Roll with the punches

This week I went to see a potential customer& see if they spare some time for an interview with them.

I just came in off the street & basically doorstepped the customer.

Now looking back on it was a bit of a risky strategy. Here's me just coming in off the street & asking potentially sensitive questions about this person's business without knowing really who I am or what I do. I was rather naive.

But the funny thing is this week's experience hasn't knocked me down. In the past I would be taking a regulatory standing 8 count.

Instead this seems to have unlocked a couple of other avenues to explore & to chase down previous doors. So for example I chased down a friend of a friend who does this as her day job & she's called me back so at least this way she kind of knows who I am & what I’m doing.

The other idea was to address a specific setback I had, as I'd hoped that this customer might be willing to participate in my test. So instead of moping about I’ve now thought why not advertise in a trade publication & see if there are any takers for doing a test in return for an expected revenue stream of a few hundred pounds per week.

So generally feeling good about these things even though they're not the best of news!

Bottom Up!

For the whole time I’ve been looking at this idea I've been thinking about how I get scale from it & quickly in a way that allows me to realise my dream of Learjets, Astons & expensive yachts. That is to say I’ve been looking at it from a total market opportunity aka “top down” approach. And that has been a good way to look at the potential of what it could be.

But it has also meant I've focussed in making it big quickly which brings about specific problems & risks, spending chunks of cash to get scale, securing large multinational retailers etc.

Today as I walked to the tube I realised that for me to be NO WORSE OFF versus my current package, would take significantly lower scale than my top down expectation - actually under 5% of my distribution target & I'd be confident I could get that by walking round on my own calling in the outlets or through a couple of trade shows.

Now while that's good to know I'm still aiming for the top down version, but at least it highlights that actually the risk of going it alone is within my own power. The only drawback to going piecemeal on the bottom up version is that exposes myself to risk that somebody with the resource & contacts in the industry could really exploit my idea x get it to the big idea quicker than my incremental way.

Ranting & Raving

I was frustrated. But why? It was a simple enough suggestion. But for some reason it just got me into rant...

My business buddy had suggested he wanted to see a publically known inventor who was offering his “services” for £250 for an initial assessment, patent search and then if they thought it was a strong enough idea they would help & support the budding inventor for a stake in their company. So it’s Dragon's Den where in stead of getting money off the Dragon's you give them cash up front, and then they take a share of your success later on…

And the thing that REALLY annoyed me more than that was to think that this shower could offer us anything we either didn't know in advance from our own experiences or could easily get from one of our friends / colleagues. We have patent attorneys on hand, normal lawyers, accountants, designers, graphic artists, to name just a few… And never mind that we both have over 30 years of experience in Sales & Marketing…

So why did he need their help? Was it an insecurity that we couldn’t do any of the things that we had to do? Was it a lack of confidence in his idea? If that was the case why couldn’t he take his idea to a consumer panel to get their views? I didn’t understand his motivation for wanting to spend money & give a chunk of cash to these “clowns” (not very professional but I think that’s what I called them in my tirade!!!)

And now a few weeks later, he’s spent his money with this guy and when he told he had had a reply, he was punching the air – because somebody independent believes in his idea. I never thought he questioned his confidence in his idea, but I suppose we all do at some point. And now he has a palpable boost of energy for his idea in a similar way that I had a few weeks ago when I came up with my bodged production line. So I was wrong… it was worth the money to pay these “muppets” (again another word I may have used in the heat of battle!!).

And through all of this, I kept thinking… if they can have a business plan for what they do perhaps I too can beat them at their own game… may be a thought for another time…

Am I Daunted?

During my weekly guru time this week, I was asked if I felt daunted...

And I do.

I'll be dealing with big scary market leading companies, massive multinationals with market capitalisation's of billions of pounds. I'll be dealing with technology that I don't fully understand, but have a rough idea of how it works. I'll be juggling a whole load of things to make it work. I'll potentially be dealing with Venture Capitalists, seeking large chunks of wonga. I could be investing moolah in advertising and I will certainly be recruiting people to help build my idea into a profitable solution.

Of course I feel daunted but I don't necessarily feel scared. And that to me is really weird. I'm not scared but I sometimes feel daunted. This is a gargantuan mountain to climb, but I feel it can be scaled because the idea in itself is simple, easy and relatively universal.

