Are you a restless GUN?

I don’t intend to write something else then entrepreneurship, ideas bla bla but offlate I have been labeled again and again as a “restless” gun

. Hence this is a humble attempt to observe in the vicinity of that label, good bad or ugly.

My friends often call me restless and sometimes impatient, now common there is a generic difference in both the words and offcourse I really don’t want to bore anyone explaining what it means. But lets look at the great personalities around you, aren’t they restless? I am offcourse not trying to mimic someone but then I ask why not be a restless person? Whats the harm?

If you are restless you can always sustain a sharp focus on your goal(pls don’t try too hard, just shoot this on your brain and brain will say offcourse dude!)
Imagine you going to a store to buy a phone, now you know what exactly you want but still you listen to the salesguy? Do you? If you do you are not trying to be patient but indirectly your brain is in a dilemma. You doubt your own decision making system which you think you have decided with your own criterias but actually its not that way. If you were so much convinced & focused on what you want , you would NOT hang in there to listen to some crap sales tales & politely interrupt the guy and say yeah fine its kool but I m looking for iphone 4S only and not a galaxy note which he is trying to pound you with.

Now second scenario is if you are listening to the sales guy talking about some phone which you don’t intend to buy considering the fact that you are very clear on what you are looking for, but you still listen to him….

this behavior shows you “still” want to explore and want to know that hey why not check what he is talking about, now that’s exactly what is happening in your brain , trust me.
Steve Jobs, Dhirubhai Ambani, Mahatma Gandhi etc. were actually labeled as restless & impatient. Steve Jobs never settled or compromised on something which was little away from his vision.

Dhirubhai had the perseverance to excel but at the same time he would never settle down with lesser then his goal or vision….

so if you try to emphasize more with your cereberal molecules you will realize that focus comes with a dogged pursuit which comes by being restless and impatient…doesn’t that mean you are always on your “toes”?

Now someone lying on a bed performs or someone on his/her toes performs “most” of the activities(xcept for a few ) better??

MBA degree is for losers?

Over the last couple of days, I was getting some updates about friends-family in India, while talking to my mom. During conversation, my mom mentioned about two recent graduates, who’s campus placements (in IT companies) were deferred due to the uncertain economy. And so, they were considering pursuing – applying for an MBA in the meanwhile.

And for some reason, that topic lingered on in my mind – bothering me. Why would two recent graduates consider an MBA as a ‘way out’ ? How much did they even know about what MBA is about ? After all, by the time you graduate with a bachleors degree, you hardly have any insight into real world, leave aside an MBA. Who counseled them into an MBA program ?

It didnt take long for me to figure out that no one else is to blame for this distorted notion but our society. A B.E + MBA combo is seen as the holy grail for Indian technical professionals. BE + MBA candidates are not only paid highly – they are valued highly by the society, professionally and even from the matrimonial perspective. Not to mention the extent to which the media has glamorized the MBA degree – touting the crore plus salaries and the direct placements abroad. Now that I revisit some of the conversations i’ve had with my peers, several of whom have graduated from top-tier MBA schools in India & abroad, it seems that the common motivation to do an MBA seems to be for one of the following three reasons:
1) I want to do an MBA to get a higher salary

2) I want to make a shift from technical to the business aspects of the profession

3) I’m stuck in a rut in my job and so need a change

Taking the entrepreneurial route would guarantee you points (2) and (3) above. Point (1) is something that is not guaranteed and apparently, the riskiest aspect of the proposition. So I guess the sheer uncertainty of point (1) leads people to opt for an MBA rather than taking the entrepreneurial route.

I actually find it quite ironic, because Indian B-schools are shifting into overdrive when it comes to B-plan competitions (just look at the increase in the number of b-plan competitions being held across b-school campuses) – implicitly encouraging graduates to start their own businesses and become entrepreneurs. So, its like you joined a b-school, the b-school encourages you to become an entrepreneur when you could have completely skipped b-school and gone into entrepreneurship directly.

Personally, I believe that the biggest value that an MBA provides is the access to the network of people and the alumni. The other 3 reasons listed above seem frivolous in comparison and dont seem to justify doing an MBA – I might very well be wrong, but its just me.
The reason I decided to write about this is because if entrepreneurship needs to be encouraged at the college level then we need to change their mindset that BE + MBA is not the only way to go. Entrepreneurship is a viable career option and chances are that they will learn much more being an entrepreneur than pursuing an MBA.

Ok. Time to go and talk to those family friends about their MBA plans...or may be WHO CARES?

Scott McNealy---> the DuDe of Sun Microsystems with his new Boat....

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address (with intro by President ...

the crunchiness of TechCrunch!

Now i Just stumbled upon Mike Arrington's version of how it all started with tech-crunch...this shows there is no pattern for success except for one thing perserverence & dogged focus...UMMM...here you go

TechCrunch a San Francisco-based company that publishes the influential blog of the same name, started as a hobby. In 2005, Michael Arrington, a serial entrepreneur and former lawyer, was researching Silicon Valley start-ups and decided to post his findings online. Since then, TechCrunch, which draws about 9.2 million visitors a month and boasts annual revenue of about $10 million, has become the go-to source for breaking news about Internet start-ups and tech companies. Although TechCrunch has 25 full-time employees, Arrington, 40, still spends much of his time reporting and writing. On most days, he works remotely from his home near Seattle, in a cavelike home office. From morning until night, Arrington sits in darkness in front of his computer—blasting music, working his contacts, and focusing on what he loves best: breaking big stories.

Mr.Arrington says --> I wake up in a pissed-off mood. I'm not a morning person. And I usually wake up to emergencies—an e-mail or a text message saying, “Oh, my God! Something big is happening! How could you not have written about this yet?'

If news is breaking, I want to be on it. We break more big stories than everyone else combined in tech—and that's not prebriefed news or something that was handed to us. I judge my own performance based on that. When we break a story, that's a point. When someone else breaks a story, we're minus a point. And I want to be positive points.

I try to get up at 9 a.m. every day. One of the things my doctor wants me to do is regulate my sleep. A year ago, I'd work until I passed out, and wake up eight or nine hours later, which might be 4 p.m. or 3 a.m. Then I'd work again until I passed out. That was my life for four years—it got really bad. I missed a lot of social things. I didn't keep up with friends. I was a mess. I actually gained 50 pounds in the five years since I started TechCrunch. So now I'm working with a doctor and trying to get reset. Getting up at the same time every day is apparently one of the best things you can do health-wise. The problem is, I still don't go to sleep very early. So I'm usually working on four or five hours of sleep. Then I make it up on the weekends.

