12 THINGS FOR THE ENTRPRENEUR: ADVICE FROM Guy Kawasaki

Never Outshine The Master -- Robert Greene

Twelve Lessons I Learned From Steve Jobs.

Source: Twelve Things

Here’s an interesting way of looking at developing an emerging company:  The goal should not be to make money.  Rather make meaning.  The profits will follow if you have a solid plan.  Find unproven markets for your product and pitch them to investors.  One of them will get it with a little patience and persistence on your part.  These thoughts and others revisited me while watching Guy Kawasaki discussing what he learned from working twice at different times with Steve Jobs. 

I cannot pretend to know precisely how people like Kawasaki and Jobs get to the places they so frequently visit in terms of leadership.  But I can assure the reader that I have learned to listen.  We all have our special gifts.  The real trick is to gain knowledge and then make it your own.  Here are some points that I found particularly salient in Guy Kawasaki's presentation “12 Lessons That I learned from Steve Jobs.

Experts are clueless.  Rely on yourself.

Customers cannot tell you what you need.

Customers do not create revolutions.

Present yourself with ‘magnificent challenges.’  Employees like challenges and so they rise up. 

Design counts.  It’s not always about price although ‘experts’ say this is the big one.  Don’t put out crap.  A lot easier to get customers with high quality product properly designed with the customer in mind. 

Anticipate customer needs. 

Put up slides with one word at 60 points.  Big graphics.  8.5 is out.

Jump curves.  Do something ten times better.  Guy presents two historical pieces of information that make sense.

Think ice.  The harvesting of ice was seasonal.   Then technology allowed man to create ice at will.  Then someone came up with the refrigerator.  The lesson?  The trick was not to create a better way of chipping or delivering the ice.  The trick was to create a situation where ice could be created at will and then deliver it.  The next trick is to create a machine that creates ice in the home.  Don’t ride the wave.  Find the next wave.  Guy calls this jumping the curve.

There was a time when printers used daisy wheels. Jumping the curve?  Instead of adding fonts to the daisy wheel create a laser printer that no longer needs the daisy wheel.  I come from a generation of daisy wheels.  It was an amazing technology at the time.  But it still took time to change the wheels.  Along comes the laser printer.  This is an ample demonstration of jumping the curve. 

Something works or it doesn’t work.  Apple started with a closed system.  In short Apple technology was proprietary.  Apple read the market and realized that an open system was the best path.  Now 3^rd party apps not permitted (safari plug-in) in the past.  Don’t screw around with the phone.  Third-party developer. 

Guy coaches the listener to take their product home and test it out.  Use it.  If you want to convince the customer that the product has utility, is unique and has value then you best convince yourself first.   The writer adds the notion of ‘utility’.

There are things that overshadow price.  It’s about value and productivity.  Guy displays 2 by 2 matrix where the optimum position is the upper right hand corner.  The product is unique and valuable.  Only you produce your product. 

Guy points out that Fandango has discovered the upper right.  He demonstrates a watch with an antenna that works with satellites.  The value.  The person who is in a location and gets hurt in some way can now use their phone to get help.  Unique, great value, and has utility.   Interestingly Guy points out that low price does not assure sales.  Focus on the value.

In regard to creating a great team Guy coaches the listener to recruit members better than themselves in various areas of responsibility.  To use his term, do not hire Bozos.  A players hire a plus players.  And so one avoids the Bozo explosion.

 They can use the product.  If you cannot demonstrate the value and uniqueness of your product/service then you are in serious trouble.   I think of Wendy’s in this regard.  And now the daughter follows the same example. 

Don’t sell total crap for the first version.  Be aware there is a bit of ‘crap’ involved.  Real entrepreneurship not slip.  This does not mean a product/service must wait to ship until it is ‘perfect’.  Perfection is the goal not the journey.   To add my own thoughts I would say it is important to provide quality consistent service. 

The color television in its first inception took time to get to its present level of quality.  Ship something that may have challenges that still jumps the curve.  Believe in your product/service, ship you product, and your product, and don’t wait for proof.   A product can have elements of ‘crap’ to it.  That can be fixed and adjusted.  The trick is to get the customer to see the product.

Guy answered questions from the audience.  I provided some notes on those questions.

Question:  What about hiring A++ attitude when hiring?

Learn to let go.  Don’t disown them.  But let them do their thing.  If you are succeeding you cannot handle everything.  A++ don’t like micromanage. 

Question:  So who hires B players?  Guy sites Board of Directors.  Clearly he is using humor.  On the other side of this comment notice his comments on experts.

Question:  Jumping curves.  What if the investor doesn’t understand this way of creating a company?

