Week 3

This week I enjoyed watching the video of the dedication of the Hinckley building.

I love the talk of President Monson and of course President Hinckley. We can feel his love and appreciate all his advice. He gave us always support with his words and we learn from his wisdom. 

I learned about "Visionary Business"

Every business should begin with a sense of vision.

Every start up need a written business plan.

It will set in kotion your powerful subconscious mind.

have a vision where you want to take your business.

The rule of three.

Every start-up will take three times as long and cost three times as much.

Have a higher purpose than just making money. Discover your unique purpose for living and the talents and abilities you have been given to achieve that purpose. money is not the final measure of my worth; the life I lead, matters most make the world a better place. 

I enjoyed reading Crative journal Power Point.

Entrepreneur power point.

Opportunity recognition.Scott Kriens and Juniper.

Ideas come from everywhere.

I like how Marisa Meyers spoke without stop. She impresses me with the fluency to talk about the subject.

Guy Kawasaki

Simple and easy to understand his messages to an entrepreneur.

 Creativity.

“Potential for creativity exists in every business

and in every job. Businesses need to be creative in

everything they do. The product should be

creative, the delivery should be creative, the

marketing should be creative, and the customer

interaction should be creative. The fact creativity

lies in small ideas, not just big, bold ideas, is also

important. But regardless of idea size, von Oech

says ‘creativity is a business survival skill,’ and

without it, you are are standing still.”

 -Roger von Oech

1. Carry a notebook.

-Ideas can come anytime. If you write them down, you will remember

them

2. Think opportunistically.

-Pay attention to everything. Start questioning what you see and why.

3. Network

-Meet new people and talk to them.

4. Think in opposites.

-Every idea has an opposite. Sometimes opportunities or ideas can be

found in it.

5. Reinvent the wheel.

-Think of ways to spice up old products or services. Take a product and

make a list of 50 unexpected uses for it. This process may create ideas for

something completely new.

6. Challenge your ruts.

-Change the way you do things. Experience something new. Change the

radio station or eat at a different restaurant.

////

n  Most of those

who become successful find out rather quickly, in

less than a year. Others may spend a lot of time several

years-fooling around in the shallow end

before they climb out of the pool. But the starting

of businesses is a dynamic process, with a constant

shifting as new people jump in, others successfully

negotiate the deep end, and others climb out of the

shallow end. It is also clear that some who leave

the pool, whether they’re successful or

unsuccessful, go back in for another try.

n  Company Naming Mistakes.

Building a long lasting, attribute-based company name can add value to your business and reduce customer confusion. By creating a clear, compelling and creative brand name, you can put the odds of entrepreneurial success in your favor, while avoiding costly marketing mistakes.

///

Rachel Blaufeld

Happy 2012 StartUpNation!

As I wrap up Week #1 of this fabulous brand new year, I thought I would check in with all of you….

Have you set your Main Goal(s) for 2012?

More important, How do you plan to hold yourself accountable to your Goal(s)?

That is the kicker with goals.  You can make as many goals as you want, but Accountability is what makes goals actually count.  A Goal is only as good as the plan for holding yourself accountable to it.

I have found a number of ways to infuse accountability into your plans and goals:

Incorporate a Mastermind Group. A Mastermind Group is a small group of other professionals that meets together (in person or virtually) and helps promote one another’s success.  If you are not in one, think about forming one!  Look at it as a circle of Business Best Friends.

Hang a Written Mantra or Vision Board. A mantra is your very own words or goals that you want to keep repeating to yourself.  If you are more visual, create a picture, drawing, or roadmap to hold you to your goals.  Tape this vision high above your workspace to keep you motivated.

Set Alarms in your calendar. Program your computer or phone to ding on particular days, times, etc when you WANT to remind yourself of checking your progress on goals.  This is useful when you get stuck daydreaming about the possibilities because it makes you get back to reality.

Engage a Business or Life Coach. If you find yourself really struggling with holding yourself accountable, hire someone to help you.  This will cost you some money, but if you match up with the right coach, he/she will certainly help you monitor progress.

……Still looking for some accountability inspiration?

Check out what some other amazing Entrepreneurs are doing in 2012!

Nicole Fende is a credentialed actuary with experience as a Chief Financial Officer, Investment Banker, and successful entrepreneur. Nicole (a.k.a. The Numbers Whisperer™) helps her clients learn how to effectively and enjoyably run the financial side of their business.

Main goal: Killer launch and sales of my first book, How to be a Finance Rock Star.

Plan for Accountability: As an entrepreneur, my bank account balance keeps me accountable.

David Shirey has been training, inspiring, and leading sales teams and workforces to incredible new heights for two decades, and now is the author of the new book, Rare Confidence.

