

As you mull it over you’ll start to see how it can be made better, how it could be not just a winning idea but Great Idea.  Yippee, this is one of those ideas – one of the one’s that even if you wanted to, you can’t push side.   That mental shot of near caffeine has happened again. Isn’t life great?

So next, write it idea down and I don’t worry if its rough…you’re not going to use this document to raise money…just as a tool to develop the idea and test it out.  As you write, the idea will spiral and burst into rainbowed fragments, it will expand and become bigger and better. After time disappears as you write – you’ll eventually have  it down on paper.

Now wait…. promise to give yourself 24 hours before coming back to it.

But you’ll probably cheat…you can’t help it, a few really interesting elements come to my mind an hour or two later so add them to the document in case so you don’t lose them.  OK.  That’s it. 24 hours. Right.  So next day read it through and see what other refinements or ideas come to mind. 

Yep, the idea still makes sense.

So how do you begin to make it come to life.

Answer: by working with other people.

So who do I know that has expertise relating to this type of business or perhaps know someone who does?  Let’s take the drive through whole food deli idea from the previous post.  Who do I know that has some business experience in restaurants?  Scratching my head the honest answer in my case is ‘no one’. 

Damn it I’m screwed! 

No – hold it – there’s that guy I know who know’s someone…and the ball begins to roll forward…

You’ve run your winning startup idea by someone who understands the space and if you’re lucky, they’ve given you some more ideas, some contacts, told you about potential competitors and if there aren’t any, have probably told you you’re mad. 

Don’t sweat ‘mad’, so was Thomas Edison and Marconi in their early days. These are your early entrepreneurial days, take pride in mad…mad is better than bored and boring watching TV or surfing the internet. Sorry NBC!

If there was chemistry between you and the person who gave you your initial advice, consider cultivating that person as a mentor.  At least ask them if you can give them a call and follow up later. Be appreciative of their experience, let them know that they could be the key to your success – they actually might be. 

If they have helped you identified similar business models or competitors, make it your first business to know everything about them. What do they do, how do they do it, what do they charge and most important, what do their customers think of their product or service? See any chinks in their armor? If so great!  This tells you what you’ll need to do better to start pleasing your customers, making money and building your market.

But one person, a winning startup idea and a rough idea draft is not a business but it IS a great start – so don’t leave it there…

So what’s next?  Well you’re going to need some critical elements and no surprises what they are:

• People
• Money
• Product
• Initial Customers
• Business infrastructure
• Marketing plan / tools
• …and on

But securing those particular elements is material for the next few posts…if you have thoughts, questions, comments or rude remarks about the above, let me know.

And join my mailing list so I can update you when they are more posts and I’ll also send you ‘The Startup Launch BluePrint for FREE’.

Andrew

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Related posts:

1. Product Development: From Winning Idea to Startup (Step 3)
2. Product Development: Creating A Winning Idea For YOUR Startup (Step 1)
3. Product Development: Get Creative, Get Frustrated, Get Started!

There are rainforest amounts of books printed about people’s startup experiences – what I’d like to try here is to write about the real techniques and steps I have been through many times before when taking a new business idea and working to move it through to a real product or service. 

Hopefully a more grounded approach than some of those ‘How to’ or ‘My experience as an Entrepreneur’ books.

Well, we’ll see. Questions and comments welcome!

So, want to start a business?

Have the necessary passion to start a new business but are unsure where to start?

Looking for that new, innovative, winning new business idea?

Or perhaps you’re waiting for divine inspiration to serve up that winning idea like money from heaven before you actually get up off that sofa and GO FOR IT. 

Sorry to burst your bubble – waiting on the sofa, won’t make it happen.  The only thing you’ll get is sofa rash!

So how do you get that divine inspiration?

You have to ‘create’ it yourself.  But maybe it’s closer and easier to get than you think, maybe you can come up with that idea today and do you know what else? Even a mediocre idea can grow and develop as you go through the process of thinking, refining, testing and, just like chipping away at a piece of stone – the beauty of what’s inside may get revealed…

Here are a few ways that work for me as a way of getting to that beauty inside – so much so that they’ve become almost unconscious processes that happen on autopilot and better yet, they’re easy.

Give them a try – and leave me your comments and thoughts if they did (or didn’t work…) for you!

When asked where my ideas for new business come from I often joke that it’s a ‘disease’, something which is uncontrolled, being delivered in the grey matter between my ears without conscious thought or a process.  That’s close, but not exactly how it happens.

