tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62095612803250456262024-02-19T18:36:39.692-08:00My Startup Notesabout crossing the chasm from idea to venture, from zero to oneMy Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-21558450625119701582017-04-17T12:19:00.000-07:002017-04-23T12:30:14.443-07:00Lean Startup Mentoring at UN's #Connect2Effect Hackathon<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xzEpLBPIido" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-45362174883919863842017-04-17T12:15:00.001-07:002017-04-17T12:15:10.079-07:00Loystar x World Remit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-76812110550535033942017-01-04T18:25:00.000-08:002017-01-05T01:49:11.527-08:00Counting 2016<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFVjrWSXjtlou3datR-KbT-heilUzKX-nYAEUd1obrE0VBTK6Kk-aH1tWZLl61954ZPneH03aUo8zjj-7u8bX8hCMvjUJlVEO-WYj-gpeM5i0UqRYLASvatWV9gJyQe7E3R-cVJ2ZkhvQ/s1600/team+with+lydia.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFVjrWSXjtlou3datR-KbT-heilUzKX-nYAEUd1obrE0VBTK6Kk-aH1tWZLl61954ZPneH03aUo8zjj-7u8bX8hCMvjUJlVEO-WYj-gpeM5i0UqRYLASvatWV9gJyQe7E3R-cVJ2ZkhvQ/s320/team+with+lydia.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
</h3>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Intro</h3>
<div>
My head has been trying to do a subconscious account of 2016 in the background. After doing a draft on my phone, I finally get to write this.</div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
The year of the start. The true start.</h3>
After one failed start, <a href="https://loystar.co/" target="_blank">Loystar </a>takes off this year. Febuary 2016 I and my co-founders started the company and began working on our first product. By April we had a prototype ready and got the first paying customer same month. That was a great feeling.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
The Team</h3>
Privileged to be working with brilliant minds who also have the courage to give us a chance to take a shot at this. I already have good pictures of the future in my head and hope we can build something we all can be proud of.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Telling the story</h3>
<i>The pitch is all ours, we've got the ball to play. </i> That's a line from one of my power tracks.<br />
While we developed the product, we also had to sell the vision. We had 7 pitch events including the DEMO Africa 2016 event that held in Capetown - which I could not attend due to visa denial. The 6 other events held in Accra and Lagos and was largely successfully. Thankful for the opportunities.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Deal flow. </h3>
Having launched our first product in April, and pitch Loystar at several times in the course of the year, this has resulted in various deal sizes on the table, all amounting to at least $60k and non-cash support worth over $10k from MEST Africa, DEMO Africa, Speedup Africa, Arise Invest and of course, our customers. Not bad for a early early stage company like ours and it goes on to give a sense of what's expected. Very well appreciate the belief of the various investors/partners.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Good people.</h3>
The good people of 2016. So many, ain't even gonna <i>name a drop</i>. But the top of the cream know who they are... and I may not have known them so well.. but they still are very very good people.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Let's get Physical.</h3>
<div>
2016. Buffest year ever, even though it's almost all gone. Learnt to dance kizomba, a salsa variant. Went out to run 33 times with 43.71 miles covered (runs I tracked). Was out with nature: canopy walk, surfing, bot gardens. Shout out to the crew. Good times.</div>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Let's get Spiritual</h3>
This was the year I discovered the biggest biggest desire of God is to be believed.<br />
As a founder, I have experienced first hand.. countless times how it is not to be believed. For the number of people who believe you, there are also the non-believers. It isn't the nicest of feeling to not be believed; but when you are believed, you want to prove to your believers that they made the right choice.<br />
<br />
So when I discovered God really wants to be believed, I could very well relate to it. It's kind of empathizing with God to some extent.<br />
I think believing is really what (our) Faith is about. It's a very tangible force because it involves work. (You cannot believe and not take action, that's just a mere wish).<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Cheers to Twenty17</h3>
So 2017 is to believing more. Believing God's Word (that has always been my impetus) and doing the work. Believing in my team and doing the work, believing more in myself and doing the work.<br />
<br />
Thank you 2016, thanks to every one who was a part of it and Cheers to a grand Twenty17.</div>
My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-31435109239378358632016-11-13T14:44:00.002-08:002017-04-17T12:11:45.120-07:004 Lessons from the dotcom bubble crash via Peter Thiel's 0 to 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
How could I have not blogged about this.. the later part of this blog's tagline was inspired by Mr. Thiel.<br />
My props for this man, just went higher.<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
! RT <a href="https://twitter.com/markessien">@markessien</a>: Peter Thiel: what an investor!</div>
— ayo Loystar ♛ (@tjwizking) <a href="https://twitter.com/tjwizking/status/796256709660512257">November 9, 2016</a></blockquote>
Dude backed Donald Trump's election with $1.24million and won his bet. An investor indeed, his mouth is there.<br />
<br />
The lessons:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li> Make incremental advances, grand visions inflated the bubble,so they should not be indulged. Anyone who claims to be able to do something great is suspect, and anyone who wants to change the world should be more humble. Small incremental steps are the only safe oath forward.</li>
<li>Stay lean and flexible, all companies must be lean..which is code for unplanned, you should not know what your business would do., Planning is arrogant and inflexible. Instead, you should try things out, iterate and treat entrepreneurship as agonistic experimentation.- <i>Lean my people..lean! PS: It's doesn't mean cheap. People get confused.</i></li>
<li>Improve on the competition. Don’t try to create a new market prematurely. The only way to know you have a real business is to start with an already existing customer, so you should build your company by improving on recognizable products already offered by successful competitors.<br /><br /><i>And number 4.. got me thinking. I've always known you should engineer your user acq, but the importance, I never really paid attention to.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUuOIUXi6mYUs-f3LuQYTLbRf0v6ajBUHg6SdEut76lPOcQ6FDMBTzo5kA7_nLAqMCBZsOn7_mMaIBM204NJpL5OHcjBXSSAzUHSrgvKJa4zt8br8OgzBuvldUdUsm3EBKCe1Zyvf_5kY/s1600/pablo+%252812%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="font-style: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUuOIUXi6mYUs-f3LuQYTLbRf0v6ajBUHg6SdEut76lPOcQ6FDMBTzo5kA7_nLAqMCBZsOn7_mMaIBM204NJpL5OHcjBXSSAzUHSrgvKJa4zt8br8OgzBuvldUdUsm3EBKCe1Zyvf_5kY/s320/pablo+%252812%2529.png" width="320" /></a></i></li>
<li> Focus on product, not sales. If your product requires advertising or salespeople to sell it, it’s not good enough: technology is primarily about product development, not distribution. Bubble-era advertising was obviously wasteful, so the only sustainable growth is viral growth.</li>
</ol>
<div>
Focus on product not sales.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Goodbye. :)<br />
Update: 17th April 2017<br />
<br />
Give product 50%, and Sales/Marketing 50% (Your best option if your product lacks an internal growth engine)<br />
<br />
Great product need great marketing.</div>
<br />
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My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-89033556285138286132015-12-24T05:39:00.001-08:002017-01-05T01:27:14.273-08:00My sugarcubes 2015 :)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr">
Sugar cubes from this year's MESTmas </div>
<div dir="ltr">
"Hey man!</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Thanks for all the support. It's been nice knowing you." - Chidi</div>
<div dir="ltr">
"Ayo!<br />
Thanks 4 ur awesomeness & ever-willingness to help. Blessings! -Tabby<br />
PS: Keep Jesus flame burning!"</div>
<div dir="ltr">
"Ayo, I appreciate greatly your enthusiasm and spirit and everything you bring to the school"- Todd</div>
<div dir="ltr">
"Ayo, you are blessed beyond measure much love, " -Mary</div>
<div dir="ltr">
"Well done" - anonymous</div>
<div dir="ltr">
"Ayo, I really enjoy our walks on Sunday!<br />
You are awesome :) - Nyawira</div>
<div dir="ltr">
" ayo - You are a creative mind! I appreciate your work ethic and unique perspective on things! Thanks for being you! Greatness is ahead! " - Emily</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Merry Christmas :) - anonymous</div>
<div dir="ltr">
"Keep being awesome " - Linus</div>
<div dir="ltr">
Thanks all folks.<br />
2015 was good.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<u>Cheers</u></div>
</div>
My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-153343785687134482015-09-15T01:44:00.001-07:002015-09-15T01:44:22.447-07:00venue99.com - 2nd runner up at Airtel App store challenge GH<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://venue99.com/">venue99.com</a> is barely 3 months old.<br /><br />
Yesterday, we emerged 3rd position out of 80+ startups that applied for the airtel app store launch in Ghana.<br />
<br />
It's a small victory, but we would celebrate it.<br />
<br />
Funny thing is, a part of me did not want to attend the final pitch event, but I'm glad I did.<br />
<br />
Cheers to the team and more victories.</div>
My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-7259183262724162112015-07-29T10:02:00.000-07:002015-07-29T10:23:31.379-07:0026 - If there are words for Him then I don’t have them<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So I turned 26 today.<br />
<br />
I very thankful I'm alive and well - <i>would let that sink in.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I like this Kari Jobe Forever song, especially the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huFra1mnIVE&feature=youtu.be&t=394" target="_blank">spoken word part.</a><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/huFra1mnIVE" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">
<b><br />Spoken Word Lyrics</b></div>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">
If there are words for Him then I don’t have them.<br />
You see, my brain has not yet reached the point where it could<br />
form a thought that could adequately describe the greatness of my God,<br />
and my lungs have not yet developed the ability to release a breath<br />