The very first thing I do in the morning is go right to my computer, which is always on. I'll scan my e-mail for breaking news. If something big is going on, I'll decide if I want to cover the story or assign it to another writer. Say a source sends me a tip that Google is buying Microsoft, and it's going to break later today—I'm making this up, but that would be a big story. I'd start calling people at Google and Microsoft to see if it's true or not.

Sometimes, it will be true, but the company will ask me to hold off. Negotiating with companies over how news breaks is a big part of what we do. I don't think traditional journalists would do this or admit to it, but a source might say, “Yeah, we just got bought, but can you please not write about it for a week, because it might kill the deal?' Unless I know lots of other journalists are sniffing around, I generally defer to the entrepreneur. We probably lose half of those stories, but it's the right thing to do. It builds trust. People aren't going to tell you things if they don't trust you.

Usually around 11 a.m., after I have put out all the fires and there's nothing left in my inbox that I have to address immediately, I'll take a shower, get dressed, and walk my dogs. I have a chocolate and a yellow lab, and they're my best friends.

I moved to the Seattle area in May. It's calm, and my parents live nearby, so I see them a few times each week. I spend two-thirds of the time working here, and the rest of the time in our office in San Francisco. Right now, I don't actually have a place in California, so I stay in hotels.

After my dogs are fed, I make myself something to eat and go back to my desk. My office is like a cave. I have blackout shades on the windows. I like the dark. There's less distraction. I use a Mac with two 24-inch monitors, and I'll do research on one screen and write on the other. It's more efficient. I'd love to have three monitors, but Macs support only two. I have the exact same setup in my office in San Francisco.

I usually spend about half my day talking to sources, either on the phone or on IM. There are very few people in Silicon Valley—or in tech, in general—whom I don't know pretty well. Chasing down stories is my favorite part of my job. My style is to bust the door down and clean the mess up later. That works pretty well for me. I've known a lot of my sources for five years now. When I call them, there's no salutation—it's just right to the point. I expect them to tell me what I want to know very quickly.

Our main competitive advantage is that my team and I truly love entrepreneurs. They're my rock stars. I've always been fascinated by entrepreneurs. I had four businesses that did not work out. TechCrunch is my first real success, and it happened by accident. If I were to write a book, it would be about what drives entrepreneurs. I meet the winners, and the losers, too. Most of them could go out and get a perfectly reasonable job as an accountant or a lawyer. Instead, they risk everything for almost certain failure. The losers are actually more interesting sometimes. You learn a ton from failure.

I never develop friendships with people I don't actually like. For instance, I write about digital music a lot. And the music labels are notorious for working the press. They'll leak stuff and develop relationships, and it can actually be pretty fruitful as a journalist to get to know them. I hate 'em. They sue their customers. I see them as Darth Vader. Maybe it's not fair, but I see the world in black and white. I don't like them, so I won't talk to them. My sources are all people I actually genuinely like, and I think they know that. They're my friends, too.
I'm pretty unorganized when it comes to keeping track of my sources. I used to keep most of them sorted in my head. But then at some point in the past year, I suddenly lost my short-term memory. I don't know if it's just turning 40. One way I stay organized now is by using Google Voice. It keeps a record of all of my phone calls and text messages. When I make a call, I'll almost always initiate it from my computer through this service. And if somebody calls my Google Voice number, it will ring my cell phone or my home phone—any phone I want. It also makes it easy to set up cell phones when I travel to Europe or Asia.
Text messages and phone calls tend to be the sort of cloak-and-dagger way I get tips and story ideas, but I also use Skype a lot. The video quality is great. When you go full screen, it's like the other person is in the room. Skype also has screen sharing, so the person can hit a button and I can see their desktop. I use it a lot for business, and more and more for talking with friends.

I don't like PR people for the most part. I like going to CEOs directly. If a PR person suggests I meet the CEO of this new company, I always say yes. But if they say, “Can we set up drinks? Or dinner?' I say no. I hate that—it is a huge waste of time. Let's meet over coffee or get on Skype video and talk about your company, but I don't want to chitchat about your family, because I don't know you. If I have time to go to dinner, I want to do that with my college friends or my parents or whomever I'm dating.

I usually post several times a week. When I first started TechCrunch, I would post several times a day. I've always been manic about it. You know that experiment where the rat hits the lever and the treat comes out? By the third day of writing, I got my first comment from somebody who wasn't my mom. That's the treat. Then people started subscribing to my RSS feed. Every day, that number would go up—10, 13, 100. That constant feedback is my reward. I still scan for comments on my posts. I can almost always predict how many comments I'll get. Most are knee-jerk reactions, but sometimes there will be a few that are worthy of discussion, and I'll chime in.

TechCrunch is known for our parties. That's how I met all my sources in the early days. These days, we do three big blowouts every year, five or six smaller events, and then a few small parties. It winds up being an event every month, and I try to go to all of them. I started the tradition when I first moved to Palo Alto in 2005. I wrote a blog post inviting people to a party—10 people came. I made hamburgers. We drank beer and stayed up until 4 a.m. drinking Scotch by the fire. Two weeks later, I had another party, and 20 people showed up. About 100 people came to the next one, then 200. Venture capitalists were smoking pot in my backyard and passing out on my couch. I stopped having parties at my house, because it was getting trashed. About 1,000 people came to our party this summer.

Over the years, some people got upset when we didn't cover them, and a certain percentage of those really made it personal. Or I'd write about how much I liked a start-up—or didn't like a start-up—and people would get really passionate about that. Suddenly, there were people who really didn't like me. And because I'm introverted—I like being alone—that actually made me pull in a little bit, and then more and more. The more I pulled in and stopped talking to people, the more people saw me maybe as arrogant.
So suddenly, I have all these enemies. In 2008, somebody spit on me at a conference in Germany. Before that, I had a death-threat incident—I had to hire private security 24/7 to protect me and my parents. We closed our office, and one of our employees got detained by police when he stopped by to check on things. Obviously, we sorted that out, but the whole experience freaked me out. I took off. I went to Hawaii for a month and didn't bring my computer. Page views went up; everything was fine. That helped me realize that I am not nearly as important as I thought I was—and that the team I hired is really good. I've really let go since then. Now I really rely on them, and it's really good.

