joi, 15 septembrie 2016

Seth's Blog : The professional pushes back

The professional pushes back

The architect refuses to design the big, ugly building that merely maximizes short term revenue. She understands that raising the average is part of her job.

The surgeon refuses to do needless surgery, no matter how much the client insists. He doesn't confuse his oath with his income.

The marketer won't help his client produce a spammy campaign filled with tricks and deceptions, because she knows that her career is the sum of her work.

The statesman won't rush to embrace the bloodlust of the crowd, because statesmen govern in favor of our best instincts, not our worst ones.

There are plenty of people who will pander, race to the bottom and figure out how to, "give the public what it wants." But that doesn't have to be you. Professionals have standards. Professionals push back.

PS, and just in time, we're thrilled to announce that the next two sessions of altMBA are open for applications as of today. Ask someone who's done it.

       

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miercuri, 14 septembrie 2016

Seth's Blog : The clown suit

The clown suit

It's ever more tempting to put on the (metaphorical) clown suit.

It allows you to provoke with impunity.

Clowns enjoy a different relationship with the laws of physics.

You can spray someone in the face with a seltzer bottle, hit them with a pie or tweak them, and then laugh about it.

No one is allowed to comment on the size of your shoes or how many people you're packing in that car or the weak link between you and reality.

Crowds gather and no one takes the implications of what you say seriously, but they cheer. Tricksters change our culture. Noisy voices get more followers in social media...

The challenge, as PT Barnum, Don Rickles and the National Enquirer have found, is that while the suit is easy to put on, it's almost impossible to take it off. After a while, people start to notice that you're not actually keeping your promises.

[and regular readers might enjoy this response post, from 11 years ago]

       

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marți, 13 septembrie 2016

Seth's Blog : A value creation checklist

A value creation checklist

This project you're working on, the new business or offering, what sort of value does it create?

Who is it for? What mindset and worldview and situation?
Is it paid for by organizations or individuals?
Does it solve a new problem or is it another/better solution to an old problem?
Will a few users pay a lot, or will a lot of users pay a little?

Do the people you seek to serve know that they have the problem you can solve for them?

Are you leveraging an asset that others don't have?
Are you hiring talent and reselling it at a profit?
Are you combining the previously uncombined in a way that's hard to duplicate?
Are you building technology that will create its own inertia, disrupting existing value chains and improving as it goes?
Are you doing something that other can't do, or won't do, and will that continue?

If you're solving an existing problem, are you hoping that people will switch to your solution, or is the goal to get users who are new to the market or unaware of existing solutions?
Do you need a salesforce? What percentage of the value that's created is created by talented salespeople?

How will people find out about the solution you are offering?

Are you a freelancer or an entrepreneur?

If you're selling to organizations, what will your customer tell the boss?
How long is the sales and adoption cycle? Can you wait that long?
If you're building a brand, how long will you have to invest (lose money in building trust and awareness) before you profit (generate profit margins that make up for your investment)?

Is there a network effect?
Are you building a natural monopoly?

Is there any substantial reason why your customers won't simply switch to a cheaper alternative?
How much better do you need to be than the status quo to get someone to leap and switch to your solution?

What are the externalities and side effects like? How will the establishment of your solution change the market, the environment and the culture?

How long can you sustain this? What happens when the market changes, or you do?

What's the value you create over a lifetime relationship with a customer? Does that lifetime value establish a need for an endless supply of new customers, or are you able to heavily invest in just a few?

We need what you're working on... and focusing your solution makes it far more likely that it will find the traction it needs.

       

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