Doug Richard's School for Startups » doug richard

The School for Startups Romanian Adventure

Doug Richard — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:45:24 +0000

As many of you who follow our activities will know, we decided to begin to reach out beyond the UK’s borders last year. We invited interested parties from a number of nations to join us at the MADE Festival in Sheffield and followed up with those groups that showed the most interest.

Without a doubt, the Post Privitization Foundation (PPF) led by the notable Peter Barta was the most pro-active and ambitious. We had a working agreement within a month and a project planned for 2011 begun by November of 2010.

After a lot of effort by both groups working together between Romania and the UK, the programme officially launched last week. And what a launch.

For the last two months the PPF has been trumpeting this year-long opportunity across Romania searching for 200 entrepreneurs who wanted to start a new business or accelerate the growth of an existing one. The final 200 were chosen and the first of our four boot camps (http://s4s.ly/8y) officially opened in Bucharest last Monday.

We were joined by Marius Ghenea who is best known as the lead dragon on the Romanian version of Dragons Den which is actually known as Arena Leilor or “Lions Arena” in Romanian. Marius is a dapper fellow who is one of Romania’s leading e-commerce entrepreneurs and in addition to being an angel investor he teaches entrepreneurship and is about to launch his book on starting a business.

There is no doubt that entrepreneurs are the same the world over. Our Bucharest students were full of passion for their businesses. Some of them are worth considering and will meet with success. Some of them just have a gleam in their eyes. And some may be a slight challenge to see how they will succeed.

On Wednesday we flew to Cluj in the heart of Transylvania. Cluj is a city a bit caught in the past. It was obviously a prosperous place at the turn of the last century, but like much of Eastern Europe it is catching up again.

We were warned repeatedly by Alina from PPF that “Cluj is different” which made us wonder what Transylvania had in store. And it is certainly was the case that the entrepreneurs are more serious and initially somewhat more reserved than Bucharest; but all in all they were more alike than different.

We had business proposals ranging from local auto repair garages seeking to expand their reach to the first consumer financing for breast implants in Romania, which led to a particularly interesting conversation.

I admit that one of the more enjoyable moments for me was the chance to go drinking with Marius and his friends one evening. We ended up at the Sinatra Tribute Club “My Way”, located in one of the old catacombs beneath the city. (Fitting somehow in Transylvania), singing Karaoke.

the Sinatra Tribute Club “My Way”

What next? We are going to be launching our web based community platform for support for the entrepreneurs. It includes a large library of resources, an open forum for questions and support and a live video service for our monthly broadcast.

We return to Romania in March accompanied by the social media expert Alexandra Samuels from Social Signals.

To receive regular updates about our Romanian adventures – follow us on Twitter

An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Letting Go: A Survival Skill for Startup Owners

Nancy Fulton Mazur — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 11:24:28 +0000

One sets out on the adventure of having a business with a host of great ideas and good intentions. But to launch a business requires you to take risks and to make decisions based on imperfect information. Coming up with a good scalable idea and implementing it well is often the work of a few years and on the way to success there are a lot of false starts.

Building a great business means letting go of what won’t work . . .

Turn loose of “free” and “giveaway” strategies that don’t work. Sometimes it makes sense to give away products and services at no cost. People only buy candy if they know what it tastes like, so giving away candy samples makes sense when you are trying to acquire customers.
Sometimes a “free” item is something that actually requires a purchase later. Many of use start using free or trial webservice only to upgrade when we need enhanced features. That means something free is actually cost effective promotion.
Sometimes “free” is webspeak for “give me your email address so I can contact you later” which really isn’t free at all.
The key thing is, if you are giving anything away for free for any reason, you need to monitor what that “investment” costs you carefully, and you need to track the return you get from it all the time. Because businesses only survive when they make a profit, which means that every promotional strategy must earn it’s keep. If giving something away for free isn’t actually turning into new customers and a more profitable enterprise, you can’t afford to be that generous.
Terminate products and services that tie up resources in low value activities. When you first start a business, you often take on low value customers in order to learn the ropes and get the “credits” you need to pursue higher value projects. But at some point, if your business is to grow, you need to release those customers who are unwilling to pay more simply because you are worth more. This is always a hard choice to make, but it’s one every successful entrepreneur comes to sooner or later. You aren’t married to your customers and they aren’t married to you. Let go of business relationships that don’t work.
Terminate products and services your business sells that compete with one another. Sometimes it makes sense for startups and small businesses to launch a fleet of product and service packages that overlap a great deal. Often there is no other way to triangulate on what your customers want. But at some point you have to create a logically consistent pricing and product structure that is clear enough to let your customers can make a quick decision. Choosing between 3 apples for a pound and 5 apples for two pounds and 2 apples, a banana and an orange for three pounds is far too confusing for most people in the mood to buy fruit. When you make it simple and you’ll sell more.

