Why You Should Share Your Ideas

Time and again it had been made clear to me, by family and friends, that talking to people about your business ideas is a big mistake. In a world where information is so freely available and spread at light speed, we are protective of that which we can still keep secret.

For many entrepreneur and even business leaders, this is the case when it comes to business ideas. At first glance it does make sense to keep your next big product to yourself. Because somewhere out there someone is bound to take it and make it their own, right? And that's what I was told again and again until I no longer questioned it. However once you actually think about it, you will see that sharing your ideas can be one of the best things you can do for your business.

Image taken from 'Share To Make Ideas Happen' by Behance Team

In order to explain, I'll be using a Forbes article by Patrick Hull as a backdrop. Patrick has over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience to his name and his article works through some key points as to why you should be talking about your ideas.

"I’ve heard a lot of great concepts for startups. I try to work with and help the ones I really liked. I don’t try to take those ideas and make them my own. For starters, I’ve got too much else on my plate to worry about taking someone else’s idea. I think this is true for most people"

I can personally vouch for this. Through my own entrepreneurial journey I have met individuals who have the resources and know-how to take my idea and turn it into a business tomorrow. But they haven’t. Why? Because ideas are cheap and you are almost certainly more passionate and committed to you’re idea than 99.999% of the world. Talking about your idea is easy, but turning it into a real business is the truly hard part and something which most aren't prepared to do. So don't be afraid to speak to powerful and capable people about your idea. Often if these people like your idea they will want to help you to prosper and succeed, not steal it and show you the exit.

"I’ve found it incredibly helpful to bounce ideas off others and ask for their feedback. In return, I’ve gained valuable insight and perspective that I wouldn’t have otherwise received…In many cases, they might be able to connect you with someone else who can help turn your idea into reality”

If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, having a strong network is essential. No one person can do everything and so we are constantly reliant on the knowledge and skill of others. This is where the value of speaking to other comes in. Just as Patrick says, some of the biggest realizations you will have in building your business will come from others. I know that some of the most drastic changes my business has already undergone in our short few months of development have come from people’s feedback. Meetings, pitching events and informal discussion have almost always yielded valuable feedback that have lead to a more refined idea and therefore end product. Also, by engaging in conversation about your idea, you can utilize and explore the networks of those around you. For instance, I have managed to find some of the key suppliers I will need from speaking to friends and family.

Image taken from 'Facebook and the Small World Experiment' by Winnie Hsia

It is said that we are all separated by only ‘6 degrees of separation’. So can you imagine how many people you could potentially get in touch with by asking just a few of the folks you know about who they know and who they could refer you too. There is certainly big potential in it. So get out there and get talking about your ideas, because there plenty more people out there to help, than there are to steal your idea.

Thanks as always for reading and if you have any thoughts please post them in the comments section below.

For more information on the article go to: http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickhull/2013/06/13/talk-about-your-idea-it-wont-get-stolen/

Top 3 Things To Make The Average Working Week A More Wholesome One

We all want to live our lives to the best of our abilities. We want to share experiences with people and indulge ourselves in the little things, like chocolate or wine, that bring a smile to our face. I'd like to add a few more things to the normal week that I think will make each one more fulfilling, productive and enjoyable.

1. First is almost always the best and so the most important point on this list. Reading is one of those things that many of the most successful and prolific business men and women do on a daily basis. Apart from the obvious benefit of not having a screen in your face, which is a big no no before bed, it allows you to distance yourself from the world around you. It can be humbling and soothing to take some time out of your hectic schedule and engross yourself in a book. The topic is almost irrelevant. For instance I just read 'The Martian', which is a phenomenal read, and once I finished that I moved to a Jeremy Clarkson book. The effect though remains the same. You go to sleep more relaxed and more distanced from the issue you got into bed with that have been bugging you since you left work. This means that when you get up you're more likely to be ready for the day to come, and so the benefits accumulate. Want more reasons to read? Well here's another 10!

