Tips for Keeping Your Products

You have the next great innovation of the 21^st century to unseat Google. Problem is, you don’t have all the cash reserves Google does. Hmm, what to do? Here are some tips for launching what the lean evangelists of the world refer to as a Minimum Viable Product, or “MVP”.

Homework

1. Define yourself: Not a 20-page business plan. Who is going to read that? Will it even apply two weeks into development? Debatable. Instead, define your business in the existing landscape. Are you disrupting the industry with a new and better approach? (Hint: you should be.) Who exactly can benefit from your solution? If it’s a new product or service, make sure there is demand. A great product that no one wants is a waste of your time and money. Mixergy just offered a compelling piece on this very topic.
2. Existing solutions: Everyone thinks they’re inventing something that doesn’t exist. Possible, but not likely. Do some analysis. See what’s out there, even if remotely in the same vein. Sign up for their services. Learn what works and what doesn’t. The more you can bring to the table, the less time you’ll spend refining during design and development, which will be more costly at that stage to rethink.
3. Research existing tech: Chances are, whatever your idea is, there are pieces of supporting software floating around the interwebs that you can leverage and integrate, at least for now (a fully custom re-arch in 2 years is another story, but you’re not there yet). And some of them are likely to be open source, aka free! This research will, hopefully, give the digital vendor you partner with, a running start.

Budgeting and Vendor Selection

4. Use your cash: Your bank account is not likely to be bottomless. If it is, stop reading this, go buy a surfboard and relax. For the rest of us, the first piece of the puzzle is determining what you can afford. Angels and VCs should not be a consideration at this stage, nor should substantial bank loans. Budget for what you (and your partners) have at your disposal.
5. Selecting the right digital partner – step 1: Find an agency that specializes in working with startups (they exist). Ask them about their typical project costs. If their average client’s budget is 10 times yours, they’re probably not the right size agency for you.
6. Selecting the right digital partner – step 2: Make sure agency you select is accustomed to helping clients vet out the technology vision to support their business plans without charging you consulting fees for planning and exploration. Most firms will blindly offer a ballpark estimate. The gems will spend time analyzing your needs, helping you craft the solution that fits and then offering a proposal.

Perfect Schmerfect

7. Start simple: The lure of scope creep is tough to escape. It’s like when you go car shopping. You start out modest, looking at the base model Toyota Carolla. One week later you’re in the Audi dealership trying to figure out if their fully-loaded A8 will do the job. Included features that are absolutely core to your offering and focus on launching only those. An alpha, beta, v1.0, whatever, should be “just enough”. But whatever you do launch, make sure it’s complete. You want 3 features that work, not 10 features that are half-assed.
8. Soft launch: Do not make the mistake of shouting to the world about your newly minted product with press releases and Facebook fan page announcements. It’s in beta because it’s not ready for hundreds or thousands to begin using it. Hold off on the article in TechCrunch until you can handle that spotlight. Once your audience gives you a thumbs down it will be difficult to recover. Tip-toe for now. Form a line and make people sign up for an invite, which may even help to build the sense of anticipation.
9. Listening & trying: If you followed tip #8, you told only a select few about your product. Hopefully you were humble enough to give this version away for free and ask for feedback, in exchange. This is the hard part. You have to listen to the commentary with one, good ear. Steve Jobs listened with neither, but you’re not Steve Jobs, right? You built your product with a vision and certain demographic in mind. Stay true to this. Make it irreplaceable for that group. Don’t try to cater to everyone or no one will love it. Then once you have an idea of changes you need to make, test out variations and see which works better and run with it.
10. Just ship already: The theme here is to disregard your fears about being perfect. The most successful innovators are exceptional about putting their ego aside and having the balls to ship something to market. They listen and tweak and change course until they find their sweet spot. If you wait until it’s “perfect” it’ll either never happen or someone else will beat you to it.

