Business Musings | Startup Addict

Entrepreneurship towards a Good Economy

January 20, 2012 By Cynthia Kocialski 1 Comment

In on our economy today, being entrepreneurs is now a trendy approach to land a good job, and be in charge of your own fate. Governments even acknowledge that entrepreneurship is a solution to high unemployment. It seems entrepreneurs are to lead the way to a better future. But are our young people ready to take on such a big task as starting a company? Do they have the knowledge and skills necessary for entrepreneurship?

Students, who got a degree in business management like an M.B.A or B.B.A, expected to secure a worthy position in an excellent corporation. Today, these degrees are considered unfavorable as those with college degrees are finding it difficult to land a job. They are now being replaced by entrepreneurial studies degrees. The later degree is targeted at those who aim to start a new company to achieve success in the business world.

To be a good entrepreneur one must be able to create a “system”. You need to find the answers to every how, what, why, where, and when question. Nothing about running and growing a business is black and white; there is no one solution to every problem, and the answer is often not obvious. An artifact of our youths being trained by the school system, they believe that reading books and articles is the way to find solutions to every question formulated in the mind. If it were that easy, we would see more business successes than just the handful of start-ups like Google, Facebook, and eBay. Our youth are used to answering questions instead of being the ones devising the questions.

Second, is acquiring soft skills. Success doesn’t only rely on knowledge but rather on how to anticipate the needs, behaviors and reactions of people. In the end, every product is used by people and every buyer is a person. For example, earning the trust from a customer is not merely bombarding the customer with facts and details, but rather how you respond immediately to their needs, and as well as, how you interact and convey information to them. Ask yourself, where are our young people learning these soft skills?

Third, in starting a new business, it will never thrive when only one person does all the work. There are only 24 hours in a day. One person can only produce so much in those 24 hours. The unfortunate truth is school is mostly about individualized work, not about team work. A successful business requires a team, a good team that will help one another to reach one common goal. Building an effective team is not something taught in school.

Lastly, the school system works well for what it does, which is to pass on the wealth of human knowledge to the next generation. The issue with entrepreneurship is knowledge isn’t enough for success. Facts and information are only one piece to the puzzle.

We may ask ourselves why the economy of one country succeeds so much and the economy of other countries does not, knowing that they have similar resources. It always boils down to culture. If we want to have a realm of successful entrepreneurs, we need to understand what makes a good entrepreneur. Successful entrepreneurs are never good followers; they are independent, free thinkers. They questions the rules, they question why things need to be the way they are. Imagine a classroom of 30 children with one teacher, if you were a teacher, could you handle a classroom full of future entrepreneurs?

Filed Under: Business Musings, entrepreneurs Tagged With: entrepreneurship

A New Year’s resolution that matters

January 1, 2012 By Tod Whipple Leave a Comment

Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be. - Jose Ortega y Gasset

At Startup Addict I think of new year resolutions differently than most people might. I focus on annual goals rather than broad or cliche resolutions like losing weight or eating healthy. Reflecting on accomplishments and failures from the previous year is a great place to start. This cathartic process allows you carry forward any missed goals and outline your next annual achievements. Take a look at a few tips that help me craft a New Year’s resolution that matters:

Reduce your signal to noise ratio
There is so much information overload and multi-tasking going on today we tend to lose more ideas than we keep track of. Easy way to combat that is to write it down! The most obvious tool of all will help cut through and clarify the noise allowing you to see your goals clearly. Just by writing on a piece of paper, ipad or smartphone (whatever your poison might be) it helps bring goals from thoughts to reality. Another good technique if you are non-linear like myself is to utilize mindmapping tools to brainstorm and organize your goals. You can then break the goals down into milestones and tasks with an associated timeline. For those of you looking for some hard take away tips try streamlining your inbound communication channels (both offline and online). This will help you reduce information overload, increase productivity and allow you get more done. See below for some quick online wrangling tips:

Twitter
Streamline your follow list and enhance your signal to noise ratio. Stop following people who hog your twitter feed or deadbeats that don’t use it. Utilize posting tools that will assist in scheduling your tweets like Buffer, Tweet deck or Hootsuite. These tools allow you to take 1 hour on a Monday to schedule a week worth of content on Twitter. Then you can tweet current events and news related content as it arises. In addition, these tools will report important analytics that will provide click through metrics and reveal your influence with your followers.

Facebook
Manage your notifications and responses in a timely fashion. Also, pick a scheduled time to respond so your not grabbing you phone every second someone leaves a comment. Facebook can be an enormous time-suck if you do not manage it correctly. The tools previously described can be utilized for Facebook as well as other social networks like LinkedIn. Allowing you to manage multiple accounts and identities while scheduling posts.

