Tangible Vs Intangible Value

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When ideating, the most important aspect of creating a business model is understanding the true Value of the idea.

What is the Value?

In true definition, Value can be tangible or intangible. Not every idea needs to create tangible value, but if does create intangble value, it needs to be very clearly articulated.

For example, when you place an order through Swiggy for groceries, what kind of value is Swiggy giving you? Tangible or intangible? Definitely tangible. You are not saving money, but you are saving time.

What kind of value Co-working spaces provide? Intangible. How? Because, it might be expensive to work out of a co-working space many a times (based on location etc), but what they are saving you are all your efforts in renting, making and maintaining the space. Instead of all these efforts, you are simply paying a monthly rent to someone else who maintains the office for you. If you calculate all the aspects of renting, making and maintaining the space, this can bring out a tangible value too. However, in this case it is more intangible because it provides convenience and reduces lot of man-power.

Now, for your idea, look at what tangible and intangible value you are creating to the end user.

Agree?

Future of Consumer Priorities

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Consumers are now more demanding then few years ago. Thanks to the competition. There are newer and innovative products coming out more frequently and also the iterations to market are coming down. According to TrendWatching.com, the five key attributes for any successful startup are Affordability, Simplicity, Sustainability and Design.

Any product/service wins market share which balances these five attributes.

What do you think?

The Rare View Mirror

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The idea of exploring beyond the conventional binary choices of “Yes/No” is indeed powerful. The concept of the “rare mirror view” or the third option suggests a more nuanced approach to challenges, where creativity and adaptability play a crucial role.

In many situations, people tend to limit themselves by framing choices in a binary manner. Your experience as an entrepreneur highlights the importance of taking the time to explore alternative solutions and perspectives. This approach allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the situation and opens up new possibilities.

The iterative nature of this process, where new options emerge over time, reflects the dynamic and evolving nature of problem-solving. It’s interesting to note how each challenge becomes an opportunity for growth and learning, leading to an expanding repertoire of potential solutions.

This mindset aligns with principles of resilience, adaptability, and continuous improvement. By embracing the idea that there is often more than one way to approach a problem, individuals can navigate uncertainties more effectively and discover innovative solutions.

Your experience also underscores the importance of reflection and patience in decision-making. Taking the time to consider multiple perspectives and potential options can lead to more informed and robust choices.

As you evolve your entrepreneurial journey, you will develop valuable skills in recognizing and capitalizing on the third option. This mindset not only enhances problem-solving abilities but also contributes to personal and professional development. It’s a reminder that, in the face of challenges, there’s often more than meets the eye, and exploring beyond the obvious can lead to unexpected and rewarding outcomes.

Art of being Ruthless

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If you have watched The House of Cards (A series on Netfix), you are not new the word ruthless. Being a true leader needs you to be ruthless, ruthlessness to the core in focusing what you want to achieve.

Frank Underwood might be a wrong illustration for depicting this quality in a leader, but surely there are few things we can learn from him – Unmatched devotion to his vision. The vision of being at the center of Power.

All of us love having the power, be it at home, office or in the society. Power gives a sense of satisfaction and ability to shape our surroundings the way we wish to. According to the dictionary, the word ruthless means – showing no pity. This can be read in different ways and all we need to understand is how we can build this quality in us in a positive way.

Building the quality of ruthlessness requires us to work on developing ourselves in various contexts. First, we need to understand the work what we do, second, we need to have a complete understanding of the environment we live in, third, the most important of all, we need to have a very good clarity of what we wish to achieve.

If you look at how FU (these are the alphabets on his cufflinks) operates, he has a complete and deep understanding of how the political parties work and operate. He exactly knows whom he needs to approach for a certain task and how to get through their mind to get his work done. This plays a very important role in building your strength.

While trying to understand the environment we live in, it requires a deep understanding of the work we deliver and how we deliver. This gives the sense of confidence and also allows us to think of various options to get things done identifying the most optimal path.