2. Always make time for others. When work or life gets you down its important to be able to take a step back from it all and enjoy a few casual hours with some friends. I used to think that being with my mates was sucking time out of other work I needed to do. Oh how wrong I was. Once I started to think about it I realised that being with my friends offered a get away from the other stresses in my life. It's so crucial in the world that we live in that we can get away from it all and just enjoy the company of others, away from screens and noise. You're relationships with the people around you probably hold you together more than you realise so give them (and you) the time and respect they deserve.

3. Do something a little different every week. Now I'm not asking you to try snails or go bungie jumping because that would be impractical and (subjectively) disgusting. But trying a new cafe or restaurant, seeing an old friend, even going for a walk when you normally wouldn't can make a big difference. There is a weird satisfaction that many people derive from doing something different to the norm. A sense of achievement that they have for a few key hours broken the normal progression of the week. Variety is the spice of life after all!


Thanks for reading and as always please leave a comment if you have any thoughts on this post. Maybe you have some more ideas to add or have used these points already in your own life. I'd love to hear if you have.

Be well and I'll be back in a few days with some more tips, tricks and thoughts on the entrepreneurship and the wider world.

Can Entrepreneurship be taught at University?

As part of my Uni degree we spend a year looking at things like  'what is an entrepreneur?' and 'what makes a person entrepreneurial?'. These are both valid questions and ones with not so simple answers. I think however, that an even harder question to answer is can entrepreneurship be taught at University? As someone who is trying to be entrepreneurial by developing a business to address an issue I have identified, I feel that the answer is no.

Lets stop for a second and consider what a university is. For a kick off its an educational institute that has units with guidelines and marking criteria. Completing a subject and progressing your degree requires you to hit certain standards and work towards a knowledge base that will allow you to answer questions in a test. This process is repeated again and again until you hit the right number of credit points to get your degree. The process as a whole is very linear, worlds away from unpredictability and uncertainty of an entrepreneurial lifestyle.

Last year Business News Daily spoke to 15 successful entrepreneurs and asked them what they thought it meant to be an entrepreneur. Sandra Ponce de Leon of Trunx said "An entrepreneur takes a giant leap of faith in the pursuit of a belief" and David Greenberg, CEO of Updater, said that "entrepreneurship is completely dedicating yourself to creating something out of nothing". Leaps of faith and creating ideas from nothing, are not what I would associate with a Uni degree. At its centre, entrepreneurship is about taking your own bright ideas and turning your vision into a reality. There's no one way of going about it and no set of steps that you must do to achieve your goals. Furthermore there isn't a set time frame that things will also be done in. It can take as long to make your first entrepreneurial steps as it will to complete an entire degree.

All of which brings me to a person who I feel has to deal with this paradigm every day, my unit co-ordinator/lecturer. He has experience in starting up his own business and has learnt what its like to do so. In working through this semester I have seen how he has tried to foster an atmosphere of creativity and encouraged everyone in the unit to try pursue their entrepreneurial passions. We must not forget though that he is also a lecturer who must come up with assessments that can accurately gauge the content we are taught. And so here is the issue. How do you create assessments that can accurately quantify the work of a student when each individual is on a different path? Each idea is different, and will require different amounts of time and resources to make it work. Therefore at any one time each person my be at different places along their path towards potentials success. Everyone isn't always going to be on the same page and yet we must all do so in order to hit those marking criteria. Its a frustrating situation for all involved.

So whats the solution or is there even one needed? I'd really love to hear your opinions in the comment section below. It amazing seeing the views go up on this blog but it's rewarding and thrilling to hear back from you, the reader, so I encourage you to do so.

Thanks for reading and for more articles that agree and disagree with me, I've put some links below.

Forbes - http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgedeeb/2014/06/19/can-entrepreneurship-be-taught-or-are-you-born-that-way/

Richard Branson - http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/can-entrepreneurship-be-taught

Wired - http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/12/yes-entrepreneurship-can-be-taught/

Hard Work is Everything

"Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.”- Unknown

There's no way of getting around it, hard work is one of the biggest keys to success.

