I'm lucky enough to have family visiting. I've been traveling; ergo, my blog suffers.
I think the time in new cities with fresh perspectives has been good. I'm reinvigorated. I'm feeling imaginative.
Best Regards.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Important Matter of Value
Before we get started today, let's quickly define convention, just to ensure we're all on the same page.
When I talk about value, I mean something that is worth money. Value is something that someone will pay for. If you provide a person with value, be it a good or a service, you can expect a denomination of dollars in return. If you think you are providing someone something, but they don't want to trade the contents of their purse, then you don't have something of value. I know there is a lot of hype these days about good business being about more than money, blah blah blah. It's bullshit, at least in the beginning. Before you can have a business that is about more than money, it needs to be about money.
That paragraph prior is redundant, but ever so important.
Because without that fiat currency, you won't be able to rent an office, employ a staff, develop a website or market your offering. The world goes around because money makes it spin.
And let me make one thing clear, I have serious beef with people who don't understand, nay, refuse to accept, this concept. Listen here, hippy: You can protest and hunger-strike all you like, but in my eyes, that's the easy way out. Your goals would be much more graspable if you were to just realize the rules that govern our globe. If only you would work your way up the corporate ladder, so that once on top you could make the right, responsible strategic decisions with a real impact. But that would require foresight and determination, not to say that all hippies lack such qualities.
Anyways, back to the lecture at hand, I've talked a little bit about how implementing something of value is crucial to business success. But in penning my last post, I feel I might have skipped a beat. Allow me to backtrack, please. I have come to believe, through brutal experience, that your idea of value, and your target market's idea of value, can be completely different. The question then, becomes how do we efficiently and effectively bridge this rift?
Communicate. More specifically, communicate with your potential customers. Ask strangers in your target market what they are looking for. Ask strangers, objective, critical strangers - the opposite of your mother. It sounds easy, but it takes action. You might be surprised by what you hear. But as long as you can adapt, you'll be fine. Get the hard stuff out of the way early. It's going to be a lot harder when you find out, 6 months and innumerable expenses later at the launch of your first product, that you've got a flop on your hands.
Find out what the needs are of the clients you want to serve. Listen to their answers and follow-up with more questions. Understand why their needs are important to them.
NOTE: I'm sort of just laying the framework, figuring out for the direction of this blog as I go. In doing so I'm applying the principle I'll touch on in my next post.
NOTE II: Once I'm happy with this here foundation I've laid, I'll get more specific and detailed by illustrating my posts with my own personal examples over the course of the last 6 months. Bear with me, for now; it'll be worth it, I promise.
When I talk about value, I mean something that is worth money. Value is something that someone will pay for. If you provide a person with value, be it a good or a service, you can expect a denomination of dollars in return. If you think you are providing someone something, but they don't want to trade the contents of their purse, then you don't have something of value. I know there is a lot of hype these days about good business being about more than money, blah blah blah. It's bullshit, at least in the beginning. Before you can have a business that is about more than money, it needs to be about money.
That paragraph prior is redundant, but ever so important.
Because without that fiat currency, you won't be able to rent an office, employ a staff, develop a website or market your offering. The world goes around because money makes it spin.
And let me make one thing clear, I have serious beef with people who don't understand, nay, refuse to accept, this concept. Listen here, hippy: You can protest and hunger-strike all you like, but in my eyes, that's the easy way out. Your goals would be much more graspable if you were to just realize the rules that govern our globe. If only you would work your way up the corporate ladder, so that once on top you could make the right, responsible strategic decisions with a real impact. But that would require foresight and determination, not to say that all hippies lack such qualities.
Anyways, back to the lecture at hand, I've talked a little bit about how implementing something of value is crucial to business success. But in penning my last post, I feel I might have skipped a beat. Allow me to backtrack, please. I have come to believe, through brutal experience, that your idea of value, and your target market's idea of value, can be completely different. The question then, becomes how do we efficiently and effectively bridge this rift?
Communicate. More specifically, communicate with your potential customers. Ask strangers in your target market what they are looking for. Ask strangers, objective, critical strangers - the opposite of your mother. It sounds easy, but it takes action. You might be surprised by what you hear. But as long as you can adapt, you'll be fine. Get the hard stuff out of the way early. It's going to be a lot harder when you find out, 6 months and innumerable expenses later at the launch of your first product, that you've got a flop on your hands.
Find out what the needs are of the clients you want to serve. Listen to their answers and follow-up with more questions. Understand why their needs are important to them.
NOTE: I'm sort of just laying the framework, figuring out for the direction of this blog as I go. In doing so I'm applying the principle I'll touch on in my next post.
NOTE II: Once I'm happy with this here foundation I've laid, I'll get more specific and detailed by illustrating my posts with my own personal examples over the course of the last 6 months. Bear with me, for now; it'll be worth it, I promise.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Ideas are Irrelevant
You have a great idea for a business, do you? You're going to change the world, right? I hate to be the bearer of bad news (not really), but hear me now: Your idea doesn't matter.
This critically important notion was a particularly difficult lesson for me to learn. That's why I'm sharing it with you so early on, in the most nascent stages of this here internet blog. Personally speaking, I'm an idea man. I am easily excited and I love to think about big picture possibilities. I have approximately 12 million and 6 ideas for ways to change the world. Too bad I'm unable to implement most of them.
That's what it boils down to, friends: Implementation and action. If you can't make it happen, it won't translate to dollars. And dollars, are what this business thing is all about - at least in the beginning. If you don't have cashflow you don't have a business.
I implore you then, to stop spending your days daydreaming about a diverse plethora of lofty ideas. To start the meander down your path to start-up success, just zoom in on one of these great plans, preferably one that provides people in need, something of value (value being something that they will happily hand you "scrilla" for) and make it happen.
Coming up next: How to figure out if your idea has value, and strategies for making it happen. Stay tuned!
This critically important notion was a particularly difficult lesson for me to learn. That's why I'm sharing it with you so early on, in the most nascent stages of this here internet blog. Personally speaking, I'm an idea man. I am easily excited and I love to think about big picture possibilities. I have approximately 12 million and 6 ideas for ways to change the world. Too bad I'm unable to implement most of them.
That's what it boils down to, friends: Implementation and action. If you can't make it happen, it won't translate to dollars. And dollars, are what this business thing is all about - at least in the beginning. If you don't have cashflow you don't have a business.
I implore you then, to stop spending your days daydreaming about a diverse plethora of lofty ideas. To start the meander down your path to start-up success, just zoom in on one of these great plans, preferably one that provides people in need, something of value (value being something that they will happily hand you "scrilla" for) and make it happen.
Coming up next: How to figure out if your idea has value, and strategies for making it happen. Stay tuned!
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