The third point is where we all get lost and confused. We need to have absolute clarity of what our end goal is, be it power, money, satisfaction or sense of accomplishment. What ever it is, we need to be very clear as to where to get to. Else, the journey is about confusion and chaos. If you look at any successful leader around us, you can clearly identify the clarity in their mind, if you spend some time understanding what they do and how they do.

It is ok to have confusion, most of us cannot identify what we want until we really spend some time in understanding what our strength is. So, as you traverse along, identify where your strength lies, understand the work and environment and be sure to build the right character to reach your goal.

Be ruthless in the right way, and you will reach your destination.

What is Strategy for Startups?

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You have an Idea and it is your Eureka! moment. You are going to change the world with your innovation and you are proud of it. The next steps you take lay the foundation to the future of your idea and changing the world.

You will need to have answers to:

– How to make your idea into reality?
– How to take it to market?
– How much money is required?
– What is the gestation time?
– When will you make money?
– If it does not work, what is the Exit?

Strategy involves Understanding, Thinking and Predicting.

Understand the present. First, look at who your competition is. If you do not have competition, Congratulations! you have taken the first step to changing the world. If you do have, identify as many competitors as you can along with their offerings and USP along with their market reach and penetration. Understanding your competition is the first step in creating a niche product offering.

Think of what your USP is going to be. For each of your competitors marketing message, have a USP of your own. This will help your consumer to easily identify you and it will give them clarity as to why they should come to you.

Predict the future, not of your idea, but your consumer. How will your consumer benefit by using your offering?

Strategy is the fundamental understanding of what your consumer needs, how are you going to provide it to him.

Choosing a Business Model

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While ideating, one of the most important question one should ask is, if they wish to chose a pipe or platform business model.

The platform business model existed earlier too, but if it was not for Internet, most of us would have never heard of the model.

Pipe Vs Platform

In Pipe business model, value is produced upstream and consumed downstream, which means, a product is created and sold to the consumer. Its simple.

In Platform business model, value is just not created and pushed, but allows users to create and consumer value. For example, YouTube. YouTube allows users to create content, use their platform to monetise, takes a cut of the revenue and also allows users to consume the content.

Challenges of Platform model

There are 2 key challenges if you wish to build a platform business model – How to enable users to create value and How to bring both creators and users on-board. It’s not easy, its a tightrope walk.

Choosing the right business model needs research and the end goal of the business.

Today, consumers want to have a one-stop place for everything. Bringing everyone together and keeping them together is one of the biggest challenges.

Let me give you my personal example. I was exploring various tools to have all my calendars, and tasks at one place. I do not want to use multiple apps (like Todoist, Apple Reminders, Google Calendar and Microsoft Calendar). I found few tools like Akiflow. Its a fantastic idea which also automatically creates some time for you to focus by automatically rearranging your activities in the day. The challenge is, it integrates with Google but for Micrisoft I need to use another tool IFTTT. My $15 / Month now went up to $25 because I need to subscribe to IFTTT too. Another challenge is if i create a reminder in Apple reminders, then I need to use Zapier, it becuase another additional expense and another integration. Even though Akiflow is an amazing tool, I deleted because of the complexity of pricing and integrations.

You see what I am saying? It’s not easy and I do understand the challenges of Akiflow, but it will take a while for them to figure out a solution to bring everything together.

So, as an entrepreneur, demonstrate a true value of your product or service. Choose the model which benefits the consumer and you will have a winner.

Introduction to Strategy

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Strategy is a very commonly used term, but not many actually use the word in a meaningful way. In simple terms Strategy is a long term action oriented plan to achieve something. For instance, Apple never started as a computer company, what Apple started was to make technology simplified and beautiful along with building an ecosystem. As times progress, there were many products which came along from Apple which fit into building the ecosystem. When Apple started, no one had an iPhone or Apple Watch or AirPods in their product lists. It all started with a Microcomputer. Later as times went by many products came into existence.