These are a few examples of times when you may need to let a product, service, promotion or pricing strategy go. Sadly, there are also times when you must let a whole business go.

Businesses are supposed to make money. They are not hobbies. They are not social obligations. They are tools entrepreneurs use to make a living, and even a fortune, for themselves and their families. Many businesses, even those that manage to make a little bit of money, are not good businesses. In fact some of the very worst businesses to own are those that just keep scraping by. Those enterprises can keep their owners trapped for years making less than they could working for someone else, betrayed by the hope that a marginal business model will somehow magically fix itself.

When you have an enterprise that’s been in business for several years that never seems to find its feet, and when it has cost you more in hard work and hours invested than it has ever managed to produce in revenue, you may need to let it go so you can work on other things.

Every day you spend working on a marginal enterprise is a day you can’t spend working on something that has the capacity (if executed correctly) to really take off. Understanding that “opportunity cost”, and moving to limit it, is key for anyone who wants to own a business that does more than merely survive.

For more information on what it takes to have a great business based on a scalable business model, buy the Build Your Business Now Toolkit. That’s Doug’s Richard’s practical guide to creating, launching and fine-tuning new businesses. It is guaranteed to help you launch and run better, smarter, stronger and more profitable enterprises.

Let go of what doesn’t work and you’ll give yourself a great start to a new year.

How to Network Effectively: For the Shy & Polite

Doug Richard — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:15:08 +0000

The common wisdom is that entrepreneurs naturally like to meet people. The truth is, most would rather do almost anything else. While some entrepreneurs are naturally gregarious, the majority seem to dislike networking so much that they will make every effort to avoid the exercise.

Yet, time and again I’ve seen that businesses led by owners who refuse to make new connections struggle rather than succeed. Customers, strategic partners and key employees must be sought out if a young company is to thrive.

That said, I understand the reluctance people feel when entering a room full of strangers How do you sift through a mass of people to find those who share common interests, work in similar industries, work toward shared goals? The truth is, there are tricks and techniques you can master that make it far easier than you imaging.

If you find networking difficult, try the following:

Start your networking by joining groups that share your industry, your profession or your market. You can find these groups on Meetup.com, LinkedIn.com and by contacting the professional organizations that certify those in your industry.
When you join a new group, offer to serve as a volunteer. Try to be given a job that puts you into direct contact with every member of the group. You’ll find that the person who passes out name tags gets to know everyone.
Smile. Really, it is all going to be Okay. Networking is what we used to call “play” before we grew up. It’s finding group of people doing something interesting and hanging out with them while they do it. You aren’t looking for true love or deep friendships, though over time you may find both. You’re just looking for someone to hang out with. If you recall your playground manners, you know you have to be nice to the new kids, avoid the bullies and befriend people with a “Hello”. “Hi! My name’s Ted. I’m a programmer with a start up. What do you do?”
Be able to describe what you do in a sentence. The older you get, the harder that is. Find something interesting to say that gives people a general idea and then assume that you’ll have more time to fill in the blanks. “I work in steel,” or “I’m a film producer” or “I sell things” are find handshake intros.
Have business cards to trade and make sure they have your email address. One friend I know writes something he thinks will be helpful to everyone he talks to on the back of every card he passes out. So if he meets someone that would benefit from knowing how to upload lots of videos onto the internet, he writes “www.tubemogul.com multiple video upload” on the back of his card. He writes the same thing on the back of the card they give him. That makes it easier to reconnect the next day with the folks he like.

