Category: My entrepreneurial adventures

How to Overcome FLAT: the Exponential Curve Startup Problem

As we argue that the Fourth Revolution is the age of the Exponential, we also face daily a singular problem: the start of an exponential curve, as seen closely, is… FLAT! Whereas it can bring to great heights in a small number of cycles, the beginning can be very disappointing.

Growth chart
Don’t you find that the beginning of the growth chart looks… flat?

And here lies the big struggle of all startups and all human projects. The beginning is flat. Almost always.

But… is it FLAT like DEAD – nothing will never happen and it will remain indefinitely zero, or is it FLAT like the beginning of an exponential that could bring the project to unknown heights?

It turns out that this is a very difficult problem and a lot of writing has been produced on what boils down to this problem. How can we know what kind of FLAT we are facing? When should we call it off, deciding it will never take off? When do we need to be persistent even if the results are poor at present?

Luckily the exponential startup FLAT is never completely FLAT: it is possible to use a microscope and detect some movement. If it shows a definite positive trend then, even if it’s much lower than what you were looking for at the moment, keep the effort, an exponential is possibly being created. If the results vary but look more like an inconsistent random pattern, kill it.

Change the scale of your observation. An exponential will remain an exponential even if very tiny. And you will see if it’s the right kind of FLAT.

Unfortunately, a lot of people kill their project because the result is not satisfactory without checking the actual trend.

What’s the trend on your latest project?

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Why the Collaborative Age is about Lean – Accelerating our Learning

Have you read the ‘The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses‘ by Eric Ries? I must say I was a bit reluctant at first because it seemed to be a very trendy flashy concept – of the kind that are trendy for a season and then disappear in the forgotten-great-concepts-that-were-supposed-to-change-the-world.

Lean Startup bookPushed by my curiosity I still read it and I must say that I dived into it. Because what Eric Ries is describing there in the realm of startups can probably be applicable to all types of endeavors in the Collaborative Age. An Age where failure does not cost a lot, and where on can try multiple ideas without committing too much funds or time. An Age where learning from actual feedback can be dramatically accelerated.

The Lean Startup proposes a structured framework to accelerate Learning. It proposes to propose to the world a ‘Minimum Viable Product’ as soon as possible, listen to the feedback, and accelerate the learning curve. Most people and companies do the mistake of taking long time to develop the ‘perfect product’ – that nobody really wants, because we never asked the potential user!

You might also have heard about ‘pivoting’ in the context of startups: it is about deciding to change completely the plans and the business model to respond to the actual feedback. And most successful startups need to pivot once or twice. Hopefully they can do it before they reach the end of the cash runway! Lean enables companies to learn quicker what works and what does not work.

Read the book or watch this video. It’s worth it!


Get Lean, and accelerate your learning. Stop perfecting your product, throw your ‘Minimum Viable Product’ to the world!

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Large, Complex Projects: Discover the slides from my latest public presentation

I had the opportunity to do a public presentation about large, complex projects last week in Kuala Lumpur. There are no video recordings available but here are at least the slides.

Enjoy!

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Avoid the entrepreneur trap: go and meet your clients!

As an entrepreneur with a vision, a very clear trap is to develop an idea of the business without asking the ultimate stakeholder: the client.

It is so easy to fall into this well-known trap of not listening enough to clients – because setting up a company involves already so much energy and focus on getting it to run, on developing products, on setting up the necessary organization and infrastructure, that it is easy to forget to check what the clients really want.

Client visit
What do you get from client visits?

Yet every time I go and visit prospects and clients I come back with new insights about what they really want, on the fact that some of our own projects are not really what they expect, and many different inputs that can feed into the future development of the company and its products.

  • It is sometimes difficult – because what you thought were bright ideas do not meet any resonance.
  • It is sometimes exhilarating as the discussion allowed you to see a practical solution to a need, creating a way to fulfill your vision
  • It is sometimes disturbing because what you heard is very different from what you thought.

Yes, it can be difficult, exhilarating and disturbing – but visiting and listening to clients is always worthwhile.

Make sure that you spend enough time confronting reality by looking through the eyes of your prospects and clients! When do you start?

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Don’t Miss my next Public Speech in Kuala Lumpur on 11th September!