So, what was the strategy for Apple Initially? Building computers which are simple to use and beautiful and when people started using them, become part of the ecosystem.

For everything, we can come up with Strategy, but ensure there is a bigger goal.

Another example I can come is my previous employer Cerner. Cerner started as an EMR company and over the period of time, its founder, Neal Patterson wanted to make HealthCare Technology more reliable and robust so that automation can help better patient care. The next 45 years saw Cerner becoming one the worlds largest HeatlhCare ERP company until it got acquired by Oracle.

If you are someone who is very strong on having a good strategy, consider the following principals:

  1. Just start doing what you want to do, don’t spend a lot of time deliberating what happens next.
  2. Don’t focus on achieving perfection. It will never happen. Focusing on doing a good job. That’s all.
  3. There will be times when you have to make tough choices. So, be open to them.
  4. Build an effectuative mind-set. Let mistakes happen and learn from them.
  5. If you stuck in a situation, don’t see it as the end, but as a new beginning. Try different things to make things happen.
  6. When something is not working, move on. Decide when to stop or keep going.
  7. After you identify a solution, start building and keep correcting.
  8. The big picture for you or your company might be complex, but that does not mean you cannot start by solving small problems.
  9. Try adopting Servant Leadership philosophy. This will help bring your teams to buy into your idea.
  10. A grounded leadership will help you achieve your strategy, so, coach your teams to be practical rather than illusional.

The ABC’s of Forecasting

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  • What is forecasting? It is the art and science of prediction.
  • How can you predict? When you understand the patterns.
  • What are patterns? How humans or things react in certain conditions.

What are the kinds of forecasting?

Different people use different terminologies to understand or practice forecasting. Few call them Structured, Quantitative, Casual and Simple. Few use the terms Autoregression, Differencing and moving averages. Few use straight-line, moving-average, simple linear regression and multiple linear regression.

What ever the terminology is, the end result is going to be the same, give you a forecasting model. However, not all methods are suited for all the business models. So, one has to work on identifying which models work for them and come up with their own framework.

How to forecast?

Step 1: Define the problem.

For curating a good forecasting model, you need to understand what you want to forecast. For instance, if you a SaaS company, you will need to define how many users are going to come to your site and when? For instance, if you are a software for managing POS sales, then probably weekdays, public holidays and during festive season, you might have increased footfalls. So, you to gather data from similar applications to understand the load on your software.

Step 2: Gather as much data as you can

Gathering data is a complex activity. Engage analysts who have done this kind of work before and tap into their expertise.

Step 3: Do the preliminary analysis

With the data gathered, use techniques to predict sales of your product. Start using this as a base and start your sales. See how that is working. If need be, then make adjustments to your algorithm to predict the results.

Step 4: Experiment with models

Once you get the results, see how they are mapping up with your sales. If its close to what you are experiencing in terms of sales, continue the model, else try another model.

Step 5: Structure the forecasting model which works for you

As you keep doing this, one day you will get to a point the prediction model which works for you. Keep refining this model until you can absolutely base your sales.

Defining and designing a forecasting model is a long process, you need to be patient and also involve people who are experienced in modelling.

Kokoro

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Destiny favors the prepared in Body, Mind and Spirit.

We tend to start our journey with an objective in mind. We do various analysis and design a way to accomplish the task. At times we Succeed, at times we fail. We take the learnings from both of the outcomes and go forward.

What is important is just not the action, but conviction from the heart. More than hard work and determination to accomplish something, it is the feeling in the heart which plays a bigger role. You believe you can accomplish, you can. If you do not believe and you do not listen to your heart, you cannot.

When we have an idea, the usual tendency is to ask people around and go with what they think. In this process, we forget our feelings. Listen to your heart. Apart from being a component of your body, the heart has a feeling and this is called Kokoro. Listen to it and you can do wonders.