Tagged: entrepreneur

Tue: 08 Mar 2011

6 Lessons Startup Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Alien Invasions

I just read a funny article: 6 Giant Blind Spots In Every Movie Alien’s Invasion Strategy

While reading the article, it occurred to me that the article’s advice to would be alien invaders also contained some interesting ideas that would be helpful to first time startup entrepreneurs. With all apologies to the article’s author, S. Peter Davis, here are my 6 lessons startup entrepreneurs can learn from alien invasions.

6 Lessons Startup Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Alien Invasions

#6. Wear something – i.e. the basic basics will save your bacon.

Davis makes the point that a lot of alien invaders make the mistake of failing to wear clothes – thus making them susceptible to our local germs, or even things like water (recall the aliens in Signs). When you think about it, wearing clothes is one of the most basic things we do. It’s pretty straightforward – not complex at all – and failing to do it costs the aliens their whole invasion.

Lesson #6: Focus on the basic basics.
There are desperately simple things that are so basic they’re basic. The basic basics if you will. I’ve seen lots of first time entrepreneurs fail to do these basic basics. Simple things like:

spell checking documents (seriously fucking spell check your fucking documents)
having contact information in your signature block
having an effective to-do list
planning out your day (or at least portions thereof)

The list goes on and on. The common denominator: simple, basic stuff. Failing to focus on the basic basics can cost you big time. Ask yourself, am I spending time focusing on executing the basics – like putting on clothes.

#5. Do your research – on everyone.

In alien invasion movies, the alien’s lack of basic research on the place they’re invading leads to catastrophic failure (like checking out if the planet they’re invading is covered 75% by something which will destroy you – like water).

Lesson #5: Research your attack

It’s damn hard to be successful in sales without doing your client research. Client research comes down to more basic basics: planning what you’re going to say BEFORE you call a client taking notes during client phone calls defining objectives and outcomes before you meet with clients (are you trying to understand their needs or close the deal – you better have done one before the other).
Simple fundamental research can prevent massive failure.

#4. Don’t Attack America First
The aliens can’t seem to resist taking on Uncle Sam first – on the theory that planets are like prisons and the best way to survive prison is to find the biggest guy and kick his ass. Trust me, this doesn’t work in prison. The biggest guy will kick your ass – twice just to prove his point.

Lesson #4: Take on the little guys before the big guys.

If there are a few major potential clients who’d absolutely make your company crazy successful – you might want to practice on a few smaller less important clients first. Work the kinks out where the stakes are low. That being said – you can’t duck the big dog forever and when it’s time to face the champ – go for it. Just be prepared.

#3. Don’t Wait for a Counterattack

Every alien invasion movie features a big old pause where the aliens – having almost completely beaten us into submission – take a break and wait for our next move. This never works out. Given enough time, the humans come up with something crafty – like glasses of water.

Lesson 3: Define the next move and take it.

I’ve seen first time entrepreneurs end a sales call, whether that’s a meeting or a phone call, and they think things have gone great. Then we talk:

Izzo: So how’d the call go?

Entrepreneur : Great, they love us.

Izzo: So what happens next?

Entrepreneur: They’re going to think about it and get back to us.

Izzo: So what exactly are they thinking about?

Entrepreneur: I don’t know.

Izzo: So when are they going to get back to us.

Entrepreneur: I don’t know.

Izzo: I bet you’re still waiting for that girl from high school to give you a call back on that prom date aren’t you.

Know exactly what the next move is, when it’s going to happen, and take the lead in making it happen. That client who’s “thinking about it” isn’t going to call back – neither is that girl in high school.

#2. Call for Backup

Having had their initial attack force defeated, the aliens tuck their tail between their legs and call it a day. When really, having thoroughly softened us up – and having been exposed to our big winning move – they should come back next week and REALLY invade.

Lesson #2: Don’t go it alone.

Even if you’ve planned the phone call, practiced with other clients, and are prepared to set the next move – have you practiced? Have you talked to anyone about your plan? Somebody who doesn’t work for you and therefore feel obligated to blow sunshine where it doesn’t belong?
You have resources all around you – mentors, former teachers, former bosses, even the Starbucks barista – who’d be willing to look at your pitch, practice the sales call, or just give you feedback on your clothing choice. Great entrepreneurs, indeed great people, are NOT brilliant loners – they are resource optimizers. They take whatever resources are around and use them for maximum effect. Gates had Ballmer. Jobs had Woz. Bandit had Snowman. Call for backup.

#1. Exhaust your Alternatives.

The aliens always seem to want our stuff (water, gold, unobtainium- something). Except most all of those things are available on other planets which are not populated with angry little hominids who have thousands of nuclear weapons.

Lesson #1: You have options.

Entrepreneurship is all about overcoming obstacles – finding the why not where others see the can’t. As a first time entrepreneur you can’t stop at your first defeat – or your fiftieth. Figure it out make adjustments. Make radical changes. Can’t sell your product? Have you tried giving it away? Can’t do that? Have you tried giving it away? Can’t do that? Have you found somebody else who wants it (i.e. changed your target market)?