Networking is something most entrepreneurs don’t do nearly enough of, and the more you do it the better your business will do. People deliver opportunities. It is unlikely that a multi-million pound customer is going to knock on your front door, but its quite likely several of them will be at the next big local trade show for your industry. Maybe you should be a “regular” at that event for the next few years. Maybe every week you should find a way to network with a few hundred people in your industry, in your community or among the groups that support your customers.

If you accomplish that objective, and follow the suggestions outlined in this article, I can almost guarantee you’ll pick up lots of new business and many new opportunities in just a few weeks.

Mass Media Starts & Ends At Your Website

Nancy Fulton Mazur — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:22:53 +0000

As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, marketing takes many forms. Companies reach out to networks of people online through social media. They communicate with communities through public relations. They reach out to individuals searching for solutions online through search engine optimization and search engine marketing. But, if you have the budget and the time, the best marketing of all is still mass media marketing.

Newspapers and magazine editors, radio and television producers, communicate with hundreds of millions of people every day. While the competition is fierce to gain this information market’s attention, it’s hunger for new news, insight and information is inexhaustible. When the mass media adopts a story and begins to propagate it, it can deliver hundreds of millions of eyes in a matter of days.

These days, an effective, evocative website is one of the most important tools you can use in selling writers, editors, producers and reporters on the importance of your story. Your website will be the first place they will look for more information about you and your business after initial contact. They will look there for facts to check and leads to follow on whatever story they plan to write. Once they make their article or program about you available to the world, the traffic they generate will come back to your website. If your site is ready to sell what thousands, or millions, may be able to buy, mass media can serve as the most effective sales engine imaginable.

When Apple releases a new iPhone or Google produces a new Android, marketing professionals ensure their website provides:

Information on the product
Information on any tools or applications that work with it
Some information about the product’s development and production
Instructions on where and how to buy the product
Trackable links so that every customer can be tracked back to their media source
Information about the business
Links to press contacts in the marketing department

Providing this information succinctly, attractively and in a form editors and producers can use makes it easy for them to write their articles with little or no help. The easier it is to write an article, the quicker it gets published.

Every enterprise needs a website that the mass media can use to tell the world about the business.

An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Turning Web Traffic into Cold Hard Cash

Nancy Fulton Mazur — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 08:50:47 +0000

South Park, a cartoon for adults produced in the United States, has a great episode that accurately describes most web-based business plans.

In this cartoon, “Underpants Gnomes” enter homes all over the world every night to steal underwear. When asked why, they reveal their grand plan:

Collect underpants.
??_____________________
Profit.

Countless numbers of entrepreneurs build websites or write blogs following that “business model”. They aren’t sure exactly how their website will make money, but they are convinced that if they just generate enough traffic, revenue will automatically follow. They invest thousands of dollars in time and materials to create great web designs, exceptional web apps, great free ebooks and remarkable blogs. They host a virtual feast on their site every day and play host to thousands or tens of thousands every month and yet get next to nothing in return for their efforts. Certain fundamentals must be understood in order to run a website as something more than a hobby.

Specifically:

People who come to your site need a reason to give you money. Unless you are running a website that earns reasonable revenue from advertising, or survives on sponsorship from third parties, there has to be something on your site that people can actually buy. Ideally, there should be a lot of things for them to buy since that would tend to maximize the chance that they will make multiple purchases over time.
In order for people to buy something from you, they must have a way to give you money. Paypal, Xoom, Google Checkout . . . Which commerce solution you use has everything to do with what you are selling and what service your customers prefer to use when they buy.
Not all traffic is created equal. If Google directs thousands of people to your online doll store every day because you have the best “doll pictures”, you may see lots of traffic and almost no sales. People who get to your site when they want to “buy dolls” are far more likely to give you money. Using a website traffic analysis tool, like Google Analytics, look hard at the people coming to your site, where they are coming from, and what they buy when they get arrive. You can then maximize the traffic that actually buys stuff.