with enough agility to breathe out the greatness of his love,<br />
and my voice, you see, </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">
my voice, is so inhibited, restrained by human limits<br />
that it’s hard to even sing the praise of… <br />
You see… if there are words for Him then I don’t have them.<br />
My God, </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">
His grace is remarkable, mercies are enumerable,<br />
strength is impenetrable, He is honorable, accountable, favorable,<br />
He is unsearchable yet knowable, indefinable yet approachable, indescribable yet personal,<br />
He is beyond comprehension, further than imagination, constant through generations,<br />
king of every nation. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">
But if there are words for Him then I don’t have them.<br />
You see, my words are few, and to try to capture the one true God,<br />
using my vocabulary will never do,<br />
but I use words as an expression,<br />
an expression of worship to a savior,<br />
<b>a savior who is both worthy and deserving of my praise</b>, so I use words.<br />
My heart extols the Lord, blesses his name forever,<br />
He has won my heart captured my mind and has bound them both together,<br />
He has defeated me in my rebellion,<br />
conquered me in my sin,<br />
He has welcomed me into his presence,<br />
completely invited me in.<br />
He has made himself the object of my sight,<br />
flooding me with mercies in the morning,<br />
drowning me with grace in the night. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">
But if there are words for Him<br />
then I don’t have them.<br />
But what I do have is good news,<br />
for my God knew that manmade words would never do,<br />
for words are just tools that we use to point to the truth,<br />
so He sent His son Jesus Christ as “The Word”, living proof, </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">
He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation,<br />
for by Him all things are created, giving nothingness formation,<br />
and by His words he sustains, in the power of His name,<br />
for He is before all things and over all things he reigns, holy is his name,<br />
so praise him for his life… </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">
The way he persevered in strife,<br />
the humble son of God becoming the perfect sacrifice,<br />
praise him for his death… </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">
that He willingly stood in our place, that he lovingly endured the grave,<br />
that he battled our enemy and on the third day rose in victory</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">
He is everything that was promised,<br />
praise Him as your risen king,<br />
lift your voice and sing for one day he will return for us<br />
and we will finally be united with our savior for eternity, eternity.<br />
So it’s not just words that I proclaim,<br />
for my words point to “The Word” and “The Word” has a name, </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">
hope has a name,<br />
joy has a name,<br />
peace has a name,<br />
love has a name<br />
and that name is Jesus Christ.<br />
Praise his name forever!</blockquote>
I'm alive.<br /><br />
-----------------<br />
One Random thing I thought I should start for the next one year is have a more healthy lifestyle.<br />
So I decided I would like to stay off soda and fizzy drinks. Not malt drinks though :)<br />
<br />
More of all these smoothie drinks. I have actually joined the fitfam people that religiously have smoothies. My last mix was a drink with Pineapple as base, and cucumber, the right chunks of ginger and garlic plus a tiny slice of raw green pepper (hehe). Green pepper for flavour and fragrance :D<br />
<br />
If not for anything, but for the mind set that I am consciously aiming at a healthy lifestyle, that's powerful.<br />
<br />
It takes a bit of time to make smoothies, but I should invest in my health, just as much as I in my wealth. Sounds awkward, but you get it, after all Health is Wealth.<br />
<br />
So yeah... I'm alive.<br /><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8OuaFuKxm2ID7hTMztQ9qnWz6pGV4ebkIHuhfAzplp4KsGreaoxj34RVoxX9ScCAX96CvvOotTFZRbXIgdPxliFCNqU_evashgeGDt045G62J_jyKe2KPJDyPNx1Sd-dOUeglZB0oNIQ/s1600/20150711_103854%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8OuaFuKxm2ID7hTMztQ9qnWz6pGV4ebkIHuhfAzplp4KsGreaoxj34RVoxX9ScCAX96CvvOotTFZRbXIgdPxliFCNqU_evashgeGDt045G62J_jyKe2KPJDyPNx1Sd-dOUeglZB0oNIQ/s320/20150711_103854%255B1%255D.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My first smoothie, just orange and cucumber :D</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>PS: someone should just start smoothie subscription already, kent be spending one hour in kitchen cos of one glass of drink. Well.. I guess I can.</i><br /></div>
My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0Lagos, Nigeria6.5243793 3.37920570000005686.0168542999999994 2.7310122000000567 7.0319043 4.0273992000000565tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-52498852769823013442015-05-09T13:49:00.000-07:002015-05-09T13:49:34.862-07:00Startup, What Problem are you solving? I've found the answer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
How do you come up with business ideas? Any very savvy person in the startup would point you to Paul Grahams<a href="http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html" target="_blank"> startupideas.html document</a>.<br />
The essay points out that it's much more easier to get good ideas when you think of problems that exists in the world. Problems are bad things and people would always want to get rid of them, so if you have something that solves such problems, going into business would be quite straight forward.<br />
<br />
<i>Problems get level. Big problem = Big idea, choose your level.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://fundersandfounders.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/where-are-the-big-ideas-schlep-blindness-infographic.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://fundersandfounders.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/where-are-the-big-ideas-schlep-blindness-infographic.png" height="225" width="320" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
In startup context, I see the value of thinking from a problem perspective to generate ideas worth chasing. That's very clear. e.g Dropbox helps with the mess of having to copy your files from one media to another, but what problem does a game like angry birds solve?<br />
<br />
This is a classic situation newbie tech entrepreneurs may find themselves in -"what problem is your startup solving"? <br /><br />To get around this, I like to think of it as 2 and only 2 things you could do as startup:<br />
<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Solve a problem (pain)</li>
<li>Meet a need. (desire)</li>
</ol>
If you are not solving a problem as it were, you are meeting a need. In the case of a game like angry birds, the need for entertainment.<br /><br />But just a few minutes ago, I found a better answer to the puzzle and I realized that the issue has been the way we were framing problems. See the answer in the quote below:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
Everyone is in search of progress (outcomes/reaching goals) and it helps to think of problems in terms of the obstacles that keep them from achieving this progress</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
We tend to frame only the obvious problems as the problems worth solving. Whereas, anything that limits us from reaching what we want can be seen as a problem.<br />
<br />
That's insightful!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://leanstack.com/no-problems-in-your-business-model-is-a-problem/">http://leanstack.com/no-problems-in-your-business-model-is-a-problem/</a></div>
My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-83361105774305203312015-04-20T15:06:00.000-07:002015-04-20T15:06:15.506-07:00Explaining a Tech term to a non-tech audience:MVP<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="tr_bq">
So I have the task of explaining MVP to a non- tech audience. First, MVP is probably not exactly a tech term. Let's call it a buzz word. The term is an interesting one, so interesting, I can't seem to complete this post about it.</div>
<br />
So yeah.. here is my 1 min layman explanation of Minimum viable Product.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
MVP is simply an abrreviation for Minimum viable product.It is the least thing you could do as a startup to provide or be of value to your customers. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
There has been so many arguments on the definition of a MVP, and just like the many other startup topics, there is no silver bullet, no clear cut answers, definitely no asking "How do you know what minimum is". </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Some folks have tried to bring understanding to the concept by coining their own version of the same concept. An example is MLP... minimum lovable product. but there is the question of if the love can translate to $$. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
In my humble opinion, I would say, forget MVP, MLP and do MSP. Minimum sellable product. I may have seen this somewhere, but I agree we should let sales be the final judge. Thank you.</blockquote>
<br />
Good enough? </div>
My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-84100480441439694472015-02-24T04:35:00.002-08:002015-02-24T04:35:45.684-08:00Inspiration overload! The meaning of life by 3rd Graders<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I just had to have this on here.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You run the Show... This is your life..you're in control.... you gotta do what feels right in your heart..... The difference between winners and losers is persistence....</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The bamboo story..I always love it........ </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You don't have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great. This is wisdom for startups. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
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My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-18198454498027569182015-02-02T20:27:00.000-08:002015-02-02T20:41:32.921-08:00This is the one singular reason why 8 out of 10 startups will fail<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of the many tweets that sums up the fundamental principle of Lean Startup. Retweet if you agree with this.<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck">
[8] Most <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/startups?src=hash">#startups</a> fail because they try to find customers for their products, rather than finding products for their customers.<br />
— ayo Dawodu ♛ (@tjwizking) <a href="https://twitter.com/tjwizking/status/562463196133748737">February 3, 2015</a></blockquote>
<br />