Email
Adopt a zero inbox philosophy or utilize helpful tools to help you clear it, like priority inbox from Google or Sanebox.

Develop Systems or Die
Nothing will kill productivity faster than working without systems in place. You must work with a plan of attack and a purpose, systems will be your savoir. When developing systems for your daily, weekly and monthly tasks think about how you would program a robot from scrtach to do exactly what you need done. Remember you are either developing systems to save you time or free your time for higher level tasks. You can start in one of two places when developing new systems or whether your revamping old ones.

1) Pay attention to what you do for work in a given day, week, month and what your current approach is to completing tasks. Maybe your new years resolution is to develop systems themselves!

2) Catergorize tasks and to-dos into organized buckets. For example, social media would be a broad bucket category that would break down into subcategories like, linkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, blogging, newsletters etc. Your subcategories can then be broken down into tasks and to-dos. Defining your buckets is where mind-mapping pays off because “Marketing” could have dozens of subcategories that in turn have dozens of tasks and to-dos.

Don’t Procrastinate
Duh, no kidding. I know this is the king of platitudes but it needs to be said. There is no time like the present and getting something done now is step#1 in productivity enhancements. The best technique that keeps me from procrastinating is realizing I only have 8,765 hours in any given year including sleep and non-productive time. Most of us are only productive roughly 10 – 12 hours a day which leaves about 3650 – 4380 hours of work that needs to be managed effectively for maximum productivity. So get busy because you used up 5 minutes of 2012 reading this post.

Good luck with your New Year’s resolution for 2012.

Filed Under: Business Musings Tagged With: new years resolution

How to execute an idea

July 26, 2011 By Tod Whipple Leave a Comment

No matter how great you think your next startup idea might be consider it worthless without proper execution. The real maneuver is how well you execute ingredients that make startup success. The real innovation occurs when you take an idea and figure out how to make it simple, intuitive and most importantly useful.

To make and argument for execution vs brilliant idea just look at the weight most mentor seed incubators like Techstars, Ycombinator and Capital Factory place on the start-up founders themselves. Sure the idea has to be worthwhile and achievable but more than 50% of start-ups change from their original idea before completing the program. Mentors of these startup incubators need to choose founders that have the chops and passion to see an idea come to fruition regardless of how many obstacles arise.

So what is an entrepreneur to do when it comes to the burning question of How to execute an idea? There is no one size fits all when it comes to execution but there are five general tips that could drastically enhance your chances for executing your next start-up successfully.

1. Ideas are a dime a dozen
The English idiom means ideas are common or worthless. Way back when the idiom was established people realized ideas are plentiful which is why you can get a dozen for a dime. One cannot just steal an idea which is why patent law exists for methods of execution not conjuring up ideas and concepts.

2. Road map is for going from I to E not A to Z
If you don’t know where you’re going you will never get there. This simple platitude showcases the harsh reality of understanding that you need to take an idea (I) to execution (E) via a road map. Upon reaching your destination you will find your road map looks drastically different then you originally envisioned. Don’t discount the importance of setting a road map and updating it along the way. Having a clear path is an essential tool in getting your idea out of your head and into a real product or service.

Be sure not to get bogged down establishing your road map, (essentially a business plan) keep it simple. A simple SWOT analysis, market share study and more importantly a market fit study for your product or service will suffice.

3. Action & Systems
So you have an idea and you established a realistic road map, now you need to set achievable goals and milestones in a desired time-frame. Productivity is the name of the game, you will need to become efficient and develop systems for getting things done. You need to take your idea and execute it better than anyone else in the marketplace. Having reliable systems will allow you to focus on your most important action items and help you move closer your milestones.

If you know what makes your product so special you better focus every action item on conveying the “specialness” to your customers. Apple’s obsession with design and simple UI has turned customers into droves of evangelists because the company continues to choose design as the single most important priority in its’ action plan. There is more to do in any given day than you will possibly ever get done so be sure every bit of your actions count. Someone asked on Quora “How do you prioritize stuff?” My answer was simple either Do it, Delegate it, or Drop it. — Forget the rest.

4. Accountability
Take responsibility for your actions and for the actions of others. Understand why your customers think your product sucks. Understand why you keep going over-budget and over-schedule. Remember, the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

5. Market Factors
Market timing, macro-economic issues and luck are always variables in any execution formula for startups. Don’t pretend they don’t exist and don’t try to predict them. This may be a bit abstract for some on you reading this tip but ask Friendster and Facebook how the social network space turned out respectively.

