In order to ignite a fire three things need to be present: heat, fuel, and oxygen. Yes, as every Boy Scout knows, a fire can actually spontaneously combust when these three ingredients are present in the right amount. The alchemy of these resources coming together is also a metaphor for business success; just replace heat, fuel and oxygen with people, money and a channel of distribution.
Sorry to disillusion you if you think it only takes a great idea to start a successful company, but the reality is that you will need resources and provisions for more resources in order to achieve “raving success”. Getting your people, capital and channels of distribution aligned at the onset of your business planning will go a long way to ensure future success.
People
Pretty much every great tech company you can think of started out as a vision that became reality thanks to a team of people maniacally focused on changing the world. Think of Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Bill Hewitt and Dave Packard, Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz and you will get the picture. Don’t try to go it alone.
Take a hard objective look at your personal strengths and then surround yourself with people that can fill in the gaps with the skills you may lack. It is also important to not surround yourself with “yes men” who only placate your ego. You will need a team that can also objective assess situations and make the hard decisions as well as provide candid feedback in order to refine, reengage and continue.
Money
An unfortunate fact of business life is that it takes money to make money. Most incubation projects start out with “friends and family” and/or “angel investors” while others have found “crowd sourcing” as the way to get ignition. Bottom line here is determine how much you need in the business planning stage and then double every estimate for expense and half every estimate for income before proceeding to the fund raising step. A common mistake is trying to begin operations before this startup capital is in place and “hoping” it will come at some latter date.
Some money comes at the price of a percentage ownership in your venture. Another common mistake is giving up too much ownership in your venture too early for your vision to become reality. This is a tradeoff you will need to determine the level of your own personal comfort, but recognize that any level over 50% equates to someone else as in control.
Chanel Of Distribution
You can have the greatest team, unlimited access to money and the world’s best “widget”, but if your target audience doesn’t know how or where to get it, then you will fail. As part of your business planning you determined your target audience as well as their preferred vehicles of communication and commerce.
Develop the relationships and put the programs in place to secure your channels of distribution before you try to scale you development efforts. Don’t try to “boil the ocean”…start with one partner and/or channel and test the viability of your strategy and market acceptance. Once you’ve uncovered the hidden realities of your prospect’s desire for your goods or services then you can take the steps necessary to scale accordingly.
Your Mission
Ignite the fire of your business success. Uncover your team, infusion of cash and avenues of distribution and you too can achieve your dreams.
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