I have never been very good at managing. I want to be writing, and it's hard to be a coach and a player at the same time. Plus, I'm moody. That's why I hired Heather Harde as CEO. She is steady. Erick Schonfeld, who is co-editor of TechCrunch, manages the editorial team. I talk with each of them maybe three times a week. We have never had an executive meeting. Instead, we use this program called Yammer to make sure everyone at TechCrunch is on the same page. It's like a streaming bulletin board—anyone can post, and everyone will see it. If I think a writer or editor did a great job, I'll give them a public high-five. Or if someone screwed up the formatting, I may point it out so others can learn from those mistakes.

Around 3 p.m., I usually take a break. I run errands or play fetch with my dogs. This summer, since I'd just moved, I did a lot of household things—like unpacking or buying a shower rod. Depending on my plans, I may go out to dinner with my friends or my parents. Or I'll eat alone and then go back to work. Honestly, my goal these days is fitting real life in around the work.

After dinner, I'm usually back at the computer. That's when I do thought and opinion pieces. I'll spend two or three hours on one post. For example, in July, a CNN journalist was fired for tweeting her opinion about a Hezbollah leader. I wrote a piece about how ridiculous it was that she could not have an opinion.

I like working late at night. There are no interruptions. I usually listen to music when I write. I like hard music that is not happy music—Metallica, Eminem, Rage Against the Machine.

I might go until midnight or 6 in the morning. No matter what time it is, I always read before I go to bed—even if it is only a few pages. Usually fiction and always an actual printed book. My favorite book is Catch-22. And then I fall asleep, happy.

e-commerce in India.... a TOUGH job !!

India is yet to witness a breakthrough ecommerce success story particularly in online retail. There are number of barriers, most of them out of your control, which makes this space difficult to conquer. Travel and Matrimony ventures are doing relatively good and we will see why the case is so.

A successful business requires a lot of auxiliary services which supports the main business. Internet based businesses are no different. In effect, the companies providing these services necessarily become your business partners and that too, interestingly, in revenues and not profits. If you are a garage based startup, sorting these things out will be bigger challenge than getting visitors to your site. You will have to invest significant amount of time and energy in just setting up basic things.

India still hasn’t developed a matured ecosystem which will help small, low on fund startups to grow. At some point or the other, you will have to get your hand dirty and make efforts to put all these auxiliary services in place. Not only you have to look for services with minimum service level but also make sure that it doesn’t put a hole in your pocket.

An eBusiness is a normal business with internet as a medium. This doesn’t change basics of the business but instead you have one more responsibility to make it work on the internet.

Following are some of the infrastructural barriers responsible for slow growth of eCommerce in India. Some of these even present new business opportunities.

■Payment Collection: You could end up giving a significant share of your revenue here (~4% or more) even when you get paid by netbanking. With a business of thin margin, this effectively means you are parting away with almost half of your profits. Fraudulent charges, chargebacks etc. all become merchant’s responsibility and hence to be accounted for in the business model.
To add to it, you still don’t get that world class service which gives a seamless experience for users. They might be greeted by a poorly designed landing page of your gateway which will ask a million questions even if user wants to pay by netbanking. This might lead to low conversion rates.
■Logistics: You have to deliver the product, safe and secure, in the hands of the right guy in right time frame. Reaching this Holy Grail with not spending too much is a dream for Indian ecommerce initiatives. Regular post doesn’t offer an acceptable service level, couriers have high charges and limited reach. Initially, you might have to take insurance for high value shipped articles increasing the cost. Low value articles will have significant shipping cost which will make them costly.
■Vendor Management: However advanced your system may be, you will have to come down and deal in an inefficient system for inventory management. This will slow you down drastically. Most of them won’t carry any digital data for their products. No nice looking photographs, no digital data sheet, no mechanism to check for daily prices, availability to keep your site updated.
■Taxation: Octroi, entry tax, VAT and lots of state specific forms which accompany them. This can be confusing at times with lots of exceptions and special rules.

Travel industry doesn’t have a problem of logistics. Their vendors have very advanced reservations system in place already which will tell you about real-time pricing and availability. They have long been accepting card payments and it’s now part of their business model. All the taxes levied to them are usually easy to calculate as it comes from their vendor itself. This domain is already conquered.

The challenge left is in the area of selling tangible goods. What’s your take on these issues?

interesting and challenging enough i guess....

Reasons why you should NOT start a biz...!!

We come across various resources on the internet on how to start a business, and making it more complicated everyday making us wonder if there are so many points to remember while starting up a biz?? I just thought of some points which are relevant in making a decision why NOT to start a biz....

1. Don’t Start a Business for the sake of MONEY

Top on the list of reasons why people go into business is the strong desire to amass wealth. I have never known of a more ineffective way to think about business than this. As unpopular as it might sound, most business failures stem from this singular fact alone. Why? Because the moment making money becomes your primary focus as an entrepreneur, delivering value which is the foundation of effective business practice becomes secondary. And when this happens, no matter how great your business is, it automatically goes on a downward spin. Nothing kills a business faster than putting money first before adding value. So when next you’re thinking about starting up a business, I suggest you lose every possible thought about making money and focus entirely on delivering consistently superior value. Trust me, I’m talking from experience (of other people), starting your own business for the purpose of making money is a sure fire way of being highly indebted and having cardiac arrest!

2. Don’t Start a Business because you LOST your job

Closely related to the issue of money is going into business because you lost your job. As you’ve probably realized, this is how many people end up as entrepreneurs. At first glance, there might not be anything wrong with this approach of starting up a business, but taking a closer look will reveal a vital truth; people who lose their jobs are often driven by fear and to start a business because you are afraid is absolutely disastrous. The implication is often enormous; top on the list is that you will never exercise the due diligence starting a new business entails. Why? Because the fear of living without a regular income since you no longer have a job will keep haunting you and eventually start making you place unrealistic financial expectations on your new business venture. Second on the list is that you are emotionally unstable the first few months of losing a job, especially when you didn’t see it coming.

3. Don’t Start a Business because you HAVE money

I know you’re probably startled about this one. You certainly didn’t see it coming. Well, it’s as wrong as starting a business for the sake of making money. How? Here’s the thing most people with money don’t realize, it doesn’t take money alone to make a business work. Starting and running a business will cost you more than all the money you think you have. There are just too many things a business will demand from you that money can’t even buy, for example; how much does it cost to buy the passion needed to build a SIGNIFICANT (unique and useful) business? Have you ever seen passion being offered for sale? In fact, no university or institute of learning can even teach you passion (not even Harvard or Stanford). Here’s the truth, having money is good, but it’s not sufficient enough to make you want to start a business. Starting a business requires gut, passion, ingenuity, creativity, resilience and so many other personal character traits that all the money in the world is insufficient to buy!

