Category: Blog

There are many attributes which make a successful entrepreneur, however there is one which everyone agrees is the most important: Focus.

To be an entrepreneur, by definition you will create your own business. This means you will have to take a business idea and make it work around you. This process will take time, most businesses take around two years to break even and four years to be truly profitable. Therefore you need dedication, enthusiasm, perseverance, passion in obtaining your goal, otherwise by definition you will fail just short.

Entrepreneurs are portrayed as glamorous, but when you are starting a business you will need to the same thing many many many many times, you will providing the same customer with hundreds of the same products or services. You will be working for the same business for years, having the same problems with customers, suppliers and staff. So this repetition will cut into you if are not focused on the end goal, so having a your eye on the prize, the triumphant goal or ultimate end game is key in ensuring you stay focused in developing your business into one everyone wants to be part of.

The first business idea you have, may not work, and most entrepreneurs have to change the business model or idea many times to get a truly profitable and scalable business. However, you must give the business the opportunity to succeed before changing it around. So focus on the facts and keep the business simple and light in the beginning. You should also ensure you have awareness of being in the right place at the right time. Are you there? This sense will come from your passion for your business and an understanding the macro and micro business environments. So focus on your customers, suppliers, friends, mentors and staff to understand if you are in the right place at the right time.

Just Do It and stay focused!

Not everyone is good at everything, so why is it we think entrepreneurs are good at all aspect of business? Why do we think that being an Accountant, Manager, Leader, Sales Person and Marketing Executive all at the same time will result in a successful business. Well you cannot always be good at everything and the only way to find out what you are good at is to have a hard nose bloody minded go at it. Once you know what you are good at you can only then think about building a team around you and understand who can support you in your endeavours.

The team is better equipped for success as it can develop faster, make more diverse plans and also coup with higher levels of attainment. Every boat needs a master and that can be you, a mindful one.

Knowing what failure tastes like is also important in creating an appetite for success. Having the humility to accept success and develop oneself is the true character trait of an entrepreneur. Never accepting failure as bad only as an opportunity to learn, stand up, brush oneself down and move on to the next venture should be your life’s mantra.

So just go out there today and create your first failure and then make it your greatest success at learning what it takes to make you a successful entrepreneur.

When you start a business, the larger and more experienced the sales team the greater the probability of success, it’s a fact. So who is in your amazing sales team?

Myself, My Family, My Friends, My Staff, My Customers, My Product

This can truly be an amazing sales team of thousands, the key is that you are the centre of this team, you have the passion and the dedication to make this a success, you know the product better than anyone else. So promote yourself to team leader and now delegate tasks to each member of your team.

Family and Friends believe in you and they want you to succeed at everything you do. They will help you, promote, recommend, and deliver your products to potential customers. Ask them if they will man the phones, either making or answering calls. Ask them to proof read you marketing, twitter and facebook everything you do or sell. These can make your business fly from day one, so use this amazing resource and their only reward will be spending time with you create something amazing.

If you have staff then make them ambassadors, provide them with your products at cost, to ensure they use them, allow them to get commission on sales and promote the product everywhere they go. Allow them to wear branded clothing at the evening or weekend. If they are members of clubs, provide products for raffles or charity events.

Your customers are your sales legion, they will tell and recommend your product to more people than you could every do. Moreover, people they tell will believe them, as they have nothing to gain and their creditability to lose. So create a recommendation promotion, build in loyalty bonuses and ensure customers get rewarded and notified of any sales.

People watch people and look at the products and service they use, make sure your products get seen with real people using them. Product placement is key, this is why car have their name on the back, this is why jeans manufacturers provide key student influencers with free pairs, this is why you need your product seen being used.

I was watching a TV programme about the great Victorian industrialists who developed entire towns to meet their industrial expansion. These people had more power over the lives of their employees than governments do today. Yet, a number of them seem to develop towns which contain more open space, leisure facilities and infrastructure than we plan or even build into our towns today.
These entrepreneurs understood than creating wealth for yourself is about building a network of people around you. This means developing your network or team members, especially: employees, customers, suppliers, support organisations and even competitors.
All of these groups are important for your success and their demise can result in your own demise. So understand the eco-system you/they live and work in is very important in building your success.
Developing employees is often seen as wasteful when the average length of employment is only 18 months. However, if spending time and money on developing that person means they stay 36 months, then you have halved you staff turnover and more importantly reduced you own workload in having to recruit and train another employee.
Everyone should be thinking about how they make their job theirs, so the governments mantra “Take a Job or Make a Job” is both applicable to entrepreneur or employee. Everyone should be thinking about what they can provide to society and maybe a job is the first step.

We love the iPhone, everyone who is anyone has one. People talk about them, show them off, and twitter about them ever hour of the day. Yet we all know they are not the best mobile phone ever, do have all the features we want or even provide the support we as loyal customer deserve. Yet we love them.