Main goal: Spread the message to as many people as possible that the secret to attacking your dreams is CONFIDENCE!

Plan for Accountability: Doing the right thing is not a some of the time thing; it’s an all the time thing!

Heather Allard is a mother of three kids and the founder of The Mogul Mom, a free daily email for moms who run a business, raise a family and rock both.

Main goal: To grow The Mogul Mom’s free daily email for mom entrepreneurs to 25,000 subscribers.

Plan for Accountability: Through a small group of peers who know my goals and hold me to ’em. I hold myself accountable by sharing my goals and actions taken with a couple of mentors who’ve accomplished what I’m trying to accomplish.

Haralee Weintraub is CEO of Haralee Sleepwear, ‘Cool Garments for Hot Women.’

Main Goal: Have 2 National exposures on our company.

Accountability: Target the avenues where I think this goal can be achieved, and work on it every week.

Now, let’s hear your Goal and Plan for Accountability!

Looking forward to sharing your Goals and Accountability in 2012, Rachel

n  Juniper----

Scott Kriens,  explain about Juniper Networks.

He describe how Juniper was able to take advantage of the rapidly growing internet router space. He states that Juniper’s focus on solving unique problems helped them compete agains other established players.

He say: So, I guess the point to that is this. Which is that if you assume that any collection of people, if you get more than two or

three or five or ten, assume people are equally smart. Or said another way, it's very dangerous to assume that your collection

of 10 or 20 is smarter than somebody else's 10 or 20. And so if you are trying to solve the same problem that somebody else

has already been working on, chances are they're going to know more about it and they're going to take what they know and

iterate on that. It would very hard to catch them if you make your assumption, "We're just going to be smarter than they are." I

don't know how to do that. It can be a very dangerous thing. But if you have a totally different problem to solve and there's

probably lots of people that have come and stood in front of you and talked about unique problems that they had, if you find it

totally different problem and you're the first one that start trying to solve it then you have an opportunity to be equally smart. But

just start working on it first. And that's basically what happen at Juniper.

n  Guy Kawasaki

The business model today is very different than it was before and during the boom, says Kawasaki. In order to write the best business plan possible, follow Kawasaki's steps: specificity, simplicity, and ask women. He believes that woman don't possess the killer gene that is inherent in men, and will be able to give better advice about a business model.

Step 4 is to define a business model. This is a step we skipped from 1998 to 2001. A business model is very different today.

These are the qualities of a business model. First of all, it is specific. It is a specific person buying your product of service. It's not anymore about hand-waving, about saying, "Well, we'll capture millions of eyeballs, and somehow we'll figure out how to monetize those eyeballs, but right now we're just concerned with capturing millions of eyeballs." It's who is buying

the product. Specifically, who. Not enterprise software, but what size enterprise, what vertical market is that enterprise in, who in that enterprise is actually doing the purchasing. It's very specific today.

Second point of a business model is you need to keep it very simple. As a venture capitalist, when we have people come in and say, "We have a unique business model," 'unique' is a bad word. When we have a unique business model that no one has done before, in fact, our business model is so unique we are filing a patent on the business model, that is an absolutely

frightening thing to hear. You know, we want innovative technology, we want innovative services, we want innovative products.

We do not want innovative business models. Fundamentally, you make something, you sell it, you collect the money. That's the kind of business model a VC can handle. OK? The third point is to ask women. This is a trickier recommendation. I believe, though I have no biochemical basis to make this assertion, that women are genetically superior to men in many ways, but in

particular when it comes to business models, because men have a genetic defect.

 They have a genetic defect called the 'killer gene'. This killer gene makes men want to kill plants, kill animals, kill people.

And to a large degree the gene has been suppressed by society. However, one place where this killer gene continues to

express itself is the desire to create a company to kill another company. So people want to start a company to kill Microsoft, to

kill Oracle or kill PeopleSoft. And so what happens is, when you ask a man, "Do you think it's a good idea for me to drop out of the Comp Sci degree program at Stanford? I'm going to create this new piece of enterprise software. I'm going to kill Microsoft,"

most men will say, "Yes," because men are predisposed to wanting to kill things. Women, by contrast, don't have this genetic flaw. So this recommendation is when you come up with a new idea, when you come up with an idea for a company, ask women about the product, the service, the business model. Don't waste your time asking men.

-- Business Model.

Author and entrepreneur Alexander Osterwalder

explains the challenge in defining and discussing

business models around the world. Osterwalder

also describes his journey from academia to

application in building a shared, visual language

for articulating and testing business models.

 I think when it comes to business models, words are not enough. We need to be able to a, have a shared language, but a visual language that allows us to sketch out business models because when we sketch them out, when we map them out, that's when our discussion becomes clear.