Let me take you back to give you an insight into the process…

During my first interview for a role at Procter & Gamble fresh out university one interview question still sticks with me.  The interviewer passed a glass across the table and asked me to name ten uses for it.  Use number 1 was…a glass, she was unimpressed.

Use number 2 was a paper weight, (better but still no cigar),

number 3 was a lens to read small print in a document and before I knew what had happened, ten different and increasingly creative (read – crazy) uses had spilled out in the interview room. 

That process is not too dissimilar from the process you could try. This redeployment of one product idea (in my case stackable Pringles) into another product category (Fire Escape Ladders) helped me come up with the idea for my first company, X-IT Products to produce an idea I’d had for the world’s smallest, safest, strongest fire escape ladder.

A refinement on that creative free thinking is what we’ll call ‘What if’.  Find a product, web service or business that is in the space that you are passionate about and really impresses you.  Thought of it? 

What’s great about that business? What do you really like about it?  Now think about what would make it even better? That would take it from being a great business and make it a world class business.  Write down every idea that comes to you….when you feel yourself drying up, read through the list and see if that squeezes any more ideas out of you.  Take a read through that list and see if any light bulbs go off in your head – any really obvious improvements or refinements to that already great business?

The third approach that might work even better for you is what I’ll call the ‘Pissed Off’ brainstorm.  Has a product, service or business failed to live up to it’s promise?  Maybe they over sold you or your expectations were mis-aligned with the reality of the business.  Maybe they screwed up or the product was faulty. Perhaps they don’t exactly meet your need.  But who cares? You do, because this is an opportunity to figure out what the business or product needed to do to deliver on it’s promise, to meet and exceed your expectations.  And if they aren’t meeting your needs because of some flaw, figure out what needs to happen to solve it. 

Let’s try an example, I’m driving from New York to Philadelphia – it’s lunch time and I’m hungry.  Watching the signs as I travel, what are my options?  Ah, here we are – McDonalds, Wendy’s, Dunkin Donuts and a few no-brand obscure Italian restaurants. More often than not if I’m hungry enough, I’ll drive through and buy something.  But just once, wouldn’t it be good if I could get something that was healthier.  It’s true that most of these places sell salads but then the light bulb goes off!  Before Whole Foods selling organic and more ‘wholesome’ food, most supermarkets were similar. Whole Foods changed the supermarket ‘game’ – what about a motor way food joint that changes the game in the same way as Whole Foods?  A quick, drive through that offers freshly prepared, all organic, non-greasy, non-salad food?  As of today, at least on the routes I drive, they would be the only food chain of its type. Talk about cornering an underserved market. Surely not everyone want’s a burger or a slice of pizza? Is this a winning idea? Who know’s but it could make someone a lot of money if it takes off. Don’t forget my percentage if you make this one a reality!

And the last approach for today is the new business mashup approach – remember those business you thought of above? You know – those cool products or services that got your juices flowing?

So what would happen if you could bring a few of them together? Anything interesting there? How about this…take a web based service that really rocks your world and consider how it can be repacked for a growing market. Say – the Twitter community…anything coming through yet?

So, there are other ways that these ideas are created but hopefully these few are good as a start, so:

1. Product Design New Application: Think of how one product or design can be re-deployed to solve other problems
2. What If?: How could a great product or business be a ‘world class’ business? How does it need to change or improve?
3. The Pissed Off Brainstorm: If only X did it this way….why couldn’t they just do Y?
4. The mashup approach

Try these approaches and see where they take you.  Feel free to come back and post how you get on. 

Maybe then I can write an article on some ‘what to do next’ steps for your new winning idea. 

When you find your winning idea then you are already further along than most ‘would be’ entrepreneurs, now to GO an make it a reality.

And if this post takes you to that industry changing idea which makes you bazzillions…remember my cut! Its all started HERE!

And consider joining my mailing list so I can update you when they are more posts even better than this one

Andrew

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Related posts:

1. Product Development: Qualifying YOUR Winning Idea For your Startup (Step 2)
2. Product Development: From Winning Idea to Startup (Step 3)
3. Product Development: Get Creative, Get Frustrated, Get Started!

Then that postage stamp grew as its owner wrote more and more, until it changed from being completely and utterly insignificant and it became merely….um…if I’m honest…just ‘insignificant” – whew! Progress.

And that’s the story of, I would guess, 50% of all blogs out there – the other 49% didn’t even bother to write more and more…

Blogging is a nice idea, you create the presence, maybe you even write a few articles and when, the flood doesn’t come crashing down the virtual door…more often than not, the blog gets left to wither and die before it even really lives.