It doesn't matter if it's Steve Jobs, Richard Branson or Serena Williams, they all worked as hard as they could to become what they are today. Putting in the hard yards doesn't just mean spending months or years working towards your goals. It's also about getting knocked down and getting back up, being put down but never loosing sight of your goal. It's about doing things that most wouldn't do to achieve their vision.

Thinking back to my previous post, or more specifically to Michelle More, I remember her saying that she spent the first 3 years of her career at ultimo working in her bedroom. Big things truly do come from humble beginnings. Jim Carrey, Sylvester Stallone and even Mr Bond himself Daniel Craig were at one point during their lives homeless. And yet today they are some of the most successful and well known people on earth. Why? Because they didn't give in at the first sign of hard work.

To give a more personal example I'd like to use my Dad. Today, along with a dedicated team, he runs a business called Coolkidz,which sells products for mothers, babies and young children. It's been a few years since its conception and I can tell you that today it looks a lot different to it did on day 1. I remember distinctly the afternoon when a 20ft container was lowered onto our driveway to be emptied into the garage. No warehouse, no employees and little to no orders. Thinking back I'm not sure if I could have turned a garages' worth of stock into enough to fill a warehouse that's over 16,000 square feet in size. But he did, and he did it because he pulled endless late nights and early starts. He made phone calls at cringe worthy times to overseas suppliers and spent countless hours on planes chasing new products. For every problem there was going to be a solution. Right there is (as I eluded to in my last post) the key to being an entrepreneur. Not taking no for an answer.

So the next time someone throws a spanner into the works of your big idea remember that being able to overcome those challenges is what will bring you more success than giving in will ever would.

Being an Entrepreneur Isn't About Being Smart, It's About Being Strong

I recently watched an episode of Peter Jones's 'How We Made Our Millions' which is essentially a TV show looking at successful entrepreneurs and how they have become what they are today. As someone who is aiming to be an entrepreneur and create their own wealth I was interested to see not just how effective some enterprise models can be, but also what it takes to drive it. I was frankly quite shocked. To help understand what I'm about to say it would be ideal to watch 20:45 to 21:10 of the episode or even the whole thing if possible.

Many of us would think that being an entrepreneur and becoming wealthy are very similar things and furthermore that its more about having a great idea than hard work. Of course its very important that if you want to be entrepreneurial, you put a lot of time into thinking about what idea you want to turn into a business and how you are going to do it. But the side of enterprising and driving your idea that isn't that well known is the side which takes the biggest toll. Let me explain.

They say that behind every great man is a great women. Behind (almost) every great entrepreneur is someone who is fastidious about being in control and doubts themselves at every step. In the episode I mentioned above at 42:20 Peter speaks to a former investor of one of the subjects, Michelle Mone, who started the lingerie company Ultimo. He mentions, quite powerfully, that under that rock hard exterior of determination and strength, Michelle is actually quite fragile. Many people trying to get a business of the ground find that their own worst enemy is themselves and fight this doubt, giving them the drive to get things done and make them work. So while the public sees these figures turning rags to riches, behind the scenes is a person who finds themselves fighting their own self doubt every day.

Really then, those entrepreneurs who succeed do so, not because they've got the best idea, but because they have the strength to carry on in the face of overwhelming risk and failure. There is a lesson in this. Often barriers standing between you and making it big are ones created not by external factors, but by yourself. Instead of saying I can't, people like Michelle simply don't take no for an answer. Any issues are just problems to be solved and deal breakers generally don't exist.

Really then, if you want to be an entrepreneur, be ready to challenge yourself on both a mental and physical level and get your mental hiking boots on because there's gonna be a big mountain to climb. But by chipping away at it every day and keeping your head up, you'll get there.

