Entrepreneur spirits
November 5, 2007 – 3:14 amBlegh. I’ve got a cold tonight and it’s messing up my thought processing jive.
Really I am supposed to be doing a case study for my managing emerging ventures class, but I decided to use blogging as a procrastination outlet instead. I don’t feel quite so guilty since the main issue in the case is that the company is not focusing enough on their company. You hear it countless times and I heard it again just this past Tuesday from the CEO of Colonial Carton Company, Inc.- It all starts with your employees.
Whether it’s word of mouth marketing, providing outstanding customer service, creating just the right experience, or providing quality products, your employees are your front line and if they aren’t happy then your customers certainly won’t be. See, there’s the analysis of my case study without the additional stuff about bringing in professional managers, building a more sophisticated management team, getting a solid board of directors, product development, etc.
So what’s that got to do with entrepreneurial spirits? Keep in mind here that when I say spirits, I don’t mean an entrepreneurial spirit god, although that would explain who closes the proverbial “window of opportunity”. I hope I can safely say, the spirit is an asshole for closing it. But hey, no challenge no fun, right?
Anyway, to the entrepreneurial spirit. I’m sitting here, overlooking a canyon (I’m lying, actually. I am sitting here overlooking the keyboard of an HP laptop I like to pretend is the Macbook I wish I had. I’m debating stealing my room mates). I am currently developing a new social network (user generated contest site, more accurately) with a company. I think it’s got a lot of merit in the market we’re targeting. The only problem is I am having to develop it almost solely within the constraints of a previous user generated content site they developed. I am hoping this won’t be a detriment to the potential success of the site (will reveal more when I can). The other issue present is it is a user generated content site, meaning, as is usually the case, to be really valuable there needs to be content. Then comes the question of how do you get content there and all that? After talking to a few people about it, perhaps the most convincing line I heard about it is- if you’re providing a service people believe in at the right time, people will go out of their way (mostly) to add the content for you. I think there’s a lot of truth to that. I guess we’ll find out.
Secondy, I am working to get an internet application into its prototype stage. I had a developer whom had a good recommendation that ended up turning out bad. I’ve got a full draft of the pro forma for it done, and given its market, it’s a genius fit (if I can say an idea I have is genius without sounding too pig headed). I’ve been involved with a lot of small, volunteer (and some not) entrepreneurial ventures. I’ve even tried to get some of my own off the ground (I’ll be the first to say unsuccessfully. That’s right, not quite the piggy you thought!). But this one I don’t want to let lie. It’s one of those things that is too much the correct evolutionary path; much like Blogging evolving to Tumblr and Twitter. I spoke with a local software development firm that has put a through social networks through the pipes. They’re mulling over going in on this with me. I’m hoping they end up agreeing to since I know we can make it work. If they choose not to, I need to decide how much money I want to drop on a prototype and begin writing a gameplan for angel funding.
Hopefully all will turn out well, though the above has my entrepreneurial spirits a bit low (that and being sick is probably playing a factor). None the less, even if both things fail (as if! OK, so maybe I am a bit over confident sometimes), there are thousands of opportunities a day. So I’m not too worried.
