This is my home base
Some of my earlier posts when I was reading and discovering concepts that underpin entrepreurship.
I’m working on a project that deals with the concept of “innovation” – big surprise, right? Who isn’t?
So, as I’m getting down some thoughts, I figure that I need to know the right definition of the word “innovation”. Wow – did that start me down a hole.
Continue reading “Is it Improvement or Innovation?”It’s embarrassing to say, but I feel it was lazy this past week. I should have put in the hours to move move further ahead with interkinect but I didn’t. Mostly, I got two things done:
Rather than beat myself up, I think there is actually some value in this approach. I remember reading in one of my books (can’t remember which one) that actually having multiple projects / hobbies going on at the same time can be very useful. So, I reviewed a terrific Ted Talk by Tim Harford on this subject. He calls it “slow-motion multitasking”. The gist – it’s OK to jump back and forth among projects and activities (he gives great examples from Einstein and Darwin). Each different project can inform the others. As he says, it’s easier to think outside the box if you’re periodically jumping from one box to another. The key, though, is to multitask because a particular topic interests you at the moment. Not multitasking out of desperation.
So, I guess my personal lesson is to keep the television off and the phone out of reach. Just work on whatever seems most interesting at the moment. Maybe it will take years instead of months to get a particular project done. But having multiple projects moving at the same time helps keep your life productive, even if one of the projects has hit a crushing road block. Your lifelong creativity will thank you for this realization that it’s how successful minds actually work.
As I’m thinking through the features that I’ll need in my app, I run across the challenge of trying to document all of these ideas in a way that I can find them again later. I believe that I’ve got notes scattered across a half-dozen or more notebooks. I keep surprising myself when I look back through these notes. I see things that I’m fretting over now but actually solved a year ago and just forgot.
How do I organize this in a way that’s productive over small time slots? Often, I have a half-hour to document something that I’ve been thinking about. I’m faster at typing than hand-writing, so something on the computer is probably the best answer. I need to track different categories of ideas. But, they need to be cross-referenced in some way.
My best guess – using a spreadsheet (Google Sheets) for this. I’m hoping to use separate spreadsheets for:
I’m a team of one – so I don’t need solutions to share this info. I just need to keep it organized. This is my current best guess.
Based on Tom’s feedback from the prior week, I shared my thoughts with family members. I got some good feedback from my elder son. He definitely took this in the right spirit and was skeptical but supportive. Once again, his skepticism pointed more toward flaws in my ability to explain, rather than flaws in my idea. I got two things from this:
As I mentioned last week, if you want to help shape this and can invest 10 minutes, here’s the link to my (admittedly imperfect) description of what I’m working on. Your criticism is really helpful.
This past week, I met (outdoors, socially distanced) with my friend Tom. Tom fits squarely into my targeted group. I explained my ideas and got some great, skeptical feedback. Exactly what I needed! The hard part continues to be painting a picture of how this idea, once realized, will make your life easier. Not dramatically different, just easier. More intuitive. More efficient. More connected. A tool that you wouldn’t want to be without.
I always knew that would be an issue. See – my idea isn’t revolutionary. It’s all about context. My idea a better way to do something you’re already doing. But why it’s better can be subtle – until you start using it and can see for yourself how the advantage can aggregate and make your life easier.
So, I did a better write-up. And I shared it, yesterday, with some members of my family. No feedback, yet. But, I thought, why wouldn’t I want to share it with everyone? Again, my goal is to know why it won’t work. Only then can I discover flaws that I can’t see because I’m too close to it. So – I’m taking a plunge. It’s a little scary. if you want to help shape idea – and the associated messaging – and can invest 10 minutes, here’s the link. Thanks. Your criticism is really helpful.
Here’s a recap of some of the things I wrote about this month …
I started describing my entrepreneurial journey.
I learned a lot from Simon Sinek’s “The Infinite Game”. It helped me see that aggressive, KPI-focused leaders can help deliver short-term results, but they typically suck the long-term value out of their organization. Instead, people who methodically focus on clarity of message, developing a strong financial footing, and building trusting relationships with employees, customers, suppliers, and investors are much more likely to win the “long game”.
