Independent Thinking » Entrepreneurship

Are You Embracing Risk?

Daria Steigman — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:03:21 +0000

I had a conversation with my mom recently about an apparel retailer that is going out of business. She had attributed their fate to a declining economy. My own take: the clothing was staid–and there’s a limited market for boring. The company never took a risk. It didn’t try to refresh, modernize, reinvent for changing styles.

Successful businesses don’t sit still.

There’s a reason abandon is one of my 3 words for 2012.

There’s a terrific piece on Inc.com about taking risks and making mistakes. Author Paul Schoemaker points out:

If you have ever flown in an airplane, used electricity from a nuclear power plant, or taken an antibiotic, you have benefited from someone’s brilliant mistake. Each of these life-changing innovations was the result of many missteps and an occasional insight that turned a mistake into a surprising portal of discovery.

His point: you have to take risks, and test things, and be willing to fail (i.e., make a mistake). It’s a short article and well worth the read.

Photo by Brett Jordan (Flickr).

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Why the Small Business Haters Have It All Wrong

Daria Steigman — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:02:59 +0000

Have you noticed a trend lately disparaging small businesses (especially solo-owned ones)?

It’s a bit ironic that the people who are taking chances, thinking creatively, and testing out new products and services are getting slammed for not creating jobs at a time when the economy is mired in inactivity.

The haters have it all wrong.

We’re not too big to fail. But we’re small enough to succeed.

One big thread in this conversation seems to revolve around employment. At one level, the naysayers have it absolutely right: I’m not hiring.

But that’s not my business model. My model is to partner. Which, last time I checked, generates income for other people so that they can pay bills, buy groceries, and shop at the mall–all the same stuff that salaried jobs enable, albeit at a much smaller scale. But I’m just one small business among many.

It’s not just about jobs.

There is a jobs crisis. But don’t blame small businesses for it.

I’m not an economist, but jobs don’t spring from nowhere. We need a reboot, and that’s going to require innovation, creativity, research and development, and risk-taking. (These and a bunch of other things too.)

Ashvini Saxena had a terrific post recently on how Entrepreneurship Benefits the Economy More Than Just Generating Jobs. In it, he talks about four other factors:

Entrepreneurs invent.
Entrepreneurs optimize.
Entrepreneurs find hidden demand (and create plans to exploit it).
Entrepreneurs hire people with skills.

Read Saxena’s post as well as the smart conversation in the comments.

Have you noticed an attack on small business? What’s your take?

Photo by Jan Tik (Flickr).

Three Words for 2012: Crayons and Continuity

Daria Steigman — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 07:02:24 +0000

For 2012, I’ve decided that I don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Last year, I picked out 3 little words–crayons, velcro, and abandon–to guide my business. The whole point was to keep me focused on moving forward, while giving myself permission to take risks again. And to have fun and be creative.

I found the right guiding principles.

Since “a continuous or connected whole” (aka, continuity) is an asset, I’m going to keep these words front and center for another year.

What are your guiding principles for 2012?

Photo by evoo73 (Flickr).

Books, Velcro, and Celebrating Success

Daria Steigman — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 08:03:21 +0000

How do you measure success?

There’s a lot of conversation around business success, what it means, and how to measure it. (And we probably talk even more sometimes about lazy metrics and poor measurement.)

I’m not going to talk about measurement at all today. Just success. Because sometimes you need to celebrate the small victories.

One of my 2011 goals was to read more business books. I set two goals: (1) to read at least one book a month about business, entrepreneurship, and/or marketing communications; and (2) to review a book a month.

Velcro helps.

Velcro was one of my three little words for 2011. In a blog post to start the year, I wrote:

I’m good at coming up with ideas, but sometimes I need more focus to see them come to fruition… I need to keep the velcro handy to keep me locked in.

It worked. I started the year thinking about how 21st century businesses are putting the power of collaboration and openness to work. I also read about what makes a good entrepreneur and how to tap into your entrepreneurial DNA, received tips on how businesses can leverage social media to thrive, and ended the year thinking about being weird.