Isn’t that a little sad? Doesn’t it tell us that we need to persevere in life if we are to create ANYTHING of value? humm….

Andrew – Is there a way to change that dynamic?

No – there isn’t A Way…I believe there are a combination of ‘Ways’ – some internal and some external.

Huh? Internal and external? Could you be any less clear Andrew (Sarcastic tone dripping…)

Alright subconscious – let me explain -

Internal ways are those things you need to do within yourself…

• You need to ‘Commit’ to blogging daily or every other day for six months…
• You need to not just blog regularly but you must commit to trying not to blog about what you did last night in front of the television -
• You need, more than anything, to make it useful, interesting and valuable for your readers.
• And You need to be thinking often about how you can improve your blogs presence externally….

Which brings me to the external…

What is a blog?

It’s a collection of words and ideas, right?

Well, not exactly – its information – and information can and should be packaged so it can be consumed by the people who need that information, when they need it.

Let me show you what I mean…

The Blog Evolution / Revolution:
Day 1: There was ‘Blog’ – a written page
Day 2: Then there was Blog + Podcast (Audio – download and streamed)
Day 3: Then there was Blog + Podcast + Videocast
Day 4: Then there was Blog + Podcast + Videocast and mini- or real time blogging  (Twitter)
Day 4: Then there was BlogTalkRadio and Blogs on itunes and more

Now for all those blogging experts out there (hey – thanks for reading my blog post – I’m flattered! ) – Yes, I know that that’s not the sequence but I’m trying to make a point here…

THE POINT: Blogging isn’t just about writing great content any more…you have to be thinking about how your information digesters want to consume your information and make it available (making sure it references your blog wherever the information appears).

So consider – Do they want to read it? Do they want to listen to it? Watch it? Read an excerpt on twitter? How?

So what does any of this have to do with a “Virtuous Circle”?

A virtuous circle is a term I’m using to explain how each element of your Blog Strategy works together to create more and more momentum…and momentum can be used to create a following, a mailing list, and an intimacy with your digesters so they can tell you what they want ongoing…so you can provide even better content via your blog, via podcasting, via YouTube, via Twitter, Via iTunes…so you can create momentum, continue to build your list, connect with your….you get the idea right?

Stop there Andrew…back-up…

Blog Strategy? Er…how do I get one of those…

How? By spending some of that daily blog time on extending the reach of your blog information – And I’m not talking about link sharing here, the days when you can just focus on sharing links are longggggg gone….

No – What I’m talking about is extending and expanding the ways that your ‘customers’ can ‘CONSUME’ your information.

For example – Some elements within my Blog Strategy…

Content:
1) An attractive blog
2) Develop a strong foundation of value added content
3) Create podcasts
4) Create video

Ways to Consume:

1. Blog (http://www.AndrewIve.com / http://www.TheFundingGuru.com )
2. RSS (http://feeds.feedburner.com/AndrewIve- with all the bells and whistles)
3. Twitter (http://twitter.com/TheFundingGuru)
4. Andrew Ive iTunes channel (Search: Andrew Ive)
5. YouTube: (http://www.youtube.com/user/andrewive)
6. BlogTalkRadio – check it out!

And how do you take all of that and create a Virtuous Circle?

By bringing people back to your blog at every opportunity, continuously creating valuable and powerful content and pushing out so it can be consumed in multiple formats. And do it all over again, every day…

Creating a postage stamp in the ether is still an option but you’d be better writing yourself a postcard and putting an actual stamp on it and mailing it to yourself – than at least two people will read what you’re writing – you and the postman!

Now where can you find out about the tactical elements of a lot of the above?

I’d recommend Yaro’s blog – and here’s a link to some ‘must do’s’ for those wanting to take a look at podcasting for example:

Seven Secrets of Podcasting

If you would like to be kept updated about postings – Sign up to my mailing list. I NEVER sell or share your contacts with anyone. Period!

Here’s to Your Success!

Andrew

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1. Start Your Company for Under $87 Bucks

So who is Yaro and why am I a fan?

Well, Yaro can do a much better job of telling you who he is – in fact, that’s one of Yaro’s things, he’s open about who he is and what his motivations are – he’s a refreshingly regular guy that has worked every day for the last four years plus to learn and navigated his way through and over the hurdles of building a business on the internet within the blogging community. Yaro is slowly and surely deploying those lessons to grow his business and help others do the same.