Who are all these people?

If you have traffic coming to your website, but no revenue being generated, one of your first tasks is to determine what draws people to your site. That is your core value and you don’t want to stop providing it. You must then discover who your guests are so you can determine what they are most likely to buy.

For example, if your site has proven effective at collecting writers local to London because it tells them where all the open poetry nights can be found, you may find that books on where and how to publish poetry sell well. You may also discover your guests are willing to buy tickets to events you run that showcase local writers. Knowing who people are usually tells you what they will buy.

Some sites have so much traffic, of such a diffuse nature, that they embody many diverse target markets. This may well require you to channel traffic from your home page into pages that address each segment.

Softening the Shock

Turning a free site into a site which effectively markets products and services usually raises a few hackles. Some visitors will necessarily complain about commercialism and how the site has changed. Be prepared for this response, and actively limit your response to the complaints. Most reasonable people understand that no website of any value can run indefinitely without revenue, and every day people purchase the products and services they need to survive and prosper.

Your visitors will be happier if your site is profitable because you’ll have the funds required to add new content and new services over time. Sites that don’t produce revenue usually fade away fairly quickly because they are hobbies not businesses.

Why Do People Hate Lifestyle Businesses?

Doug Richard — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:51:18 +0000

I have never understood the antipathy that otherwise rational people have for the so-called “lifestyle business”. Quite recently I heard someone in a position of responsibility in the small business community disparage lifestyle businesses. They weren’t real businesses, he said. They only enriched the owner, he said. What the f**k, I thought to myself?

Even more puzzling was the unthinking regard that everyone holds for the externally funded business. Get angel funding, get venture capital, get debt from a bank is what I hear people encouraging new entrepreneurs; as though the ability to raise money equates to the ability to make money. It doesn’t. Just as measuring your business success by the number of people you employ is vanity, not sanity.

The heart of the issue is this question: what constitutes business success? In an age of growing awareness of carbon footprint, in a time when the fastest growing businesses are social enterprises, at a point in the economic cycle when we need to drive entrepreneurs to help solve social issues; we no longer have time for these false dichotomies.

A business success can be measured on the bottom line. A business success is not measured on its top line. I have heard celebrity entrepreneurs brag about their businesses calling out their total revenue as though the sheer volume of cash that their business touched was somehow meaningful. I picture them skinny dipping in all that cash as it washes by cackling irrationally not realizing that the flow of cash is not the same as the stickiness of profit. The reality was that they made a skinny 1% profit on all that cash. A business with one tenth the revenue that makes 10% on its money is precisely as successful. Revenue is just not profit.

It is not measured by the number of people it employs. Over and over I hear people talk about the size of their organizations. All I hear is the cost of their payroll. Is this just a man thing? Are we really comparing size still as adults? Get over it. In business size doesn’t matter.

One of the most progressive entrepreneurs I know, Emma Jones of Enterprise Nation who advocates for home-based businesses, makes the point that many modern start-ups intentionally work with contractors rather than taking on the cost of a full time employee. They are more resilient businesses. They are more flexible businesses. They employ less people. Their success is inversely proportional to the number of people they have employed. And they offer the collateral benefit to society of supporting other small businesses.

But I digress. Let’s return to the blowhard who caused me to reflect on the initial question: what do people have against lifestyle businesses? A lifestyle business is simply one where the owner seeks to make the business successful not only in terms of profitability but also in terms of its ability to make his or her life more successful. It is this intentional inclusion of other measures of success that also define a social enterprise. It is exactly this awareness of the impact on the environment that defines the green enterprise.

In short it is the insight that there are other stakeholders in a business that makes a business ethical at all. So where in hell does my un-named blowhard get off dissing lifetstyle businesses?

I believe that people should build businesses around their passions and around their lives. I believe that some businesses deserve to grow to fully express themselves or contribute to society. But other businesses should remain small and focussed. And who is he to tell anyone what they aspire to or grade the result on such a myopically narrow measure. Personally, I run a lifestyle business and he can f**k off.