12 Books for 12 Months

Here’s what was on my 2011 reading list:

As for 2012? I have four books in the queue, including Mastering Uncertainty and The Introvert’s Guide to Business. Stay tuned.

What successes are you celebrating as 2011 draws to a close?

Photo by D. Sharon Pruitt (Flickr).

How 1BandID Founder is Using Social Media to Build Virtual Shelf Space

Daria Steigman — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:03:05 +0000

What do you do when the big boys own all the shelf space?

One approach is to build a virtual shelf, one person at a time. That’s what Joe Vukson is doing.

I met Vukson via Twitter earlier this year after I saw a press release about a new runner ID product. I tweeted to a friend that I didn’t understand how the product was any different from what was already on the market. Vukson chimed in, asking me what I meant. So we started tweeting back and forth as I tried to explain that I didn’t see any competitive differentiation. (I was wrong, but more on that in a minute.)

It wasn’t until the conversation had run its course that I learned that 1BandID is his product.

The Virtual Shelf Works

1BandID has a competitive differentiator: Vukson himself. In addition to engaging with people one-on-one, the budding entrepreneur moderates an on-point bimonthly Twitter chat (#trichat) and manages an active Facebook page. And he’s a runner and triathlete, so he’s walking the walk as he builds his community.

The big boys may own the storefront space, but who would you rather buy from? I’m sending people to 1BandID–because I know Joe.

Disclosure: Vukson sent me the red 1BandID pictured above. The best part: my running motto, “Forward Motion,” etched in there with all the contact info. But I hope you know that free swag does not influence what I choose to write.

Why We Are All Weird

Daria Steigman — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:03:53 +0000

Write a book. Call it a manifesto. Give people a choice between Wonder Bread and funkiness. And then, when you get to the end, tell your readers that you’ve both wasted your time if you think you’ve got it figured out.

Seth Godin is a brilliant marketer.

We Are All Weird posits the end of mass–production, politics, retailing, education. Those still focused on mass are missing the point, says Godin:

“[The mass marketer] is busy looking for giant clumps instead of organizing to service and work with smaller tribes.”

And later he says:

“It is true that we want to be a part of a tribe. What’s not true is that it must be some uber tribe, the one and only mass tribe, the center of the curve. Our own little circle is in fact what we really want.”

While I might not use the word “weird” to describe myself (I prefer “independent”), what I like about We Are All Weird is that Godin taps into the fact that people want to be free to express themselves. Maybe it’s your choice of jeans, or cars, or hotels, or coffee. Choice means we get to choose.

Changing means of production, of distribution, and of marketing, meanwhile, mean that you can have a smaller, more spread-out market for your product but still have a market.

Godin’s tribe is filled with marketers, but that doesn’t mean his book shouldn’t also resonate with entrepreneurs and other business owners. Because at the end of the day it’s really about understanding who your core audience (tribe) is. If you’re still trying to be everything to everyone, you’re probably going to lose your market to people with better product or service differentiation.

It’s not about niches. Maybe.

At the conclusion of his book, Godin writes:

“If you’ve made it to the end of this manifesto and come to the conclusion that you need to spend more time going after niche markets, I fear we have both failed.”

It’s not about niches if you think of a niche as a broad market segment. As in the Hispanic market, the gay market, or the veterans market. Because that’s just another way of mass marketing, albeit to a slightly more sliced-and-diced demographic.

But, let’s face it, tribes are niches–just organized and defined by the people themselves rather than imposed from “outside.” And that’s a difference well-worth both understanding and embracing.

We Are All Weird is a quick read, and it’s a good reminder that good marketing doesn’t have to be mass, boring, or normal.

Are you marketing to the weird?

Special thanks to Christina Pappas, who sent me her copy of We Are All Weird after I got intrigued by her book review.

Photo by peregrine blue (Flickr).

The Secret to Ultimate Competitive Advantage

Daria Steigman — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:04:06 +0000

I recently reviewed Beyond Performance. It’s an interesting book in which co-authors Scott Keller and Colin Price argue that:

“Performance-focused leaders invest heavily in those things that enable targets to be met quarter by quarter, year by year. What they tend to neglect, however, are investments in company health—investments in the organization that need to be made today in order to survive and thrive tomorrow.”

