BIG COMPANY PLODDING, small entrepreneurial nimble thinking

Today was the start of my BIG FTSE top 100 company's new financial year, and to mark the new financial year we all gathered to hear our Managing Director and the leadership team set us up for the forthcoming year. It was professional, gave a clear direction and, I think, will set us up well to deliver this year and the future.


Throughout the presentation, stuck in a hot room, I kept thinking a couple of things...


Firstly, that I don't fit into the mould for my current employer. I am a maverick, and I'm not being big headed or vain about saying that. I clearly straddle two functional bases at work - marketing & sales - and have thus far been able to generate a role with feet in both camps. But the flip side of that is I don't have a firm home to which I belong at my current employers.

Secondly, all through the presentation I kept thinking - this is great stuff for my employer, but its not for my company. I think today I realised just how BIG COMPANY THINKING my thinking on my idea actually is. My idea, and making it happen, is currently framed in the context of a top FTSE 100 company executing the idea, as opposed to a small nimble operator who has an idea and gets on with it.

I'm reminded of a friend who started his own company & product in something like 7 weeks, and he was able to do this because all he had to do was get approval from himself and make it happen. He could change as he went along. He didn't need thousands or hundreds of thousands of pounds to bring it alive. I can't ever imagine bring something to life within a big company atmosphere in 7 months never mind in 7 weeks!

So how can you get the best out of BIG COMPANY THINKING and mesh it with nimble thinking? What is nimble thinking? I need to find out...

Ignorance is bliss....

Last night I interviewed an ex employee of a potential customer to understand in a bit more detail the operations & workings that go on behind the scenes, and I'm back on the rollercoaster again...

First of all, my assumptions about how the customer operates have been confirmed. The systems and procedures are even more detailed than I suspected, which means the implementation of my idea will be even easier. Brilliant!!!

The other side of that coin, is that it actually becomes easier therefore for the customer to go & do it themselves. My idea would have little or no intellectual protection as its

So this then presents me with some dilemmas to ponder...

• Do I still go ahead as is, and take the risk that they might nick the idea?
• Do I think about how I could get them on board without developing their own idea?
• Do I make the idea more complicated to make it difficult for them to copy for themselves?
• Do I change tack completely, and develop a strategy that minimises their input?
• Do I go to them with the idea and develop jointly?

Just in that one conversation I have gleaned so much yet its also rocked my confidence - I've wondered if I am right to take time off work, never mind go ahead and seek investment & launch!!!

I need to reflect that I am now in a better place than I was before yesterday, and that now I can quantify their systems and have identified the risk of them taking this idea on their own as more realistic. Ignorance may be bliss, but I now have the power to make the right choice...