Interesting presentation from The Founder Institute about How To Launch a business In 10 Steps With Less Than $2,000.

Adeo Ressi on Product Development 08/19/2010 from Adeo Ressi on Vimeo.

Below is a bullet point summary of Ressi’s ten steps to launch. The video above significantly elaborates on these points.

1. Get your domain and e-mail working: “When you register your name, you should register the misspellings as a .com, you should register the primary and the .net or .org or it will be sold back to you for thousands of dollars later…”
Approximate cost: $160

2. Produce some mock-ups: “You want to show the key functionality that you’re trying to bring to the marketplace…You just need three sort of pivotal experience screens that will demonstrate your core idea or three…mock-ups of the physical product…you’re trying to capture how it will be done.”
Approximate cost: Free

3. Logo and materials: “Get a good looking logo so at least you look legitimate…” says Ressi who recommends 99designs. After you pick the winning design, “you contact him [the designer] offline, you say I want you to do my business cards, I want you to do my Power Point backup and I want you to do my mock-ups. Now for not so much money you’re getting everything you need to appear somewhat legitimate to the world.”
Approximate cost: $750

4. Pitch deck: “You always want to have a pitch deck, even if it’s bad…you need something to start with to go on that refining path.”
Approximate cost: Free

5. Create a landing page: Ressi recommends Unbounce.com, which is a drag and drop landing page.
Approximate cost: $60/year after free trial

6. Create a company blog: “I recommend doing blog.yourcompany.com…it keeps it in a consistent place as your company scales…You want to be posting on your blog, at this phase, one or two times a week.”
Approximate cost: Free

7. Test marketing: “First thing I strongly recommend is immediately test marketing using Facebook and Google ads. Not so much for the value of driving people to your bullsh*t website, but to understand what messages resonate with your target audience and then so you can then refine your marketing messages.”
Approximate cost: $250

8. Survey customers: “So now you’ve got these leads coming in, survey them… you want to understand, the demographics, who are they. You want to clarify what the pain points, like why did they sign up, were they just stupid and duped into it or did they really feel that something was valuable and what was it that they find most valuable.”
Approximate cost: $200

9. Create a sticky note roadmap: Write all of your company’s features on separate sticky notes and then group them in logical buckets. “What I do, is I put on the left side I put the most important group and then at the top, the most important features. So on the top left is the most important thing I have to do…When you have that roadmap in front of you, you can sort of visualize the one thing that flows through everything and usually there’s an unknown around that.”
Approximate cost: $100

10. Ghetto launch. Test the unknown. “Whatever you can find that can test out your core stuff that’s free…Identify the metrics, collect the data and validate…”
Approximate cost: $250

Source: Techcrunch

Great presentation from Guy Kawasaki. It’s a few years old now however still worth a watch – “The Art of the Start” @ TiECon 2006

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How to be an entrepreneur.  The question it’s self makes me frown.  Having just done a search on those exact key words Google presented me with 11,500,000 search results.  In my opinion there are 10 steps to becoming an entrepreneur.

10 Steps to become an entrepreneur:

1. Be fair
2. Be understanding
3. Be creative
4. Be tough
5. Be polite
6. Be yourself
7. Question
8. Listen
9. Understand
10. Take Action

Resources:

1. Friends
2. Family
3. Google

The rather long title of “Upstarts! How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit from Their Success” suggests that there is more to this generation that first meets the eye.  If you’ve read it already, leave a comment and let us know what you think.

If you have not yet read it you can buy it now at amazon

Great little article from Pamela Slim about entrepreneurship. Read it now.  See if you can identify which square of change you are currently in.

Great article from openforum.com which list the Top Ways Women Entrepreneurs Boost Productivity

10. Write out your to do list the night before.

Don’t wait until morning to make your list.  Write your list the night before. Allow the process to percolate while you sleep. Then, when you wake up, it’s as if you’ve had an eight-hour head start on your day.

9. Prioritize your daily list using the “ABCD and E” method.

A = must do
B = should do
C = would be nice to do
D = delegate
E = eliminate

8.  Wake up early and get off to a good start.

Wake up early to set the tone for your day. This allows you to get into the swing of things at an unhurried pace. Establish a morning routine that is of greatest benefit to you, not just to your family.

7. Delegate everything possible.

If it isn’t directly making you money, delegate it to someone else. Turn over data entry tasks, packing and shipping, and answering non-essential emails and calls to a competent administrative professional. Not sure if you should turn something over? Ask yourself, “Can this task be done by someone else, or does it need my direct attention?” As an entrepreneur, your job is to concentrate on what is of most value to you and your business success, not on errands.

