Silicon Valley is fun. When I am at Starbucks

having coffee, I know that in the same room there are at least a few

other people discussing new ideas, hatching business plans and crafting

their visions etc.

A few weeks ago, I met an old friend and he mentioned to me how

frustrated he was coming to San Jose Downtown as there is a lot of

trouble finding a reasonably priced parking spot. That frustration made

him think through a business idea which revolved around creating an

online business to compare parking lots and deals on parking spots. He

said lot of people like him will flock to the site.

Long story short. The idea was shot down by the end of the coffee

session as there was no viable business model surrounding that idea. I

am using this as an example where this entrepreneur cut his losses

(this

time at the idea stage) but there are probably thousands of other

businesses where there is no viable business model and while the

passion and dreams are great, if there is no business model to support

it, it’s not worth your time.

Answering the first question with absolute honesty is key.

Starting a business is the most easy

part. I see people starting businesses all the time. They tell me that

they have contacts that can give them the business. What they don’t

realize is that not all personal contacts want to do business with

them. They are happy to be your personal contacts but they won’t bet

their company’s future on a startup. Also, you will run out of your

personal contacts soon. So, just depending on personal contacts is not

a good enough reason to start a business.

The key resource is people. Do you have the right team to run the

business? If not, can you afford to get the right team and what are you

willing to give up to attract the right team?

The next key resource is money. Do you have enough for now and for the

forseeable future. If not, do you have visibility to get that money

when you need it?

Note: When you are small, you make compromises on things (just because

you can’t afford everything on a limited budget) but when you start

growing you have an option to not compromise. Just being aware of this

will help.

They say change is easy as long as you

are not part of it. As your business grows, there will be some changes

that won’t affect you directly and there will be some that will affect

you directly. What is your appetite for change?

What is the extent to which you are willing to change? If it requires

that you need to unplug yourself from the business for the good of the

business, would you be willing to do it?

When you are small (or in general for that matter) it is always a great idea to have a plan to influence the influencers.

Most people prepare and always look out to get to the decision makers

when the journey can be a lot smoother by going after the influencers.

While not having enough customers is

one problem, having too many too early and not being prepared for it is

another problem. Do you have a  plan in place if (or when) such a

thing happens?

Systems thinking is one of my favorite

topics and if you are a small business, it is even more important to

understand systems thinking.

Systems thinking is a way of understading the inter-relationships

between the parts of a system and the impact each part will have on the

whole system or on the other parts. When you build a business, you get

plugged into an eco-system that comprises of at least:

You need to understand how each part relates to the other within the

system and should be able to quickly understand the impact of change in

one or more of the parts.


The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge provides a great introduction to

Systems Thinking and if you are an entrpreur or wanna be one, you got

to read it and digest it.

If everything remains same, the person

or the company that has better tools will win. Tools may be something

that will save you time, money, share knowledge, increase productivity

or improve efficiency. Have you thought of what tools you need to have

to run this business in the most optimum fashion?

What is your plan for acquiring these tools? What is your plan to

implement these tools? How do we make sure that everyone uses the tools

that are already in place?

The advertisement model of yesterday is

almost dead. The new world requires new ways of marketing or reaching

out. Have you explored blogs, podcasts, viral marketing, word of mouth

marketing etc. Your particular business may require something totally

new altogether to get it going? How willing are you to experiment?

The keyword for today is findability. Clients will find you rather than you finding them. Are you findable on the web?

For starters, Take a look at Dave Taylor’s new book “Growing your business with Google“

Sometimes we hang on to something good

for too long. Selling ice was a good idea at some point in time. When

the world changed and refrigeration started showing promise, it was

time to move on even if there was a good business going. Now this

example seems like an obvious one. What if one of your offerings was to

sell ice when someone was developing refrigeration technology out

there? Are you watching the trends and innovation outside of your world

to see if there are things out there that can impact your business?

The bigger question is: When you do find that your biggest offering is

losing relevance, are you willing to kill it or commodotize it and move

forward?

I think GYM is a term coined by Robert Scoble

– stands for Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. The question is “How do you

know that one of these big companies come up with the same offer as

yours but give it away for free?”

Recently Google announced “Google Analytics”

– a simple, sophisticated Analytics solution for the web for free. I am

confident that a few boutique firms whose bread and butter was to sell

these solutions are worried like hell. It is hard to get information on

what all projects that these companies are working on but sometimes

they give a hint. For example, it would not be a good idea to work on

something that is already being showcased in Google Labs

unless you are pretty sure that you have some amazing technology and

you know that your solution will be far superior than whatever Google

will eventually come up with.

When I shared this with one of my close

friends, he said, “Raj clear this list. I have only one question to

replace the whole list – What are you doing today that will ensure that

one of the GYM companies will pick you against others in their next

acquisition spree?”