Guy compares this to dating.  There are two kinds of dynamics.  There is on-line dating situations such as eHarmony or a protracted process.  This is something to finding soul mate.  And then there is the ‘hot or not’ approach.  You meet someone or see someone and she/he is ‘hot or not’.  Venture capitalist are ‘hot or not’ usually decided in the first 30 seconds.   Get in what you do in the first 30 seconds.  They are not really interested in a life history.

Question:  What about proven markets?

Don’t focus on proven markets.  Consider unproven markets.  If the investor cannot see this then you are probably in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Mostly, don’t give up or accept their judgments without careful consideration.  Listen and learn. 

Question:  What about the pitch?

Give them what you do in the first 30 seconds.

Conclusion

This is the sort of presentation that is meant to be heard multiple times.  I draw some new insights from the well with each listen.

Most people never answer the door.  Most people are afraid of failing.  Most do not ask.  I transcribe a Steve Jobs YouTube.  I watched Guy Kawasaki on 12 best lessons from Jobs for entrepreneurs.  Quite the experience.  There is so much for the entrepreneur draw from.  Comes down to this:  The water is in the well.  You going to get some?

Steve Jobs was willing to throw something away and try again when commerce pressing down.  He speaks on design and asks the questions ‘does it work’ and is it exceptional.

I hope that this post was of help to you and trust that you will visit me soon.

Inspirational Message on Failure, Risk and Sucess

Well worth the watch.  If you never failed you have never lived.

A Look At The Digital Download Future

http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod=pressreleaseviewer&a0=5268

This might be of help to you in your digital planning.  Note that the use of handheld devices continues to grow although it still has not dominated the market.  I would say this has much to do with the development of the hardware and software in this regard.  Legal issues involving patent law also enter into concern.  I believe that the numbers will continue to increase as the various issues and effectively addressed.

There is significant competition regarding handheld devices that means we as entrepreneurs must carefully watch how this 'battle for market share' develops.  I am looking very carefully at Samsung and Motorola at the moment.

I am also looking for new related products on the horizon.

An interesting article about the various political and military challenges connected to cyber technology.  

Source:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444657804578051071681887566.html

Full Text Follows:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday a series of recent electronic attacks that have been tied to Iran, both in the U.S. and abroad, herald a "significant escalation in the cyberthreat," and warned the U.S. would aggressively pursue the perpetrators, in what cybersecurity experts called a veiled warning to Tehran.

The attacks, which have targeted U.S. and foreign banks, demonstrate the need for a more aggressive military role to defend U.S. networks and to retaliate against organized groups or hostile governments, Mr. Panetta said. That is especially the case if electric grids, water systems, transportation networks and other critical functions are targeted, he said.

"This is a pre-9/11 moment," he said in a speech in New York. "The attackers are plotting."

Mr. Panetta's comments represent his most urgent warning to date concerning the security threats, and provide new details about military planning to counter what he and others see as a growing threat in a call-to-arms over the computer-security issue, the first such call from a U.S. defense secretary.

Mr. Panetta didn't name Iran as a perpetrator of any particular plot, but identified Iran, along with China and Russia, as countries active in cyberspace. His address notably included information that had been declassified for his remarks, delivered to the Business Executives for National Security, a trade group.

The declassified material included description of attacks that have taken place, including efforts to disable the websites of U.S. banks, which have affected about 10 banks in the past few weeks. The impact has varied, from slowing website response to disabling websites used for personal and business banking.

The defense secretary also noted a July attack against Saudi Arabia's state oil company, Aramco, in which a virus called Shamoon erased critical files on some 30,000 computers, replacing them with images of burning American flags.

U.S. officials have connected all these attacks to individuals in Iran. Based on these people's capabilities, U.S. agencies suspect they are connected to the Iranian government, according to former officials briefed on the matter. A senior defense official confirmed the U.S. has identified those responsible for the attacks.

Among the declassified information were descriptions of a variety of threats against critical infrastructure in the U.S. Mr. Panetta said the U.S. had learned that intruders gained access to computer control systems that "operate chemical, electricity and water plants and those that guide transportation throughout the country." Officials didn't say whether they had identified who was responsible for those intrusions, and Mr. Panetta didn't indicate there had been any consequences.

Mr. Panetta's public remarks were also more expansive than any other U.S. official's to date on the Pentagon's development of cyberweapons. While defense officials were reluctant to call them "offensive weapons," He said the U.S. had developed capabilities to conduct cyberoperations. "If we detect an imminent threat of attack that will cause significant physical destruction or kill American citizens, we need to have the option to take action to defend the nation when directed by the president," he said.