You develop customers first. Not the product,not the app, customer development first. That's the riskiest part. It's hardly a technology problem, <u>always</u> a marketing one.<br /><br />
Don't sell what you can make, make only what you can sell, that's putting the horse before the cart - as it should be, Get it?<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck">
</blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></div>
My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-55806538903167074392015-01-22T01:48:00.001-08:002015-01-22T01:48:30.520-08:00[Incomplete] Minimum viable Product. How to define what minimum is?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The concept of minimum viable product is relative. While this maybe an obvious truth, same may not hold for many newbie entrepreneurs (like myself). How do you determine what is minimum?<br />
<br />
I think this would be based on at least 2 variables like the technology available to you and the knowledge of the idea available to you and you are sure off. Let's add a third one, your <span title="the amount of risk you are willing to take">risk appetite.</span><br />
<br />
Stepping back, the why of a MVP is to test. We think of it as an experiment and the outcome of this experiment is data.<br />
<br />
Page 95 of The Lean Startup and read what Eric Ries says: “deciding how complex an MVP [Minimum Viable Product] needs to be cannot be done formulaically. It requires judgement”...<br />
<br />
Still thinking about this... stay tuned.</div>
My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-18296854211135165432015-01-01T03:14:00.003-08:002015-01-01T03:35:32.486-08:00ayo Dawodu's 2014 in Retro<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
A few accomplishments.</h3>
I started my first business officially. Here is the <a href="http://99digital.co/press-release-99digital-swings-full-operation/" target="_blank">press release.</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Successfully organized the first <a href="https://www.leanstartupmachine.com/cities/lagos#team" target="_blank">Lean Startup workshop</a> in Lagos. Arguably the best startup workshop the <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/TomiDee/lagos-startup-scene-2014" target="_blank">Lagos startup scene</a> has experienced in a while. Over 50 in attendance, for the 3 day period. Forever grateful to those who made it possible.<br />
<br />
I added 7 more clients to <a href="http://99digital.co/">99digital.co</a> with very little marketing efforts. Referrers, many thanks.<br />
<br />
Failed with <a href="http://www.tech360ng.com/startup-fail-untold-story-quickchow-app/" target="_blank">Quickchow</a>, my mobile clock-in app and a proposal to a major mall in Lagos.<br />
<br />
I literally traded Faith as cash, this is not your average "I have faith" situation. I should tell this story someday.<br />
<br />
Got enrolled at Meltwater. Globally successful tech entrepreneur in the making. We are not joking <a href="http://meltwater.org/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Went surfing.<br />
<br />
Met everyone I met in 2014. You all are amazing. Thank you.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Lesson Learnt</h3>
I had goals and plans for the 1st quarter of 2014. Only accomplished about 35% of it. More or less, more of less.<br />
It goes to say, no business plan survives first contact with a customer.<br />
Whatever can go wrong, would go wrong. So why plan?<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- General Dwight D. Eisenhower</blockquote>
<br />
Have a goal, be flexible how you get there, there are more ways to reach that goal than you know.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Secrets unlocked</h3>
If you think you can or you can't, you are right.<br />
Speak what you want to see. Period.<br />
<br />
To God alone be the Glory.<br />
<br />
Cheers to a grander 2015! Clinkk!<br />
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My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-9696157689963893082014-11-01T03:22:00.000-07:002014-11-01T03:26:08.117-07:00THIS, MY FRIEND, WOULD CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT START-UPS<div style="color: #777777; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 14px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">If you own a business start-up or plan to set up one soon, there is a good chance you have come across this statement: “Over 70 percent of businesses do not survive the first two years.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Start-ups are challenging, and if we are focusing on the wrong things or applying mundane strategies, we are not just shooting ourselves in the leg; we would be using a semi-automatic weapon to do just that, thus crippling the whole thing even before the first step at progress is ever made.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">So how do we focus on the right things? That question has so many valid answers and I am yet to discover all. However, I have a few and would like to share one that would help you understand what to focus on in your start-up sojourn.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Here is it: See your start-up operations as one of these two orientations majorly, <b><i>transaction-oriented</i></b> or <b><i>engagement-oriented</i></b>.</span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white;">Transaction-oriented</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Start-ups that fall into this category would want to worry about quickly sealing deals as it were, because that’s what actually brings in the revenue. Money doesn’t come from customers spending time interacting on your platform, money comes from them actually paying, so you would want to speed up processes that lead to paying and forsake any technology that slows that, no matter how “engaging” it may be .</span></div>
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<a href="http://connectnigeria.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/cancelon-dot-com.jpg" style="background-color: white; color: #53871f; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="cancelon dot com" class=" wp-image-23497 " height="190" src="http://connectnigeria.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/cancelon-dot-com.jpg" style="border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="250" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="margin-bottom: 14px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Hotel booking online: a transaction-oriented operation</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">A simple example of a transaction-oriented operation is a hotel booking service. This is highly transactional; no time to beat around. I simply need to get somewhere nice and comfy to lay my head and perhaps have a few meetings. But then, a typical idea of hotel business meeting technology, of which online hotel booking is the most common, would miss this. This is because its executors would be more concerned about engaging the customers via their great looking website (wasting time) rather than getting them closer to the goal (booking and paying ) as fast as possible – which is what brings in the dough.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">You only win when the hotel wins. You do not win when online visitors look at the nice banner pictures of the rooms of different hotels, navigate around and read about this hotel and its facilities (so much of time wasting). Executing online hotel booking this way is a great ruin from my standpoint – it depicts an entirely different business model and should not be fused with online hotel booking.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Remember what started it: Customers that need to spend some time away from home, and have a meeting or two. How have they done it before you built your shiny hotel booking website? They walked into a hotel of choice and at the reception, they book and pay; they don’t check the rooms or ask about the history of the hotel (we assume they may know or may not; it really doesn’t matter).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">They simply walk-in, book and pay. Transaction completed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Replicate that model online, have the hotel know they have an extension of their business on the cyberspace and have them pay you for carrying out more transactions for them, then you can maintain doing loads of that and have a business; a tech business.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">You’ll be getting paid for how many customers you bring in. Not how many of them clicked around.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Another classic example is a taxi booking service. It follows the same model as I have explained, but I would like to give it a bit more context as I have, in the past, thought of developing a mobile solution around it.</span></div>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_23494" style="color: #777777; float: right; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 20px; width: 302px;">
<a href="http://connectnigeria.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/IMG_0300-292x190.jpg" style="background-color: white; color: #53871f; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="IMG_0300-292x190" class="size-full wp-image-23494 " height="190" src="http://connectnigeria.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/IMG_0300-292x190.jpg" style="border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="292" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="margin-bottom: 14px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">App for Metro Cabs?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Just like most techies today, light-bulb! What if people could get to book taxis online?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Yeah! Great idea. Let’s do this!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I built the thing half way and I thought, “how do I even push this, how do I make money?” Now, this was a time when Red cabs, Metro cabs and co were all still shiny and new; they had just started business.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Eventually I discovered it was all a sham, since delivering value (getting customers to pay a cabbie) was going to be the toughest thing ever (My solution was mobile web back then, but it was pretty good).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Why was I going to fail hard if I had gotten crazy about it and continued with the development?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I was slowing down the transaction process via my app.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Most folks that need a cabbie would rather call or text one at best. Even the best apps that would pick your location via GPS and display a picture of the cab you have booked and even give you GPS tracking are not sustainable in my opinion. Online taxi booking service is not an engagement thing majorly; it is transactional, and it needs to be fast.