I will be giving a talk on “How to Master Large, Complex Projects: a Different Ball Game“, organized by the Malaysian Chapter of the Project Management Institute.

Project Soft Power and the Fourth Revolution
Project Soft Power and the Fourth Revolution

This will happen Tuesday 11 September 2012 from 6:30pm onwards at Bukit Kiara Resort in Kuala Lumpur. Interested? All the details are to be found in the PMIMY flyer for that Speech on Large Complex Projects.

As usual I will seek will interest and entertain you with my dynamic style!

Come to this exclusive opportunity to gain insights into Large, Complex Projects and discover Project Value Delivery’s proven approach to deliver these projects successfully!

Click here for the details to the speech venue and registration. Don’t miss this unique opportunity and maybe even win some of the books published by Fourth Revolution!

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The consultant dilemma: one man show or team show?

As my business shows success, I am confronting a traditional dilemma: stay as a one-man-show and increase personal profitability through deepening my brand, or rather seek to expand and scale through setting up a team?

One Man Show
One Man Show or Team Show?

It is true that I could surf on my network and just expand my own expertise into a more and more profitable enterprise. In the short term it could be more profitable. Yet it is not what I am seeking.

Of course the answer to this question is biased in my case because from the beginning I had planned to involve other people. Still, it is true that expanding my company into a team introduces additional complexity. I now fully understand authors such as Alan Weiss that strongly recommend one-man shows for consulting companies and demonstrate through their own example how they can build such a setup to be profitable and eminently controllable.

Yet I find that there is also a lot of fun in developing a company by involving other people and scaling its impact through other contributors. Having people to discuss with, to work with, to confront difficulties with, is an unappreciated value that really changes the life of the entrepreneur. Yes, of course it involves more complexity and time to organize and manage a team. This time and energy is amply rewarded by the insights and the reach that is developed accordingly.

Not to mention that clients expect often consultant shops to be able to show a team with diverse and complementary skills and talents, that are able to tackle more complex and ambitious projects.

Without doubt, I can confirm that the way to go is to develop a team and expand by involving people. The right people of course, that are carefully selected to join the bus. But that’s much more fun than staying as a one-man show. And in the spirit of the Fourth Revolution, everything is in the team!

A first partner has joined and I hope more will come. I’ll share the learning in future posts!

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The essence of entrepreneurship is about making meaning

“The essence of entrepreneurship is about making meaning“. This  statement is by Guy Kawasaki, a well-known entrepreneur and venture capitalist in the Silicon Valley. According to him, the companies that really make a difference are those that aim to change the world. – and are those that also make money.

Here is a neat 2 mins video by Guy Kawasaki on this topic

(here is the link if you can’t see it above)

From my short experience as an entrepreneur, it is perfectly true that the intent to change the world is a great motivator that allows to overcome all sorts of difficult moments.

Many people think they can’t change the world. That’s wrong. We all can change a chunk of it. Smaller or larger. When do you start changing the world?

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How having ‘skin in the game’ is necessary to grow and do incredible stuff

As I am struggling with some aspects of my new entrepreneur life, I was reading “Uncertainty: turning fear and doubt into brillance” by Jonathan Fields, an excellent book about what it takes to lean out of one’s comfort zone, and how to survive it. A quote struck me particularly:

“Risk of loss has to be there. You cannot create genius without having skin in the game. Kill the risk of loss and you destroy meaning and one of the core motivations for action” – Jonathan Fields

Right now I am facing activities which I must absolutely do for my new business to live further but that I don’t like doing: networking, meeting people to pitch products. I rather prefer to write clever reference documents and books in front of my computer! Still,  that’s what I seek to learn; and because I now have skin in the game (the success of my venture, my family’s comfort, my money), I’ll force myself to do it. And I’ll do it for sure. That’s quite compelling in fact: if I don’t do it, no new business, no more adventure!

Because I have skin in the game, I’ll go up the steep learning curve and lean outside my comfort zone much deeper – another justification why creating one’s company is much more powerful than doing and MBA or an expensive education program.

Having skin in the game... and what sometimes happens
Having skin in the game... and what sometimes happens

Because I have skin in the game I’ll also probably get hurt some place down the way – or at least get some hard knocks. But that’s probably what’s going to teach me resilience and patience, two other important learning points for me.