It’s All Your Fault! So Start Working Harder

I don’t know why so many people blame others for their failures or mishaps in their lives… Maybe it’s their ego, maybe in society failure is seen as weakness, maybe people will make fun of them…Or maybe it’s just easier to blame others for their problems? “It’s not that I’m doing anything wrong, he’s preventing me, or he’s the reason for so and so” I’m not sure why that is though…I don’t understand it. I find it SO easy, after letting go of my ego, to say “I failed because I did this, or didn’t do this.” And the process of learning from it is instantaneous.
I recently started getting into day game, which in the shortest way to describe it, is pick up. But there’s more to it than just meeting hot girls. Day game is about how to “pick up” some one you like whether you’re at the supermarket, the mall, or on the street. (among other places). Who doesn’t want to be able to strike up a conversation with someone they see and like?  In my two month start of this, I’ve drawn an incredible number of parallels between what may seem like completely opposite things. Now, before you turn away and wonder why the heck I’m talking about pick-up on an Entrepreneur website, hear me out!
“She won’t like me because I’m ugly”, ”I’m not ripped like the Jersey Shore guys” , “She’s out of my league”..
“I’m not apart of the Startup cliques, they’re a close circle of friends”, “I don’t have any connections”, “I can’t compete against Company X”, “My product is great, people are just dumb and don’t like it.”
There are plenty of parallels in the excuses people come up with. Most of which they think they have no control over. But here’s the thing, they’re wrong. The only thing preventing a startup from going out there, from competing, or from getting the super hot girl, is the guy or girl in charge not going out there, not making moves and not listening to customer feedback. Now, you may be wondering, well if you’re born Ugly, you really can’t do anything about that… But what gets the attention of woman is confidence. That doesn’t mean you should go out looking like a slob. If 90% of the equation in getting the girl is confidence, knowing how to lead a conversation, knowing how to build attraction, and  most importantly, going out there and approaching, then the 10% of Ugly means NOTHING. But then you must admit something to yourself. If you don’t get girls, which is seen as being manly, you’re half a man…And if you can’t succeed in business, you can’t provide for your family, and that means you’re half a man…So what, not everyone is born the most successful entrepreneur, or the best with woman…So youre half a man… Work on it and become a full man! But look, there’s no reason you should fail. While many failures bring you closer to success in starting companies, that doesn’t mean you will eventually become the next Steve Jobs, but you’ll definitely get luckier, the harder you work. It’s a numbers game. The more approaches, the more rejections, the more you reflect on what YOU did wrong in the previous hundred conversations and learn from them, the closer you are to getting a date.

If you:

If you approach a girl, and you forget about things to say, you could fail.
If you start a company, and aren’t good at writing emails, you could fail.
If you approach a girl and only talk about yourself, you could fail.
If you build a startup and only talk about the produce but don’t listen to feedback, you could fail.
If you approach a girl, and have a great conversation, but then she flakes for a date, you did fail.
If you startup a company, and launch it, get good press, but no one buys your product, you fail.
If you approach 1000000 girls, and you get 1 date, you win.
If you startup 1000000 companies that fail, and get the 1 success, you win…And then everyone can tell you how lucky you are. (Mark Cuban)
And now, think of this… When a guy gets with a girl, they call it “Getting lucky.” Which is odd, because it wasn’t luck. He tried with 10000 girls before, and finally developed the right skills, with the right girl, and won. Or maybe he is naturally good with woman. No one in the startup community thinks it’s luck that they start a great company. Sure there’s a little bit of luck in that equation, in the same way that it’s luck that the girl will like you, because most might not. I know I’ve been on the side that says other guys are lucky because they are gorgeous, and I may be average looking. But when I look at my business and see the success I have had, people tell me I’m lucky. I’m not lucky, I worked hard to get where I am.
So that brings me to my original idea for this post…I realized, the reason I may not be getting girls, isn’t because I am “needy” or don’t like going to clubs, it’s because I haven’t put in the work to get the girl, to figure out how to build attraction, and how to get over approach anxiety. I said to myself “The only reason is because I have not worked hard enough at it… And if I work hard enough at it, I can succeed.” And you know what, I had been putting in the time (temporarily stopped to focus on my last stretch of game development) and I had been making progress. The minute you realize the reason you fail is no fault other than yours, and truly look in at yourself and say ‘I need to take responsibility for every single thing’ you will not only feel great, but you’ll be on the road to success. Just like in business, no one will like your startup if you don’t have the confidence in yourself. How can you pitch and convey confidence and energy if you aren’t happy? You need to love your idea and yourself, before anyone else does, in the same way a girl won’t like you unless you like yourself first. You need to get your validation from within.
When you go to networking events, maybe you’re afraid to say hi and introduce yourself. Well, I think if you introduce yourself to enough people, you’ll eventually find your business partner. The more times you try, the closer you are to succeeding. The more skills you develop through failure, the better prepared you are to continue. And the most important parallel, never be afraid to fail. Because you will and one day you can look back and see how much you grew.

How to Build Your Network as a New Consultant

The most powerful network in the world is not Facebook.

Facebook is just a tool to stay in touch with people you
already know.

What really counts is who you know, and much more
importantly who knows you. The most important network in the
world for you is your own network (not Facebook's).

It has become quite apparent to many of my readers that they
do not have a very strong network. Some have found it easy
to network their way into a consulting firm interview,
others find it extremely difficult.

Now that you are working or transitioning to work again, it
is time to take a look at shoring up your network.

The time to build a network is when you don't need any help
from them.

The best way to get a network of people willing to help you
is to help them first.
At best, I would help a lot of very bright, super ambitious,
over-achieving people launch their careers.
Give first, and people will remember who you are and offer
to help when you need it.
Those who serve others the most end up benefiting the most
too.  (By the way, there is a gem of a client development
strategy in that last sentence in case you missed it.)

Now the reason I mention this is because there is a very
fast way to build one's network -- by borrowing someone
else's network!

I will be providing networking tips to the club members on
how to network with each other, providing access to each
other, and basically instantly add a global network of super
achievers to your network... pretty much overnight.