Fantastic Four

While the unicorn stories and dollar millionaire stories in the press make for good copy, its nowhere near the bed of roses when one starts. ‘Me Too’ versions, demanding customers, motivating employees, product development challenges, IP protection, the forever present Cash flow challenges, the elusive paying customers, marketing challenges, nagging investors….. what seemed like a great idea on the back of the napkin suddenly looks like an impossible dream or a fool’s endeavor!
What can keep you going to discover the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel? Here is the listing of the Fantastic Four qualities :

1. Passion : The #1 quality that comes thru when you interact with the first generation entrepreneur is the passion and the consequent conviction. Customers will buy the first product, employees will bite the offer , investors will commit on this quality. Do not let that die no matter the roadblocks!
2. Positivity : What you have achieved so far ( no matter how little that is) and why you should be thankful for and take inspiration from. Think of the distance covered rather than be overawed by how much is left to go. There is no shortage of doubting thomases, cynics, critics in this world. Do not let them kill your positivity. Its infectious!
3. Pivots : Have you looked at possible Pivots from hereon ? would they make a positive difference? Is there a pivot that can change the trajectory?
4. Peers: You don't have to learn everything from your own experience. No matter how unique you think you are, there are similar players who have gone thru similar challenges. Their experiences can teach you what to do and what to stay away from.

No entrepreneur works towards money. Their goals are bigger and better. The Fantastic Four will help them navigate the alligator infested waters!

The fairness of 1%

All over the world, political parties, pundits and socialists whine and crib about the unfairness of 1% of the world claiming a disproportionate share of world's wealth.

Before you think this is a political rant, let me clarify it is not. If you leave out the rank emotions and examine objectively, why only 1%? Why not 5% or 23%?

How many of the people you know think original and how many wait for instructions? How many are comfortable in the comfort of the routine and the usual? How many are comfortable with risk? How many try the unknown and new?

A great many of the world population wait to be driven or instructed or be told what to think and do. The facts about the multitude of  news channels , religious leaders, political leaders bear testimony to this fact. Many wait for a news article or a boss or a pundit on the tube to tell them what to think and do that day and the next. If the herd mentality assures wealth, it will get distributed among this huge majority and become dissipated.

Very very few venture the unknown , take chances and the risks of failures. A much lesser number of people are able to see beyond the immediate and take a bet on where the future is headed. They are ready to take the social and psychological shocks that come with it .

Granted all of them do not make it but the vast majority of those who make it, end up with a return that is proportional to the risks they took.

Before you crib about the unfairness of the 1% of the world who own a disproportionate share of world’s wealth, do think about your own choices and behaviours about where you wanted to be.

MVP vs MSP

MVP - Minimum Viable Product

MSP - Minimum sellable Product

The above ideas are critical for a startup on what to build. The dilemma for a startup is how much cash to burn in getting the first thing completed. MVP typically is that piece of the product that solves a particular problem completely and perhaps even the most efficiently.

But MVP does not necessarily mean customers will buy it. An MSP on the other hand has revenue focus from the word go. It is focused on getting the first paying customer and you build something until someone is willing to pay for it.

MSP is in that sense less idealistic and more pragmatic.

The question that comes next is which is more expensive to build. There is no easy standard answer. Either of them could be costlier. But the MSP agenda ensures that the product development is 'outside in', customer focused , differentiating and value delivering. MSP agenda also brings in an in-built cost control that the product development needs to be cost efficient and viable within the revenue it brings.

If MSP is so intuitively correct, why is it not practiced as often?

For starters, it focuses/limits your product development to a specific market segment instead of appealing to a broader market. This also limits the number of  early adopters in that segment who need to buy your product/offering. Your product could be ahead of time, not different enough or not enough 'wowing'.

But atleast it prevents a dogmatic entrepreneurial pursuit with no sense of cost /current market relevance.

As someone said famously ' War is fought with bullets and not money. But someone has got to  buy the bullets!'

Every startup's vision of changing the world costs money and someone has to pay for it to keep it going!

The Ignored Art of Storytelling

In the age of 140 character tweets, Chat messages, MCQs , 3 minute videos and breaking news ticker headlines, a critical skill that is getting ignored and ill-acquired is Storytelling.
whether you are pitching to investors for funding your startup idea, asking the first customers to try out your product/service, getting customers to commit to a long term relationship, convincing a prospective employee to join, get people to consider your approach vs others, managing investor expectations.... the everyday slots where storytelling becomes critical are just too many.