Am I in denial at just how mind boggling big and difficult this idea will be to make it take off? Actually, now I come to think of it, making this idea work is the simple stuff - its the long term growth that feels more daunting - continually recruiting consumers into my idea and in turn building long term loyalty & repeat. Ok... now I'm a bit scared!

Its a bit of David & Goliath moment - I know I can hit anything with my stone & sling, and hitting this big giant smack in the right place will lead him to fall. So I'm ready to take on the giant but I better get my aim right and find a big enough stone!

Questions, questions questions...

I'm just about to do a test and I want to be really clear about what I expect from this small scale test.

In my mind there are FIVE key questions that the test will answer...

1. Does it work?
2. How appealing is it to consumers?
3. How appealing is it to the trade?
4. What is the right price point?
5. Can I sell 100 of these in a week?

From these I'll have more confidence around different components in my business plan and will highlight the areas that I'll need to focus on in the next stage.

For example, I'll have over a 100 consumers to evaluate the likely appeal rates. I think I'm being quite conservative & cautious at the moment so that will be a good measure to be more certain about.

The other big area that the test will answer is about awareness and whether or not I need a high level of awareness to begin with or whether I can rely on the customer's authority & trust with the consumer - if that's the case I probably don't need £8m marketing spend in year 1!

So... I need to know answers to these questions as I can see a crossroads in my commercial strategy coming up. Certain answers make the case for going one way significantly more appealing than other directions.

Je Suis Le Grande Homme!

To live through the roller coaster of setting up a business with a new idea, I have come to the conclusion that one needs a degree of arrogance.

Why would I be an advocate for arrogance, given I seem to continually fight off that label for myself? Well... when taking people through one's new idea, some people out there can only see barriers & obstacles or reasons why it won't work. And lets be clear here - it is vitally important to recognise those barriers & obstacles as real otherwise any opportunity is just a pipe dream.

But its important to know too that there is a way around those obstacles (even if right now one doesn't know what those are!) and to believe in the idea and believe in being able to deliver the idea, no matter what the obstacles are.

Although most people I have told about my business idea think its a good one, they have all thought it has ... well... deficiencies. Some are very relevant and also ones that I have considered and others are borne from a lack of capability or understanding about the product / market itself.

For example, I have the same recurring challenge from my dad - one of Intellectual Property. I hear exactly what he is saying and I share his point of view, but if all I did was listen to him I would have shut up shop ages ago and not bothered progressing any of this. What I continually think is ..."Well how can we overcome this?" and I believe I have a real life solution that overcomes this barrier (I need to run it past a patent attorney just to be sure) but he still has issues with this but I think that's because he doesn't really understand how "normal" this issue actually is for a great number of producers. Anyway... probably now going into a separate discussion about me & my dad...

So my thought right now is that to maintain the momentum in bringing to life any idea, is a prerequisite to have arrogance but not conceit (I'm beginning to sound like Sister Sledge's "He's the greatest dancer!").

Well that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it...

[Is it just me - when one uses "one" it sounds kinda arrogant & pompous! Point proven actually!]

Diversion

Over the last few days I've been a bit hacked off, and because of this my focus & energy levels for my business idea have dropped from the high I was feeling a couple of weeks ago.

The lack of energy & focus is not because I have met any new or unforseen obstacles. In actual fact I think I have actually found ways round some of my existing barriers which normally would have made me feel exhilirated.

What I think has happened (as I'm still in the process of working this out) is my energy and focus has been diverted into other areas around my life...

My work has stepped up a gear in the last couple of weeks and I'm needing to focus more & more time on that. Now even though I'm not working till crazy o'clock with work its actually taking up "processing" time out of work, so I'm thinking about things when I'm not at work, and that detracts from my thinking time on my business plans.

My personal life is all go too... I'm rarely having a night in and even when I am, I'm too knackered just to get things done. So what I've ended up with is a lot of semi-finished stuff that just needs some dedication behind it to finish it off so I can feel progress has been made.

So my energy levels for my business idea need an injection and I think I just have to re-prioritise and focus behind completing some of the outstanding actions, which once I've broken through these will re-energise me. This is where the "WILL" in my formula for success is really necessary...