Mon 21 May 2007

Making Good on a Promise

Posted by jtmcarthur under Startups
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Thanks to the amazing support staff at HostMySite and the help of a good friend, I am finally starting to make good on my promise to be A Business Resource for Entrepreneurs and Inventors.  I’ve been faithfully blogging about once a week and including suggestions and commentary on how to succeed as an entrepreneur.  But I hadn’t really started to create a library of resources, which is what I want to do. 

What I needed to do first was learn a little bit about coding in HTML.  It’s hard to believe that only 3 months ago, the only person in my immediate family who could even remotely begin to code in HTML, XML, or CSS was my 12-year old son.  But I have finally learned how to modify WordPress templates, create new pages, and link to them.  I modified the dead-end tabs that were across the top of my blog (thanks to everyone who pointed that out), and they now lead to some resources, which I hope you will find helpful.  Hey, I even uploaded a picture of me taken in the waiting area of a conference center in Tokyo a few years back, so you can now see who is writing this blog.

Check out the Books and Resources pages, and more importantly, send suggestions of other books and on-line resources that will help this community of entrepreneurs.  I’ll be updating it frequently.

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Thu 17 May 2007

What Can Go Right?

Posted by jtmcarthur under Startups
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I believe there are three critical ingredients in an entrepreneur:

  • Faith
  • Trust
  • Passion 

In Business Plans That Work, the authors state:

We find that entrepreneurs often ask, “What can go right?” whereas nonentrepreneurs ask, “What can go wrong?”

Asking “What can go right?” is an act of faith.  It is faith that you have been given sufficient talent and drive, which, when combined with the experience you have earned, will enable you to succeed.  But you also need trust.  In my case, it was trust in a business partner, whom I’ve known for 20 years.  It was also the encouragement and support of a trusted friend, Kirby, who had preceded me in the entrepreneurial plunge.  His life seems to exemplify the values promoted by Pay It Forward. No one makes it as an entrepreneur without someone beside them, in front of them or behind them as a support. (more…)

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Wed 9 May 2007

Innovating for Outcomes

Posted by jtmcarthur under Product development, Startups, Technology
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When I worked at market researcher, IDC, I met Tony Ulwick, CEO of Strategyn, who is a pioneer in the field of outcomes-based innovation.  The folks who introduced me to Tony were from Innosight, which is a company founded by Clayton Christensen.  IDC’s notion at the time was that by partnering with Innosight and Strategyn, we could provide a service to technology companies to help them with product innovation.  This assistance would help those technology companies innovate to better serve the jobs (or achieve the outcomes) that their customers or prospects were trying to do.

One of the basic premises of the methodology is that customers can “hire” a variety of things to get the job done.  Here’s a simple example.  You’re stuck in an airport for several hours, as I was today, and you are looking for something to do.  What are the things that you could “hire” to pass the time or prevent boredom?  (more…)

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Mon 30 Apr 2007

An Idea is Not a Product. A Product is Not a Business.

Posted by jtmcarthur under Funding, Startups
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Several times over the last two months, I’ve been approached by people saying something along the lines of, “I’ve got this great idea for a new product that could generate millions of dollars in monthly revenue, but I don’t have the time, money, or expertise to develop it.  What should I do with my idea?”  A similar question was posted on LinkedIn, and I took the time to post an answer.   My answer to the question in turn prompted a small flood of additional requests, and I received, for what it’s worth, the LinkedIn designation, “Best Answers in Business Plans,” by the guy who posted the question.

I encourage you to take a look at some of the other answers that were posted.  For those of you who don’t want to take the time, however, I’ll sum up.  Here are the Top Five responses to what you should do with an idea for which you have no time, money or expertise to develop. (more…)

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Thu 12 Apr 2007

Community Building and An Unsolicited Webhosting Endorsement

Posted by jtmcarthur under Communities, Networking, Startups
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I can not stress enough the importance for startups of having a good web-hosting service and good web presence.  One mistake that I made in launching Walden Technology Partners, Inc., was in not first hiring a website designer (in our case, my niece), finding a good webhosting provider (in our case, HostMySite) and getting the site up and running from day one, when I changed my LinkedIn profile.

