Wim GE De Vos

Small businesses with a BIG impact

Financial dashboard to pilot your spaceship.

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Lightsaber

As an entrepreneur you probably want to focus 100% on the 3 core components of your venture: Team – Product – Market*.

But while you need to focus on the ball, you can´t forget about the score… When you pilot a starcruiser, you need a dashboard…even as a Jedi.

This is why when it comes to finance I have made the choice to make beautiful what is boring. And simple what was complex. Simply by standardising on XERO for accounting and financial KPI´s*.

By doing so we (the whole company) have gained insight into “what the numbers tell us“. And we actually like to listen to the stories.

What a difference compared to how it was before when we had to wait until our accountant periodically told us how we were doing, flying on instinct, forcing myself to stare into the abyss of numbers,…

So when in doubt over which tools to help you succeed in business, I strongly recommend to only use simple and beautiful systems. It sound more obvious than it is because often you will face resistance from “rich feature sets” and “user customisation” who are soldiers of Complexity and the Dark Side. Your job is to make Simplicity win.

So repeat after me: Simple over Complex. The Force over the Dark Side. Always. Everywhere.

*more on these in future blogs.

Mentor or Hero?

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Real Super Hero
me being Tony Stark 💥

Loads of business “self-help” books go on about why you should look for a mentor. For advice, guidance, insights and a bit of help here and there. Not me.

I would say, go and pick some heroes first. Heroes are far more powerful in my view. Let me quickly explain why:

  • Heroes are in no short supply. They come in all colours and shapes. Finding a mentor mostly happens within the circle of people you meet and know.
  • Heroes are analysed, dissected and explained by others. Whereas mentors work mainly from self-analysis and their own framework of success.
  • Heroes work together well and can be changed out when needed. Mentors create a longer term dependency and the relationship is often exclusive.
  • Heroes cannot be used as an excuse (hear yourself say “hey, i failed because when studying Steve Jobs, Hubspot and Sesame Street I found out they got some of this shit wrong…”). Mentors are often brought in as a (fake) insurance policy for success. Which is both unrealistic and unfair.

But most of all, I feel it is a matter of attitude towards your future. Active or passive.

You pick your heroes and study them, learn to think and act like them. Approach this if it were some intensive continuous training exercise. This is how you interiorise a success-attitude. Or you find a mentor and ask for advice and guidance (so the mentors initiative and timescales). Mainly a receiving more passive approach.

Act as if you own your destiny. Pick and study your heroes well. And if a mentor crosses your path introduce him to your heroes.

Note: I am much more in favour of the concept of “mentor-ing“. A do-word as they say. Mentoring is a crucial activity for those who want to lead change and achieve a vision.
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Mixed reality spaces for the home

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We are getting good traction with ICE cinema (Immersive Cinema Experience) since a few months. The question I ask myself today is WHY… and WHY NOW?

I can come up with a few reasons, probably a mix of these is true:

  • In the right market: high concentration of millionaires in South Europe (see my Linkedin post a while back) both as residents and with second homes.
  • At the right time: the market is clearly back. Confidence and spending is up. Timing is everything in life I guess… ask Philips…
  • we simplified our story: our own team and partners are not only “getting it“, but they are able to tell the story themselves. The why of ICE cinema and how cool it is to have such an amazing room in the home for the whole family.
  • share the experience: we reached the tipping point thanks to the accumulative effect of engaging demonstrations to everyone that drops by.

But maybe we are getting to the magical moment of product/market fit? According to Marc Andreesen it is the only thing that really matters in a start up…

While we figure this out we will continue to deliver amazing ICE cinemas and bring mixed reality experiences to clients around the world.

Drop by in Lisbon, Marbella or Milan (coming soon) to be WOWed away.

 

Business models

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I use the Business Canvas Model app frequently. It cristallyzes my thinking when looking at businesses and opportunities, while at the same time empowers design thinking* as I move forward with some of my ventures.

Highly recommend to take the online training modules (or study rather than read the book): Because as with all lightsabers you have to know how to use them if you want to be effective.

When discussing business strategies and models have a go at using the canvas as a common language to avoid confusion or getting stuck. And try to look for relationships between elements. Pretty sure you will enjoy the clarity it brings and key questions it raises.

*more on design thinking in a later blog post.

The art of simple

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Really stoked to tell you about how passionate we are about “The art of simple” at Genesis Technologies. It is the reason why we do what we do. Every day. Everyone.

As home technology architects we try to simplify matters for all involved. For the architect, interior designer, builder, installer and most of all the end client. Simple will translate in elegance, ease-of-use, timeless design, better and smoother business and high performance.

And when we succeed, “we” as in the whole team involved in the clients project, it gives a satisfaction that goes beyond mere economics. It is what we aim for. It is how we are making WOW the standard in homes of today and tomorrow.

Don´t take my word for it, ask around or even better pay us a visit…we love to share with you “the art of simple”.