Umair Haque, Director of Havas Media Lab, and one of my favorite troublemakers. His recent article, titled Is Your Business Useless?, provides a great framework for thinking about the value of organizations and enterprises of all sizes. Good reading for people considering new ventures. As Guy Kawasaki says, “Tell me how you make meaning in [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Business Models'
Useless Businesses and the Damage Done
November 5th, 2009 · No Comments · Business Models, Opinion
Tags: LinkedIn
Growth in Hard Times – All the money is in play
July 16th, 2009 · No Comments · B2B, Consumer Products, Entrepreneurial Culture
This is another handy chart form McKinsey. It is very easy to feel like all you can do is cut costs right now, but the truth is, this is a great time to go after new customers if you have some resources.
Tags: business plan·great time·handy chart·hard money·mckinsey·McKinsey & Company·new markets·product planning·strategy·truth
Redesigning Product
June 9th, 2009 · No Comments · B2B, Business Models, Consumer Products, Entrepreneurial Culture, Opinion
If things are still slow for you, it’s probably a good time to rethink how you define product.
I spend a lot of time with clients outlining the space between how they define their products and how their customers define their products. Sometimes this has to do with real or perceived benefits. Sometimes this has to [...]
Tags: bridge the gap·funders·initial purchase·integration service·lease deal·leasing company·performance criteria·product design·product experience·product offering·work flow
Great Venture Article
May 21st, 2009 · No Comments · Business Models, Funding, Resources for New Business
USC has published a very handy article on Tech Transfer and venture. It really applies to most entrepreneurs in many ways.
Some recommendations from the study include:
Understand how to fit into a venture capital fund’s business goals. Venture capital funds
have a fixed life span in which [...]
Tags: academese·acquisition package·blank checks·genuine effort·great venture·LinkedIn·seed stage·stage investments·tech transfer·technology transfer offices·venture·venture capital fund·venture capital funds
Defining Context: Success in Bedford Falls & Stone Soup Entrepreneurship
February 5th, 2009 · No Comments · Consumer Products, Entrepreneurial Culture, Free Resources, Lucky's Cafe, Opinion
This article about my sister’s businesses in Cleveland is a review of the restaurant, yes, but is also a review of the restaurants raison d’etre.(disclosure: I am part owner of my sister’s empire – but we’ve never really figured out what part.)
The first half of the review consists of a discussion of the social and [...]
Tags: Cleveland·Google Alert·Restaurant
Start-up Deal Flow Plunges
January 9th, 2009 · No Comments · Business Models, Funding, Resources for New Business
Angelsoft.com is reporting that new ventures that received funding from angles and VCs saw their valuations plummet by 25% during the Q4 2008. The good news is that deals are still flowing.
Chasing the consumer dollars during recessions
December 23rd, 2008 · No Comments · Business Models, Consumer Products, Free Resources, Resources for New Business
McKinsey has published a chart that depicts the changes in spending trends during recessions. The key points here are that consumers will spend a bit less overall but dramatically shift their spending in a number of categories.
The good news here for start-ups is that there are consumers in the market looking to replace their old [...]
Tags: bad time·consumer dollars·consumers spending·home cooking·how to save money·LinkedIn·mckinsey·recession·recessions·spa restaurant·spending habits·spending trends·start ups·start-up
Mistakes and how to fix them
July 6th, 2008 · No Comments · B2B, Entrepreneurial Culture, Vox Mobile
My client, Vox Mobile, is growing but for CEO, Kris Snyder, there are always new things to learn.
There are a number of good snippets in this Plain Dealer series. I like this format..so much that I’m working on a book that uses a version of it. There are a lot of materials about what [...]
Tags: blind spots·leadership team·lumps·nice problem·plain dealer·road blocks·snippets·start ups·ups·vox
Let’s learn again the Laggards Lose Out
August 31st, 2007 · 1 Comment · Business Models, Entrepreneurial Culture
Municipal WiFi was a good idea in 2000 and should have been approached as infrastructure to enable business as opposed to a business itself. This is an example of how capitalism impedes progress and development. If government had stepped in at the right time we would have been fully wired already with lots of opportunity [...]
Tags: 802 11b·city core·dark fiber·electrical utilities·laggards·lev gonick·light rail system·line of sight·transit system·wireless connectivity
The Crash of ‘29 Redux
August 10th, 2007 · No Comments · Business Models, Entrepreneurial Culture
There are two factors that I think parallel the present economic crisis with the crash of 1929: credit directed at zero-sum gains and delusional leadership. Business and markets are not wise. Both the strategic and daily decisions of businesses and individuals are about the marginal utility of a small set of transactions, on the whole. [...]
Tags: business interests·business leader·business leaders·centralized control·crash of 1929·economic crisis·hedge funds·marginal utility·redux·retrospect