Last Saturday, I went to an Improv class. I wanted to do something to take me outside my comfort zone, something I thought I would enjoy. It was, as I’d been told, great fun and there was lots of laughing (which is good for the body as well as for the soul). However, I was […] Read More…
Process. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. When something goes wrong (I mean properly wrong, like Fukashima nuclear plant or the Deepwater Horizon oil rig), we are told it is due to processes being inadequate or missing altogether. But we’re also told there is too much process, too much red tape, and it’s […] Read More…
I am a big fan of the Business Model Canvas as a tool to get people to think about their business models and play around with ideas. It’s fun, it’s accessible and it generates lots of questions and discussions. I use it a lot. www.businessmodelgeneration.com I ran a workshop the other day to introduce it […] Read More…
Today, we all need to innovate. You can’t just do what you’ve always done, you have to come up with new products and services, solve problems in a new way, create new ways of marketing your business, even re-invent yourself. We all know this. We also know it’s really hard. Often we tell ourselves we’re […] Read More…
The ‘pivot’ is a key idea for start-ups today. Rather than plough on regardless until you crash and burn as the money runs out, you assess the data, consider your options and elegantly pivot the business in a new direction. Simple, huh? Eric Reis identifies 10 different types of pivot in his book, The Lean […] Read More…
I often tell clients to work on defining the archetype or persona of their customers and make them as rich as possible, so they really come alive for everyone in the business. For start-ups, it’s a key part of getting to the Product-Market fit that they are seeking. But I’m not aware of anyone developing […] Read More…
I’ve been reading and studying around the new thinking on ‘Entrepreneurship’ (I don’t find that a useful word. Let’s call it “starting companies”). I was pointed at The Lean Startup because “you talk about the same stuff as is in the book”; and I loved it. I was already a big fan of Business Model […] Read More…