This described the role that a “hunch” plays in developing an entrepreneurial idea. This was a really great insight from Luis Perez-Brava’s book “Innovating”. The main idea is that no one can possibly know, early on, if their idea is any good. So, he describes the steps that start with a basic idea (the “hunch”) and then move through prototypes and scaling in a rational manner to ultimately refine your hunch into something useful.
The idea of discrediting your prototype is explored here. Prototypes are a simple, cheap, tangible way of demonstrating your “hunch”. People, naturally, tend to fall in love with their own prototype. The risk is putting too much time, money, and energy into turning it into a product — before you really know if it’s a good idea. So, to battle this confirmation bias, it’s important to take the opposite approach. Try to actively discredit it. Find others to help you discredit it. Not because you’re looking to fail. But because you need to keep making better versions of your prototype while it’s still cheap and easy. That’s how you improve it and move forward.
This week, I talk about getting bogged down. I had trouble (in my limited available time) meeting up with people who can help me discredit my prototype. So, I moved in another direction. Ultimately, I’ll need to build a web app. So I started laying out a format that I can use to document my required functionality, along with the data structures that can deliver on that functionality. This is really critical. I need my app to revolve around some unique and clever ideas. So, I need to be able to capture and retain these ideas as they arise. Ultimately, if this is done well then actually building the app will be a simple exercise. For now, it’s all about keeping it simple and useful.
In our prior scene, our hero was starting to advance the plot. Action is always a critical part of the story.
Well, in Act 3, Scene 2 our hero gets bogged down.
Only small progress was made on the major plot line. During the week, I reached out to reestablish contact with a long-time friend. However, I didn’t want to hit him out of the blue with a request to help me. He’s a really good guy and I don’t want it to appear that I view him only as someone who can help me with my goals. So, first it was important to reestablish our relationship. I know he’ll want to help. But I didn’t push that forward. The bottom line is that I didn’t make any progress with trying to discredit my prototype. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read my earlier post here.
So, I started weaving in another plot line.
I know that I’ll soon need to start developing a web-based app to support my hunch. While I don’t want to get too far down the road until I’m a bit more confident about the validity of my hunch, I can certainly move that plot line forward a bit.
So that’s what I did. This week I spent several hours moving into the tech design component. I’m certainly not sure if this is the best way to do it, but here’s the way I’m approaching it. Using Google Sheets, I’m creating different sheet formats that address:
By the time I’m done, I guess there will be maybe a hundred or more different sheets using these formats. I haven’t quite figured out how to cross-reference all of this. For example, if I have a design requirement to allow users to implement field-level privacy, which class will implement that? Do I need ancillary data tables to make that happen? Should they be a separate class? And, looking the other direction, if I have a data element in a class, why does it exist? Which design requirement or user requirement does it support?
This is an interesting exercise in itself. As I think most people involved in technology know, documentation is really, really hard to do well. Since it’s just me, I’m certainly not going out of my way to find a fabulous tool to help me. For now, it’s just me. I don’t need to coordinate with a team of programmers. I just need to keep my prototype moving forward using the tools I have.
And, that’s the continuing take-away from from Act 3 – keep the plot moving forward with the tools at-hand.
Here’s something that’s been on my mind for a while. Sales. Sales teams. Salespersons. I think I have an idealized view of how that should work. But maybe not a practical view. Here’s an example. I know of a sales leader – a really good guy. He works hard. He’s paid well. He knows his industry and knows how to bring in the business. Mostly, he’s great at recruiting good, experienced salespeople to work on his team.
But … I guess there’s always a “but”. He has a very transactional view of the world. In his sales world, it’s always about a commission. If you want to sell more of “A”, you have to structure your commissions so this salesperson will lean toward “A”. If you want this salesperson to also make a referral to another part of your company, he’s convinced there’s no way that will happen unless you pay a separate commission for that, too. I laughingly believe, in his view of the world, a salesperson won’t open the door for a young family struggling with 3 children unless you pay them a commission.
At first, I thought these individuals had an inherently different view of the world than I do. That they are transactional. Mercenary. Pay me. I really don’t care about anything or anyone except me.
But, I wonder if maybe the organization’s culture and strategy aren’t the real culprits, here.