What I like about the book is the premise (short-term profits leads to short-term thinking) and that the authors take the reader through five steps designed to guide entrepreneurs and other business leaders to take a more macro look at their own organizations.

Beyond Performance is a good book for people who want to see lots of research and get into the weeds. It’s less useful, however, if you’re looking for a quick read with some simple takeaways.

You can read my complete review here.

Why Groupon’s Founders Are On the Way Out

Daria Steigman — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 09:04:39 +0000

Groupon went public on Friday, and it was reported to be the largest IPO since Google. I don’t get it.

The founders took $900 million in cash from the company before it went public. Which suggests they think the company is overvalued (and they want their money while it’s there) or they don’t plan to stick around to find out. Either way, it’s not a vote of confidence.

There was a long, fascinating article in Business Insider last week that looks at the history of Groupon. It’s a tale of start-up woes and poor management, a revolving door for top talent, out-of-control sales commissions, and spurning an offer from Google reportedly out of fears that the deal would be rejected by the SEC on anti-trust grounds.

Here’s a sample:

[CEO Andrew Mason] can’t hang on to a COO. The SEC is asking questions. Industry executives are calling him a ponzi schemer. Early employees are demanding six-figure pay for 9 to 5 hours. One even filed a lawsuit. Merchant customers are screaming. And Mason and his board, having helped themselves to $900 million of cash that could have gone to the company, are are now being blasted for incompetence and greed.

It’s a cautionary tale about rapid growth (and entrepreneurs reading their own press clips). Take a few minutes and dive in. Then I’d love to hear your takeaways.

Photo by Dan4th Nicholas (Flickr).

Wired for Innovation

Daria Steigman — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:21:32 +0000

I caught up on back issues of Wired this weekend. Good writing is underrated, and this magazine has some of the best. Plus, where else can you read about behavioral feedback loops, hackers, a kerfuffle over a hijacked copy of a video game, and Harry Potter in the same place?

There were also two terrific pieces about innovation and entrepreneurship. One is an homage to Y Combinator and its founder, Paul Graham. The energy of the participants jumps from the pages, as in this instructive description of how Graham and his team select candidates for their start-up bootcamp:

Graham tends not to pay too much attention to a candidate or team’s business plan—it’s likely to change during the course of the program anyway. Instead, he zeros in on the character and intelligence of the applicants. After one team’s presentation, Buchheit says that he would use the product. But Graham is skeptical. “Are these guys winners?” he asks. “It’s all about the guys.” The group is not accepted. [Bolded emphasis added by me.]

The other is a Clive Thompson essay on the roots of innovation. In The Breakthrough Myth, he cites researcher Bill Buxton who thinks:

paradigm-busting inventions are easy to see coming because they’re already lying there, close at hand… Truly billion-dollar breakthrough ideas have what Buxton calls surprising obviousness. They feel at once fresh and familiar.

Good food for thought.

Photo by Karl-Ludwig Poggemann (Flickr).

What’s Your Entrepreneurial DNA?

Daria Steigman — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:36:33 +0000

Clones might be perfect, but people are intriguing. We’re intriguing because we’re not all the same. We don’t look alike. We don’t act in unison. And we have different strengths—and weaknesses.

There also isn’t “one” entrepreneur. And, in Entrepreneurial DNA, Joe Abraham posits that the person who is suited to try and build the next Google isn’t the same person who should be opening a consultancy.

Abraham identifies four types of entrepreneurs and provides an assessment tool to help you identify your entrepreneurial DNA profile (mine is Specialist-Builder). Much of the book is then devoted to a description of each DNA type followed by seven business optimization strategies for each. They’re all things you might want to consider doing based on your business strengths and weaknesses. There are also exercises for putting what you’ve learned into action.

Read about the four entrepreneurial DNAs and my complete book review here.

Photo by John Goode (Flickr).