Remember – only you can prevent alien invasions – and poor execution on your business. I’m off to have a glass of water.

6 Lessons Startup Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Alien Invasions

One of the Great Myths of Entrepreneurship: Calling the Shots

The Myth of Calling the Shots

One of the reasons I initially got into entrepreneurship was that I wanted to “call the shots.” This is one of the most common reasons people cite for getting into entrepreneurship. Being the boss. Calling the shots. Making the decisions. It’s compelling. And it’s almost completely false. It’s one of the great myths of entrepreneurship (one of the others is ‘setting your own schedule’ – but that’s for another time).

Here’s why it’s a myth: you don’t call the shots – the market calls the shots. While you get to make decisions, those decisions can’t be made in a vacuum. Well they can be, but then you’re in business NFL – Not For Long. I come across so many entrepreneurs who see entrepreneurship as one giant path of constant self-aggrandizement. They see success as following their instinct and trusting in their singular vision. And that’s just plain stupid. Your business needs to serve a need – its needs to connect with what the client wants. And if you make it all about what you want – and your need to make decisions – you’re putting yourself first. It’s not about you – it’s about the client.

Here’s another reason it’s a myth: you should surround yourself with smart people. Better yet smarter people. If you insist on making all the decisions – you’re closing yourself off from the advice and support of these people. Or you’ve surrounded yourself with yes men and/or idiots.

When you think you’ll call the shots you’re subscribing to the view of entrepreneurs being brilliant geniuses ensconced in their ivory towers handing down brilliance from on-high. If you look at really successful entrepreneurs, they are connectors. They form partnerships, they bring resources together, and they listen to clients. What they don’t do is engage in the relentless arrogance of thinking it’s about calling the shots.

In my own experience, discovering this myth was one of the more painful realizations of running my own business. It stinks to realize that it’s not about you and your brilliant ideas. It’s about putting yourself out of the picture and focusing on the client.

Any other myths you’ve seen busted?

One of the Great Myths of Entrepreneurship: Calling the Shots

Three Questions Entrepreneurs Need to Ask on Day One

Mark Kramer of Kramer Communications has a great article on Forbes, The 10 Questions You Should Never Stop Asking. In the article, Mark (we’re not really on a first name basis) details some of his experiences acting as an Interim CEO of a couple of magazines in Philadelphia. It’s a really great article, and all of his questions are dead on. The implicit assumption of his article is that people started asking these questions at some point, and then stopped. In my work with and study of small startups, it seems these questions don’t get asked initially. If they did the business may never have started, or certainly would have started smarter with a better chance of succeeding.

The questions he brings up cut to the core matters I address at Bizdom U, (as well as in my saucy presentation at TEDx).

The Three Questions You Should Start Asking

Kramer’s first three questions (I’m rephrasing slightly) are:

What is your purpose for existing?
Who is your target customer?
Why does anyone need what you’re selling?

I’m going to take these one at a time.

What is your purpose for existing?

First-time startup entrepreneurs often confuse their business’s purpose in existing with what the entrepreneur hopes to gain from the business. To use a technical term, this is a Big Ass Mistake. Your business’s purpose is most assuredly to help customers satisfy a need – not to bring you personal, spiritual, or emotional fulfillment. If you think that’s why YOUR BUSINESS exists, you’re mistaking your purpose in life (fulfillment) with your business’s purpose (satisfying customers). Confuse this at your own peril. If you keep this straight, you’ll keep your business focused on the customer and helping the customer.

Who is your target customer?

You can’t help people, or more appropriately satisfy customers, if you don’t know who they are and what their needs are. It’s a struggle, but you’ve got to disavow yourself of the notion that your business will appeal to everybody (or some equally ridiculously large subset of everybody). It can’t, it won’t, and it shouldn’t. It will appeal to certain people with common demographics or psychographics and those are the people you need to have in mind and help.

Why does anyone need what you’re selling?

Get out, talk to customers. In person. Face to face. It’s uncomfortable in the digital age, but it will give you deep insight into what clients really want and how to best give it to them. Mark nails it when he says “I have rarely seen a company fail if management literally spoke to customers and gave them what they want.”

A bonus word to educators, consultants, incubators, etc.

If you’re in the position where you’re advising someone on starting up a business, make sure you’re encouraging your advisees to ask these questions. Push them on these questions. Hard. Really hard. The kind of hard that leaves a bruise. That hard. We do no service to people if, in the interest of protecting their feelings, we are not blunt, direct and honest in questioning whether they’ve plumbed the depths of these questions and come up with honest answers. In my opinion, this is the great failing of entrepreneurial education, consultation, advising and incubation: the unwillingness to give honest feedback to someone and tell them their idea (as currently formulated and researched) is most assuredly crap. In the interest of being kind, and not ‘crushing someone’s dream’ we let them blindly soldier forward to their doom. If I see someone running headlong toward the edge of a building, I’m not going to encourage them. I’m not going to try and support them in their dream of flying. I’m going to yell “Hey, asshole, you can’t fly!” We all need to be willing to be that direct and blunt.

Three Questions Entrepreneurs Need to Ask on Day One