I would really check out his blog – it’s got some great information if you are interested in building a blog, traffic or online business (or all three at once) but one point that Yaro made which resonated more than any other for me was to think about how you can create value in your blogs – don’t go out there trying to make money from day 1 but focus instead on giving your readers (even if there are only five of them ) a reason to keep coming back, give them VALUE!

For that reason, I thought I would create a blueprint showing people how they can create a company for under $87. Why?

Because you can go online and spend anything from $$$ to start your own business if you use a lawyer or an online service (assuming they do a good job?) and many people starting companies for the first time will think that the only way to do it — mainly because they’ve never done it before and setting up a company sounds daunting and complicated. Let’s face it – anything you’ve never done before often sounds daunting and complicated but after you’ve done it a few times — easy!

So, the “Start-Up Launch Blueprint” brings a number of resources together to help the first time entrepreneur to start their own company, simply and with little fuss.  I also included access to a number of free resources such as online books to help entrepreneurs determine what kind of company – LLC or Corporation — the pros and cons of both; finding a good accountant; attorney; bank; licenses and permits requirements and other key elements necessary to successfully start a business.

 If you are interested in Starting Your Own Business – read “Start Your Company for under $87 Bucks – A “Start-Up Launch Blueprint”

And how do you get a copy?

Well, for a short time only, I’m giving it away FREE if you sign up to my mailing list.  I don’t want the ‘ad’ for this blueprint to clog up my blog for long, so I can’t guarantee, if you don’t get it today, that you’ll be able to get it tomorrow.

So, sign up to my mailing list and get “Start Your Company for under $87 Bucks – A “Start-Up Launch Blueprint’ NOW!”

Thanks Yaro and thanks reader!

Andrew

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1. If this 13 Year Old Can Start A Business then What’s Stopping YOU!
2. Ever wanted to launch a Product or a Company?

If that was the case then there wouldn’t be McDonald’s AND Burger King selling hamburgers, in other words, don’t wait for the lightening to strike before you seize the day and begin your entrepreneurial journey. You’re idea does NOT need to be unique but how you execute should be – better?  faster? Cheaper? more bells and whistles? Less? Ideally find and focus on a real difference that your customers or prospects will care about then tell them over and over again, in as many ways as you can. 

2)  You do NOT need to quit your day job to be a true entrepreneur…

We would all love to write that resignation letter and tell the MAN where he can put his ‘stinking’ job (Read with Tony Montana Scarface accent)….but everything about starting a business takes, at best, twice as long as you expect to get every task done.  If you can slowly gain momentum with your business, test it out, get a few happy, reference-able customers without giving up the pay check then you may want to think seriously about biting your tongue until your new business can keep you in the style you have grown accustom.

3)  You do NOT need to spend a fortune to test a new business idea or product…

If it’s a physical product, create a prototype, find some would-be-customers and ask them what they think…believe it or not, prospects LIKE being asked their opinion – especially before all a products features are locked in. And if you’re lucky, those discussions will help you find something unique that none of your competitors have which will really increase interest and demand. It will also help you understand the mindset of your prospective customer and what do I mean by that?  A few things – what is important about the product to them and how they talk about it – this will help you understand what elements you need to focus in on when marketing your product and how to communicate about those elements in a way that resonates with your prospects. 

Blatant example – surfer dude product, pitch using the latest phrases and terminology of the target customer. Without spending the time to get into those conversations, you would probably resort to throwing in a few ‘Dudes!’ and hoping for the best… 

If it’s a website or software then consider finding an inexpensive freelancer from elance – they often have people who can create a cheap testable version of a site or software without requiring a second mortgage on the family pet.  Make sure you take a good look at the reviews from other folks who previously used their services.

4)  You do NOT need to use an expensive lawyer to create a legal entity…

First there are many low priced options found on the web but even better (in my opinion) is to go directly to the source.  In my case I found the New Jersey local government website and used their pretty easy to understand website – establishing a business in a State brings revenue so you’ll find most States are very helpful when it comes to helping you establish your business.  You can spend a fortune or even a few hundred bucks to a lawyer – but it took me about an hour to do online via my States site and all I paid was the regular registration fees via credit card.

Worth considering.

5)  You DO need to go that URL or web address…

Go to a site like  www.GoDaddy.com and use their web address search capabilities to find the ideal url (web address) for your business and register it. This matters whether the business is web or product or service based -

6)  Consider protecting your business by registering a Trademark, Service mark or Patent.