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">A sustainable solution would be phone call and SMS, which can deliver a good enough experience for less cost than a mobile app today.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">My point exactly: For <b>transaction-oriented</b> start-ups, identify what delivers value and get that done ASAP and repeatedly. Forsake “cutting-edge” technology and get it done the fastest way possible. Speed is the keyword in transactions.</span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white;">Engagement-oriented</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Start-ups that fall into this category are the toughest to develop into self-sustaining businesses, but when a good model is discovered, they return on a massive scale. Here, stakeholders deal with users mostly and not customers. This is pretty difficult because users don’t pay. Only customers do.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">So we find most start-ups trying to convert these users to customers, or trying to find another paying entity to sustain the business start-up.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Music services like Spinlet, Spotify, Jango radio, Deezer etc, all fall into this category. Stakeholders definitely want to worry about good interfaces for their applications and focus on things that would allow long lasting engagement with it. The aim is to maintain the interest of users and basically get them hooked.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Unlike transactional, it’s a much slower process towards capturing value so engagement is really the key here. In traditional business, I could liken this to a good customer service and experience.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Other examples would be instant messaging/chat services, social services and premium games.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">In IM services or social services, users simply want to interact with other users, communicate, share photos and videos and gifs, comment, like, plus, tweet, pin, keek, e.t.c. The ability of these platforms to do these things are what keep the users there, and because value is only created when users get on board, it does not sound right to make them pay. Without them your platform is dead. A social network cannot exist without people – this, my friends, makes it tough.</span></div>
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<i style="background-color: white;">So how do these kinds of start-ups capture value that would be sustainable?</i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Most of them turn to advertisement, which makes advertisers the customers. Some offer extra services to users, in this case some of the users are converted to premium users (customers), and in other cases some turn to big data business.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The point here is start-ups in this category have to keep doing what they are doing to maintain the engagement between users. If the engagement stops, the show is over.</span></div>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_23495" style="color: #777777; float: right; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 10px 20px; width: 230px;">
<a href="http://connectnigeria.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/whatsapp.jpg" style="background-color: white; color: #53871f; outline: none !important; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="whatsapp" class=" wp-image-23495 " height="155" src="http://connectnigeria.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/whatsapp.jpg" style="border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="220" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="margin-bottom: 14px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Whatsapp with a revenue model?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">This is why I think Whatsapp may be having a pretty hard time monetizing its service. They have a good number of users which they are trying to convert to customer status; I am one. I don’t know how far they have gone with that and since they are bent on not turning to ads, it may be really tough to make Whatsapp self-sustaining.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Paid advertisements, in some other cases, may be the sustaining model, since there is a good chance of making large impressions on the users. However it needs to be properly executed to yield returns, else they become intrusive and ruin engagement.a</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">By the way, ads are coming to Instagram soon. So far it does not generate any revenue. It would be interesting to see how that comes through.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Free games that have no in-app purchases clearly fall into this category and have potentials for very interesting money-spinning models.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Apart from in-app purchases or game currency, look out to Rovio (Angry Birds guys). Those folks developed a successful merchandise business from Angry Birds, and I hear there is a movie in the making – which just means more dollars.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">There are some that fall in between; one need to apply a right mix of the way things work in both worlds to execute successfully. e.g E-commerce services.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">So next time when you think about start-ups, try to place them in one of these two categories and hopefully it helps you understand how you should go about your execution and your potential for success.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I’m not exactly sure how this sounds to the average tech person, but if you see things in a different perspective, please let us get talking in the comment space below. Additions, subtractions, and feedback are also welcomed.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">This article was published on <a href="http://connectnigeria.com/articles/2013/11/15/two-perspectives-that-will-change-your-view-of-start-ups">http://connectnigeria.com/articles/2013/11/15/two-perspectives-that-will-change-your-view-of-start-ups</a> and </span><span style="color: #777777; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="http://citewire.com/this-my-friends-would-change-the-way-you-think-about-start-ups/">http://citewire.com/this-my-friends-would-change-the-way-you-think-about-start-ups/</a></span></span>My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-28232363241095378562014-10-09T09:57:00.002-07:002015-03-05T15:35:00.424-08:00My MEST Story<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Prior to MEST I was a startup idea junkie.. hopping from one idea to another. Thankfully I have something I think is worth chasing after.<br />
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Choosing to enroll at MEST for a 2 year program was a tough choice, but the value was hard to ignore. I also realized that, if I was to succeed in any venture, I needed people. The hardest part of this whole puzzle was going to be people. Good people; building a formidable team and starting a venture together. I realized I had to think people and relationships as all in life balls down to the connections you are able to make early on - Your network is <i>pre' much</i> your net worth. <i>Inside joke inside :)</i><br />
Enrolling at MEST did not seem like the obvious thing to do. I would like to think the average person in my situation would not have chosen to signup for MEST, considering the duration, but I thought 2 years is worth everything. Seemed long, but heck...time flies really fast these days. <br />
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The goal is build a profitable company and MEST facilitates this greatly. Best of all, I get to do so with brilliant people.<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="welcome.jpg" height="271px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/SBxx5igU-imxFnEMSiB6EWw-9wnmCWsh5uvg-vKTHd7vXNoUazhMhXv4nxxe8h4Ghs-E8zs5THKm5s-Ke8IwRCPaWIhkPIn2G6fAS4E_GuMI70jnJPsUoUqcvnherSFFMw" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="361px;" /></span></div>
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Not many things are as good as a community of fine people who share a similar goal. By creating an atmosphere of knowledge, collaboration and learning made possible by the MEST team, working to facilitate your success, Meltwater increases the odds for reaching your goals. Just want I needed.<br />
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Having proven their value over the past years by evolving mere mortals into software entrepreneurs, some featured by the world's most prestigious startup event, TCdisrupt, you cannot but expect that this is a big deal. From MEST I expected the BEST entrepreneurial training anyone could find on the continent.<br />
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Day 47 and the challenge is on. It's been like ball juggling and the balls are in my court, It's left what I do with them. The experience so far has been challenging and fun, in a right mix. <br />
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What is quite amazing at MEST is the collaboration culture. This was very reflective during the selection process. The team were out for the finest individuals, those with the greatest potentials. Sieving out these people was a collaborative process that involved the people themselves, that, in itself emphasizes the value the organization places on collaboration.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 19px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"It starts and ends with people" - Jørn</span></blockquote>
I love people, I #lovemest .<br />
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Would keep you posted. Ciao!</div>
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My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-90702517917197720772014-02-11T05:19:00.003-08:002014-10-02T18:25:26.564-07:00Want to fast track your startup? start building a Community<i>This post was first published on <a href="http://99digital.co/">99digital.co</a></i><br />
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><img alt="fast track your startup" class="wp-image-5979" data-mce-src="http://99digital.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/fast-track.jpg" src="http://99digital.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/fast-track.jpg" height="243" style="border: 0px; cursor: default; padding: 0px;" width="360" /></span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">If this startup game was a matter of how cool or awesome what you are offering is, then a lot of folks would have conquered that word “Startup”; but it’s not – It’s essentially how you get the bucks to roll in.. cool or no cool.. just show us the money, then we know you are ready for business.</span></div>