Practical Q&A With Doug Richard: Mentoring, Recruiting & Seeing Opportunities

Nancy Fulton Mazur — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 08:51:59 +0000

At a recent Start Here: Starting & Growing a Successful Business event held in London, we received the following questions . . .

On your first business venture, what was the most challenging thing to deal with? – Shanta

Well, it is hard to pick a “most challenging thing”. Generally, it was a great experience in the sense that I learned an incredible amount and the little team I and my brother Ken assembled did some amazing things. At the time I would have said “cash flow” was our biggest hassle. Later, due to the pressures of running a very high speed, large number of large transactions tech business, I would have said our biggest challenge was interpersonal issues related to working with family and friends for a long period of time.
Now I’d say the true problem was there was no “mentor” we could turn to who could help us plan and transition from one business model to another correctly. That’s one of the reasons I’m starting the School for Startups Mentoring Club…

When you have a business that’s running very fast and with significant intensity, switching over to a business model that leverages all your existing assets but starts generating passive wealth is like trying to having a high speed train switch tracks. If its not a very carefully considered transition, it is going to be traumatic.

Q: When asking the question ‘are you on a mission?’, Doug mentioned that if you wanted to ‘save the world’ great, do so, but maybe it’s not a business. I would like to know what he considers a suitable definition of what a business is. And further, what a successful business was. – Tom

Don’t get me wrong, please feel free to save the world. Goodness knows there’s a lot to do. And, saving the world can be a business. Social enterprises are designed to make self sustaining solutions to some of the world’s big problems. But . . . a desire to save the world and filing the paperwork to start an enterprise does not a business make. An activity can only be called a business if it makes makes enough money to pay its bills. Really, if it is to be capable of growth, it has to turn a profit which can be used to fund that growth.

What is the best way to recruit new people? – Pietro

Recruit people to do what? Work for your business? Well, money can get you some great people . . . I suspect you are asking how do you recruit the right people for your startup when you don’t have lots of money. And the answer is to have a great business model that you can pitch very well, and a reasonably friendly, honest, straight-forward, practical and pragmatic personality so people want to work for you.

You touched on how gaps in the market are thrown at us every day, but we rarely are set up to spot them. Are you able to expand on this a little? How do we train ourselves or become more open to seeing sources for ideas? – Ross

What I love about entrepreneurs is they see problems as opportunities. So spotting the gaps is pretty easy really. Look for what’s wrong and start thinking of ways to fix it. If you never have food in the house because you never have time to go shopping, chances are you’d pay a bit of a premium for a business that would just deliver groceries the way other businesses deliver pizza. If you’re tired of having your family descend on your house every Christmas, so you get stuck doing all the cooking and cleaning, chances are you know what someone wants in a “Self-Catered Christmas Get Away” that you could tell your family to join you on instead. Every problem is a business waiting to happen . . . Deciding which business you care enough to design and build is always the tricky thing.

Kevin Farrar, IBM Global Entrepreneur Lead, UK & Ireland

Nancy Fulton Mazur — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 09:00:20 +0000

We recently interviewed Kevin Farrar, who leads IBM Global Entrepreneur. This IBM initiative seeks to partner with technology entrepreneurs interested in delivering solutions to address issues enterprise customers are facing in the areas of banking, buildings, cities, cloud computing, education, energy, food, government, healthcare, infrastructure, intelligence, oil, products, public safety, rail, retail, stimulus, telecommunications, traffic, water, and work . . .

Why was IBM Global Entrepreneur founded?

We know that working with startups can drive change. Today, the world’s physical systems are being infused with intelligence, and this opportunity to apply information technology to physical infrastructure opens up vast new markets for the IT industry. With disruptive, new technologies, this is the perfect scenario for innovative entrepreneurs to play a major role. With IBM’s unique vision of a Smarter Planet (ibm.com/smarterplanet/uk), we are looking to partner with technology entrepreneurs who share this vision and want to work together to address this new market opportunity.

What kinds of support do you offer to entrepreneurs?