4. Don’t Start a Business because you want TIME Freedom

The thought of not having to wake up early and rush off to work can be very enticing to would be entrepreneurs. But take it from me, I’ve been in the game now for 4 years; the fact that you didn’t wake up early and rushed off to work doesn’t mean you are not at work. Being an entrepreneur means working all of the time even in your sleep. That your fantasy of time freedom will naturally go sore once you choose to become your own boss. How do I mean? You see, it’s not that you wouldn’t have more time to yourself when you’re an entrepreneur, certainly you would. But the irony of it all is this; that time freedom is for you to do some creative work and not for you to be idle and indulge yourself in some unproductive activity. You left your job to have enough time to do what you really care about in life, that’s all the definition of time freedom you’ll ever get – having enough time to make a SIGNIFICANT contribution with your life to the world. True entrepreneurs hardly stay idle indulging in pleasurable activities just because they have time freedom. They are always in the creative process, picking up clues here and there of how they can make the world a better place by utilizing their time, money and life for something worthwhile.
5. Don’t Start a Business because OTHERS are doing it

Anything that is popular has a way of being highly contagious. People just literally jump at it without any logical explanation. Believe it or not, this is how so many people ended up in the world of business. Since everyone they know is quitting their 9-to-5 jobs to go start their own thing, why shouldn’t they do the same? The down side of going with the bandwagon is this; you’ll lack the staying power critical to survival in the world of business. At first, the thought of being your own boss can be very enticing, but sooner or later you’ll realize it’s not a bed of roses. And when this reality sets in, you’re the only one who would be left alone to figure out a way of making it through the stormy days. So start a business because it’s what your soul desires and not what the society or your peers desires for you. Starting your own business is not about boosting your personal ego or winning a popularity contest, it’s a personal decision born out of an internal conviction!
6. Don’t Start a Business because you HATE working for others

Now here comes the tricky one; starting a business because you hate working for others. After wanting to make money, this is another popular reason people give for going into business. Listen, as popular as it may seem, here’s the truth; 99% of popular things are either totally wrong or mere misconceptions. That you hate working for others is no guarantee that you will succeed or enjoy working for yourself. In fact, there’s more work to do working for yourself than you ever thought you did working for others. So if you hate working for others, you might just as well hate working for yourself. What it turns out to be sincerely is this; you simply don’t like work in general and this is why starting your own business is the last thing you should ever think of doing. Why? Because business is the domain of unlimited work; there are no working hours like your regular 9-to-5 job. Welcome to the 24/7/365 days a year working schedule!
7. Don’t Start a Business just LIKE everybody else (Differentiate or Die)

In my field of business development, I have seen so many people go into business just because they saw somebody else succeeding in it. This is a higher form of going into business because others are doing (point #5 above). You observe a business and simply go make a clone of such business. So what do we get? The same kind of business but with different brand names. I don’t get it; “Why would any right thinking person choose to be a duplicate of another when it’s absolutely possible to excel being an original?” As a matter of fact, you have higher chances of succeeding going into business as an innovator than being a duplicator.

The business terrain is already overcrowded filled with countless number of companies doing almost the same thing you have in mind to do. Unlike in the past before the advent of the internet where you had only local or national competitors, such is no longer the case in this age of globalization. Now your competitors are all over the world and just one click away from your local or national target market. So why would you want to build a business just like your neighbor? Here’s the deal; if your business doesn’t stand for something SIGNIFICANT (unique and useful) there’s no need repeating what others have already done and giving it another name. Meaning, if there’s nothing positively unusual about your business, don’t bother going into business to offer the same old milk but now in a new brand skin or container. Doing this is the fastest way of route to extinction. In other words, differentiate or die!
8. Don’t Start a Business without SUFFICIENT planning

Business is a highly complex activity and therefore requires adequate planning. It’s been statistically proven that inadequate planning is top among the reasons why most businesses fail. I’m sure you already know that by now (that’s why it’s the second to the last point). Why then did I include it in the list? Because most times, the problem is not about what we don’t know but more of what we do know but never put to use or practice. There’s a phrase that best captures the essence of planning and it goes like this; “He who fails to plan, plans to fail”. And a key element of planning is having a long term perspective of things or as it is popularly called; seeing the big picture. Which intentionally, happens to be the subject matter of the next point to which we now turn.
9. Don’t Start a Business that cannot OUTLIVE you

One of the underlying principles of the Accounting profession is called; “going concern” which means that a business must be in perpetuity. That is, a business is meant to exist as far as there’s still a need to be met. It’s just basic human nature; I mean who wants to raise a child only to watch the child die before their eyes? In the same regard, you should never start a business that has a short lifespan. Starting a business from a short term or temporary viewpoint, as far as I’m concerned is the definition of selfishness. Why build something temporary when you have the potential to create something eternal? The joy of any creator is to see his/her creation rise above their widest dream and outlive the very existence of the creator. So here’s the ultimate question for you; “does your business have the capacity to outlive you?” OR “Would your business still be in existence long after you’ve gone?” Never start or go into a new business without asking and providing answer to either of these questions.
What then is the RIGHT way to start a business?

It’s in the bid to help you answer these two questions above that I now offer the only right way to start a business.

Start a business because you have something SIGNIFICANT (unique & useful) to contribute to the benefit of the human race!
Why?

Because a business is a tool that entrepreneurs create in order to make a SIGNIFICANT (unique & useful) contribution to the world by addressing a particular problem plaguing the human race.

the GOOGLE empire

how GOOGLE makes MONEY on a BLANK homepage???

Interesting stuff this is!!

the GOOGLE story.. Brilliant INVENTION which made them "feel luck"

The VADAPAV story!!!

Ravi Gehlot tips...YOUNG rich GUY on Young Aspiring Entrepreneurs

The elevator pitch is one of the most important elements in starting your business successfully. Picture this: you are searching for funding for your new business, taking an elevator from a big meeting when in walks Donald Trump. What do you do? Do you freeze up when he asks you what you are doing here or do you nail him with a perfect pitch, snag his business card and score a meeting?

Here is a guide to the several core elements of the elevator pitch. This is not your “commercial” and is not a sales pitch. That can be crafted from this, but this serves as a professional pitch with the purpose of raising investment for your business. This is a pitch for your company, not what you are selling. Tell them why your business will be successful.