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<strong><span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Joseph Barisonzi has this to say</span></strong><br /><span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><img alt="startup vitamin poster: The Path to greatness.." class="wp-image-5977 alignleft" data-mce-src="http://99digital.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/23.jpg" src="http://99digital.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/23.jpg" height="280" style="border: 0px; cursor: default; float: left; margin: 0px 20px 20px 0px; padding: 0px;" width="280" /></span></h3>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">The title of this blogpost, was the title of a talk by Community building authority, Richard Millington of FeverBee during a tech meetup event at Google campus London. The main content of this post, however are my processed thoughts on the subject. Though I will share 6 snipping points from the talk.</span></div>
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<li style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Build communities, not audiences.</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Talk about the community, not the brand / product</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;"><em>On how to initiate discussions:</em> Ask a Question, don’t just give information.</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Build relationship with key people</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">We interact in Niche groups. Friends and families first, then people with common interests –<em>that’s a strong one.</em></span></li>
<li style="line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">There is a difference between a [social] network of people and a community, one has no common interest and the later does have.</span></li>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Our everyday living as humans thrives on Communities and if we can apply some principles of communities to technology startups in this digital age, we would have much better results.</span><br />
<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Today, Technology allows us to create communities that have more diversity than the offline communities we create as humans. Notice the subtle irony in that. It’s powerful!</span></div>
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<strong><span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">To the core of the matter – Fast tracking your startup, a.k.a Triggering Traction.</span></strong></h3>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">You have to totally dig that this is a marketing game.</span><br />
<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Here is my point exactly: You are starting a technology business, a startup as it were, understand that the most critical thing to your survival is getting your customers to pay. You must find them and get them to pay. Hard stuff.- This is why advertising is worth A LOT.</span></div>
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<strong><span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Finding your customers and getting them to pay is the most critical thing – If so Why not do it FIRST.</span></strong></h3>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">The convention today, especially for technology startups, is to have the idea, do some research and all gather all what is needed to begin execution and then begin execution.</span><br />
<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">The mind is naturally focused on getting the obvious work done. Without considering the most critical thing -the reason why you will be in business, if you ever get paid, that it: the paying customer.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">This is the whole point of the Lean Startup-Get-outta-the-building-Customer-development chants you probably may have been hearing.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Tackle your riskiest issues first. The goal of a startup is to <span data-mce-style="text-decoration: underline;" style="text-decoration: underline;">de-risk</span> your startup ASAP.</span><br />
<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Sigh. God bless Ash and co.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Bringing this back to community building, with a mind of having your first customers – you don’t make that so obvious by the way.</span><br />
<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">You’ll have to discover a common interest that would resonate with the members and that your startup idea can relate with.</span></div>
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<strong><span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">A few examples.</span></strong></h3>
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<dt class="wp-caption-dt" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><img alt="Felix: Edge of Space Jump" class=" wp-image-5978 " data-mce-src="http://99digital.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Felix_redbull.jpg" src="http://99digital.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Felix_redbull.jpg" height="196" style="-webkit-user-drag: none; border: 0px none; cursor: default; display: block; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 442px;" width="432" /></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd" style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 0px;"><span data-mce-style="font-size: small;" style="font-size: x-small;">Felix: Edge of Space Jump</span></dd></dl>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Redbull has a strong community and they rarely talk about the drink. The common interest is Extreme sports and that's what they really focus on. We all remember the Felix dude that jumped-off the edge of space.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Nike, the sport brand, has a solid community too. The common interest here is running.</span><br />
<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">The goal with the community is to foster engagement and interaction around that common interest. - That is like gold.</span><br />
<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">You will discover insights basically. A perfect platform to "customer develop" the members, but the aim should be to sustain and guide the interactions as much as possible to the point where-by the discussion nearly focuses or focuses on a point where your offering can solve a problem or meet a need. These are the moments you don’t want to miss.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">By doing this the members discover the need for your product almost by themselves, you really did not bring it to them in their faces – which when they notice you are marketing, they activate their marketing guards, then it becomes tougher to sell.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">By them discovering it as a result of committing their thoughts to something they are already interested in, selling would be easier, you would spend less on marketing, really.</span><br />
<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">However, community building is a skill on its own.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">At this point, you have early adopters within reach. You can now offer the minimum viable product/offering, which becomes a way to demonstrate traction and begin business, weather by bootstrapping or via investment.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">That, versus completing the product and them blasting everywhere with ads- “Hey this is a product x that does magic y, you will like.. bla bla bla” -You may likely do that for a while before anyone answers you. Reason being that, the process of selling is in stages.</span><br />
<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">You as a person don’t just see a new product and say “Chairman, take my money, I like you already” – rarely happens.</span><br />
<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">The process involves you getting the message clearly, then getting interested, then thinking about it, e.t.c</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">You don’t face that hurdle using the community way, they are passed naturally and quickly since interest exist.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">The community way to building startups offers much more. If it is just for the feedback, that’s valuable enough. With the feedback, you involve those you are building the product for in the building process.</span><br />
<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">They would naturally accept it when they see elements that reflect their thought patterns or personality, that again, versus you and your team building the product from only your own thought lines and assumptions, and pushing it unto user. You are pretty much saying “This is what we think you need, this is what you must do and this is how you must do it and you must do it this way” and most of the time we are wrong.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">Your community can be online or offline, the point is fostering the interactions – However you do it, really doesn’t matter.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">So yeah.. ! That’s it on fast tracking startups via community building, I expect some thoughts would oppose to this, it would be nice to know what you think instead </span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">-Is there anything more critical than finding your paying customers?</span><br />
<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">If any, someone please enlighten my thinking.</span></div>
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<span data-mce-style="font-size: medium;" style="font-size: small;">PS: This post is supposed to be a follow-up post to <a data-mce-href="http://99digital.co/i/2startupviews" href="http://99digital.co/i/2startupviews" style="color: #888888; cursor: pointer; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="2 perspectives that will change your view of start ups">this piece about 2 interesting ways to think about startups</a>, I lost the points that connect them. Still a good piece to read.</span></div>
My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-36444781123131283262014-01-19T14:40:00.001-08:002014-01-20T10:54:09.172-08:00The Gospel According to Lean<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.kimhartman.se/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/the-lean-startup-summary-300x282.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.kimhartman.se/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/the-lean-startup-summary-300x282.png" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">It is quite amazing the resonance the Lean Startup community outside Lagos is effecting.<br />
<a href="http://l3an.com/1dChY4H" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A bit of thanks to LSM people</a> – I think this is
finally catching-on here.<br />
<br />
I actually had 2 people ask me in church today to know more about Lean Startup.