IBM Global Entrepreneur has the products, people, and promotion that can help technology startups extend the size and reach of their company. The initiative provides support and resources in the areas these startups need most:

Product
- No charge access to IBM’s software portfolio on-site or through the cloud to accelerate software development
People
- Dedicated technical enablement support to help startups develop their product and get to the marketplace faster.
- Mentors at IBM SmartCamps around the world who can help them grow their business.
- Industry market intelligence from our top industry experts that can help them understand the enterprise customer and the market opportunity.
Promotion
- Visibility as part of the IBM Smarter Planet agenda to set themselves apart from the competition.
- Recognition and additional benefits to partners with the most innovative solutions
- Opportunity to showcase their company in the IBM Global Entrepreneur directory.

When was the initiative started and how many entrepreneurs have you helped?

IBM Global Entrepreneur launched on 31st March 2010, so is very new at the moment. Given this, we are at the stage of raising awareness of what we have to offer, and encouraging participation. We are doing this by engaging with individuals and organisations who are already well established in this community, and we are delighted that School for Startups is working with us as one of our ecosystem partners. Hundreds of startups have shown interest in our new initiative, and I am delighted with how enthusiastic people have been who I’ve spoken to about what we are doing.

How do entrepreneurs participate?

Startups who meet the eligibility criteria can register at ibm.com/isv/startup. On our application form we ask a few simple questions to help us understand a little about their companies, and once accepted they will be contacted by one of our Project Resource Managers (PRM). The assigned PRM will make a personal call to welcome them, and will guide them through how they can make best us of the resources we provide on a one-to-one basis.

Startups can also apply to participate in our IBM SmartCamp London event which is taking place on 21st July at Imperial College London. SmartCamp is an exclusive event that brings together entrepreneurs, investors and experienced mentors who want to help us build a Smarter Planet. SmartCamp provides startups access to world-class advisors, plus a direct route to seed and venture capital. Applications for the London event can be made from now until 2nd July 2010.

What is your background and how did you come to IBM?

In 1987 IBM launched an integrated degree scheme with the University of Portsmouth, and I was one of the original intake to the scheme of 20 students. The initiative was pioneering as it was the first time in the UK that a company’s in-house training counted as credits towards a degree – a BSc in Computer Science. Our time was split on a weekly basis between our studies and doing a real job in IBM, so a very different model to a traditional sandwich course. The great thing was that we were paid a salary for the 3 years of the course, which certainly enhanced the experience!

Since graduating, I’ve performed a very diverse mixture of technical and business roles in IBM, both in the UK and across Europe. In 2005 I took on responsibility for establishing the IBM Academic Initiative (ibm.com/academicinitiative) across Europe, Middle East and Africa, and it was through this programme that I first started engaging with entrepreneurial students in the universities. I still look after this programme in the UK & Ireland, and am very excited about the new opportunities that leading the IBM Global Entrepreneur initiative is bringing. It is such an inspirational community of people to be collaborating with.

Is there a way entrepreneurs can learn more about the initiative online?

Our website is the best place to go to learn more: ibm.com/isv/startup

Additional information on IBM SmartCamp London can be found at ibm.com/ie/smarterplanet/smartcamp

Doug’s Fundamental Tips for Starting-Up and Running a Business

Mark Boyd — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:35:50 +0000

Doug Richard addresses the fundamental issues of starting-up and running a business. Doug’s Tips start from page 15.

[VIEW THE MAGAZINE HERE]

Practical Q&A With Doug Richard — Cambridge Starting & Growing a Successful Business Class

Doug Richard — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 16:19:12 +0000

At a recent Starting & Growing a Successful Business Event held in Cambridge, we received the following questions. We’ve taken a moment to respond to them. We thought others might find the answers interesting.

Are entrepreneurs born or made? — Bryan

Entrepreneurs are always made.