6. Know your energy peaks and valleys.

You are in control of your business. You get to say when, you get to say how, and you get to say how long. As an entrepreneur, you aren’t locked into a 9 to 5 workday. You can start work at the crack of dawn, go to the gym in the afternoon, and outline a new product idea in the evening. Schedule work activities, family time, and personal quiet time around the natural ebb and flow of your energy peaks and valleys.

5. Find a way to love what you do.

If you love what you do then you are more apt to be productive because you are fully engaged. No matter what you’re doing at any given time, find a way to love doing it.

4. If in doubt, throw it out.

Make liberal use of your waste can and recycle bin. Regularly go through files and throw out or shred material that is outdated or no longer relevant. There is no need to save everything “just in case” you’ll need it later. Trust that if you throw something out today and you need it in the future, you’ll be able to get your hands on it again.

3. Break up projects into tasks.

If you have something on your to do list that’s been there for a long time, realize that it’s probably not a task. It’s a project. To do lists are for discreet tasks. When you put a project on your list, you’ll feel bogged down and productivity will slow. Many of the women entrepreneurs surveyed use business strategist Brian Tracy’s method for breaking up projects into easy-to-do tasks:

First, list the finished result you want.

• Next, map out every single step of the project.
• Then, put the steps into order, moving the important steps to the front.
• Now, delegate tasks and assign responsibilities.
• Finally, track the progress of the project.

2. Give 80% of your attention to what is important and 20% to what is urgent.

As an entrepreneur, your job is to discern the difference between what’s important and what’s urgent. To figure out the difference between the two, ask yourself, “Will focusing on this move my business forward and make me money or will I just be putting out fires?”

Dealing with the urgent all day is draining. Dealing with the important is energizing. Make sure you’re giving 80% of your time and attention to what’s important each day.

1. Focus on one thing at a time.

The number one thing women entrepreneurs do to boost productivity is… focus on one thing at a time. Although women are known to be exceptional multi-taskers, those surveyed said they were able to get more done when they focused on one thing at a time. Starting and stopping in the middle of things was frustrating for them and meant that not much was completed at day’s end.

Tip: If focusing on one thing at a time is challenging for you, have a pen and paper nearby. That way, if something pops into your head, just write it down and get right back to the task at hand.

What is the number one thing you should do to boost your productivity? As you’ve just seen, among the 250 women entrepreneurs I surveyed their answers ranged from prioritizing their daily to do list to learning to break projects up into smaller tasks to delegating everything possible.  Decide which of their favorite techniques will help you the most, and start implementing them right now.  You’re sure to boost productivity for yourself and your business.

About the Author: Dr. Susan L. Reid is a business coach and consultant for entrepreneurial women starting up businesses. She is the author of “Discovering Your Inner Samurai: The Entrepreneurial Woman’s Journey to Business Success.” To download a free PDF chapter of her book, go to Alkamae. If you’re interested in finding out more about what steps you can take to ensure your lasting business success, get your free PDF: “Doing What You Love: Multiple Streams of Passion” at Your Inner Samurai.

For those of you who are not familiar with the programme, Come Dine With Me is a Channel 4 television programme shown in the England. The show has four/5 amateur chefs competing against each other hosting a dinner party for the other contestants. Each competitor then rates the host’s performance with the winner winning a £1,000 cash prize. An element of comedy is added to the show through comedian Dave Lamb, who provides a dry and sarcastic narration.

I personally don’t like the show and find it rather boring.  However what I would find rather interesting would get 5 entrepreneurs, who had never me to each pitch there business idea to the other contestants.  The contestant with the most points wins a cash prise that can help with their business idea.

Do you think this is a good idea?  let us know by leaving a comment.

]]> http://www.thinkbigbebigentrepreneurs.com/2009/06/come-dine-with-me-entreprenuers-version/feed/ 0 http://www.thinkbigbebigentrepreneurs.com/2009/05/the-real-secret-to-success/ http://www.thinkbigbebigentrepreneurs.com/2009/05/the-real-secret-to-success/#comments Thu, 07 May 2009 20:26:46 +0000 Timothy Bosworth http://www.thinkbigbebigentrepreneurs.com/?p=1312

Great 7 minute  MP3 from – Ryan Lee.  It’s a little bit Gung ho – however for any entrepreneur it a great in terms of energy.

Entrepreneurs have to wear many hats and perform many roles to become successful.  One intersting system or theory you may want to follow or use is the de Bono Hats system (also known as “Six Hats” or “Six Thinking Hats”)  This is a thinking tool for group discussion and individual thinking.

Combined with the idea of parallel thinkingwhich is associated with it, it provides a means for groups to think together more effectively, and a means to plan thinking processes in a detailed and cohesive way. The method is attributed to Dr. Edward de Bono and is the subject of his book, Six Thinking Hats which is definitely worth a read before or after you finished doing the 100 other things.