by Paul Joseph
July 17, 2010
Featured
As an Alumni, last week, while I was trying to assist young MBA students at one of the top business schools of India with their post MBA life & entrepreneurship related questions, one of the students asked me a very simple sounding yet a very difficult question to answer. The question was, what is the most important question that an entrepreneur must ask to ensure new product success in the market . Even after thinking for a while when I could not come up with a convincing answer, I promised the young lady that I would jog my memory, go through my numerous product launch failures and a few successes & get back with an answer. The answer was a deeper understanding of a common fact that every one of us know, yet, very few of us appreciate as the starting principle behind any new product success. The trick is not even the question that I am sure everyone thinks they know the answer for, the real question is “Where did the answer come from?” The question is an oft repeated line in entrepreneurial circle — Which problem does your product solve & what value a target customer willing to pay for solution of that problem. Doesn’t every entrepreneur seem to know the answer to this question — why would anyone start an enterprise otherwise — yet 90% of the ventures fail miserably. What makes the difference between 90% that failed and 10% that succeeded? My answer to that young student? The difference is in the source of that answer. To me, a go-no-go decision of a product venture lies in a simple question, does your product solve a real problem & can you provide a solution at a price that is more economical than the competition. Now the million dollar question is – Who did you ask that question in the first place? Go and ask real prospects, at least 4-5 of them, if the proposed product solves their real problem(s) and if they are willing to pay a price that sounds interesting. An affirmative answer is the first and only recipe of new product success. ——- Subodh Vinchurkar is founder of ADPS Consulting and can be reached at subodhv AT adpsconsulting dot com
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by Paul Joseph
April 9, 2009
Featured
In a recent inner entrepreneurs circle meeting, I came across a common theme of “pressures the entrepreneurs face everyday and impact on their physical & Mental health”. So we got together with people who have made it big & brainstormed the common Dilemma. What came out was very powerful wisdom. Interesting Read – something that very closely reflects what almost 99% of startup entrepreneurs go through. My doctor recently diagnosed me with High Blood Pressure & said I need to de-stress. As a small entrepreneur I spoke with my mentor, a seasoned entrepreneur (a very successful one), and shared my problem of over involvement, ensuing stress and results such as burn outs, headaches, stress & high blood pressure. Above all I don’t have time left to think about important things and issues important to grow my business. He didn’t seem surprised and said 100% of the small business owners have this problem and the solution is simple yet difficult. Nevertheless, solution is required if business owners have to take company from status of a small enterprise to medium or big one. So what is the solution? Sounding skeptical, I asked politely yet impatiently Solution is a simple word called delegation. It is not a noun, it is a verb & signifies action. Delegation frees up owners time to work ON the business and not IN the business. Owners should never work in the business, they should have capable people doing low to medium value execution jobs so that they can focus on tasks critical to grow the business and to make it successful and big. You mean let someone else do what is critical for my customers? Business Operations? are you crazy? They can sink my business. Yes, that is what I mean & that is exactly what is required to not die young as an owner of a small enterprise, but to die old and happy owning a billion dollar business. Ok, ok, I got to believe you for all the problems I have. But how do you do it? and make sure people do not kill your business? It is simple to to delegate effectively. But beware, If not done properly, it can kill the business itself. All the steps are necessary, you skip one and you are doomed. You do it all and you have an easy life. Yes I am all ears to listen, please tell me how to do it? 1. Before doing anything and everything ask a simple questions, Can any one else do it? 2. If the answer is yes (it is yes for most of the non-strategic & execution related things), identify that person who can do it for you. 3. If you don’t have that person HIRE him/her. It may sound like unnecessary expenditure, but your job is to grow business to cover that expense. Tell yourself, you have two options, do it & keep doing it and never have time to grow the business or take some risk, hire some one capable & focus on growing the business. 4. The most difficult part is to Give him/her the job It is simple but you gotta be careful . Beware your business depends on that job being done on time & accurately. Follow these simple steps and you are on the way 1. Provide the person A> Complete information on what needs to be done B> Skills required to do the job. Don’t assume people automatically have skills, if required arrange for training C> Empower and provide authority & access needed for the job D> Provide practical time that would take to complete the job E> Instill a sense of urgency and importance. Make sure you say that it is important that it is completed on time. Dont assume people would automatically take the job seriously. D> Define what do you mean by completion. Can you check for A, B, C, D items & verify that it is complete? Tell him/her the deadline and need to deliver A, B, C, D, E items and meet you or communicate to you the completion on all of them. Dillegently track completion – People would not take you seriously the next time, if you didn’t! Simple isn’t it! If you followed these simple steps, soon you would realize you have all the money to pay all the people working IN the business because now most capable of them all YOU has enough time to work ON the business. A simple test of leadership is to count how many leaders have you grown to run your business. Happy Growing! ——- Subodh Vinchurkar is founder of ADPS Consulting & Ghoomo.com and can be reached at subodhv AT adpsconsulting dot com
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