People don’t come out of the womb knowing how to pitch, to sell, to design. One may make the case that some folks seem to want to be entrepreneurs more than others. But that may be because they learn, sooner than others, what entrepreneurs do. In a larger sense . . . no one “is” any profession or skill. That’s a convenient fiction. No one is a writer or is a salesman. People write and sell. You can master entrepreneurship by caring enough to acquire and master the skills you need to build businesses. Get to work

How can you detach yourself from a venture? How to you evaluate a business that you’ve been emotionally attached to? — Keith

Actually, we have a great article about that. You can find it here. But the short answer is that lots of entrepreneurs start businesses because they have “missions” they are passionate about.

Perhaps they want to bring clean water to villages. Perhaps they want to open the world of computers to senior citizens. Maybe they want to teach people to dance.

Sometimes their vision of how to achieve that objective is so narrow and so flawed, they have a hard time of making a business of it. When this happens they start a business and it fails to thrive.

The Market is a great educator.

The visionary entrepreneur has to realize that businesses are ephemeral. They come and go. Your commitment to your mission can go on as long as you like.

Within that context, any business you create to support your mission is ephemeral. You can reformulate an existing business in a new way, or close an existing business in order to start a new one based on a different financial model. For those with very philanthropic objectives, you may even consider creating a social enterprise, cooperative or charity . . . .

Or perhaps you will find that the best way to achieve your mission is not starting an enterprise, but joining an existing one that is doing what you’d like to do.

I think you’ll find, given this perspective, it’s easy to let go of a business. It’s like letting go of business cards you don’t use anymore, or dropping that fax number you no longer need. If it’s the work you really care about . . . you probably don’t have to give that up just cause a given business proves unfeasible.

Is the reason for focusing on internet based businesses because that’s where the future is or because it’s the type of venture the Cambridge set are likely to be ‘into’ and as such is the best fit for the attendees. — Martin

Well, actually, neither of those reasons are why we focus on the Internet.

Basically, folks who have a business need customers. Very broadly speaking, there are two ways to get them.

You can call people and knock on their doors and try to tell them about your product.
You can put your product where people who are looking for it are likely to find it.

The second option, sometimes called “in-bound marketing” is very cheap and cost effective, and the Internet is the cheapest “in-bound” marketing solution around. If you do your job right, you can put your product where people who want to buy what you sell can find it.

So . . . we focus on how to put your products and services on the Internet. In most cases it is the cheapest and fastest way for many of our entrepreneurs to get access to hundreds, thousands or millions of customers. The Build Your Business Now toolkit that we built to support the course explains how ot create the simple site you need in just a few hours.

Market segment analysis. Instead of searching on Google, are there any specific places to retrieve this type of information? — Katherine

Well, we think you’ll be happier looking on Google (and perhaps other search engines) for information on market segments because getting the data there is fast and easy and you know it is timely.

For most businesses, the easiest to reach market of “ready to buy” customers are those who are looking for your service on Google because they are ready to buy. If someone goes to Google and types in “Dog Grooming”, chances are its not an academic search. They actually want a Dog Groomer. If some customers search for “Sidcup Dog Groomers” others search for “Chislehurst Dog Groomer” and still others search for “Organic Dog Groomers South East”, that’s a person who is almost certainly ready to buy.

You can also look at sites that you think offer competing services and see how Google sees them from a keyword standpoint. Go to http://www.google.com/sktool/ and http://www.google.com/trends to explore your market segments and related keywords.

Pricing: how much is it worth to them? … I recognize that the price of a product should be set to what a person will pay, not set to what they say they might be willing to pay. There could potentially be a large gap between how different entities value a product or service. Apart from asking prospects, apart from only looking at competitors’ pricing, what other tips would you suggest for setting price? (coming from the perspective of an internet based, B2B SaaS model with a product attempting to resegment an existing market with a niche strategy) – Steve

Pricing is always a matter of trial and error and you’ll almost always leave some money on the table. If you check out the Build Your Business Now Toolkit that was distributed after the class, you’ll see some practical advice and steps for figuring out price.

Basically you have to identify your target markets, see what they are paying for competing solutions, and price yourself in that zone. If there are no real competing solutions, you have to look at what NOT having your solution costs them. Using those two “ballparking” procedures will usually get you in your zone pricewise for each market segment . . . and then the issue is making sure each segment sees the right pricing.