This pitch needs to be short and to the point, because by the time the elevator stops, you’ll need to have completed your pitch!

Step 1: The Hook

First you’ll need to grab your audience’s attention. Why should they care? If they are an investor they’ve heard dozens of pitches this week. How will yours stand out from the crowd and get a call back? You’ll need to appeal your audience by speaking directly to their problem. Try asking them a question or strike them with humor to get them thinking or warrant a response.

Example: Do you remember how much time and money you spent struggling to start your first business?

Step 2: The Problem

Every business needs to solve a problem. The best businesses are born out of necessity, where the entrepreneur found a problem in their life or business and figured out a product or service that would fix this problem for others. Make this perfectly evident in your elevator pitch and score extra points if you phrase it in a way your audience can relate to.

Example: Young people who have business ideas often don’t know where to start and have no place to go for simple, straightforward advice.

Step 3: The Solution

Now that you’ve set yourself up, it’s time to solve that problem. What does your business do? You should present the name of your business in this step. How can your business help your market?
Step 4: The Market

Your audience wants to know who you are going to sell to and how large that market is. Basically an investor will want to see how big the opportunity is to make money. Don’t just throw a big number in there and say “the enterprise creation industry is a $50 billion industry and we plan on capturing 1% of it”–you will get accused of pulling this number out of the sky.


Step 5: Revenue Model

Next your audience will want to know how your business plans to capitalize off that market? In other words, how does your business work/make money? Is it an e-commerce site? A service? Retail? Explain.

Example: cnn.com will publish expert advice, interviews with the most successful young entrepreneurs and offer discounts on services to help small business owners. The site will generate revenue from advertising and referral fees we negotiate from our most trusted vendors.

Step 6: Competitive Advantage

Why will your company succeed and what will be your secret to success? Investors want to know what competition exists and how you plan to differentiate yourself. This is your time to explain why there is room in the market for your product/service.

Step 7: Management

So by now your audience should believe in your product, but why should they bet on you? Who’s behind the product and why will your team be successful? Investors want to know your track record and want to see passion for your business. It’s better to have an “A team” and a “B idea”, than a “B team” and an “A idea”. Prove your credibility!

Example: Our founding team includes two young entrepreneurs who know just hard it is to start a business for the first time. Matt Wilson and Jared O’Toole have been featured everywhere from Entrepreneur to The Wall Street Journal, have 4 years experience running the world’s #1 Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization and consult for digital marketing clients across the country.

Step 8: Finances

Investors want to know when you will be profitable, how long it will take you to make money and how much money you can expect to make. Investors know that these are just estimates and that when you are in a startup you really can only go by your best guess, but don’t tell someone you are going to make $10 million in your first 6 months or you’ll be laughed at.

If you are already profitable tell them how much money you are making and how their investment will help you create more profits.

Example: Facebook has been profitable for X months and has made $xxx,xxx in advertising and revenue sharing profits. The company plans on creating revenues of $x,xxx,xxx by the end of 2011.

Step 9: What is your exit strategy?

Your investors want to know how they will cash out on their investment. Are you looking to sell the company? IPO? Merge with another company? What are your goals?

Step 10: The Ask

Be sure to tell your audience what their investment will be used for. This is your time to close the deal. If you want a business card, an investment or to set up a meeting you’ll need to prompt them and ask. Be as specific as possible with your ask especially if it is for money. Be direct when closing the deal.

Example: We are seeking investment of $xxx,xxx to hire a full time developer, sales team and upgrade our Manhattan office space.

Makes Sense??

Here's how four ultra-successful twentysomethings leveraged their brilliant ideas into major businesses online. DAMN man world is flat...

Out of Her Closet, a $50 Million Business
Susan Gregg was 17 and heading off to Carnegie Mellon University, and she had a problem: a closet overstuffed with one-of-a-kind vintage shoes and dresses. The solution? Open an online boutique.

ModCloth.com was headquartered in her dorm room and run with the help of her high school sweetheart, Eric Koger. The two drove from Pittsburgh to their South Florida hometown several times throughout college to haul up stock. By the end of their senior year in 2006, ModCloth was getting 60,000 visitors a month, and plenty of them were asking for more.

Gregg--a double major in German and business, and now married to Koger--knew what to do. First, she raised the capital: $50,000 in credit card debt, plus loans from Koger's uncles, student loans and a second mortgage. Then she hired designers to create an original, vintage-inspired collection. "I Googled, 'Where can I buy wholesale clothing?'" Gregg-Koger recalls. She found the Magic Trade Show in Las Vegas, wandered the booths, asked questions and found her designers.

These days, as co-founder and chief creative officer, Gregg-Koger, 25, still handpicks all the clothes, shoes and accessories featured on the site (most sell for less than $100) and seeks out designers who fit ModCloth's aesthetic. Koger, the CEO, oversees the technical side. The site gets around 2 million visitors every month and is on track to surpass $50 million in sales this year. They've raised $20 million in new funding to open up offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles this summer, and employee numbers are close to 150, and rising.

Gregg-Koger says ModCloth's biggest advantage is the fact that she is ModCloth's ideal customer: "Other companies might say, 'We need to get on this social networking stuff,' whereas it was intuitive for us. If I have a Facebook account, and my friends do, my business should."

ModCloth's future is "social commerce," she adds. That is, in developing a site that involves customers even if they're not actually buying. ModCloth recently introduced a "Be the Buyer" program, which lets customers choose which styles go into production, and a "Name It and Win It" contest. The idea is to leverage crowdsourcing and encourage customers to share and comment--and get excited about clothes that will be available in a few months.

"But that's like version 0.5," she says. "There's a lot more coming." --Jennifer Wang

The Patriarch of Mobile Location
Loopt is a quintessential expression of a generation shaped by mobility, interactivity and constant connectivity. In other words, it's the kind of innovation that could only spring from a mind as youthful as Sam Altman's. "People often try to build things for themselves first," says Altman, Loopt's 25-year-old co-founder and CEO. "I built this for my friends."

The social-mapping service Altman created when he was a sophomore at Stanford University offers users a real-time virtual lifeline to nearby friends, their present whereabouts and activities. The mobile app's utility is bolstered by details about local attractions and events, including travel directions and reviews from content partners such as Zagat and Citysearch. Loopt also instantly shares status updates with Facebook and Twitter contacts, and even lets users browse profiles of potential new friends within a given area.