Video by Armando Macedo:

A Reflection On The Pitfalls Of Being Different In Business

For this blog I want to reflect on my experiences of trying to complete an assignment for my Uni degree. The assignment was basically to generate profit for charity with $5 seed funding in under 4 weeks. Now while I can feel already many of you are thinking right now of brilliant fast money enterprises, there's an issue with almost all of them.

What is that you may ask? Well being different doesn't always pay dividends.

Take for instance the first idea my group had. It was essentially to offer an errand/lunch/coffee service to lecturers and tutors who don't always have the time to get their own food. They give us $1 or $2 and we do a job for them. While this is by no means groundbreaking its definitely a little different to your lemonade stand or raffle. We felt that this model was easy to carry out, required $0 funding to get it started and could easily be managed by the 3 of us. And so we began speaking to customers and finding out what they wanted, got a fairly good response too..

So wheres the issue?

The issues lies in that we barely got any orders. While other groups were doing simple stuff like baking cookies or scones or organizing movie nights and bringing in revenue, we weren't. My group chose to try and do something that was not the norm when it comes to rapid fund raising. To be honest I felt a bit disheartened to see that trying to be a little different made nowhere near as much cash as doing what everyone else does.

So is it wrong to do something generic?

Not at all. Let's not forget that these models are so common because they consistently work well and are capable of bringing in revenue fast and in a relatively easy manner. It's just that when you're told on a weekly basis by your educators to be different, try new things and stand out, it all seems a little pointless. Will this stop me and my fellow students from trying outlandish ideas? Absolutely not, as failure and learning from failure is an essential component of entrepreneurship and business success.

So where does that leave us?

Yes it is true that the most common business models for fundraising are generally the most reliable and successful compared to more left-field ideas. But trying new things and testing out new models is truly the key to making bigger strides in the business world. Therefore I'd recommend using a common business model to get you started on your entrepreneurial path, but always be thinking outside the box when looking towards the future.

How Tech is Making Face-to-Face Relationships More Important Than Ever

Image Courtesy of IABC: https://www.iabc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/iabc-articles-november-2010.jpg

It's so easy today to jump onto the Internet and get in touch with your friends and family through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or even the humble Email. Right now you're reading this blog, which allows me to communicate and express opinions, which are accessible almost anywhere in the world. The power that we have today at our fingertips is truly breathtaking but raises a few issues. Having the ability to communicate via a screen or microphone negates the need, for many people, to meet in person. This is particularly detrimental in a business, where communication and customer relations are so paramount to success.

I think that Forbes contributor Alan Hall sums it up quite eloquently by saying that "Award-winning business builders know their customers as well as they know their own families". How are you going to get to know your customer, and more importantly, make a great impression, via pixels and speakers? Today its becoming more and more overlooked just how crucial it is to meet someone, shake their hand and sit down for a conversation. Making the time and effort to see your customers, even if its every now and then and even if its representative, gives a far stronger impression of care and concern for the customers needs than a Skype call ever could.

We as a species are a social group. We have senses refined for taking in our surroundings and languages designed to communicate with those around us. There is an intangible difference to meeting someone compared to speaking on the phone or the computer. Achieve Solutions have a brilliant article on this. Here's just a small excerpt:

When we laugh together, smile at one another, shake hands, or share a meal, we bond on a primal level that cannot be replaced by electronic communication. We literally take in many cues from our various senses—sight, sound, feel, taste and smell—when we interact face-to-face. There’s even scientific evidence that we react to and process the scent of others on a subconscious or unconscious chemical level.

In the past it used to be a given that if you wanted to have a meeting you'd sit down at a large table and talk face to face. Today however, with the advent of modern technology it may appear that this is a thing of the past. But I can't stress on stronger terms how important, and this goes out more to my generation than anyone else, meeting people in real life is to the success of your business. Don't be tempted by the speed of online communication. Yes, it will get things done potentially earlier but in the big picture long-lasting relationships melded by personal contact will always outweigh time savings.

For another great article on what I'm on about have a look at IABC's piece 'What’s So Great About Face-to-Face?'