The speech by Mr. Panetta comes as the U.S. is trying to forge new rules of engagement in cyberspace and create a level of deterrence by talking more openly about America's own capabilities—and showing a willingness to use them.

The Pentagon is spending $3 billion annually to develop cybercapabilities, and officials have said they are trying to build a core of military service members who are adept at defending against cyberattacks and wielding cyberweapons.

"Just as DoD developed the world's finest counterterrorism force over the past decade, we need to build and maintain the finest cyber operators," Mr. Panetta said.

Cybersecurity experts said that while the speech didn't explicitly connect Iran to the attacks, the Iranians will understand that the U.S. is suspicious.

The effect of the speech is a veiled warning to Iran to back off, said James Lewis, a cybersecurity specialist with the Center for Strategic and International Studies who frequently advises the Obama administration. "The purpose is to signal to the Iranians: naughty, naughty," he said.

Defense officials said Mr. Panetta's speech was meant to be a call to arms, and was aimed at deterring others.

"One of the effects of talking about cyber more openly is that we are making clear to anyone who would try to do harm to the nation that we are paying attention and we are not going to take this sitting down," said a U.S. official.

Kristin Lord, an expert at the Center for a New American Security, applauded Mr. Panetta's discussion of cyberweapons and deterrence. But his remarks described the gravest attack Americans might face, not the most likely, she said.

"On 9/11, more than 3,000 people died in a couple hours," she said. "I think that is an unlikely scenario for a cyberthreat. It's not impossible. But it is unlikely, in the near term."

Guy Kawasaki presents 'The Art of the Start' for Informatics Ventures

There is much information for the entrepreneur in this video.  I will be creating some text for you to consider.  This guy has a lot to offer.

Not quite yet to abandon ship on traditional non-digital services and products.

I have been struggling with this last blog that will mark the end of my participation in the Full Sail University Masters of Science in Business Entertainment.  It is not for lack of things to talk about.  Quite the opposite.  It was more a question of having so much to say.  I find it much more easier to write multiple pages than a single page and near impossible to put it in a paragraph.  I am learning however. 

One of the major components of my Full Sail University experience is taking my theoretical inclinations into the sphere of real world experience.   I have since come across a rather interesting subject that began by reading Warner Brothers

Over the last few years, we’ve accomplished  a lot. Three years ago,

we put in place a strategy to become the premier global content company while simultaneously improving our returns. Since then, our businesses have remained  leaders in their respective industries, and in many cases we’ve gained share. At the same time, we’ve led the digital transition of the industries in which we operate. We’ve added $3.6 billion in annual revenues since 2009, growing even faster internationally  than we did in the United States; we’ve more than doubled our adjusted earnings per share (EPS) over the past three years as we grew adjusted operating income at a 12% compounded annual growth rate; and we’ve generated $8 billion in free cash flow, which enabled us to raise our dividend three times and buy back more than 20% of our outstanding stock (Source:  http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=70972&p=irol-reportsannual).

Note the bolded section that uses the term ‘digital transition and the corresponding increase in sales of $3.6 billion.  Some analysts are suggesting over $15 billion dollars in sales projecting into 2015.  In this same report Warner Brothers also reports that it has significantly reduced while not abandoning it ‘vinyl’ or ‘hard CD/DVD’ product line.  This is evidenced by the company’s website that features an e-commerce page dedicated to said ‘vinyl’ sales (Source:  http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=70972&p=irol-reportsannual). 

I’ve thought long and hard about this sort of information.  While FractureCreations has developed a specific marketing plan that makes optimum use of today’s technology including print-on-demand, CD/DVD download, and on-line workshop technology, it is equally clear to FractureCreations that the evidence suggests that the audience has not entirely given up on the ‘hard copy’ such as soft and hard cover books as well as physical CDs.  In point of fact there are actually markets where cassettes are still a viable product that generates sales.  The same sort of thinking applies to FractureCreations current plans to develop a series of workshops for emerging artists.  While employing on-line technology in order to create high accessibility as well as wealth of related material,  there is still the live performance element of a truly well-rounded career. 

The solution?  Balance that reflects a wide range of considerations of that might be metaphorically described as the ‘grey area that exists between black and white. ‘ 

Warner Brothers has realized that there are great savings that come with the digital phenomena.  They are also experiencing great challenges in their ‘advance to artists’ policy.  They have in fact noted that the digital sales have to degrees offset advance write-offs.  Obviously, their technological requirements along with technological and legal concerns about P2P or ‘piracy’ will most likely offset their download sales by significantly increasing their fixed costs over a sustained period-of-time.

Bottom line?  While the trends and hype accurately report an interesting trend towards the technological side of the publishing and entertainment industry, it is not quite the time to put to the side traditional distributing and marketing channels.