Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year
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Wishing everyone all the best for the holiday season. May the new year bring health, happiness and prosperity.
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Cheers,
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Ian Graham
The Entrepreneurial Paradox
There was a Tweet awhile ago from Andrew McTeer regarding Dharma, skittles and super models that inspired this post.
Why is it that entrepreneurs will work 80 hour weeks, not think twice about contributing part of their retirement savings to keep the business going, working without pay for a year or doing whatever it takes to make the business successful? Early in a company’s life entrepreneurs work harder for less money yet almost invariably tend to love what they are doing and can see the future reward. This is true of all my entrepreneurial friends from Peter Comino (Francesco’s Coffee Company) to every tech entrepreneur I have met.
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I know many people that work for organizations (public or private) and have some sort of secure jobs for excellent financial rewards yet at the same time they often do not enjoy what they are doing or in fact often intensely dislike what they are doing. If you apply the Dharma test “if you had all the time and all the money in the world, what would you be doing?” the majority would want to be doing something different. Entrepreneurs that take the Dharma test almost always answer they would continue to do what they are doing.
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I have been told by Peter Kemball that there are two years of darkness (challenging times) when you start-up any business. This has been validated by almost every entrepreneur that I have met and talked with. Why is it that entrepreneurs are willing to subject themselves to that sort of punishment? I think that entrepreneurs can see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and most rainbows traverse a whole lot of dark clouds before you get to the pot of gold. Knowing there is a reward at the end of the journey and enjoying the scenery along the way keeps entrepreneurs going.
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A couple of characteristics that IMHO separate entrepreneurs from employees are;
- The intestinal fortitude to take a calculated risk,
- The ability to see where the business can and will be several years in the future,
- A firm understanding of delayed gratification.
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In summary the paradox really isn’t a paradox at all but more of a willingness to suffer in the short term for longer term reward.
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Ian Graham
Is fast follower strategy passé?
When I worked at Alcatel one of my favourite companies that were masters of the fast follower strategy was Adtran. Truly a great company with the ability to execute a fast follower strategy better than any others I have come across. This worked well in the telecom market where companies sold basically big chunks of iron. A competitor spends years developing a product and then releases their masterpiece. The fast follower, looks at what you have done, finds ways to improve it spends ¼ the time developing it and comes to market with a superior product at a lower price point. The fast follower is a great strategy for a market that requires a large amount of R&D to get products to market.
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However, the year is 2009, telecom is a commodity and light weight web apps are rapidly gaining traction. Today’s market loves a leader. Getting to market faster and gaining traction is key to success. Once you build up a loyal user (paying) base it is very difficult for someone to take the users away. There is only room for so many Facebooks or Twitters in the market today. I mean really how likely is it another platform like Facebook to gain traction … not very.
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IMHO one of the only ways to be successful today is to lead and there often isn’t room for second place. The caboose never gets any closer to the engine once the train starts to roll.
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Ian Graham
Technical versus Business aspects of a start-up
… or the forces of light versus the dark side. Will leave it up to you to decide which is which.
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I was chatting with David Megginson the other day and the topic of business versus technical aspects of a technology start-up came up. In general terms the technical side of the business is thought of as more fun, informal and solving problems. The business side is more serious, profit motivated and perhaps somewhat more formal. Both are absolutely essential for a successful start-up.
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The drivers of the technical side of the start-up are; to solve a problem, provide a solution and use some really cool technology. Engineers and software developers love a challenge and finding ways to solve problems real or perceived. Technology is an essential ingredient in a high growth knowledge based start-up.
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The drivers of the business side of the equation are to address a market need, real or perceived. Sales, marketing and business development folks work at getting the technology solution adopted by the market and customers.
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Which is more important?
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IMHO market acceptance is the far BIGGER challenge. The issues around technology and developing a solution are finite and in the realm of the development cycle, which is very early in product development. The issues around market acceptance are far more complex and in the realm of people, highly subjective and persist far longer into the development of a business. There are only so many ways to fix a line of code, however, trying to satisfy the wants and needs of customers is highly complex and there is no exact science around finding a solution.
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Just my 2C.
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Ian Graham
Cooking and testing markets …
What do markets and cooking have in common?
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Pasta of course … spaghetti to be more precise or in the case of this picture linguine.
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To figure out what works one of my favourite analogies is throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks … too true. All the best laid plans of mice and men often fail when put to the test of really doing whatever it is you do. The only way to figure out what really works is to try stuff or throw spaghetti at the wall. After throwing see what sticks … capitalize on the good stuff … throw again and repeat as necessary.
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Continue this pattern of tossing, observing and refining. 5 year business plans may work well during times of stability and predictability, however, in today’s uncertain and unstable environment nothing beats a handful(s) of spaghetti tossed at the wall.
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I am a huge fan of business doing and think that business planning is useful but rarely if ever uncovers those unknown, unknowns the way tossing spaghetti does.
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Ian Graham
Rise of the micro multi-national
It used to be that you had to have a critical mass of several thousand people to think about opening offices and branch plants elsewhere in the world. However, the landscape has changed and the field been levelled with collaboration technology so that almost any company can now be a multi-national.
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It is now almost common place for micro companies (Less than 10 employees) in Canada to have business development and technical teams in several other locations around the world. One company (Goupsia) at TheCodeFactory has their HQ right here at 246 Queen Street, development teams in south east asia and Latin America and strategic partners in the middle east and Africa. They meet regularly via Blindside Networks voice over Internet technology (which apparently works better than another more well known VoIP offering in developing countries) to connect and converse.
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Building a diverse multi-national team is achievable by companies of any size with collaboration technology. In the current global village it is easier than ever for different tribes to connect and collaborate.
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How many villages are in your company?
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Ian Graham
Ryan Lowe
I was shocked and deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Ryan Lowe on November 30th. I genuinely liked Ryan and found him to be a person of real character. He kept the fact that he had cancer to himself although he had plenty of opportunities to mention his ailment he never did. This is a testament to his personal character.
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Ryan was an active participant in the Ottawa Ruby community and also mentored at Team Camp offering his thoughts and expertise. He visited TheCodeFactory between visits to his doctor, which he mentioned was for his chiropractor.
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My thoughts are with his friends and family.
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More details regarding funeral and visitation can be found here.
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Ian Graham
