New venture outsourcing blog

This fits in the bin of “so I have this (great) idea, is it worth pursuing?”

The entrepreneurs and inventors we work with are often trying decide how much time and energy to invest in their venture or whether it is worth investing any at all. Here are some quick tips we’ve found to be particularly applicable to web 2.0 and other online startups, but also apply to any good old fashioned brick-n-mortar:

1) Customer Feedback is Vital - It is one thing to predict how your customers might behave, it is another to know how they will behave based on experience, sales data, surveys or other interactions. The side benefit is that you will learn a tremendous amount and be able to strengthen your offering by engage your (potential) customers early.

2) Get a letter from a potential customer - especially if you are talking to partners or investors. There is little more impressive than a well prepared entrepreneur who has considered the posibilities, decided on a strong product/service offering, talked to customers, and has documented their feedback. Nobody is asking for a signed purchase order, but how about a non-committal letter stating that they would be interested in potentially, maybe, purchasing ____ from you.

3) Write a Business Plan - this is not optional. The greatest value of a business plan is to you! It is absolutely a vital tool to formalize your idea, figure out what it takes to get it done, an set out a plan to get there. This doesn’t have to be formal, doesn’t have to be 50 pages nor written by a Harvard-MBA. There are many great resources to help you get started if you, like many, feel overwhelmed by this…
4) Build a Strong Team - advisors, mentors, management team members, board members, consultants, vendors, and other are important to your success. Recruit the best you can, and get started at the lowest cost possible. A key determinant in the success of new ventures is the team (strong teams can overcome many challenges)
5) Get Started - the most important piece of advice we dole out on a daily basis is: ‘get started’. Edison talked about his mix of inspiration and perspiration, but more commonly, how many times have you heard “I thought of that X years ago”. What separates success from not is, sometimes surprisingly, getting good work done. This includes research, building your product or service, selling it, expanding your customer base, and generally making headway!

more to come…what do you think?

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