Let’s suppose some fictional organization provides a service. For this discussion, let’s say lawn care. They might have slogans that they care about helping their customers have the most beautiful lawns in the neighborhood. They say that they truly care about their customers and will always go the extra mile. That it’s all about building long-term relationships. But, in practice, they never really differentiate. They show up and mow your lawn. Same as every other lawn care company who, by the way, also promises the same “unique” value proposition. We’re the tidiest. We’re the most responsive. We care more about your lawn. Yada Yada.
In that case, how could you possibly expect your sales team to be anything but transactional? They really have nothing to sell except their smile and price list. They know the company doesn’t have anything unique to offer. Oh, you might try to convince prospective customers that you’re special and unique. But your sales team knows better. They’ve been around the block a few times.
I’ve read that people will naturally do whatever they think is right – to help a customer or to help their employer. That’s human nature. But commissions distort this natural order. Commissions exist to persuade someone to do something that they wouldn’t otherwise do.
So – following that to its conclusion – if your sales are predicated solely on commissions, does that imply that your sales team wouldn’t otherwise be willing to promote your solution to someone? Of course, I’m assuming that you’re paying a good, competitive wage. But, shouldn’t they believe in what you do? Shouldn’t they work for you because they believe that your solution is the best way to help others solve some tangible problem?
If you’re unsure about whether your sales team really loves you and believes in you — or they just love your commissions — that’s a problem. Having the highest commission rates is a lousy excuse for a strategy.
Like I said at the beginning. I may have this all wrong. What are your thoughts?
All stories need to keep moving forward.
The action this past week was invested in creating a prototype. Prototypes are a very useful tool. At this stage, I’m talking about something very basic. I’m just mocking up some web screens (thanks Google Slides) that I can use to help me envision a potential solution. So, I print them out, lay them on the table, and see if my solution prototype will help discredit my particular hunch. What I mean is – I try to step into the mindset of someone with the “problem” that I’m imagining. Does this prototype, assuming it was real, solve it? Is it awesome? Does it utterly fail? Or maybe it’s just … weak.
By the way – if you’re curious about my “hunch”, see a prior post that discusses it. But I digress. Sorry,.
Discrediting is really important in the earliest stages. If you’re working on something that will eventually turn out to be a bad idea, you want to discredit it as quickly as possible. Then, using what you’ve learned, create a newer, better hunch. In my case, if I can’t discredit it myself I’ll talk with others who might be able to. My plan is to talk with a few friends (the more opinionated and judgmental the better), a few local business people, members of the local chamber of commerce, and maybe leaders at my church. I want to know the circumstances where they’ve seen something like this before. I want to understand why those didn’t work. Or why they hated it.
Although I’m not assuming it, it’s certainly possible that this hunch really is a great idea. But, realistically, it likely needs to be tweaked. Or, simply thrown out. If it sucks, that’s OK. It just means that I haven’t found the right hunch, yet. As I keep working on it, I always have the optimism that a real screaming insight will arise like the Phoenix. Maybe I’ll need months to refine my hunch. Whatever it takes. I need the right problem before I invest significant time and energy trying to fix it – whatever “it” ends up being.
Prototypes and discrediting – not exactly intuitive. But they keep the action moving forward.
True moments of insight are phenomenal and rare. It feels like you’ve jumped, momentarily, to a different plane where you’re shown something special. You know that this is what the future will look like. It’s something that no one else sees, at least not in the same depth or brilliance of colors that you see it. It screams “opportunity”. If you don’t claim it and nourish it, it eventually tires of you and moves on. It finds someone else who will love it.
I’ve had a couple of those. But, I never acted upon them. Would they have truly turned out as successful as I imagined? Of course! Maybe. But it would have required taking on risk in my personal life. And, being honest with myself, I’m not much of a risk-taker.
They say that regrets – things you didn’t do – weigh heavily as you get older. I have no reason to doubt it. I certainly regret not acting upon those earlier insights. They are so rare.
Now, right now, I have the time and desire. Unfortunately, I don’t have any of those beautiful insights screaming at me. And, of course, the old ones have moved on. But – I do have a few pretty good ideas still hanging around. And I wonder. If you befriend and really get to know one of your good ideas – maybe not quite an A-level idea, but certainly B-level – could there be some element hiding within that idea that, if plucked out, will start whining “It’s about time you saw me”? Maybe there’s something. And, dammit, if it’s there I want to find it. Like any good friendship, takes some effort. I’m not giving up on this one so easily.