Altman is a veteran of the mobile social networking revolution: Founded in 2005, Loopt pre-dates Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite by several years. And in what is now a hotly competitive realm, Loopt's focus is product innovation: In June the Mountain View, Calif., company launched Loopt Star, a game that awards users coupons, music downloads and perks in exchange for their checking in to the service from specific destinations. Altman compares Star to a virtual loyalty card that lets retailers connect directly with customers while they're shopping or looking for a place to eat. The user with the most check-ins at a specific site is the "Boss" of that location, further driving repeat business.

Loopt has garnered more than $17 million in venture financing so far. The company doesn't disclose financial figures, but sales come from content partners and retailers, along with local advertising--which is where the biggest growth opportunity lies.

The Loopt app is available as a free download on more than 100 mobile handset models offered by all four major U.S. providers, including the iPhone. The Loopt network now connects more than 4 million registered users, with hundreds of thousands more signing up each month. Altman expects Loopt to continue to grow at a significant rate throughout 2010.

"Now that mobile phones are a fundamental communications device, the concept of place is becoming increasingly important," he says. "Smartphones are transformational things." --Jason Ankeny

Marketing Guru for the Digital Age
Michael Mothner was on the last round of interviews for a coveted job as an analyst at Goldman Sachs in New York. The managing director looked over his résumé and noticed a company called Wpromote, which Mothner said he had started and had some success with as a sophomore at Dartmouth in 2001. "To call my bluff, he asked why I would want to work for Goldman if my company had been successful," says Mothner, now 29. "That was a defining moment for me. I stood up and said, 'You know what? You're right. I don't think this job is right for me.'"

After recovering from the shock, he began building Wpromote, a search engine marketing company that then offered a cheap platform for submitting websites to multiple search engines. This was 2004, and Google was just coming on--but Mothner foresaw its dominance. "I was having a lot of success using Google's pay-per-click services to drive traffic to my company," he says. "So I came to the conclusion that there was a market for helping consult and manage these PPC campaigns for other people."

Wpromote did just that, launching a tiered service that helped people create PPC campaigns, choose keywords and manage bids. In the process, Mothner and his team were learning a lot about what elements helped websites get better Google rankings, so Wpromote offered a search engine optimization service too.

The strategy paid off: Wpromote rocketed from $500,000 in sales in '04 to $2.8 million in '05 and $6.2 million by 2007. Then the economy went south, but Mothner barreled ahead anyway.

Today Wpromote, based in El Segundo, Calif., has 62 employees providing PPC, SEO, web development and social media advertising to 2,300 clients, including Hewlett-Packard. It had $8.5 million in sales for 2009 and expects to book at least $12 million to $13 million this year. Plus, Mothner plans to run Wpromote as if he will own it forever: "I think it is dangerous when people build companies with the sole intention of selling them." --Joel Holland

The New Food Democracy
There's a Spanish proverb that says, "The belly rules the mind," but sometimes the two operate in perfect harmony. Just ask Emily Olson: While working as a brand manager for The Fresh Market, a gourmet supermarket chain, she saw how artisanal food startups struggled to land on retailers' shelves.

"Just because something tastes awesome doesn't mean it can make it into stores," Olson says. "So I started thinking 'How do we democratize this?'"

Olson, now 26, teamed up with Rob LaFave, 27, and Nik Bauman, 26--friends who shared entrepreneurial ambitions dating back to their time at Virginia Tech. Their search for alternative distribution models led online, a natural progression for twentysomethings raised in the Amazon.com era. The result, inspired by the crafts site Etsy, is Foodzie, a web marketplace that connects small vendors with shoppers across the U.S.

Foodzie offers small producers a free platform--a virtual farmer's market--to promote and distribute their meats, cheeses, produce, snacks and sweets. Vendors can set up their online storefronts, complete with photos and the philosophies behind their products. Foodzie processes all transactions, even sending sellers prepaid shipping labels once a purchase is complete.

"Our products come from people who are passionate about what they're making--often there's a story behind what they're doing, like a family recipe," Olson says. "We want products with a personal connection. And we want them to be delicious, not mass-produced."

She and her fellow Foodzies developed the model under the auspices of the Boulder, Colo., incubator TechStars. Their mentor, Jeff Clavier, founder and managing partner of SoftTech VC, later spearheaded a $1 million seed investment in the San Francisco-based platform, which went live in December 2008.

Foodzie hosts nearly 400 sellers nationwide and claims a 20 percent cut of all purchases made through the site. Though Foodzie doesn't disclose revenue, Olson says midway through 2010, Foodzie is on track to quadruple its 2009 sales. Top sellers include the Skillet Bacon Jam ($37) and Cheesecakes in a Jar ($36.45).

Now Olson and company are exploring ways to help vendors distribute their products both online and in stores--and not limiting Foodzie to being a direct-to-consumer distributor.

"Our mission is to help smaller food producers become bigger businesses," she says. "There is growing consumer awareness that you can still support small producers without breaking your budget. More than ever, people really care about where their food comes from."

a 8 Year OLD tech MOGUL---> SMASHING!!

The mobile app market has no age restrictions. Meet game developer Joseph Hudicka.

Joseph Hudicka needs to make about $999,500 more before he can claim the title of young millionaire, but he's still light-years ahead of his peers in terms of entrepreneurial success.

At the age of 8, Joseph has already joined the ranks of the tech elite: He has developed two applications for the iPhone. Pretty good for a kid who doesn't even own a mobile phone.
Joseph's first app, Puckz, went on sale in Apple's App Store in March. The game, which combines elements of chess and ice hockey, evolved from a homemade board game Joseph created three years earlier.

"I was getting bored with my other games and wanted to make my own," he says.

The explosive growth of mobile gaming inspired Joseph and his parents, Joseph Sr. and Lora, who live in Flemington, N.J., to translate Puckz to the iPhone platform, tapping mobile solutions partner [x]cube Labs to oversee the software development. Joseph supervised the creative process, suggesting color schemes, layouts and sound effects. And like every creative genius, he laments the technical limitations of the iPhone gaming experience. "I imagined Puckz in 3-D," he says.

Puckz successfully avoided the pitfalls of the notoriously labyrinthine App Store submission process, earning Apple's approval in just one day. Joseph's soccer-themed follow-up app, Goalz, spent several weeks in administrative limbo when Apple objected to its use of licensed trademarks. Even after Joseph removed the offending content, Apple still took its sweet time before lending its official endorsement in June. (Joseph's theory: "Maybe they slept in late and forgot about my app.")