Evolving a blog from one that is a single orator addressing an audience of none into an interactive and supportive community of like-minded entrepreneurs requires some real work.  And I am getting a great deal of advice on the topic.  Here’s a sampling from my expert-in-residence, my brother, Ken.  I received the following advice from him today:

(more…)

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Wed 11 Apr 2007

The Virtuous Cycle in Marketing and Sales

Posted by jtmcarthur under Affiliate Marketing, Branding, Storage and Data Management
[2] Comments

My brother, Ken, has often said, “If you focus narrowly enough and spend a few months researching intensely, you can become the world’s leading expert on a topic.”  The key here is focusing narrowly enough.  As you can tell, if you clicked on the link, Ken became, if not the, at least a leading expert on affiliate marketing. 

Because Ken focused on affiliate marketing, he created something else which is valuable for many of you who are trying to launch a new venture.   He created a community.  And from that, he also created a virtuous sales and marketing cycle.  Ken started with a service, which he developed, sold and delivered by himself. Later, he built training materials and supported the authoring of several books, which, indirectly helped promote the service.  He’s now developed a conference business that helps promote the training materials, which helps promote the service.  More than that, however,  he has built up a community of similar companies and actively promotes and speaks at the conferences of his competitors.  And I’m reasonably sure that he retains at least a small sliver of the revenue that passes through his affiliate program to a competitor.

(more…)

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Thu 29 Mar 2007

Secure Content in the Personalization Age

Posted by jtmcarthur under Collaboration, Content management, Security, Startups
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I’ve always been one to appreciate the support of an IT department.  Notice, I didn’t say “a good IT department.”  I mean any IT department.  No matter how underfunded the department, I can pretty much guarantee that an IT department will do a better job of satisfying my information-access, communication and collaboration needs than I can do on my own.   They build, install, and support a variety of email, customer relationship management, accounting, and collaboration tools that make sure that I can do my job better.  Since striking out on my own, however, I am, from an applications perspective, pretty much on my own.

(more…)

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Sun 25 Mar 2007

Personal Brand

Posted by jtmcarthur under Branding, Startups
1 Comment

We had some interesting conversation around the office this week.  I was doing some research and wanted to see who I knew in my LinkedIn network that might know someone at the company I was researching.  My partner looked at one person’s LinkedIn profile and wondered aloud about how the guy’s current employer might react to reading his profile.  He said, “It reads like a resume’, and it looks like he’s looking for a job.”  So my partner and I talked for a bit about how the world has changed.  Employees may have great company loyalty, but only as long as the company shows them similar loyalty.  It’s not a one-way street.  So employees (and executives) are taking more interest in developing their own network and personal brand, independent of their employers.  If the employees are treated right, their employers will benefit. 

(more…)

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Sat 17 Mar 2007

A Startup for Startups

Posted by jtmcarthur under Compensation, Networking, Startups
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The last two weeks have been a bit overwhelming.  As some of you know, I recently made the decision to leave IDC, after 11 very good years.  I gave my notice about six weeks ago, but kept it quiet for two weeks, so that the really-senior management team could work on transition and communication plans.  The announcement went out on Valentine’s Day, and since then, things have been rather frenetic. 

Since I haven’t had a chance to speak with everyone individually, I thought I should take the time in this first blog entry to answer the frequently asked questions.  This will be like the time I tripped over my cat and broke my toe, and the doctor decided that in order to preserve my avocation in hiking, he should cast my foot up to my knee.  Who knew? After repeating the broken-toe story 10 times, I thought it would be easier and I would get more work done, if I just typed up and passed out the answers to the frequently asked questions.  So that’s what I did.

(more…)

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