Seek, Chase and Tackle Advice

Too often as entrepreneurs we get caught up in the heads down "execution". But what are we executing on? What's the strategy? How does what we are doing get us 2 steps closer to the big picture, the dream?

Most of the time, it really doesn't, or it doesn't most efficiently... and in the early stages we don't have time to waste with drawn out efforts chasing bad decisions.

People talk about relationships and you never understand how important relationships are until you really need them or noticed that you "would have done that different if you had someone helping you".

The difference between successful and failed execution is in my opinion ALWAYS the leaders fault. If you don't have the knowledge; seek it, chase it, tackle it and make sure you don't dismiss it because it's not what you do well. If you do have the knowledge; question it, evaluate your reasoning and ask people who won't be cheerleaders. A really good kick in the ribs is much more valuable than some screaming and pom poms to keep you excited about a bad decision.

Listen, Learn, React. We hear this all the time. But listening means more than just listening to customers it means listening to those that know what you don't know, know what you don't know to ask and know where you will fail.

Don't get married to ideas or concepts of what you think the product should be.

1. Identify a small, addressable market by demo, psycho and geo

2. Do usability testing and understand what the market wants, since you're not selling to yourself it seems kind of silly to design for yourself don't you think?

3. Keep it simple trying to solve one problem for that addressable market.

4. Listen, Learn and React quickly to what the market is saying and not saying (IE... what are they using, not using, not even paying attention to... what's frustrating them)

5. Do more usability testing to see and hear what's working and what's not

6. Say "NO" to some requests and yes to those that make sense from a business perspective. Users will ask you for a rake but never use the rake... so pay attention to what they do and compare that to what they say.

If you don't know how to execute what I've just written.. you need help... so ask all of your contacts and find someone who does. It doesn't make you look stupid saying "I need help here, it's not my area of expertise" it does make you look stupid if you had too much pride to ask...

Love ya my fellow entrepreneurs... I'm glad to be back in the mix... until the next time. David