From ideation to realization

September 30, 2010 Leave a comment

While I was working at Autodesk, I really liked their tag line “Ideas Realized”. It was simple and had a core message to it: “how to get your ideas to become reality”.  We often link great thinkers with the ideas that came from their minds and the ones that make them a reality, visionaries.

Ideas are cheap

Don’t get me wrong, a great idea is not easy to find. But everyone in his or her own mind get once in a while a great idea; something that would be truly amazing and could change the lives of millions. I am sure there are many people that are claiming right now that they also had an idea similar to Facebook, Twitter and the iPod.

Making it a reality

An idea is just an idea. Making it a reality is quite another challenge. First, you need to ask yourself what does it take to make this happen. Are there any specific technological barriers? What kind of resources and talent do you need? How many steps are needed to your idea to work as planned? How much would it cost? How long will it take for it to happen?

Be precise about your idea

Before going crazy and try to make the impossible happen, make sure that you have a clear idea about your idea. While not always easy, try to be precise. If you are thinking about doing some cool app in the cloud, how it will work? Who will be the primary users of your idea? What problems are you solving? Taking the time to specify clearly what your idea is about will allow you to get more people on board. If you are the only genius that gets it, nobody will be able to help you in making it a reality.

Do you have a plan?

So you have a clear specification of your idea. You now need to build a plan that will get you from paper to delivery. If you need technical problems to solve, what is your plan to get them resolved? If you need funding, did you create a preliminary business plan? If things are too complex, simply start with a plan for the plan. Sounds silly but sometimes a short list of things to hammer out in order to get the plan done is the best way to get the wheels turning.

Build specific milestones

As you get ready to start realizing your idea, you nee to set proper milestones that will allow you to track your progress. As a rule of thumb, I like to have between 5 and 7 milestones for bigger initiatives. For each of the milestones, make sure that you have metrics that can help you quality your level of success. For example, get funding is not enough, you need to specify how much money you need to raise and by which deadline you want to close your round.

Hope this helps you get some of your ideas to realization. Please send me feedback; I always appreciate to receive comments from the blogs that I post.

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Business Confidential: how sensitive is your data?

September 27, 2010 Leave a comment

Do you find sometimes that you are swimming in a world of non-disclosures (a.k.a. NDA), whereas most of them are not really needed? Honestly, I believe that we could live without the majority of NDA’s that we are signing. In this day and age, people qualify anything as sensitive or confidential data – including their business address and who does the cleaning – lol. But seriously, how confidential is the data you want to share? Most of the time, we spend way too much time around the definition of a NDA, only to find out that there is very little information that is being shared.

What are you really afraid of?

How much can someone else do once they learn about your secret sauce? Can they just go and do what you’re planning to do? Information that needs protection is either information that would have an impact on the market (mostly if you are a public company) and specifically hurt your business if it becomes public knowledge. General direction of a business or a vague idea about your business plan does not cut it.

What competition would do?

That’s one of the most important question you need to ask yourself. What would be the impact if your competitor were to learn about this so-called confidential information? If the impact is low or nil, then there is not much you should be concerned about. Of course, if you have specific trade secrets or revolutionary new product coming, you want to make sure to safely guard this information.

Do you have just ideas?

You are in trouble if you have just a bunch of ideas but without the ability to execute them – NDA or not. People should spend more time on execution that to worry about others stealing their ideas. Beyond accusing others of taking your ideas, focus on making your ideas and plan a reality. If you execute well, competitors should never have enough time to beat you to the market. Nothing in an NDA is stopping you from badly executing – so stop blaming the others if you failed.

How much do you really need to disclose?

Again, learn to be selective about what you disclose. We actually say less when there is no NDA in place. People have a tendency to talk a lot more because “we can do it in confidence”. Staying quiet is the best method to protect confidential information. Let me burst your bubble and let you know that people still talk even with an NDA in place. Maybe not officially but people like to talk. Companies that have a culture of staying quiet have a better chance of keeping confidential information to themselves.

Learn to sign NDA’s when they are really needed. Talk less and focus more on your execution – these are the best tricks to stay ahead of the game and keep your information confidential.

