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Goals, Strategies and Tactics

April 26, 2010 | 4 Comments

It’s not uncommon for young entrepreneurs to focus on tactics at the expense of also setting appropriate goals and developing core strategies. It’s easy to fall into this trap when you see someone else successfully executing a tactic – and trying to duplicate their success by doing the same thing.

It’s not enough to understand your core business. Without clear goals – and strategies to accompany those goals – tactics could prove to be futile and a waste of time. Here’s why:

If you want to read more about this subject, you might be interested in today’s post on the crowdSPRING blog – New to the world: strategic marketing for startups and small business.

Do you agree that it’s impossible to succeed without clear goals and strategies? Are tactics enough?

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How To Respond If A Customer Thinks You Run The Bunny Ranch

April 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment

The customer service team at my company, crowdSPRING, has answered over 40,000 requests from customers. Few have been as entertaining as a recent note which opened with: “hello whores” and then proceeded to discuss vegetarianism, good & evil, moral high ground, and my personal favorite – capitalist baggage.  I wrote about that unusual note – and our response – in crowdSPRING’s blog today: Whore, Vegetarianism, Moral High Ground & Capitalist Baggage.

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Book Review: Rework

April 18, 2010 | 4 Comments

I admire 37signals because they make simple, easy to use web applications and because of their unique perspective on business.

Rework is a collection of short essays by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, focusing on doing less and embracing constraints.

Jason Fried co-founded 37signals and David Heinemeier Hansson later joined the company as a partner. Jason and David frequently write and talk about their business philosophy on marketing, hiring, culture, and productivity. If you haven’t read their blog, Signal v. Noise, I recommend that you do so.

If you’re looking for a business book on writing effective business plans or about strategies for finding investors, this isn’t the right book for you. Much of the advice in the book is contrarian to how most people think about startups and business. For example, while most entrepreneurs want to deliver more than their competition, Jason and David suggest you focus on delivering less.

The book is a short, quick read. The tone is confrontational and is far from the academic, dry tone you’ll find in most business books. It’s about 270 pages (the margins are fat and there are lots of pictures and white space). You can finish most of it over lunch.

A friend who has not read Rework but who skimmed a few chapters referred to Rework as a “fortune cookie approach to business advice.” Although I don’t completely agree, this isn’t far from the truth in one respect. The essays in Rework aren’t focused on giving you practical, step-by-step advice about what to do. Instead, Jason and David offer their perspective on business – a perspective that can change not only your attitude, but everything you do in your own business.

Bottom Line: Rework is an outstanding book for anyone who wants to learn about a fresh approach to business not found in other business books. If you’re looking to shake things up and to follow a path rarely traveled by Internet companies these days, you’ll learn a great deal from this book.

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To Succeed, Don’t Obsess About Reasons You Might Fail

April 15, 2010 | 1 Comment

A few months ago, I talked about why startups must focus first on the problem, not the solution. A few days ago, I talked about the need to refocus from time to time.

There’s another side to focus that’s rarely discussed – focusing (and often obsessing) on reasons you might fail versus focusing on reasons you might succeed.

To succeed, don’t obsess about the reasons you might fail. If you do, you WILL fail.

The recent reactions from the developer communities to moves by Apple and Twitter underscored both the importance of making sure that you don’t tie your business to that of another company, and also the importance of making sure that you obsess about and focus on success – and not on failure.

At the end of the day, even if there are 99 ways you could fail and only 1 way you could succeed, there’s a very basic and undeniable fact: you can only succeed if you focus on the 1 way you can succeed. Focusing on the many ways you could fail will NOT lead to success. I discuss this in the following video:

What do you think? Do you agree that focusing on possible failures significantly increases the chances that you WILL fail?

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The Dangers Of Tying Your Business To Another

April 13, 2010 | 3 Comments

Recent announcements by Twitter and Apple have significantly impacted each company’s developer network (more about Apple in a few days).

As many of you know, Twitter decided a few days ago to acquire the company that makes and sells Tweetie, a popular iPhone client. Prior to this acquisition, Twitter didn’t have its own iPhone application. In part, this was because a healthy and broad third party ecosystem of Twitter apps was developing around Twitter (most of the third party developers, like Twitter, had no revenue model).

Twitter’s decision has caused many in the Twitter developer ecosystem to wonder about their future and whether Twitter’s continued search for a revenue model would put more Twitter-dependent companies out of business.

Twitter’s announcement (and the reaction from Twitter’s developer community) highlights something that’s always been a risk: tying your business to that of another company. I discuss this risk in the following short video.

What do you think? Do you think companies should ever feel comfortable tying their future to a single ecosystem?

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The Need To Refocus From Time To Time

April 7, 2010 | 1 Comment

It’s common for us to be consumed by our daily tasks and routines, at the expense of focus, learning, and assessment of strategy.

Two announcements yesterday highlighted for me the importance of constantly reassessing the direction in which we’re moving (personally and professionally). The first was a post by Chris Brogan – “What Goes Into Redrawing” – talking about why he’s decided to “redraw” how he connects with people, spends his day, and pursues his business interests. The second was a video by Gary Vaynerchuk talking about his decision to significantly adjust what he calls his “work/work” balance (Gary’s video is below mine).

It’s very important to step aside from daily routines and tasks and assess what’s working and what isn’t. While you can balance your own daily priorities and routines, and teams can refocus by going on on strategy retreats, that’s often not enough. It’s also important for us to find ways to refocus individually over a longer term. Here’s why:

Here’s Gary’s video:

How do you periodically refocus what you’re doing (personally and professionally)?

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