As of the end of June, downloads of Joseph's two apps numbered nearly 800. After giving Apple its cut, he has netted $489. Joseph's parents gave him permission to buy an iPhone when his app sales reach the 1,000-download milestone.

Despite his early success in the tech world, it may be premature to pin Joseph as a budding entrepreneur. Right now, he's planning to make his mark as a professional hockey player--or maybe a pro bowler. Either way, life as a software magnate may not be in the cards, because, Joseph says, "I've already done that."

7 Myths of Starting Up – Busted here! ---> By Alok Kejriwal, CEO , games2win.com

Myth 1 – I have a great idea but I can’t share it coz someone will steal it.

Oh man, if that were the case, then dreams would be the most expensive commodity on the planet.

Salvador Dali- the father of Surrealism slept on a couch with a spoon in his mouth. He would start dreaming up crazy ideas and as he would drift into his sleep, the spoon would slip out of his mouth, fall on the floor and wake him up. He would immediately get up, rush to his canvas to paint what he had just dreamt. The million $$ Dalis that exist today are paintings, not dreams.

Truth – An idea is worth nothing. Execute. Execute. Execute to make it valuable.

Myth 2 – When do I approach the investors? Hmmmm… What’s the best ‘timing’?

Huh?? Were you Sleep Walking?

If only investors were like the Black and Yellow Mumbai cabs that you can hail and get into any time you want!

No VC or Investor is waiting with bated breath biting her fingernails for you to call! It’s quite the opposite scene actually. In a booming Economy (like India), investors are deluged with lots of high quality and established business investment options, so you have to fight hard to get into the VC’s visitor’s area to begin with!

Truth – Capital Chases Entrepreneurs, not the other way around. Invest all your energies in building a GREAT business. Everyone will be ringing your doorbell.
Myth 3 – I have no money to start. (Sniff Sniff).

Most new business ideas today really need very little capital. If you are thinking of starting an Internet enabled business, the cloud takes away all the pain of investments. Domains cost less than 20 US$, and the rest of it is almost free. Sites like WordPress and their plugins can get you a fully loaded website up and running in a few thousand rupees spent.

Sure, if you have a more Capital Intensive business idea, then think really hard. Start Ups don’t survive on Love and Fresh Air. They need real hard cash. If you are on the Poverty Line, don’t attempt to start up. There will be better times to be more adventurous.

Truth – Be ready to sacrifice a good couple of years’ earnings into starting up and not looking like someone who lost all her baggage after a 24 hour flight. Once you have the cushion of 2 years’ savings, a lot more confidence will seep into your decision-making and improve your risk taking capabilities. Also Budget your Burn to say last for a year or whatever be your test horizon. That discipline will go a long way even after you get funded.

Myth 4 – Let me Grow First. Revenues can come Later.

Oops. That’s the spine breaker.

Unless you have a massive, massive overnight hit like a Twitter or Facebook, tread the ‘growth first, revenue last’ road with caution.

You may be suffering from a deep-seated insecurity to generate revenues and conveniently shoving that fear under the carpet by postponing revenue generation. It’s like hiding a body in the deep freezer and hoping that it will never be found.

Generating revenues is a real PAIN. And it’s best confronted in parallel to building your business. In fact, so many extra features of your service or enterprise may never be needed if you listen to the fat men with the cheques books early on. Also, as investors, partners, and potential acquirers start noticing your business, they look your Generating Revenue Experience (GRE) scores. If you didn’t apply for the exam, you wont get in.


Truth – Get that begging bowl out. Try and test (if you want to maintain Facebook like early start up Virginity) what people will pay for – but make sure that you know where the light switches are when the darkness arrives.

Myth 5 – I’m a techie – I don’t know anything about business. I am a business guy, I don’t know anything about technology!

Then learn!!

The demons of the mind that say that you don’t know how ‘business’ works need to be exterminated on day zero of starting up. Look all around you – the greatest geeks in the world – Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, The Google Twins, Marc Z – all have understood the science of business better than anybody else.

Also, for a M.Com dud like myself, today, technology and self -serve platforms have become so easy to understand and implement, they are like those do it yourself Lego Puzzles. All you need is the patience to sit down and assemble the rocket you are trying to build step by step. Read the instructions carefully and you will be set.

Truth – No entrepreneur can be in-complete. This is actually also the first step in becoming an entrepreneur – understanding a domain that you otherwise had no clue of.

Note – I am not suggesting mastering all domains, but rather just understanding them.
Myth 6 – Professionals whom I want are too expensive to hire.

Did you ask them? Did you look into their eyes and explain your invention and what can happen with it?

So many of the ‘been there, done that’ types are so bored and stuck en-cashing salary cheques every month. They are waiting for folks like you to go up to them and redeem them! I meet so many professionals (earning much more than me) ever so often who say
‘Wow Alok, I wish I could be doing the exciting and innovative things you and your Company do’!

Truth – Professionals with big compensation packages may not quit their job in a hurry for your Love Songs, but they can certainly begin associating with you. Start meeting them and burrow into their experiences. Shed a few shares and get them on your board. You may even realize that you never needed them full time!

Myth 7 – I HAVE TO make this work. (Stomping of feet on the floor heard).

Once in a while, when you sample a new restaurant or cuisine, you do risk getting in there, and ordering a meal you have never tasted before. In the first few bites, you know if it is a ‘disastrous’, a ‘will do, let’s get this done with’ or a ‘wow’ meal.

In a start up land, while your dreams may have taken you to heaven in a first class seat, when you actually implement the idea and hit execution, you may land up in rubble, deep under the ground.

Do not deny the ‘badness’ of the idea or the common sensical fact that ‘this was a bet that should not have been played’. Enterprises are built on hypothesis. If even a couple of assumptions or facts (which are crucial to business) don’t turn out the way as per your expectations, ditch the business, kill all engines, sit back and revise the learnings earned.

Truth – Get out, as soon as you see smoke. Don’t put on a mask and enter the fire pretending to be a firefighter. You will not come out alive and your soul will be too charred to boot up again.

Hitesh Oberoi....Chap on the role...Thanks to HIS WIFE...

Virtual Classroom and Facebook?? u mean studying on Facebook?

The Rise of the Virtual Classroom
Three Washington University alumni create a social-media platform for online educational resources and learn how to attract investor interest.


Imagine a world where teachers and professors use platforms like Facebook to communicate with students--not too much of a stretch in this social media age. That's the concept of Schoology.com, an online platform that marries social media and electronic classroom management.