Filed Under: Business Musings Tagged With: execute idea

Calculating Opportunity Cost

March 31, 2011 By Tod Whipple 1 Comment

We make decisions everyday calculating opportunity cost of one investment compared to another.

Opportunity cost is not a complicated concept but one you need to consider very carefully. For example, you discover that you have just received $25,000 of cash and need to place that in an investment within 5 days.

You start to weigh the options for return on investment (ROI). Do you place your money in a Certificate Deposit (CD) for a 1% return or do you place a down payment on an office building that generates a 12% cash on cash return while the asset appreciates?

These are the type of questions you will ask yourself in business when faced with calculating opportunity cost. Entrepreneurs of startups tend to get upset at Venture Capital firms after being rejected for funding. The VC firms are simply looking at every opportunity presented and weigh the risk vs reward.

Maybe you can loan your $25,000 to a business for 9% interest and it can be secured by a building or vehicles for collateral. In the current economy you can borrow money at around 6.0% for commercial funds from a bank so that’s a pretty good deal. Heck, you could borrow money at 6% and loan it at 9% if you had enough collateral.

In Real Estate investments we tend to pay more for properties with less risk like a GSA lease for 10 years vs a startup that has signed a lease for 5 years.

The take away for calculating opportunity cost is understand the value of any asset based on its’ future cashflows. If you are considering an investment in anything ensure you understand the risk involved in obtaining the future cashflows. If the future cashflows cease to materialize can you regain your principle investment. These type of questions are imperative for discovering the right investment type and class.

Lastly, discover an asset class that you are comfortable with whether it be real estate, stocks, bonds, commodities, startups or a franchise and weigh your opportunity cost very carefully within that asset class.

Filed Under: Business Musings

Be Ashton Kutcher’s VP of Pop Culture

February 17, 2011 By Tod Whipple 1 Comment

Ashton Kutcher apparently needs some assistance in the pop culture department and indirectly getting the word out about his popchips.

He is in search of the next VP of Pop Culture which you can apply for on facebook and get 50K large plus all expenses and shananigans paid for in addition to the bragging rights of hanging out with our boy Ashton. That alone may be worth more than 50K in the long run if you’re lucky enough to get selected. I know what your’e thinking, why the heck is Ashton selling potato chips?

Part of the Popchips story is below:

In our pursuit of the snackers’ holy grail, delicious and healthier, we discovered popping. We’re able to simultaneously keep all of the flavor in, while keeping half the fat of fried chips out. Since we do all the popping ourselves, we can make sure of that. Our quality control mantra? If it doesn’t taste good, it’s not a snack, of course.

It appears the potato chips are in-fact healthier, no saturated fats and lower in the calorie department. Unfortunately, I have not had the pleasure of tasting these fine non-fried treats. The Popchips even scored an endorsement from Mens Health for being one of the 125 best foods for men. So whether you like tasty healthy potato chips or not it would be sweet to work for Ashton for a year right?

Filed Under: Splattered Thoughts Tagged With: ashton kutcher, popchips, vp of pop

Google One Pass – Publishers manage access to digital content

February 17, 2011 By Tod Whipple 1 Comment

Google One Pass allows a simple way for publishers to manage access to digital content. Google One Pass allows publishers to customize how, when and where they charge for content while optimizing different scenarios to see what is effective when offering subscriptions, partially free content or premium full access to content. The payment technology will obviously be handled by Google Checkout and Google will only take a 10% slice for its’ efforts.

Google One Pass is an interesting method to monetize the current Internet business model of providing free content consumption and subsidize with Advertising dollars. One Pass is similar to Apple’s new app subscription model that launched yesterday but it leaves more money in the publishers pocket (90%) compared to Apple (70%). It will be interesting to see how the subscription model will unfold, if it will add another revenue stream for publishers or send free content consumers screaming for the hills.

Filed Under: Business Musings Tagged With: Google One Pass

Project time cost

December 21, 2010 By Tod Whipple Leave a Comment

Project time cost is the largest variable and project expense I have seen over the years in various industries. My background is rather eclectic ranging from project management & freelance web development to consulting for real estate development. We all should take a lesson from the legal profession, one industry that has brilliantly figured out how to track time and make it profitable.

Your time is of extreme value (see time management), probably more than you even realize. It is more important than any product or service you offer. Every minute you spend working that goes unaccounted is like giving your product away for free but also taking you away from other profitable work. The double jeopardy of not effectively tracking your time is diluting your hourly worth as well as giving up a profitable opportunity elsewhere. We all have to track our time effectively to stay profitably.Do you think Warren Buffet allocates his time to grabbing mail at the post office for his various businesses?