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Online Marketing 2.0 and the end of instant gratification

June 3, 2010 1 Comment

For anyone that has been heavily involved with online marketing and social media well knows that things are not as easy as they used to be. Far much than just a simple checklist, corporations need to have a well thought plan for their online marketing strategy. No longer can you whip up a few activities and pretty web pages and achieve instant gratification.

Online marketing and social media are now CORE
A Marketing team cannot anymore simply think of online marketing and social media as secondary to having a web site. These are now core and at the heart of today’s Web 2.0 consumers. I would even go as far that the evolution of social media is pushing us closer to a Web 3.0 experience; where personalization, social media integration and the return of industry experts are cornerstone of a leading online marketing strategy.

Results WILL take time (no matter what you do)
One of the hardest component of an online marketing strategy is to understand today’s complexity is achieving media coverage and marketing buildup. Each consumer is bombarded with a heavy dose of content and you cannot expect to cut thru the noise just because you just announced a cool new product and posted a funny video on YouTube. You need to make sure you have the right channels and networks to spread the news.

Building the network and media channels BEFORE you need them
While social media channels such as Twitter followers and Facebook Fan/Like pages are amazing networks to help you create any form of viral marketing, these need to be built before you can use them. This is where a Web 3.0 approach centered on increasing your credibility and showcasing your industry expertise will pay off greatly. Of course, this will require you to invest in vehicles such as writing eBooks/Whitepapers & blogs, taking part in industry panels and providing sounds bites for journalists and industry analysts.

Industry expertise and credibility comes at a price (and takes time)
This is where I find that most corporations are missing the mark. Companies are too quick to drop any investments in writing whitepapers, or contributing on a REGULAR basis to their Company blog. The deeper your content bank is, the stronger you can make a case on your industry expertise. The longer you create such content (and please make it unbiased as much as you possibly can), the more credible you will be. This will take a serious commitment of human resources, time and financial investment.

If you’ve done this the right way, you will eventually get some serious momentum and once you have inertia, you will suddenly be able to leverage this in a serious way; only then can you really take advantage of it and really drive forward your entire business. It might take a few months or even more than a year but just don’t give up too fast and you will thank me once you ride the wave of online marketing success.

Add to FacebookAdd to DiggAdd to Del.icio.usAdd to StumbleuponAdd to RedditAdd to BlinklistAdd to TwitterAdd to TechnoratiAdd to Yahoo BuzzAdd to Newsvine

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Promos: how to devalue a product really fast

May 28, 2010 Leave a comment

Over the past couple of days, I’ve received a few marketing emails that was offering me great discounts and promos. This got me thinking that many companies are just great at diminishing the real value of their products by having a disorganized, badly planned schedule of discounts and extensions of promos. Well planned and organized promos that fit within a global strategy do have some value, but you need to follow a few strict rules.

Promos need a hard time limit
If  you keep extending your promos again and again, you basically create a behaviour by which most customer will just wait until the next promo comes in before buying your software. It does not take much for a customer base to understand that you usually extend promos; so they do not necessarily feel the rush to go and buy before the deadline. No matter what, pick an end date to all your promos and stick to it.

Move away from cyclical or calendar based promos
Again, you want to prevent behaviours that make consumers wait for the next promo to arrive. So if you have a bad habit of having end of month/quarter/year sales, you are teaching your customers to wait for a given time. This also applies to making your sales quotas; linearity of sales should be more important than making your numbers. I know a few companies that basically went bankrupt because their customer always waited until the last days of the year to make the big purchases – getting this way the best discount possible. If you want to make such a promo, make it well focused (back to school for example), short enough (black friday sales) and do those rarely.

Discounts don’t need to be that steep
I often see 20-30% discounts (and sometimes even more) on software products. While these have very low COGS and high profit margins, it is not an excuse to go that deep on discounting. Sometimes just a 10 to 15% discount can go a long way. If customer need that of a deep discount to justify buying your product, perhaps your product is not well priced. A promo or discount should be just a little push in order to help the laggard make a buying decision.

Never have a promotion page on your web site
Once in a while you see companies having a permanent promotion tab on their web site. I believe that this is a really bad idea; it shows how much you use promos to drive revenue. Unless I really need to buy your product today, I will just bookmark this page and wait for the right discount to arrive. And since this becomes a widely used behaviour, the discount will indeed come; with sales not coming at the right level (again focus on linearity, not on sales quotas).

