Phantom CTO

Your business idea doesn’t have to be great but getting momentum is critical.

If you wait to be great before you get out there, you’ll never move. Get out there when the edges are rough and keep on improving it while your out in your market. Let your market shape what you give them. Use technology to get the feedback and reiterate what your market demands from your products.

Tech breaks borders: location, location, location doesn’t mean the same thing anymore.

Email, blogs, video conferencing, wikis, and skype are some of the tools that are breaking down walls. What tech helps make happen is build interactions that foster trust and value. The key is to building relationships with your market and within your company. You don’t have to be in the middle of the hottest town to grow your business or start up. You have to provide value to your market, and they don’t care where you are while you do it.

Starting with little cash means focused better business discipline and good spending habits.

You have to choose options with better value. Limitations are your best friend to finding creative solutions to problems your business will face. Technology has made many improvements on how to get better value for your business dollars.

You do not have to be the next Google-sized business. Seriously.

Do you really need to be the next 450 billion dollar business? Heck no. Consider being the next level up from where you are today. That’s got a much higher chance of success and it’s completely within your reality. Let technology help your business move forward, not have you follow a business idea that has a gigantic chance of failure.

You don’t need a huge budget to get your business in front of your market.

Technology makes it cheap to do so and lets your message be the focus of the interaction. How much does it cost to be on YouTube versus to be on a 30 second TV spot? How much does it cost running an ad in print versus writing a blog post on your company website? How much does it cost hosting a live event versus a doing a video or teleconference?

In the early days of your new business, don’t focus on finding money. Focus on solving customers problems and getting feedback.

You might think you need lots of capital to start your new business. But what you really need is to get immersed in your customer’s world and identify their problems. Present solutions to those problems and ask them what they think of your results. At the start of your business, no amount of money will help more than being in sync with your market’s needs. It’s the ultimate litmus test: do you provide answers your market is looking for? Is it a business idea only on paper: in a business plan or through market research? Have you had real experiences with providing value to make a genuine decision on the likelihood of success?

Don’t write a business plan. Write a blog, post when you want.

Ah!! The MBA woman is saying screw the bplan. Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Why is that? First off, who’s reading this plan? Investors? Banks? Your Future Partners and Employees? Do you really think someone wants to wade through 50 pages of a future potential with 5 year projections of million dollar revenue. Not really.
On the other hand, what do you think people interested in your business vision want? Bite sized chunks of value that they can get. Think ‘Thousand Songs In Your Pocket’ as the way to describe the iPod. That phrase was enough to get people to buy it.

Do small sampling size value with a blog post or a short video that you can continually trickle out to your market and get immediate and visible feedback from the people you want to serve. Not the imagined people your research tells you about. No business starting out ever has all things figured out. Be real with your market and tell them that you’re working with everything you’ve got to make their lives better. That’s what a business should be writing for. A business plan should be a living and breathing plan that changes. Make your company blog into the channel that shows your market and your peers what your business stands for. That kind of writing is what creates paying customers who will finance your business, not borrowed money from someone who is looking to turn a profit on your work.

I’ve been listening to Seth Godin’s audiobook Tribes and was struck by a thought that I wanted to share.  

When it comes to leading your business and serving your market, are you more like a thermostat or a thermometer?

Are You Noticing the Temperature or Setting It?

Seth talks about the difference between a thermostat and a thermometer. It was a great analogy that got my wheels spinning as I thought of someone who was kicking it up in her market. When I think of the many companies and business owners I’ve been around that are reactive to what market conditions are saying. There are others setting the temperature in those same markets.

The difference between the reactive leaders and the proactive leaders is easy to spot in the current economic conditions. Business leaders are coming forward with the ways to make it through the downturn, to make it through and grow. Meanwhile their status quo peers are not sure how to make a difference in their market they just now its not turning in their favor. What to do?

In the real estate market, many realtors are struggling to succeed in the real estate market. But that’s not the only story playing out for realtors.

In Portland Oregon there is a realtor who is listening to her market and she’s changing the temperature. Kirsten Kaufman knows that cyclists and people interested in being greener have different needs than an average home buyer. They are a growing segment of home buyers in Portland and Kaufman is pedaling on their level by combining  home tours with cycling.

Check out her Tour de Homes on YouTube

She’s not making everyone happy by offering a sweat inducing tour but she is speaking directly to the needs and wants of home buyers who are looking for a different kind of commute and having a home that meets their lifestyle.

Your small business doesn’t have to show the neighborhood on bike, but your business can change the temperature in your market.

How will your business make a difference no matter what the market looks like?

Here’s a good video clip and some takeaways from Andrew Warner on Mashable who got some time with Robert Scoble to talk about how to build momentum and visibility through the web.

I’m not big on the title of the video clip: How to be internet famous. What I am into is the advice that Scoble gave out here.

He listed out some great advice that while answers the question how to be famous also relates to core questions and issues that every small business and start up faces.

Passion and Starring on Your Own Stage

You have to be passionate about what you’re doing and you have to be serving a unique audience. Scoble gave the example of Gary Vaynerchuck, who came in with his passion for wine and used internet tools to build visibility and grow his business. Before  winelibrary.tv  there was no person online working their passion for wine.  Don’t try and copy what he does instead you should step into your own space that motivates and pushes you.

This also reminds me of something I’ve read on Jack Welch’s management style for GE. He had said that he wanted to be number one in a market and if he couldn’t be the best, he’d cut that business center off. There’s no room to be number two in someone elses show. Don’t try and be the same guy that’s doing well. There’s no chance for copy cats to succeed. The tools that the internet gives small business owners are meant to support greatness — your business’ unique strengths. Create your own stage and limelight.

Reward and Respect Your Loyal Clients

Scoble then mentions to always keep in mind the 15 readers. As a small business, that metaphor can extend out to your best and most loyal customers who bring you in new business. They are the people who read your work, who sign up early for new services and the people who talk up your company to their friends. They are not the majority of your clients. Instead these handful are the motivation to keep trucking through hard times. Reward and respect their sense of belonging to you and your mission.

Bring on the Avalanche. It’s Your Snowflake.

Lastly, this has to be my favorite thing Scoble said.

All avalanches start with one snowflake.

This idea has so much merit. An avalanche of success, an avalanche of business growth both start out as one snowflake. Build up your momentum, put more content out there and be more accessible to your market. The interactions and engagement you have with your market are the winds of force. Your brand, your content and your business values are the snowflakes.

How to be internet famous from Andrew Warner on Vimeo.

I’ll end this post with a question about your snowflake, I mean, small business.

Are you building an avalanche?