Yes, definitely I have chose to have skin in the game. That’s tough, but three months down the road I am already amazed at the way I’m gone. That’s probably the only way to really do things that you didn’t think you could do. The only way to create amazing things that will astonish the world.

And you, did you put your skin in the game? How could you do that?

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Overcome the fear of bringing your creation out to the world

Following our blog post on Lean and accelerating our learning in the Collaborative Age, a particular issue came up. As part of the lean methodology, we propose to go out in the world as early as possible with a ‘Minimum Viable Product’. That is to say, an unfinished product with some basic functionality and lots of bugs. This product could be a book, a painting, a recording, a set of photos, a blog, a website… anything that you are creating with your heart.

Getting out into the light
Getting out into the light is the hardest

That’s generally at this point of time that Resistance attacks. What? Coming out to the world with an imperfect product? What about my ego, my reputation? Won’t I look ridiculous?

And there we often freak out. Delay. Find all sorts of excuses not to go out with this imperfect product and work to improve it. Worst even, not to anything on the product and just shelve it waiting to be secure enough to show it to the world.

Resistance was already trying to avoid us working on the product or the creation; it is the ultimate battle before it gets to the world; and Resistance does fight it with the back to the brick wall.

Just consider this: you might be somewhat ridiculous this time with this imperfect product; but you will be much more later if you spend much more time trying to make it ‘perfect’ in your eyes and if it remains dull in the eyes of the world. And you won’t be able to forgive yourself if you never bring it out to the world.

Do you want to live in regrets all your life? Just come out with it. And rock on!

And no- you won’t be ridiculous this time anyway. Your tribe will take interest in your new creation and guide you toward making it really fascinating and useful.

Have you anything almost finished on the shelf you never managed to get out to the world? Get it out and start learning! Beat the Resistance!

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Done is better than perfect: how well done is done then?

Don’t wait until your product is perfect to push the button or you’ll never progress by getting the right feedback.  Yet how finished, polished, perfect should be your product before you shoot it to the world? What is actually a ‘minimum viable product’ to follow the words of the Lean Startup Movement?

Push button
Are you ready to push the button even if not "perfect"?

There is a little bit of debate on this issue. Is it just a functional product even if it does not look nice? Well, if it’s not attractive and nobody tries it, you’d better add some good presentation.

Is it a product for CEOs? Make sure it looks professional enough.

Is it a nice-looking product that does only part of the work? Here again it depends who you send it to, and what they would expect.

‘Done is better than perfect’ is written on the Facebook walls. It is the motto of the hackers. It’s true. But your product should have at least some of the functionality and look as your prospective clients will expect. Don’t wait forever for the perfect, but make sure what is done works for what you expect it to do. Maybe you should start by analyzing what are the minimum functionality you are aiming for your audience and stick to that as a priority.

In summary, don’t seek to be perfect. Just do the right thing – and just the right thing. And shoot to the world.

Cool. When do you start?

 

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Why you can’t achieve your dreams alone, especially if they really matter

I went to a series of entrepreneur workshops and, again, and again, the same recommendation came from of the experienced entrepreneurs: don’t follow your dreams alone, focus on getting a team!

This is the single main distinction between successful endeavors and sad failures: the team, the quality of the team and of the support it offers.

Only with the help of the team can you catch the ball!
Only with the help of the team can you catch the ball!

It might not need to be a team in your company; it can be a team of advisors, mentors, but it is vital to get a team around you to support, encourage, test new ideas…

It certainly need to include your close family.

Plain summary: it is vital to have a team around you to help you take off and catch the ball that you were looking to catch! Alone you won’t be able to do it, you’ll just be stuck to the ground.

And it is not just the case as an entrepreneur. It is the same when you are just pursuing your passion, your purpose.

The more your purpose really matters, the more your own resistance and the world’s resistance will act to suffocate it before it becomes too big. You need a team to help you in this quest. You won’t fight the world alone.

Pam Slim made the point very well on her blog post, your resistance to ask for help is drowning your dreams! Of course it is just one of the tricks of Resistance to impede us to do the real work.

I love Pam’s conclusion:

“If your dreams have meaning, if they are significant and challenging and worth it, chances are, you can’t accomplish them alone.”

Yep. So where’s your team?

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