Never discount a product at launch (or even before)
I never liked pre-launch and on-launch product discounts. As you release a new product, this is where your customer base should be willing to pay the highest price (assuming your pricing is fair of course). Discounting from the get go just means you are telling your customer: “please disregard our standard pricing, they are bloated and know about it”. Announcing a new release should be exciting enough that your customer want to buy it; if it’s not the case, maybe you want to sit down with your product management team.

If you seeing yourself do some or all of these bad behaviours, you are ultimately hurting the product value and actually leaving money (i.e. better margins) on the table. Be smart about promos and make them fit within a global and well thought out strategy.

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Investment 101: my basic top 10

February 16, 2010 4 Comments

I have been asked recently to give a short 15 min presentation to a bunch of startups about my experience with VCs. This got me thinking about what are my top 10 items that I could tell an entrepreneur about the investment world:

  1. It always takes more time than you think, no matter how realistic you are trying to be. Raising funds it always takes more time than what we initially anticipate. So leave a good buffer before you really NEED that money. Closing a round of funding (or any deal for that matter) is very much like a marathon; but you don’t know how long it will last.
  2. We always need more money than we think. Too many times, I am seeing startups that are trying to raise the bare minimum. Unless your plans happen exactly as you planned, you will overspend here and there. If you have investors that want to give you more, just take the money. No matter how much you worry about dilution, this money early on will most likely cost you less than when you are desperate to get more money.
  3. Your plan won’t realize as planned. Ok we take all this time to build elaborate plans but there is one guarantee in business: plans will change. This is why a startup needs to be agile, as things never happen as we think they should. The plan is key on setting a direction and focus but cannot be followed 100% when it comes to execution.
  4. Get market data at all cost. Spend time browsing the web, looking for any market data that will support your assumptions. Read annual reports of partners and competitors. Purchase market research. I know these can be expensive – but they do provide valuable data that you can actually REFERENCE in your plan.
  5. Find a competitive differentiator. What will make your business unique? What will you do that your competitors cannot or won’t do? If your plan looks like a plan that any other company could write, you are in big trouble. Find things that will differentiate you from the competition (and it does not need to be technology related).
  6. Why will YOU succeed? What are the factors you can provide to the investor that will increase their assurance that you do have a real shot at being successful? Being nice and hard working is just not enough. Take the time to identify the keys to your success.
  7. Draft a clear and concise plan. Investors read a LOT of business plans. So try to make yours clear and concise, and short. Get someone that is not deep into the process to review your business plan. This can be an employee, friends or a business contact (lawyer, accountant, business manager). After a few weeks drafting your plan, you will start losing perspective; getting feedback will be key.
  8. It is virtually impossible to be profitable within 2 years. No matter how much we try, there are a lot of things you need to put in place during the first 2 years of a business. Unless you’ve hit a goldmine of a business, it is very hard to be cash flow positive and profitable before you hit the end of your second year.
  9. What are the goals and objectives of your investors? As you are discussing a potential investment from a VC, take the time to understand how they function. How involved are they? What are there goals and objectives in regards to your business? Do they want to exit in 5 or 10 years? It is ok to ask questions such as these in order to find out if this is a good fit for your business.
  10. Investor relations begin at the first meeting and continue far beyond the closing of the round. Entrepreneurs spend a good deal of time with the investors in order to get the money. In my view, there is a lot more work to be done after as you need to make sure that your investors really understand how your business is doing. Don’t let an investor become pessimistic about your business; this is a hole that is very hard to get out of…

Looking forward to your feedback on this yet another top 10 list :-)

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Agility in a small company

October 19, 2009 Leave a comment

Being agile is one of those words you hear a lot when you talk to startups and small companies. The other time, an entrepreneur even told me that this allowed his company to change product plans every week and serve each customer in a unique way. He went on to affirm that this was great asset that allowed his company to react better and faster than his “bigger competitor”.

Why is this the wrong type of agility?