I’ll write a more in depth post on this area but consider if you need protection for your new business, especially if it’s unique or if you intend to build some kind of brand image around the product, service or website.  The core reason for considering something along these lines is to ensure no one comes along later and capitalizes on your hard work in building the customer recognition in your particular business.   If you decide to explore this, here’s where you go -

http://www.uspto.gov/

Again, you CAN spend a fortune on a lawyer but again, online resources of this government agency is getting better and easier to understand than a year or two ago – so you may find you can do some or all elements yourself. This obviously depends on your time and comfort level.  Take into consideration a couple of things: a) registering a patent, trademark, service mark etc is a process and takes time and money b) if someone infringes your patent or trademark – do you have the sums and the focus required to defend it?

7) You do NOT need others to give you the Confidence you need to pursue your idea…

You don’t NEED to have people tell you your business will be wildly successful, do you?

Sure, it would be nice to have a whole group of friends, relatives and better, angel investors, tell you YOUR idea is the next world changing business but their fond wishes (alone) and claps on the back will not move your business one inch closer to being a reality.  What you need, more than anything else (even cash) is the passion, commitment and just plain grit to make your business a success.

When talking to others about your business ideas – you may want to consider the following:

a)  Often, feedback from others can be inversely related to your relationship. Huh? What do I mean by that? It’s simple, those people without a stake in your future will probably tell you how great the idea is and how you should tell your boss where to get off tomorrow…your husband or wife will probably not, the reverse in fact. Inverse – see? Few will give you feedback on your business idea in a vacuum so, do yourself a favor and talk to the people who really matter – prospective customers.

b) If people you speak with input into the idea or product concept or prototype then they may have a legal stake in your company’s future. True!  With my first company, my partners Father helped him out when my partner was working in his workshop – throwing in some ideas. He then talked about suing the company for some degree of ownership once the business was worth something until he received a significant amount of equity. Money makes people do some pretty strange things, so be careful about working with others on your prototyping, concept development etc.

You don’t HAVE to have a Business Partner…

With the first few companies I started, I was nervous. Would it take off? Would people buy? Could I get everything done? Frankly – the questions and fears seemed endless. One of the first things I did was find someone to talk to about my ideas as a way of getting alternative opinions and one person in particular seemed enthusiastic about my concept.

“Hey X – why don’t we do it together?”

…it seemed so natural at the time. Like lemmings, there seemed to be a reassurance in numbers, ‘cos if two people wanted to pursue the business idea then maybe it wasn’t so crazy after all…makes sense right?

Wrong!

Being in partnership in a Start-Up is TOUGH! There is stress and pressure involved in starting a business and you need to know what roles each partner will be responsible for delivering – ideally, your partner’s strengths should match your own weaknesses. Also consider ego – can you guys work together for 18 hours a day without ego getting in the way? How will you run the business? Will one person be the ultimate decision maker or will you run everything by committee? Sure, committee, why not? – It worked for early twentieth century Russia didn’t it? (Is the sarcasm coming through?)

So by all means get a business partner but make sure you both do your due diligence and consider ‘dating’ for a while before you commit to full on marriage.

9) Write a Business Plan and develop Financials EVEN THOUGH they’ll be WRONG!

I guarantee you your business plan and financials will be WRONG!

It will (if you are lucky) take you twice as long as you expect to get everything done – from product or web development…all the way through to getting your first customer or your first five thousand customers. 

It will (if you are lucky) cost you twice as much as you put into your initial business plan financials to do pretty much everything.

And there are so many unforeseen costs and challenges that as soon as you press ‘SAVE’ on your final business plan and their financials – your plan is already likely to be wrong.

So why do it?

Because by going through the process of thinking about your new business and all its dimensions, you WILL spot challenges, issues, opportunities and you will probably have quite a few ‘A HA’ moments that could save you pain, time and money and point you towards some other exciting short and medium term ways of improving your business. It’s a process that should also help you determine timings of your business roadmap – i.e. when you will need certain resources such as people, additional funds, office space and so on.

Yes – your business plan will be wrong but it will be a good guide – without it, you are shooting from the hip and hoping for the best. Fun but riskier than it needs to be.

10) Create and prove Value BEFORE you raise money (if possible)…

The more value you can create and prove before you ask people to invest, the more of your own company you will probably be able to keep. It’s a simple equation – if you prove value then you are proving your company is more ‘valuable’ – therefore you get more dollars for a slice of the business than you would before proving that value.

An idea is worth something…

An idea with a prototype is worth X more…

And idea with a paying customer isn’t an idea – it’s the beginning of a business…

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I hope these points have been helpful. Let me know and consider joining our mailing list if you would like more.

Here’s to your Start-Up Success.

Andrew

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