We are all hearing about ‘cloud computing’ and how fantastic this is going to be. No one knows what it is and when any form of standard will be made which will mean at least as customers we can have one flavour and transferable version of a cloud. At least we can touch an iphone, a cloud is just one step too far. So why are we falling in love with this thing, no one knows what it is and how it will truly help us.

The cloud and the iPhone are two classic (MBA type) examples of technology sales. Create the demand and then develop the technology based on this demand. Build it in beta first, call it beta, make people pay for it and test it for free for you and then create the version that works, make even more people pay for it, make another version and so on until you run out of people or version numbers. Its a standard formula.

Apple, Microsoft, Google and others are expert at this. You can be too, so what is the recipe?

1.       Create the demand via low cost internet social media hype

2.       Build a prototype, soft launch the beta version into your social group

3.       Segment the market and add more social networking using key user groups

4.       Listen every day on what people are saying, answer with their comments will be incorporated into an upcoming version

5.       Create next version x.y.z,

The real trick here is to be fast in providing updates, so agile type development is important, this then gives people something to be involved with and as your testers you will need to be responsive.

Remember, that people like new things and therefore in providing updates and changes based on their requirements, testing or involvement creates a sense of belonging.

When I look at the development of composite apps I see that we require two important factors to make them successful,

•  Mobile Phone api’s

•  Real time information via the internet

Both of these are available today for mass market application distribution. The current leaders in this market are google (maps) and yahoo (go!), who provide very stable and useable applications which enable all mobile subscribers to download and use.

As a customer I want the application to work on my phone and network. Just as a windows application works on any PC(Dell, Acer..etc) on any ISP (BT, Virgin,..etc)?

So what role does the mobile operator have?

Data Pipe – Yes

With my 3G data service I can use mobile data as I please in almost any part of the world. The reliability is consistent in most western parts of the GSM world and as such only have one competitor, Wifi, which has limited availability.

Location – No

After using google maps, I have found that the location based on the nearest base station is good enough. It puts me within 10’ish metres in London. From this I can locate the services and places I require. Most of the time I am using it for direction (North/South). Some people may need GPS but I would guess that will be for more rural adventures and this is well covered by Tom Tom and also the handset manufacturers.

Advertising Revenue – No

Admob. Smaato, etc. provide this better on a global scale which fits with the business model of mobile applications. Now that we see some serious metrics on the subject this will become a major source of revenue and statistics for the mobile applications.

Distribution – No

The ability to find the world’s best applications and use them would be a great service from the operators, however they would force so many conflicting rules upon the developer (ref: J2ME games) that the logistics would be remove any benefits. Therefore sites such as getjar.com and Handango are provide the global depositary for mobile applications.

So besides being a data pipe what is the value added by mobile operators in this world of mobile applications?

The current trend of using your portable device for an ever increasing amount of leisure and business activities is set to continue. The Blackberry is lending the way for the business community and the Apple iPhone for the more entertainment minded.

Mobile phone based entertainment over the last 10 years has been based on music and games downloads which accounts for around 70-80% of the revenue. Juniper Research (2007 figures provided) stated that the industry received 9.3 Billion dollars of mobile music revenues and 5 Billion dollars of video-gaming download and subscription revenues.

For mobile video and TV to come of age, the keys aspects of usability (handset, 3G coverage) and cost (data plans) have to be provided. In most western countries, 3G has already gained a penetration of 23%. Also bear in mind, the population of 3G phones is about twice that – many more happen to have a 3G phone, connected to a 2G network than those who actually sign up to 3G service and price plans.

The usage of mobile data has also seen a massive rise in the last 2 years, with data plans being common place and tariffs simple to understand and operate from a consumer perspective. In the UK, the MDA reported that 17 million (around 30% of the population) people accessed the internet via their mobile in December 2007.

This comes at a time when the media industry is looking for new revenue sources, with the decreasing sales of Music CDs and film DVDs. The music industry has to get in front of the customer again, delivering the value to the end user and also providing real value for the bands. This has to lead them to providing music videos to the end user. Why Video and not audio?

The free download and sharing of audio music is currently very high in most markets and therefore this service currently has a very low value to the end user. However, the MTV video still has value while mobile. Streaming music videos to a mobile provides a valuable time wasting activity for the mobile user. The monetisation of this must be centred around the brand and the unique content.

If we look at the film and TV industry, the normal argument is that people will not watch a film on their mobile phone. The average consumption of mobile TV is around two hours per day in Korea. This is based on consumption of ‘what you want when you want it and where’. We also see that that a larger number of people are now downloading movie length videos to their data card to watch on long journeys. The largest group of users are viewing 1-3 minute clips which are either streamed or downloaded. The habits are forming which will lead to mass market adoption.

Mobile TV and Video is now reaching a critical mass and this will continue to expand as the cost of accessing these services is decreasing, the availability is increasing along with the customers knowledge of the service.

This market can only expand.