Te begin I will say that I truly believe that agility is a key asset in a company but this is not a permit to improvise and not knowing exactly where you are going. Take as an example a football game. The goal (mission) is very clear and each and every player has practiced and rehearsed a well-defined playbook (business plan, strategy). When the quarterback gives the ball to the running back, they both are executing on a common plan taken from the playbook. Agility comes when the running back is trying to go the furthest and needs to react to competition and other factors that prevents him to run the play as planned. The goal and direction has not changed, just the execution of the play. As soon as the running back has finished his run, the offense teams immediately huddles back (communication) and selects another play from the playbook. You don’t see any player changing the goal or the overall strategy, just changing the execution has it happens.

Agility in product planning

As market conditions and competitions change the landscape, it is indeed important to be able to rapidly REVISIT your own product plans and strategy – but this is not an excuse to not take the time to build the right type of product roadmap and long term strategy. Agility comes in the form of rapidly ADJUSTING your plans; not making new ones up every other day. While product plans sometimes need to be updated regularly, no market really moves so fast that you can’t plan ahead. Yes there are sometimes major game changers but these don’t happen all the time – and ideally you want to be the one changing the game.

Be agile where you need to be

Building great products takes time and you need to stay focused. Agility is great when it comes to your development process or a planning process – but much less when you are executing. Of course, you need to adapt when you see that your plan won’t work out but this cannot be a knee jerk reaction. At the end of the day, don’t confuse your ability to react to market conditions and competition with lack of planning and long-term vision. And if there are so many bumps on the road that you can’t foresee and your so-called “agility” barely allows you to survive, you’re already dead – you just don’t know it yet …

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“No battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won without one.”

September 11, 2009 2 Comments

–Dwight D. Eisenhower

Thanks to Camille Caron (Corporate Marketing Manager, Matrox Graphics Inc.)  for this great quote. Camille also adds: “This quote reminds me how often we’re trying to hit a moving target. As leaders, we need to communicate our vision (i.e. have a plan) so that our “troops” will follow. However, as we learn more about our target audience, do market research, or hit development roadblocks, we need to adapt and adjust our course.”

This is so very true and I always have a problem when the CEO will justify not having a plan because things will change, that’s how the Company can stay agile, nimble and flexible. Just like I don’t understand Product Teams that do not have a product roadmap longer than 3-6 months. Of course, things will change but this no excuse for not having a vision, direction, a plan. Great companies don’t succeed without plans or roadmaps …

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What is Strategy?

August 24, 2009 3 Comments

Strategy is one of the words that people use all the time but I find many times that there is confusion between a strategy, something that is strategic and tactics.

Strategy vs. Tactics

A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. The word strategy has military connotations, because it derives from the Greek word for general*. Strategy is different from tactics. In military terms, tactics is concerned with the conduct of an engagement while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked. In other words, how a battle is fought is a matter of tactics: whether it should be fought at all is a matter of strategy. One analogy is chess:

Chess strategy consists of setting and achieving long-term goals during the game — for example, where to place different pieces — while tactics concentrate on immediate manoeuvre. These two parts of chess thinking cannot be completely separated, because strategic goals are mostly achieved by the means of tactics, while the tactical opportunities are based on the previous strategy of play.

Strategy vs. Strategic

While there might be many elements classified as strategic, you can only have ONE strategy. Yes this strategy can have multiple components, stages, etc but there is only one business plan. For me, an element that is strategic just means that is has some level of importance AND linked to the strategy. If it’s an important tactical step (like closing a big deal that will help the quarter) but NOT linked to the strategy, then it’s just important. The difference is subtle but significant when you have discussion regarding the strategy.

The Importance of Setting a Goal

A strategy is as valid as it gets you somewhere. What is your ultimate checkmate move? If the end goal is not clear, then it is virtually impossible to have a solid strategy. Again you can have important actions that feel strategic but if you can’t have the entire organization move like an army aiming at a clear and well defined (and communicated) goal, you will just be moving left and right. Also, you need to make sure that this goal is realistic…

Executing on the Strategy

There are many people needed in order to achieve your goal. How many of them need to understand the strategy? What level of information do you need to provide? Of course there is the classic “we will tell you on a need to know basis” or “trust us, we know what we are doing”. Unlike the army where people are trained to execute orders, people working in IT companies need to get the bigger picture. More info is better. Employees that understand how they can contribute on the strategy will allow you to better perform on tactics. Good and frequent communications, well-driven teamwork will also be key on successfully executing on your strategy.

*Oxford English Dictionary (2 ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 1989.

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