The service provides a full suite of "learning management" tools, including attendance records, tests and quizzes and homework drop boxes, that are designed to use social media to facilitate classroom interaction. It even offers cross-school networking, allowing schools to collaborate in shared classes, groups and discussions. In June, the brains behind Schoology landed $1.25 million in Series A funding.

The platform is the creation of three 23-year-old alumni of Washington University in St. Louis: Jeremy Friedman, Ryan Hwang and Tim Trinidad. They developed an early version of the platform--really just a place to share notes and ideas--in early 2009 when they were still in school. Once it was released commercially that August, demand for more features and functionality grew.
"Students--particularly high school students--wanted to use it more as a collaborative space, and teachers were coming to us to take advantage of that," Friedman says. "We saw an opportunity to create a really interactive and social connection between the two."

They knew they needed cash to grow. The team already was on the radar of Alan Veeck at Sewickley, Penn., venture firm Meakem Becker. Veeck had become aware of the team when it applied to the Pittsburgh accelerator AlphaLab, which works with six startups over the course of six months to help them get established.

Schoology opted to relocate to New York and use an angel investor to get started, but Veeck was impressed and stayed involved.

"Friedman's specific experience in the development realm makes him kind of the MacGyver--he can make anything work and has strong sales skills," Veeck says. "Trinidad is the classically trained software engineer who programs with beauty and elegance and in the way that Google would want to see things programmed. Hwang brings an art in design and product. Their skills complement each other very well."

When it came time for the three to get serious about VC money, they didn't forget who had helped them and turned to Meakem Becker to lead the round. Schoology already has hired four more people to keep up with changes in technology. The service now has more than 2,400 schools nationwide in its system. Friedman says next up is building out interactive content that teachers can use to support course materials, and enhancing parent-focused access.

"Every day we get more and more excited and more and more motivated," Friedman says. "It is a tremendous market and it has been neglected for so long."

PUB on the wheelss....COOOOL IDEA which bcame a HIT!!

The PedalPub
It sounds like the wackiest idea ever: A bar on wheels powered by brew-pounding pedalers
Entrepreneurs: Eric Olson and Al Boyce, dedicated home brewers with day jobs--Olson teaches business at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minn., and Boyce is a computer programmer for U.S. Bank in St. Paul, Minn.

What Possessed Them: A fellow home brewer e-mailed Olson a photo of a crazy-looking pub on wheels in Europe. "I said, ‘Damn, this is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life.'" He tracked down the creators--brothers Henk and Zwier van Laar in (where else?) Amsterdam--and asked how to make one. They sold him one instead.

"Aha" Moment:: In 2007, they got the first PedalPub rolling and sent e-mails out to friends and family, expecting a mild reaction. "But our e-mail list started to explode," Olson says. "And that's when I had the first inkling that this might be really successful."
Startup: Savings and home-equity loans covered the $40,000 to buy their first PedalPub, plus $20,000 to buy a van, a trailer, insurance, storage and marketing materials.

Pedalmania: Olson and Boyce have six PedalPubs in the Twin Cities, one in Houston, plus licensees in Austin, Texas; Nashville, Tenn.; Lawrence, Kan., and Milwaukee; plus, one sold to Amstel Light.

Customers: Birthday parties, corporate events, even a wedding. Most are women--68 percent.

Vital Stats: PedalPubs weigh 2,340 pounds empty (without beer or drinkers) and have a top speed of 5 mph. They seat 10 pedalers, a bartender and a driver and rent for $160 to $190 per hour, BYOB.

2011 and Beyond: They plan to franchise the concept next year. Says Olson, "I'd love to see 500 of these things all over the country."

Business Plan written BY PENCIL only!! How Logical is that?????? By Bob Reiss

I have a few words of advice for first-time entrepreneurs, as well as seasoned business owners looking to hit a new stage of growth. My advice is this; write your business plan in pencil. I realize this may be difficult for all you non-golfers, but doing so will illustrate two important principles.

1.Change is inevitable.
I have little doubt that you (the small-business owner) will shortly have to change, amend, modify, scrap or abandon your original business plan altogether. One of the attributes of successful entrepreneurs is flexibility. By writing your business plan in pencil it forces you to look at change as the only constant. Make change your friend, embrace it and work it to your benefit.

The reasons why your original plan will need to be changed after your company is operational are myriad. It's likely you under or over-estimated your competition, margins, cash needs, competencies and suppliers. Or you misjudged market need and size. Every entrepreneur discovers new opportunities that didn't appear until there was actually a business up and running.
2.We must avoid business plan worship.
When we see documents neatly typed (and maybe even received praise for them), we are reluctant to change. Especially for those who attended business schools where the plan took on a larger than life importance. People whose plans got high marks, or even worse, won a business plan contest, tend to feel their plan is inviolate. They also tend to believe that if they rigorously adhere to the plan it will yield the riches of their dreams. It's my hope that the mental image of a pencil will remind you that change is good and will help you reach your goals.
Most small-business owners that I know never wrote a business plan. In 16 start-ups, I've never written one. And John Altman, a very successful entrepreneur, founder of six companies and former professor of entrepreneurism, never wrote a business plan for his start-ups, either.

Most people who write a business plan do it to raise money or because someone told them that's what they're supposed to do. The fact is that a detailed plan is only required if you want to raise money from a bank or venture capitalist. And both hardly ever offer a loan or invest in early stage companies. So your energies are wasted writing those long and thick plans.
Now don't get me wrong. I strongly believe in planning, just not in long, voluminous tomes that will probably go unread. For most sole proprietors, that business plan can reside in your head, or--if you must commit it to paper--on a napkin.

If you really want to write a plan, try this. At the start of each year write what your goals are and specifically target new areas of distribution and the names of new accounts that you want to clinch. Also, put on paper the names of current customers with whom you want a deeper relationship and the strategies you'll employ to do so. This plan should only run one or two pages. I also recommend you write down your accomplishments and shortcomings from the previous year. While you can do this exercise primarily for yourself, I would also share it with members of my team.

As your company gets bigger, that's when those written planning documents become paramount. As your company grows you want to be sure all your employees are on the same page and equipped with the knowledge of how they can contribute to the company goals.

It is a reversal of commonly accepted logic to suggest you postpone the business plan until you've reached a growth spurt. But, as John Altman said on this point, "If you're going to empower the other people in your company, guess what; you'd better give them a map to the highway you're on! Otherwise, they can't share that vision in your brain."

What does that mean DUDES ???