Entrepreneurial Basics

• Sense of Mission
• Customer/Product vision
• High Speed Innovation
• Selfinspired Behaviour
• Walt Disney - "the inclination of my life has been to do things and make things that will give pleasure to people in new and amazing ways. by doing that i please and satisfy myself."
• Steve Jobs (Apple Computer) - "The managers new how to manage but they couldn't do anything"
• Sense of Mission: Leaving Footprints in the Sand
• Be Excited, Love Your Business! This is important stuff!
• "Fall in Love with Your Business" (George Tidball, Keg Restaurants, Founder)
• What and How
• High Purpose, High Standards
• "Our duty as industrialists is to produce goods for the public, and to enrich and make happier all those who use them" - Konosuke Matsushita
• What do i like to do?
• What am i good at doing?
• What does the market need?
• what competitive position would i have?
• What capabilities and cash must i have?
• A matter of survival
• it's not a 'project'
• focus on customers
• focus on products
• the criteria that count
• Picking a market/product winners:
• high competitive position with a low market need
• high competitive position with a high market need
• low competitive position with a low market need
• low competitive position with a high market need
• 33% of the excellent Co's (62-84)
• 84% of the 100 biggest Co's (1900-2000)
• 70% of the fortune 500 ( 55-06_
• Bigger is NOT better
• Started out entrepreneurial... became managerial....
• "life cycle of organisation"
• " The 7 deadly sins "
• 1. "everything that can be invented has been invented" - Charles Duell, Director of US Patent Office - 1899
• I'm OK, you're OK
• This produces terminal inaction
• We are not OK... We are NEVER OK!!
• Crisis... and a sense of urgency are necessary for orginizations to grow.
• Let's be excellent... CARPE DIEM
• 2. One best way to do things
• silences workers forever
• kills innovation
• 3. Out of touch with competitors and customers
• your next great idea comes from competitiors and customers
• 4. Centralize everything
• this is all about controlling things... is bigger actually better?
• when in doubt decentralize
• Branson; when he sold virgin records... it was made up of 50 different record companies with no more then 60 employees in each
• 5. Lab in the woods ( scientists take over)
• idea of having an innovation team out in the woods away from the hustle bustle of business allowed for creativity
• best ideas come from the factory floor, lunch brainstorming with salesman and face to face meetings with unhappy customers (McD)
• 6. Marketing takes over or salesmen take over
• opposite to lab in the woods
• not product specialist... you need both scientist (product specialist ) and salesman ( customer specialist ) working together
• 7. senior managaement disconnected
• MBA syndrome... sit in corner office and make decisions... disconnect from factory floor, customers
• sears was the largest retailer. Then it built the Worlds tallest building in Chicago... lost conection to customers... in comes Walmart