I really did not expect to talk lean in church, but then I had to do an explanation
to one of them right there, He seemed to get the idea about the whole #custdev
feedback loop. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br />
I had another person give me a direct call yesterday, spent 5 minutes 23 sec
explaining Lean Startup to him. Also posted comments on Facebook to give little
explanation as to what Lean Startup is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br />
Just so we are clear in understanding, here is a bit more detail to it, not
exhaustive I must say – which is why you should get Eric Ries’ Lean Startup
Book at least for your first Lean Read. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898" target="_blank">It is available here.</a><br />
<br />
Would talk about 3 concepts in Lean and how they tie up. <br />
First, a bit of general information about Lean Startup.<br />
The Lean Startup way of doing things is radically different. <br />It in a way goes against
the norm of what you expect in traditional business, enterprise or anything
that involves spending resources.<br />
It speaks for eliminating chances for waste -waste of time, money, skill, cognitive
power and resources in general.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">
<span lang="EN-US">It is not a cheap way of doing things and then, it involves creating a system of
experimental and validated learning.<br />
<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h3>
Assumptions</h3>
<span lang="EN-US">This argues that whatever ideas we have is an
assumption, an assumption that is invalidated- Period. <br />
You got the idea in the shower or anywhere, consider it an invalidated idea. <br />
This means you can’t place a huge bet on the outcomes. You simply can’t say exactly what would
happen if you executed the idea. So goes
any knowledge in relation to the the idea –invalidated.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
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<span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://50.hapimag.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Ice-cream-7-e1374827460545.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://50.hapimag.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Ice-cream-7-e1374827460545.jpg" height="203" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US">
A quick example. The weather is so hot now, and I <i>assume</i> children in the neigbourhood would love iced lolly or ice cream
to chill them, so I get the needed ingredients and I make Iced lolly.<br />Time to sell,
and I get no sale, or few sales.<br />
This could be the cause – Say about half of the children the neighborhood could perhaps
have recent history of tummy upset and mummy thinks no sweet
stuff until you are good to have them.<br />
The other half, perhaps buy Ice-lolly at school and mom says “you can only
have one a day” or some silent hidden reason. <br />
These are very very hard to predict scenarios which one would never know except
you validate your assumption by <i>developing</i>
<i>your customers </i>before starting out.<br />
That sounds a bit basic, still some folks still assume a whole lots and miss it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<h4>
Customer
Development</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Delivering products and services people want is linked with good customer development.<br />
The term may be new, but it in fact means interacting with your customers. Some
folks may mean it to be market research, or survey but it is not – at least not in that sense.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Surveys and
the likes aim to get you information which you don’t know. <br />
Customer Development aims to get you information anyway, whether you know it or
not, it is an assumption in the first place, remember – and it gives you more –
it is in the facial expressions, the emotional reactions, the pupil dilation, (if
you can catch that), the voice tone e.t.c.<br />
In essence, customer development validates or invalidates that piece of assumed knowledge
via the feedback you get –which is not biased.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<h4>
Back to the
Ice Cream guy. Let’s call Him Sam.</h4>
<span lang="EN-US">
He stood a chance with good customer development. Had he done it, he would have
gotten useful information (Feedback) and
apply it to re-strategize. <br />The women tell him “Our children have tummy upset” and
he could go back and make plans to include non-sugar/low-sugar Ice-cream/lollies in his options.<br /><br /> I imagine him coming back to the woman saying “No worries madam, I have non-sugar Ice cream that has Vitamins A,
B1, B2, B3 and C.. Perfect for you Children, infact it would stop the tummy upset :)” – He stands a good chance.<br /><br />
For those who buy at school, upon discovering that through customer
development, he could spend half the time at school. The Children, seeing Uncle Sam their neighbor
who sells Ice Cream would want to buy from him.
The Feedback would have eliminate the possible waste of resources.<br />In the case he is unable to meet the demands, that would be known early-on before investing into the venture.</span><br />
<h4>
Feedback</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Feedback is gold. It must be crafted into the whole system
of your business. It is like the compass
of your business-ship. If your customers says no. It’s a no- no. They say yes
and nod with it. Move fast.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But come back soon and ask again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The average person would conclude (assume) uninformed that
Ice-lolly/Ice-cream doesn't sell well in his neigbourhood, but with feedback, adjustments could be made and the true potential of the market is realized.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
By the Way.</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you look at the concepts of Lean Startup from a business plan standpoint,
you may realize planning so long into the future is high risk. 3,5,10 years+ business plans are probably a sham. The rate of change these days is just
crazy. Have what you want to achieve in view, but be flexible on how you get it. Experimentation is the new planning.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yeah, that’s it – the Gospel according to LeanStartup –
Enjoy the Journey<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cheers.<o:p></o:p></div>
My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-89948342958306659902013-12-01T11:53:00.002-08:002013-12-02T12:49:04.581-08:00#WhyStartupsFail“#whyStartupsFail<br />
Because you can do everything doesn’t mean you should do everything. - Do 1 thing…. at first. Focus is key.” - inspired by fab.com<br />
<br />
<div class="colored-panel">
<span class="ldquo">“</span>#whyStartupsfail<br />
There is no such thing as the perfect [business] plan. Do it, if it works, repeat. If it doesn’t, adjust. Experimentation is the new planning.<span class="rdquo">” - Inspired by a post on Forbes</span></div>
<div class="colored-panel">
</div>
<div class="colored-panel">
<div class="colored-panel">
<span class="ldquo">“</span>#whyStartupsfail<br />
… because you don’t want to fail. -Fail fast and learn!