If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got.

Lee Iacocca

There is a deluge of time tracking software and applications available. For web-based time tracking I particularly liked tick, a simple time tracking service that allows you to try it for free and without a timed-trial or credit card. Most of the other services like freckle and getharvest require entry level payment plans. Tick is likely to be a hit for web freelancers.

If your looking for a windows based product to track the value of project time then Manictime may be the way to go. Manictime sits in the background and records your activities, lets you focus on your work. When you are finished you can use collected data to accurately keep track of your time. This is ideal for a crazy startupaddict like myself that wears 6 different hats in a given day. Having the tools to effectively see what what tasks are making money and which tasks are not is invaluable.

Filed Under: Business Musings Tagged With: project time cost, time tracking

Consumer Confidence Index tanks

July 3, 2010 By Tod Whipple 1 Comment

Consumer Confidence Index dropped 9.8 points to 52.9 from 62.7. Consumer Confidence would be perfect at 100. The Consumer Confidence Survey® is based on a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households. The monthly survey is conducted for The Conference Board.

What is a small business to do in a recovery that appears to be stalling?

There are a few key indicators to examine when trying to spot a macro-economic trend for this recovery. First lets take a look at the unemployment and Jobless claims.

Source: US Dept. of Labor

Although, we’re off the recession high for unemployment…it’s a slow crawl down to the 4 -5% unemployment 2005 and 2006 numbers. At the current pace it could take up to five years to get to the previous levels.

Source: US Dept of Labor

The jobless claims looks favorable as the employment graph has clearly trended higher. However, 413,000 census workers recently hired temporarily inflated the employment graph. Similar to the tax credit for new home purchases, we will not know a true baseline until the temporary census employment stimulus retreats. According to National Association of Realtors (NAR) the pending home index, dropped 30% to 77.6 based on contracts signed in May from a reading of 110.9 in April, and is 15.9% below May 2009. Buyers rush to take advantage of the tax credit.

Realizing the consumer confidence is directly tied to employment and how much “cash” is in any one persons pocket, we need to examine equity and net worth.

This is actually a ray of sunshine because as the graph indicates, we’re off our 2007 lows. According to NAR’sDanielle Hale, Research Economist, we actually gained back $6 trillion of the $16 trillion decline, which is a good beginning.

The last indicator that relates to consumer confidence is retail sales and although we are up 16% from the bottom of 2009, we’ve recently had a month over month dip from May 2009 to May 2010. This will continue to mirror the consumer confidence index as an indicator of where consumers feel the economy is going. Hopefully we provided a few key indicators of how to analyze and trend the macro economy in the United States…let’s recap briefly:

Consumer confidence index
Jobless claims and unemployment data
Existing and pending home sales
Retail Sales

You also can dive into:
Durable goods and interest rate spreads, but we will save these indicators for another time.

Filed Under: Business Musings Tagged With: consumer confidence index, jobless claims

Monster acquires Yahoo Hot Jobs

February 4, 2010 By Tod Whipple Leave a Comment

Monster cobbles up Hot Jobs from yahoo for $225 million. Yahoo continues to unload declining or non-core assets to flush up its’ financial position. Yahoo appears to be focusing on a content portal only play and leaving certain verticals like search, jobs etc… to players link Microsoft and Monster. The Hot Jobs acquisition comes on the heels of the 6sense launch by Monster that is more in the way of semantic search and an effort to bolster market share against gaining indeed.

According to a Monster press release this is why it’s such a good idea:

• Increased traffic to your jobs: Monster will become Yahoo!’s provider of career and job content on the Yahoo! homepage in the United States and Canada. This is not just a generic portal deal – people with a demonstrated interest in jobs and careers will be sent to Monster from Yahoo!. In fact, with an increase in qualified candidates, we expect that job response, our metric for apply per post, will increase significantly.
• Broader industry seeker mix: HotJobs brings new strengths to Monster in the form of healthcare, retail, finance and insurance seekers that complement Monster’s traditional strengths. As a Monster customer, you will be able to put your message in front of Monster’s and Yahoo!’s vast combined reach of career-minded candidates.
• Additional market presence: We will be able to leverage HotJobs’s strong reach in markets such as Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.
• Increased local presence: This acquisition expands our newspaper partnership network to approximately 1,000 weekly and daily newspapers, giving you local reach in all 50 states.

Filed Under: Business Deals Tagged With: hotjobs, monster.com, yahoo