It is much different from selling/marketing and one will understand it if one knows how the greatest storytellers operate. There are multiple approaches and here are a few:

Frederick Forsyth - Story is conveyed through intricate minute details that make the story credible and almost real

James Patterson - Story is conveyed direct, simple and crisp so you get the storyline development with little effort and attention

Steve Jobs - Story is conveyed through impressive metrics, core principles and 'see it yourself' demos

Agatha Christie - The climax is conceived first and then the story is laid out in reverse order to condition your mind along a journey , the writer wants you to take

Jeff Bezos - Powerpoints are banned and every business idea is written as a a 6 page writeup that needs preparation, delving into multiple aspects with their pros and cons and helping the audience make a 'deeply informed decision'

Economist - Story is explained through style guides that have perfected the art of communicating to the people who matter, in the shortest possible time

Indian epics - story is conveyed through multiple stories embedded one inside the other

Elon Musk - story is conveyed more through the long term vision and the big picture

Bill Clinton - story is communicated by first establishing a deep connect with the audience

Adi Shankara - story is conveyed through rational, logical argument line that answers unasked questions and by removing all the incorrect options

As you can see from the above real world approaches, there is no one single way. And each approach has its strengths and vantage. Another common thread you can see is that more words help the audience picture/imagine better . It is also possible that the picture imagined by each recipient could be different from the other.

A critical enabler for Storytelling is the lost habit of reading. Reading helps energise neurons that the image/video cannot.

Also you might need to change the storytelling approach based on the audience, objective and the content.

No standup comic gets the joke delivery first time right! Keep learning and fine tuning approaches that work and suitable for specific occasions.

It needs significant preparation/homework, judging the audience, right delivery and answering questions.

The results make this way more than worth it !

Qualifying Innovation

As much as I hate this topic, it still is worth exploring. When huge majority of the world is doers and the percentage of true innovators is in single digit percentages , we shouldn't be qualifying innovation, right? While that argument can't be beaten, one still needs this topic to figure out what kind of behaviours to inculcate/promote. So here it goes.

In many places, what is innovation is determined by what is common. For teams/organisations which are highly creative/innovative, the bar is high and many things come across as 'minor improvements'. In other places, slightest change in 'the usual' might get celebrated.

1. With this context, it might be better to use an 'outside in' approach to qualify innovation. What does market/industry consider as 'the usual'? What is the maturity of customer organisations (B2B) /customers (B2C) in process/technology? This would be a good threshold to filter out ideas
2. Is the innovation 'improving' an existing practice or 're-imagining' ?
3. Is the idea 'complex'? This is a more pragmatic filter since most world impacting innovations are much 'simpler' . Also to keep in mind is the fact that Complex is Costly.
4. Where does the anchor lie for the idea? Does it improve life for the customer? Is customer the anchor or something else?
5. Source of idea: If it has come from the marketplace ( customer or competition), the idea is probably dated and tried out already with known results. While iPod is not the first portable music player and neither Mac the first personal computer, fundamental original ideas are more powerful than trying to do things better than whats already out there.
6. Passion behind the idea: Contrary to what many think of this as a negative, its the passion that sees things through in execution and not necessarily the idea itself. So if you want the idea executed and deliver results in real world, look for this quality.
7. Last but not the least: There is no formula for innovation as to what works. Also at the end of the day the spirit of Day 1 ( in Amazon parlance) and curiosity that counts and that is a culture worth nurturing irrespective of the idea.

5 Steps to Disruptive Innovation

With handy tools like the new age technologies, every millennial is dreaming of disruptive innovation, killing a business category or atleast changing the rules of the game in an industry ( on the way to a unicorn valuation ! ) What is disruptive innovation? 5 steps below

1.    No tinkering and delta changes. Think of the industry cost structures and what could fundamentally alter the business model and cost structures. Biggest motivator for a business change is cost. Re-imagine the business model with a new cost structure thats radically different

2.    While the new model will not be attractive to all the current stakeholders ( because you are removing some of them in the process! ), for faster adoption, make sure your new model appeals to the end customer first and then as many others as possible

3.    Do not start with technology. Draw up the re-imagined business model and see how the technologies/tools will make that a reality

4.    Never undersell the new business model on the cheap!

5.    Be prepared for the long haul. Disruptive changes occur at the fringes first since there is a backlash by incumbents. Persevere!

Its not the Tech, Stupid!

There is no shortage of tech buzz words ( Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Analytics, Chatbots, NLP....) that promise to end the world as we know it, change our lives for the better and so on.... But the reality is far more humbling. The reason? Choose the right problem where the appropriate tech is the right solution. Not the other way round : Have a solution and start looking for a problem!!!!

The long lead times between a technology riding the hype cycle and making life changing impact is precisely this. The lack of imagination in identifying the right use case for the right tech to make a business impact. This needs to be done keeping in mind that there may not be any solution today, current tools/instruments ( thats what technologies are) may not be the solutions, current technologies still are up the maturity cycle before they become useful/applicable.

Also to keep in mind are the aspects of current insecurities and mind blocks in accepting disruptive business models and the enabling technologies. Long lasting changes happen at fringes initially, take longer to become mainstream and come across many roadblocks on the way. Conviction, Perseverance, dollops of luck....drivers of change.