Larkland Morley's Professional Blog » Analysis http://www.larklandmorley.com Business and Technology Highlights Fri, 13 Aug 2010 18:33:40 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Foundation elements for modern businesses http://www.larklandmorley.com/2010/08/13/foundation-elements-for-modern-businesses/ http://www.larklandmorley.com/2010/08/13/foundation-elements-for-modern-businesses/#comments Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:22:38 +0000 Larkland http://www.larklandmorley.com/2010/08/13/foundation-elements-for-modern-businesses/ Continue reading →]]>

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Foundation elements for modern businesses

When you sit down to dream up a new business, you can imagine a world without constraints. Or you can choose to build in fundamental pieces that will make it more likely your idea will pay off.

Here are some fundamental pieces of most new successful businesses. The goal is to build these elements into the very nature of the business itself, not just to tack them on. For example, the Scotch tape people at 3M can’t do #5, because of the structure of retail distribution and the way they mass produce and can’t track who is buying what.

You can live without some of these, but go in with your eyes open if you do:

  1. Build in virality. Consider: Groupon.
  2. Don’t sell a product that can be purchased cheaper at Amazon.
  3. Subscriptions beat one-off sales.
  4. Try to create an environment where your customers are happier when there are other customers doing business with you (see #1).
  5. Treat different customers differently.
  6. Generate joy, don’t just satisfy a need for a commodity.
  7. Rely on unique individuals, not an easily copyable system.
  8. Plan on remarkable experiences, not remarkable ads.
  9. Don’t build a fortress of secrets, bet on open.
  10. Unless there’s a differentiating business reason, use off the shelf software and cheap cloud storage.
  11. The asset of the future is the embrace of a tribe, not a cheaper widget.
  12. Match expenses to cash flow–don’t run out of money, because it’s no longer 1999.
  13. Create scarcity but act with abundance. Free samples create demand for the valuable (but not unlimited) tier you offer.
  14. Tell a story, erect a mythology, walk the walk.
  15. Plan on obsolescence (of your products, not your customers).

Notes:

3. The cost of selling a subscription to your product or service is not a lot higher than the cost of selling just one, but you benefit by having sales you can count on at low cost. Your customers benefit because you depend on them more and they save time.

5. Everyone has different needs and expectations and resources. The internet lets you tell people apart and give them what they need.

7. AKA as Linchpins.

9. If you’re building a business on trade secrets or lack of information among your customers, you’re trying to fill a leaky bucket. Far easier to bet on the more people know, the better you do.

10. Because cheap software and the cloud are going to continue to get cheaper, and custom work that’s worth anything is going to continue to get more expensive.

12. The best people to fund your growth are your customers.

13. When the marginal cost of an interaction approaches zero, you benefit by creating plenty of them.

14. We can tell.

Posted by Seth Godin on August 12, 2010 | Permalink

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This is excellent information

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]]> http://www.larklandmorley.com/2010/08/13/foundation-elements-for-modern-businesses/feed/ 0 Wasting your time with Business Plan? http://www.larklandmorley.com/2009/04/12/wasting-your-time-with-business-plan/ http://www.larklandmorley.com/2009/04/12/wasting-your-time-with-business-plan/#comments Sun, 12 Apr 2009 03:54:18 +0000 Larkland http://www.larklandmorley.com/?p=38 Continue reading →]]> I had a shock tonight when I ran into a study that says that most times business plans are no use to getting funding from venture capitalist. Wow, this is earth shattering.

Why is this the case? It seem from what the study is saying that knowing the funders actually helps more with ultimately getting funding.

Here is what I summarize from this.

1. Focus on networking to launch your new business. Find out where VCs hang out and make effort to meet them and make bounds.

2. Still do your business plan as that would help you organize your business and convince you that the end game will be good. The exercise is necessary to have a viable business anyway.

You can read more about the study here.

]]> http://www.larklandmorley.com/2009/04/12/wasting-your-time-with-business-plan/feed/ 1 Humility always Win in any situation! http://www.larklandmorley.com/2009/03/22/humility-always-win-in-any-situation/ http://www.larklandmorley.com/2009/03/22/humility-always-win-in-any-situation/#comments Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:21:32 +0000 Larkland http://www.larklandmorley.com/?p=25 Continue reading →]]> This will be a short blog post but had to mention since I ran into this great article on one of those high flying guys that have fallen. He made the right choice and humbled himself and I am sure it will be a change for the better for him.

Humility can go with confidence actually, it does not mean you have to be cocky to be confident either. Most times it means understanding any given situation, get the facts and present your honest opinion. How many times you deal with people that presents an opinion that’s wrong which they know but will not back down? This is where humility comes in.

Here is the article again – Enjoy

]]> http://www.larklandmorley.com/2009/03/22/humility-always-win-in-any-situation/feed/ 0 Transferring Personal Skills to Business Building http://www.larklandmorley.com/2009/03/16/transferring-personal-skills-to-business-building/ http://www.larklandmorley.com/2009/03/16/transferring-personal-skills-to-business-building/#comments Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:54:37 +0000 Larkland http://www.larklandmorley.com/?p=5 Continue reading →]]> Traditional thinking would have us think that having a job working for someone is the basic essential of life itself. As we have seen in the last few years this model is changing rapidly especially in North America. Don’t get me wrong, you can work for someone and enjoy life to the fullest but there are ways to approach that scenario to make it more fulfilling too.

There are several ways to have a business. One way is to invest such as buying stock or a little more active such as participate in the strategy and significant part of the funding. The other option is to actively run a business and this can have different models to consider. Case in point is that you could be the Chairman making major strategy decisions while getting others to execute or it could be the case where you are a one man show.

In the investor type business approach, you could keep your regular job for the fun of it or you could now do some other activities while your investment continues to grow with the company.

I am planning to provide as much research as I can on the business building side of things and I have developed a new blog to cover most of this called the Business Start-up Guide Blog.

It could be much easier to start a business than you may think. For example if you are a technical professional, you could incorporate a company for $220 or more then seek technical contracts in the company name (lots of tax advantages). As things grow you could get others to help under contract while you look at more long term strategies. I will cover some of these scenarios in the blog.

One of the most sticky point is financing. I have a cool idea of how to get very good financing for your business through your company. Can’t wait to share that and I am testing it out as we speak.

Until next time…

]]> http://www.larklandmorley.com/2009/03/16/transferring-personal-skills-to-business-building/feed/ 0