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2nd Wave 🌊 – being a start-up again…🚀

In the last couple of months many of us have been struggling for business survival. Now we are coming out of it we are at a crossroads.

Option 1: Back to the future.

Put all the bits and pieces into place just the way they were back in 2019. And hop back in the treadmill hoping that “this time my business will scale”. For the obvious reason that well,…that you picked things up where you left them middle of march.

“Along the journey we commonly forget its goal” F. Nietsche

But this is the low-probability-option to a scaleable business. Our businesses oftentimes had become an amalgam of different services and products trying to serve many different customers. And therein lies the reason for a very low Result/Work ratio…

Or Option 2: Hack value before you hack growth

This means going back to your customers and find out what they truly love 💙 about you, your company and what you have to offer. Find what it is they cherish and crave. And drop the rest. Listen, ask, interview. That is where the secret treasure is to be found 🏆.

Find your core, your focus, your true north through customer discovery.

This the focus 🎯 for your start-up. Cut the rest.

note: you have a number of asymmetrical advantages in your pocket already: existing customers that trust you, services and products you sold and got paid for, a team of knowledge people, sorted out the messy stuff of operating a company,… all things that allow you to spend all time and attention during the next few weeks on finding what it is people love about your company.

Hack Value before you hack growth…It is the starting point for success and scale as a start-up.

Now is the time to decide if you want to re-create the business you had or become the business you always wanted to be.

Choose wisely and embrace the consequences.

June 12, 2020
Contracts: handshakes 🤝 vs fine-print 🖋
As a small business (and certainly in B2B) it makes sense to have a well defined contract strategy.

But did you verify if your contract strategy is in line with your business strategy?

So the basis of your business is trust and relationships. It means you want your customers to be delighted and to come back for more delight.

Translating this into a contract strategy looks like this:
- a 🤝 handshake agreement beats fine print.
- agree on not being an asshole – it is not a legal term but covers many contract clauses and saves legal fees.
- be transparent what each wants our of the agreement – expectation management
- seal the deal with 3 key things:
  - a positive, energetic conversation over a meal to celebrate the start and get to know each personally.
  - a brief bullet point email (with both teams in cc to avoid misunderstandings)
  - announcement of the reasons for entering the agreement with your team and to the world (commitment).
Handshakes are about the future, about the stuff you can do together.

Fine print is about the past. The stuff that did not work out and nobody fixed.
May 29, 2020
The continuation of our past is not our future

Just finished reading for the 3rd time the recent report from the swiss Zukunftsinstitut.

“The road to new growth strategies requires resilience instead of efficiency”

Highly recommended reading if you are interested in looking forward for what can be…

➡ Link to the complete report: Whitepaper-The_Economy_After_Corona copy ⬅️

Snippets:

“The next few months will be a window of opportunity, and the course set will have a lasting impact on the coming years, in society and the economy as well as each individual company.“

“For organisations, the most important thing is to switch to the learning mode.”

“Nostalgia may be a private matter, but not a functioning program for the future. Therefore, the new motto is: Let it go – let the world before Corona go. Its continuation is not our future”

“What it now needs most of all is decision-making ability and self-organisation. In every single company.”

“In order to gain an edge in the new game, it is less important how large or financially strong a company is. In- stead, ingenuity is now required: “Ingenuity, not just financial muscle, will become a source of advantage, allowing cleverer firms to operate closer to full speed”

“The next few weeks will be a decisive moment for all companies to set course. Will the leap into a resilience movement towards new, glocal and adaptive networks succeed? Or is there only the way out into an old and definitely tougher competition? Now is the time of op- portunity for new approaches!”

➡ Link to the complete report: Whitepaper-The_Economy_After_Corona copy ⬅️

The Lazy-Eight: transformation ⍙ needed

The Holling (1986) lazy–eight adaptive cycle model (Fig. 1) is a powerful and useful metaphor of system dynamics that includes four stages: expansion, preservation, renewal, and innovation

April 30, 2020
Predicting the future

Today there are more futurologists out there than the total sum of “self-declared expert” national football coaches, presidents of nations and health experts in virology together.

There is a type of of futurologists I find interesting though.

Enter the “The Builders” -> Predicting the future by creating it.

Marc Andreessen & his VC squad wrote a challenging piece recently “It´s time to build“. Check it out.
Triple AAA: Actionable – Ambitious – A-political.
What will you build?

Tim Sweeney & the gaming gang on the metaverse. “Fortnite and the metaverse”
Going beyond the internet.
How to escape the stronghold of Facebook, Google, Apple,…?

Marc Cuban & his entrepreneurial posse on challenges and avenues for action. “What would you do as president“.
Particularly interesting how Cuban mentions existing trends with transformative power.
How do we amplify transformative trends for the better?

Striking how all of them try to predict the future by asking questions, invite to action, look for perspective and see transformation as a way forward.

Maybe, just maybe, we can learn from their approach?

It will be harder for sure than sitting back and consuming what is fed to us.
But it might just be more rewarding and have a real impact if we do…

Small decisions with a BIG impact 🤜🏻.

April 21, 2020
Inside 1st Wave 🌊: Sell Painkillers

We are still inside the first wave. Economically the situation is beyond our control, beyond our understanding. Beyond anything any of us has ever gone through with our businesses.
But in times of stress the need to be calm, decisive and positive is higher than it has ever been.

We control our own destiny. We decide if and how get through this wave.
We need to get back to basics in each of our businesses.

In previous posts we talked about Cash. And we have talked about People.

So let us now discuss our Value Proposition under these extreme circumstances.

Extreme short version:

Inside the 1st wave of this shit storm.

Sell painkillers 💊 to your existing customers.

But only offer your most effective ones.

The ABC of your Value Proposition for the next 4-8 weeks

Note: You will need extreme FOCUS.
Say yes to a few things and no to many.
(This will serve us well in 2-3 months when trying to surf the second wave).

A) Customer segment: existing customers.

You have the trust (real asset right now), you have a relationship (basis of all business), you can show you truly care how they are doing.
These are the people you can serve right now.

note: this is NOT the time to look for new customers, segments.

B) Needs analysis: find the pain.

The pain right now is acute (confronted with it every day), it is very real, it is urgent to have a solution and you will find pretty universal.
This is the equation you have to solve. Treat the pain. Now.

note: this is NOT the time to look for demand of luxury or desires to be fulfilled.

C) Your Offering: sell painkillers.

Think of products & services you can offer that are effective painkillers.
Could be networking, could be explaining how to use Zoom, could be a sound system or a TV to forget about the shit storm out there for a couple of hours.

note: sell only the best painkillers. Focus on the pains you can relieve.

People will remember. Make sure they remember you and how you made them feel.

Focus on your existing customers who are in pain.

And apply your crafts. You are as essential as you have ever been.

Be well, be safe. ✌🏼

April 10, 2020