“I just read about a company that is on its third pivot. When is enough is enough?

The founder is young and sharp. He’d be a valuable asset at any other tech company, but he can’t seem to throw in the towel.

Some pivots, of course, work.  Path is a great example.  So are Fab and Turntable. But most don’t.

So what’s a smart, young entrepreneur to do when they realize their startup is failing? When should they call it quits and crawl back to corporate America? Or at least to someone else’s successful startup?

The Gowalla founders took heat for getting acqui-hired by Facebook and shutting down the product. But really they were smart.  They knew Foursquare had crushed them and they joined one of the best companies in the world.  They weren’t afraid to realize they had “failed.” Part of being business savvy is knowing how and when to make that incredibly tough call.

“Failures” are inevitable and they’re a good thing. They’re what make the startup world tick. If startups didn’t fail, others wouldn’t survive. A Facebook cofounder said if the company had been started today it would have been toast.  It wouldn’t have been able to hoard enough necessary talent because everyone wants to have their own startup now.

There are a lot of pivots going on; a lot of talented people are working on small ideas that will never become big businesses. At some point (soon) they will run out of cash and have to ask themselves,  Do I keep trying to force a company or do I temporarily lay my entrepreneurial endeavors to rest?

While we’re not trying to encourage quitting, more founders should ask themselves tough questions. Maybe it’s time to help someone else make their dream really big. Tomorrow’s companies depend on it. Plus that corporate experience could be what makes your next startup a success.”

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/when-you-should-quit-being-an-entrepreneur-2012-1

…and may i add that timing plays a big part in determining whether your start-up grows into a full fledge business or not. There ‘re a gazillions of variables at play; sometimes it’s Okay to lay low for the moment to come back later. If it’s your passion you don’t have to worry about not doing it later, do you?

I guess another view point is about the ecosystem. When everyone rushes to build their own start-ups, at one point competition will lead to inefficient allocation of resources (think VC’s funding another group buying site just because it’s the flavor of the month). In the context of Singapore, resources will include start-up talents as well (technical or otherwise). With a small domestic market where resources are scarce, how can we alleviate the health and wealth of the ecosystem at large? These will be points to ponder.

I’m not anti-competition. In fact i believe that only with healthy competition that innovation can occur. However with 70++ deal sites in a 5 million population market, will that be too much?

I believe so.

While many may cry foul, i firmly believe that ideas are overrated.

Granted, you can’t build a business on a stupid idea. What i meant is this – often, people get hung up on dreaming up the next big idea and asking questions like “Will this work?” without doing the one thing that matter: Execution.

Ideas that are not acted upon are just, well, ideas. Without action no ideas will come to fruition. Make that call, write that code, set-up some meetings – sometimes you’ll be surprise by how tiny actions and small initiatives can go a long, long way. All it takes is just one phone call/email/lunch/coffee to meet that one potential partner/client/mentor/investor. More than often you’ll be surprise how willing people are to share their thoughts and experiences (of course, humility helps).

Stop dreaming about tomorrow. Start acting today.

It’s been two months since i started my stint at Stream Media, a start-up from the NUS ecosystem who recently announced a Series A funding from Singtel Innov8 (you can read all about it here.) as the Biz Dev guy, working on our flagship product, MoVend. I have lots to share, so keep watching this space as i detail my journey and learning points of taking the start-up roller coaster ride.

All i have to say before i sign off is – i’ve been working alongside some of the most awesome folks in the mobile development scene in Singapore to build a kick-ass product which potentially could change the world, and i am very happy about it.

So stay tuned, folks!

Great post by Daniel McKenzie on the similarities of Design Thinking, Customer Development and the Lean Startup concept. It definitely echoes my thoughts on the common grounds between these disciplines.

I was fortunate enough to attend Steve Blank’s class in Stanford in 2009, and having him to invite Eric Ries to one of our classes was definitely an added bonus. I’ve never looked at product development the same way since.

Excerpt from the article above:

“If all three practices have anything in common it’s that they are organized around continuous learning and refinement. Many startups might balk at the idea that their first priority be to learn. After all, who has time to learn when there’s a product to be built! They tend to approach it backwards by building the product or service first, and then learning. Unfortunately, by that time they’ve probably burned through all their cash and it’s too late to take advantage of any lessons learned.”

I guess in some ways these methodologies can be applied to personal development as well. Be nimble; act fast and agile; never stand still and never stop learning; stay lean i.e. not to splurge on unnecessary gadgets and shiny things (*cough).

Conclusion: run myself like a start-up!

“Maybe I value my time more than my net worth. Maybe my fear of boredom outweighs my fear of failure. Or, maybe I have an irrational belief that I will succeed against all odds.”

- Prerna Gupta, C.E.O. of Khush Inc.

Fear of boredom is definitely very real, for me at least. =)

It’s tough to analyse a startup’s potential; there are too many variables, the markets are often too nascent and the competitive set is usually unclear. I guess that’s why so many of the great early-stage investors use ‘gut feel’ or focus on the people rather than the idea. In the main I think they’re right, but that’s no reason not to try examining a startup’s business model with some rigour – the thought exercise alone can be beneficial.

So, in order to analyse startups and establish a common language we developed a business-model framework. The main goal was to allow us to systematically examine startups and to help provoke creative thought.

When you ask people why Amazon or Apple are successful they understandably focus on the consumer-facing proposition – but in both of those cases their success is hugely influenced by clever design that the consumer never sees, including partnerships, team structure, marketing channels and pricing policy. I talk more about that in a video on Passion Meets Momentum.

To ensure we don’t fall into the same trap when analysing startups, the business model framework reminds us to focus on the non-consumer facing stuff – including the capabilities of the team and the partnerships that the startup depends on.

Here’s a link to our blank business model framework, feel free to print it off and use it as a tool in your own business:

Download the Business Model Framework

We tend to start with the Value Proposition and Consumer Segment (the backbone of any great startup) – if they’re not clear I often don’t bother with the rest.  We then work systematically around the other segments, summarising what we know and exploring opportunities for development. 

You’ll see the framework includes definitions for the different segments and a few provocations (specifically written for B2C tech businesses).

Filling it in is usually a highly informative and fun exercise and often unlocks some great creative thinking (counter-intuitively a formulaic approach sometimes drives creativity). We hope it works for you too…

As another reference point, here’s a framework for HackFwd that I had the pleasure of building with Lars.

Download the Example of the Framework for the HackFwd offer

As with everything at HackFwd this is in Beta – please do email me with any builds that you may have.

Tom

email: thulme@ideo.com /  twitter: thulme / blog: weijiblog.com / web: ideo.com

(via the HackFwd blog)

For those who are interested in social enterprises and social entrepreneurship, below is a very good lecture given by Alexander Osterwalder, an Author, Speaker and Advisor on Business Model Innovation who writes at Business Model Alchemist.