</div>
<span class="rdquo"> </span>
</div>
My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-28643634364828265252013-11-17T16:40:00.001-08:002013-11-25T13:11:36.751-08:00What we can all learn from my shopping experience with Konga - 9/11/2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKxooGUKy_Zekr2J31sy1Rh837uNISSS9gk_UMPY1hKwY_iKG9HtMoQjJCE-H-QHfAffCmMwv6aQorcPxdRjWv3JeEjNZ0XGD68KNxWeYKDYjQTt5Ehq_ioEvQwvn4drttB_jUIgs1weQ/s1600/sadKonga.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKxooGUKy_Zekr2J31sy1Rh837uNISSS9gk_UMPY1hKwY_iKG9HtMoQjJCE-H-QHfAffCmMwv6aQorcPxdRjWv3JeEjNZ0XGD68KNxWeYKDYjQTt5Ehq_ioEvQwvn4drttB_jUIgs1weQ/s1600/sadKonga.png" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h3>
</h3>
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I feel bad somehow. It felt like I was troubling. All I
wanted was a vacuum cleaner.</i></span></h3>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s a beautiful Saturday morning. Sun shining, Palm
whispering. It’s still fresh in the day, but I needed to do a bit of cleaning/dusting. "I could make use of a vacuum cleaner", I thought.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally, a real need that an ecommerce store could help meet. I
finally get to shop online. Was excited.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Logged on to konga.com <u>from my Mobile phone</u>, my favourite Nigerian ecommerce store, even
though I had not used them before.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Searched for the item, found it. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Oya, place order now.. </i>ha.. no link or button
like that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ok, no worries, the site provided a phone number to call and asked that I called to place my order. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Me: Hello . bla bla
bla bla…</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">....<br />
Lady Operator : blab la bla, you need to have an account to place order.<br />
Me: Ok. *in my mind - </i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">but you said I should call to place the order. :/</i></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">....<br />Call ends.</i>
</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Understandable. I need to have an account to place an order.
(by the way.. experience getting ruined.<s> Why couldn’t we create the account
on the phone</s>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Logged on to konga.com again. <i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">W</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ey
create account/signup link now?</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">There was none friends. I could not create an account or log-in even if I had an account. (Note that this was Konga.com's mobile site. )<br /><br />
</i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But the “Call the Place your Order” was
as bold as anything.<br />
</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But I was not giving up . I needed to get the item, and it had to be from
Konga. I mean, I like Sim.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Logged on to twitter and found this tweet just at the top of my timeline, so I replied it</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Can't create an acc on your mo site. Its says call to place order. Called. She says create acc 1st > Can't create acc on mo site. <a href="https://twitter.com/ShopKonga">@shopkonga</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">— ayo Dawodu ♛ (@tjwizking) <a href="https://twitter.com/tjwizking/statuses/399101674502881280">November 9, 2013</a></span></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a dead-lock really.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">got talking, and eventually sent my phone no to receive a call from a customer rep.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Someone was going to call me from Konga. Cool. Nice. At
least you care. That’s a good sign of good Customer service. Thought it would
end well, and I would have my order placed, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but
little did I know.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*Phone rings </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Me: Hi</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Another Lady Operator: I understand you .......<br />She collects my details and creates account.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">.... cool.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Me: Can I place my order now?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Her: Yes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Me: ok. It’s a (reads specs of vacuum cleaner).. then I paused to listen…she was saying something</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Me: Sorry…(I did not hear well...)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Her: She repeated...YOU-HAVE-TO-PLACE-THE-ORDER-YOURSELF. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each word was now stressed. I could perceive
the scorn in her voice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Me: Alright Cool. (Now I gave up.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Drops call. (bad taste in mouth)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">felt</i> bad <strike>somehow</strike>. It felt like I
was troubling. All I wanted was a vacuum cleaner. :(</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dropping the call.. I realized this was a dead<i>er </i>lock situation. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Problem had been that there was no provision to log-in or create an account on the mobile site.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The first lady had said I should create an account to place my order, even though the site had boldly written "call to place order" Got on the call with the second lady, yet it was "impossible" for me to place the order via telephone.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And she said it with such scorn that I couldn't help but end the conversation ASAP. I was burnt.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">My morning was ruined already.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I guess I would just wait till I have access to my PC.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
whole thing is sad actually, but it got me thinking hard and spurred this piece, in which I churned out lessons to learn from the experience as a budding technology entrepreneur.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
Lesson Learned</span></h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Technology! </span></h4>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Irrespective of my background in technology, I was a typical customer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I am quite sure I am not the first person to meet that deadlock situation, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">and for it to have existed until after my experience, could mean a lot of potential customers having hassles but not caring to point it out.</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> (The mobile site was brought down later that day or that week) </span><br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #741b47;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">TECHNOLOGY | PEOPLE | PROCESS</span></span></span></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">That
chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />There was a technology flaw, no doubt, but the people (customer care) could have easily made up for it nicely.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">People are everything.I can't say that more.<br />Without the other 2, you can still have a good business - weren't we selling and buying </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">before e-commerce</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> But without people, there is no show</span>.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Customer
care service is largely a people thing.
And in this part of the world, you have to go the extra mile on making it
excellent.<br /><br /> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The
average customer is probably already sad/stressed from thoughts of traffic or fueling gen for light or any other random sad thing.<br /><br /> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">If you
can make them happy they would love you for it and tell the world. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The people within and without, staff and
customer. They are everything!</span></span></h3>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span>I don't know if this is a case of a disgruntled staff, whatever the case, the business is responsible.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I have
learnt from this.. and really, the experience isn't that much of a big deal, but but the lessons within is
valuable.. At least to me. I know how I felt. I would not want a customer of mine to feel such.</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Another insight is dawning on me as I write this. This is a case of the 80-20 pareto principle. <br />It
played out here, I think. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />It just
took the very last moments for the whole experience to be a ruined.
The 20 affected the whole 80. Just that moment she said go and place the order yourself. That's just by the way</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">This lady had just highlighted a very critical point of failure for businesses, and the lessons I captured from this could be summed-up in this post by Sam.</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">People!</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span></span></h4>
</blockquote>
<br />
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<br />
<div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/iso.samuel/posts/10201416785636152:0" data-width="550">
<div class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/iso.samuel/posts/10201416785636152:0">Post</a> by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/iso.samuel">Iso Sam</a>.</span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">So I eventually got on a pc that day and placed the order. *facepalm.</span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Konga needs to checkup on some things. Here is what happened after placing the order. I was sent a order verification link to my phone as sms, and I actually had to type out the url on my pc browser to verify my order.</span></span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h4>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Process! </span></span></h4>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I can't even begin to elaborate on what that means.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Konga should just fix all these.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Wish them the best. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
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</div>
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My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-80231239933336890482013-09-21T14:21:00.001-07:002013-09-21T14:21:09.108-07:00How Customer Development can help identify your market cheaply<div style="text-align: left;">
<center>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23custdev&src=hash">#custdev</a> can help reveal your <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23custseg&src=hash">#custseg</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23getOutOfTheBuilding&src=hash">#getOutOfTheBuilding</a><br />
— ayo Dawodu ♛ (@tjwizking) <a href="https://twitter.com/tjwizking/statuses/362220459942608898">July 30, 2013</a></blockquote>
</div>
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
If feedback was human, he would be my best friend. - purely me.</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I would share 2 instances about how customer development can be very
helpful.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12pt; text-align: left;">
The first instance was about 3 years ago, I had
not heard about the term “Customer Development”. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I was engaging the driver of a yellow taxi cab for the purpose of getting
feedback for the idea I had coined “clickacab” as a name for - A taxi booking
service that would connect cab drivers with passengers.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There were 2 categories of cab services. The Yellow ones which are privately
owned, and the taxi agency owned ones, which were new at that time and more
expensive -Red Cab and co.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It was presumptuous to say every cabbie, irrespective of whether they owned
the cab or not was going to be a customer, but this wasn't the case. I was biased towards the taxi agencies, the
springing up of the new business inspired this idea and it was only
right for the service to revolve around them.<br />I saw them as the main customer.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I was wrong.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The cab agencies did not need help finding customers, there was a system in
place already, and besides, the bureaucracy that existed within would not
support the model. The time spent crafting the solution around the agency guys
was going to be a waste.<br />
<br />
Traveling from a Mobile Monday meetup, I and a friend decided to "customer
develop" the cabbie, that owned a yellow cab we had boarded. We all spoke
for the entire length of the journey, and the feedback was useful. The cabbie
welcomed the idea and was willing to pay a fees to have a customer come through
the service when asked. That's something the cabbie of a cab agency would
likely not want to commit to, because he lacks the flexibility.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The second instance was for validating customer loyalty solution for small
stores. Again my presumption was that every small store would need this. This
time I had learnt about the lean startup and customer development, so I
consciously set out to do custdev before any sort of execution.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It was rewarding.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Every small store" did not fit my true customer segment. In the
custdev session I had with a store owner, she saw the value within, but she
simply did not see the need for her subscribing to such service. I observed the
environment and discovered she was alone, she had no competitors. This meant
everyone would patronize her anyway. <br />
<br />
Automatic loyalty it was for her. I told myself - "This woman isn't my
customer"<br />
<br />
Thanked her and went away happy.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background: #CC0000; color: white;">Learn-able Lessons: It is not
enough for your customer to fit the "Customer Segment" - e.g Women
getting married soon". They may meet some of the criteria
of that segment, but those are not enough. The truest qualifier of a customer
is the feedback/behavior of the customer when they understand the value you are
proposing.</span></h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
You don't really know your target market until you ask/interact
with/customer develop them.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br />
Launching a solution to your "target market" without really knowing
them through cust dev, is like serving meat to room filled with hungry people.