3 Ways to Help Improve Your Chances of Developing a Successful Enterprise

1. Start off by thinking about what the customer you want to target may need, not what you think they need. These days it's quite common for entrepreneurs to come up with brilliant ideas to address problems that simply don't exist. To give an example, I’m currently in the process of developing an NFC product that I want to sell to schools. In developing the business model, we started off by thinking about what’s wrong with schools in our subjective opinion. While this generated some innovative solutions, once we spoke to actual schools, our actual customers, we realised that the issues which they needed solving were worlds away from what we had identified. This lead to us changing the purpose of the product that we initially envisioned, into something the customer would actually buy based on real feedback.
   
2. Customer focus is key and never loose sight of this. The customer is the single most important part of a functional and successful business. If you are not building, designing or offering a service that pleases and fulfils the needs of a customer, your business is unlikely to thrive. Remember it’s the cash coming out of their wallet that allows you expand and maintain your business.
   
3. ‘Be 10 times better now to be 4 times better when you come to market’. This is a saying that I have shamelessly copied from Dr Buzz Palmer, CEO of STC  and an individual fluent in entrepreneurial development. I feel that it’s the best way of expressing how important it is that what you want to create is not just better, its clearly better than anything available today. This ties in with fulfilling the demands of the customer. What you offer has to be so good that it overwhelmingly offsets the investment or ongoing costs to acquire whatever it is that you plan to sell.

For more tips on creating a successful product and business here are some useful articles from Forbes and Inc.

Why Failure is Essential for Great Leadership

We've all had that sinking feeling in the pits of our stomach reading that latest test score or financial report and seeing what we don't like. I can guarantee that even if you tell your friends that you don't care, failure is a life shaping phenomenon. It can drive a knife right through your soul and close off potentials. At least that's what we're taught at school. I'm writing this blog today to show you that not only is failure an essential part of life, but that it's what turns leaders into great leaders.

Failure is a Part of Life
No matter who you are or what you do at some point you have failed at something. Whether you are willing to admit this is a different story! As you fill find on Forbes website "Successful leaders today need...a track record of failure". Many business people would throw their briefcases high in the air in disgust at this comment. We are forever being told 'failure bad, success good' and sure success is nice but failure makes up the stepping stones to success. So what really is failure then?

Understanding Failure for What it is
Success Magazine put it well that "society doesn't reward defeat" but when you look at it closely, failure is almost never defeat. Failure isn't just about not achieving your goals. The most successful people of our time have a track record of taking big risks with the real possibility of failure. Bill Gates's first business Traf-O-Data did not have any success and yet his determination led him to where he is today as one of the richest people on earth. Failure is all about giving something a go. You may not get out what you intended or get anything out at all but at least you've learnt from the experience. learning's which prove invaluable in the success of the next project. Here can be seen that failure isn't a dead end. Rather its a component of the path to success. We try and test and we fail only to take that failure and learn from it to improve our next venture. It raises the question 'how can we learn if we never fail?'. Of which the answer is remarkably straight forward, we cant.

Why is Failure so Good?
The basic plot line of any hero movie is that they face challenges and fail along the way to ultimate success. The reason why these movies have been modelled in this way is because it reflects how we perceive failure. We respect and admire those who have faced challenges and stumbled occasionally towards their goal. Huffington Post sums it up nicely in that "failure should not be a mark of shame, but a badge of honour showing the world that you are willing to try again". The leaders of the next generation need to have failed as some point. They have to have had the 'brought down to earth' sensation of reevaluating and reattempting a goal. As follows of these great leaders it helps us to know that those who we admire have gone through the same emotions as ourselves. It forms tie to that person as we can empathise and relate to their struggles.

All up?
Failure is no longer a mark of embarrassment. It's a way of showing others that they can trust you because you've been there and failed too. A leader could be anyone, however a great leader is born out of their failures. Nothing teaches a lesson harder than trying and failing but most often this gives birth to leadership brilliance.