Some of them may be vegetarians and would not eat the meat prepared.<br />
<br />
Leading to waste. <br />
<br />
Wastage of time, efforts and resources used in preparing meat for them.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This is what lean start-ups and customer development is all about, <b>eliminating the chances for waste</b>, setting out to meeting the right
needs and solving the right problems.
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Share your thoughts in the comments space below. Thanks for reading.<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>By the way, it would be interesting to know if veggies default when there
are no other options. :)</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
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My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-5288650827232582052013-09-17T23:03:00.002-07:002013-12-02T12:12:59.976-08:006 Lean Start-up Resource persons you should be following as a start-up<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Isaac Newton</b></span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<br /></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<h4>
This list is by no means exhaustive and could have more people added to it in the nearest future. If you have no idea of what Lean is all about and how it relates to start-up, I suggest you <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_Startup" target="_blank">read this first</a></h4>
<ol>
<li><h4>
Steve Blank</h4>
Popular proponent of customer development, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/0989200507" target="_blank">4 Steps to Epiphany</a>, and If you’ve ever heard the term “Get out of the Building” used in a start-up context, yes, that’s Steve Blank. Highly experienced in field of start-ups - having been part of about a dozen or more successful start-ups, he shares his lessons and experience with the start-up world. You should keep tabs on him.</li>
<li><h4>
Eric Ries</h4>
Author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898" target="_blank">The Lean Startup</a> and a major player in the Lean start-up movement. His works on the lean method is what gives entrepreneurs around the world a better chance of being successful in business and management as well as a technology entrepreneur. I probably won't be writing this, without having seen his early works on the lean start-up methods. He is the hero.</li>
<li><h3>
<span style="font-size: small;">Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur</span></h3>
Key contributors to <a href="http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/" target="_blank">business model generation</a>, from which they developed the <a href="http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas" target="_blank">business model canvas</a>. The canvas presents an intuitive way to visually capture the most critical aspect of your start-up - the business model. They also co-authored a book on that subject. <a href="http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/book" target="_blank">Get a preview here</a>. </li>
<li><h3>
<span style="font-size: small;">Ash Maurya</span></h3>
Ash’s works are simply enlightening. Founder, Spark59 and author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Works-Series/dp/1449305172" target="_blank">Running Lean</a> and soon to be released “<a href="http://unbouncepages.com/the-customer-factory/" target="_blank">Customer Factory</a>”. His works also includes the remodelling of the Business model canvas by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur (above) into the lean canvas. Signup for one of his email courses and see the light about how your business model is the real product. </li>
<li><h4>
kevin dewalt</h4>
Kevin’s latest start-up – <a href="http://try.sohelpful.me/" target="_blank">So Helpful</a> is a unique one, and I presume the lightbulb moment could be while applying lean principles from his vast experience in the startup field. Indeed a very helpful persona. He would be <a href="http://kevindewalt.com/2013/09/11/your-turn-help-the-lean-startup-conference-understand-how-customer-development-works-in-your-country/" target="_blank">co-anchoring a webinar</a> with Eric Ries soon, (Mentioned above) on leanstartups and customer development around the world. Highly resourceful.</li>
<li><h3>
<span style="font-size: small;">Stephany Hay</span></h3>
<a href="http://www.stephaniehay.com/lean-content/" target="_blank">Lean Content authority</a>. Are you looking to commence online writing or perhaps you are in the business of blogging or content creation for marketing purposes, Stephany Hay applys lean principles to writing and shares values on how helpful it could be. Fine, you may not be doing so bad in terms of content creation that gets the page-views, but by applying lean concepts to writing, you would see how much more better you could get with less.</li>
</ol>
There are a lot more people.<br />
<br />
Locally, I have stumbled on one person that seems to apply lean concepts to their businesses - Bankole of <a href="http://techcabal.com/" target="_blank">techcabal</a>. Brilliant.<br />
<ol>
</ol>
My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6209561280325045626.post-20639710863204014232013-09-16T19:26:00.000-07:002013-09-18T14:20:18.169-07:00Let's begin afresh.The third blog. It's first home.<br />
My first blog on the web which is a technology blog, had 1,2,3 homes before it's present location at <a href="http://tsusk.blogspot.com/">tsusk.blogspot.com</a> .<br />
<br />
It's been fun and impactful sharing my technology pieces on the internet, and I hope I can still lay hold on them in say 10-20 years from now. That aside.<br />
<br />
Since I mostly talk about a different subject these days - Technology startup Development [still somewhat related to technology, but the business aspect of it ],<br />
I thought it well to create a separate blog. I had this thought in 2012, but here I am posting the very first post today.<br />
<br />
Something spurred it.<br />
<br />
The need to conquer the word "start-up" - as a friend described it as the most abused word [arguably ] in the technology space today.<br />
<br />
The lessons so far are extremely insightful - all thanks to the lean start-up fever I caught in Stanford's then, <a href="http://venture-lab.org/" target="_blank">Venture-lab program</a>- which in itself applied lean principles. Today there is <a href="https://novoed.com/" target="_blank">Noeved</a>, a product of that lean exploration. You probably have noticed the redirection of the link.<br />
<br />
A thankful tweet:<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<div style="text-align: center;">
So much thankful for 5 people in the world today: <a href="https://twitter.com/eesley">@eesley</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/ericries">@ericries</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/sgblank">@sgblank</a> , <a href="https://twitter.com/AlexOsterwalder">@AlexOsterwalder</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/ashmaurya">@ashmaurya</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
— ayo Dawodu ♛ (@tjwizking) <a href="https://twitter.com/tjwizking/statuses/364156983399960576">August 4, 2013</a></div>
</blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
Great lessons so far.<br />
<br />
But beyond lean startup - this space, my friends, is where I would share my personal views on crossing the chasm between tech start-ups and tech business. May be doing some vlogs, for some content that may be lengthy in words.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<h3>
"Theory is the language of the scholar, Pragmatism is the language of the leader." - Peter J Daniels</h3>
</blockquote>
<br />
Only the doers count.<br />
<br />
We need less teachers and more examples.<br />
<br />
Technology is great. We shouldn't make is look bad by doing it wrongly.<br />
<br />
<br />
So yeah.. that's it . Cheers to an exciting journey already.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />My Startup Noteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10877291423292575183noreply@blogger.com0