Tag Archives: strategy

Pivot or Persevere

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Working with small software/Services companies and Lean principles is exciting. Lean Product Management blends nicely with Agile development processes, I like to think of Lean PM as the Agile business front end.

Start-ups often work from a well-developed plan and therein lies the seed of their demise, just the things that make success often in excess create their demise. Passion, commitment, vision, market understanding for a start-up is at least 6-9 months old at launch in the best case situation. Think about it, has your job, company, market stood still for the last nine months? Is there a critical business problem that has gone unattended for that long?

The core of the pivot resides in the structure itself as you can see. But then when to Pivot and when to persevere? Rarely have I found that a focused start-up misses the mark at launch completely. Much of their insight is still actively sought from the market if the plan was sound to begin with.

The challenge is to uncover what is core to the vision and what is the delta from idea to inception. At launch ego and vision need to be put aside to enable learning. Learn where you are, where you are not and where you may need to be. Look back at what you have and what needs to be shelved, re-access what is near and valuable!

I find that as much that is pivot is also persevere, but how does a start-up put aside and redirect? Take what works and work it if it is worthy then start a new entity to attack where the gap is. Think about it, you are a start-up and you have that great risk friendly profile that can be jumped again. Success comes from using what works in your culture, your skills, your domain knowledge and yes your timing to just mount the next piece. People buy solutions, your product is a part of that and needs more parts. Develop those assets and bolt them on right now. This path builds a pattern in your culture that wins markets. Building continued growth and the ability to divide and concur then assemble and dominate.

Mount that Tier two effort now and begin to enjoy the race! You are building a company not that single product you envisioned so long ago!

Culture is Strategy

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A key aspect of any strategy is culture. Internally the culture of a company regardless of size is a consideration of a strategy. If you have a does not support the level of risk that the effort requires the effort will be throttled back. If you have a high risk culture the ongoing sustaining R&D will suffer.

Clients who are high risk start-ups are viewed by large companies as high risk for poor if any follow through on the product road map. This is one of the key reasons start-ups have trouble bagging an elephant. The large customers often request code in escrow, or first rights on sale when considering start-up vendors.

Risk is a simple demonstration of culture but there are many. The same terms can be placed on the market. If you are selling something radically new and the market is satisfied and careful the offering best add incredible levels of value. People do go by the old “if it isn’t broke don’t fix it” idea.

B2B sales needs to add in the cultural requirements of change into the TCO for customers, BTW that is different for all customers. Businesses have groups and functions that all act as individuals. Where the R&D team may be an early adopter. The operations or customer service group may be main stream of laggards.

Calculating culture from all aspects is a critical success factor

Market/Needs Based Strategy

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Needs based product development is innovative. It sounds so simple, needs based means you just uncover the needs, right.  Ah how do we do that, when: People do not know what they need, when People lie, (as Dr. House says). How do you weed out bias, or gain access? There needs to be initial exploratory research anyway.

The truth is that the first step is strategy from the core leadership of the company based on their ideas and insights to form hypothesis that can then be examined. The trick and art is in the observation and contact. Keeping an open mind in anything these days is critical to innovation. Yes ideas and strategies are key so is being aware of reality as it is not as you would like it.

Visit many folks and understand their environment. We all have a need to fix things and when we see a need fill it. Observation is just that watch and ask, keep your ideas to yourself.  Ask more than one person in one function. Multiple functions require different aspects of any product or outcome.

How does each person in a family use a toaster oven or microwave. Cooking? Reheating? Popcorn only? Hotdogs? If you suggest to one person that you will fix the toaster oven for toast only you could affect others in a way that limits sales.

Uncover needs and fill needs intelligently from a market and ROI perspective. Be responsible, be flexible.

Go in Deeper!!

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There is an art of war of war strategy that has been true for life and business. 

Problem:     What do you do when there are no ways out?

Solution:     Go in Deeper! 

Think about this, your world is changing and Dell is now selling direct to consumers over the internet. Do you compete or do you dive in and do it one step better? Answer, Do Both! The greatness of our society which is easy to see in technology is that we don’t whine about others innovation. We trump the situation with our creativeness and willingness to Dive In! 

At 5o9 we are engaging with carriers and managed services providers who have had the basis of their business challenged in the last two years. Even in a crappy economy and uncertain regulatory future these winners are jumping in. 

 For the managed services world they are not new to this, the business model started as racks, power and connectivity. Later they fought price pressure and consolidation by adding servers and some managed services. Today customers are walking up asking for pricing relief or they will be forced to change providers. 

These bold companies are respectfully looking at their customers and saying no, however how else can we help to make the bigger IT picture fit your budget. They are adding Mobile services and backend integrations, forming Application IP that can spread across the base..Yes they are diving in not whining! I salute this courage and am honored to work with you! 

Similarly carriers have always had their on deck exclusiveness that is shifting to the software developers and handset manufacturers with the advent of apps. Courage dives in and accelerates the market shift. Native Apps are not the natural state. Open the game up then and seize the browser base web apps. Google has seen this and even moved YouTube to announce the end of on deck apps! 

Managed service providers and carriers can use this evolution to their advantage and ad value not run away. They are bringing together offerings that they have built on the desktop world to enable their customers to jump into mobile fully supported and at little extra cost! They are creating IP for handset base applications that will help customers make more for less and hold on to that customers IT business. Leverage their internal knowledge of Mobile usage and consumer behavior to build Business Process Optimization pro services.

Creative and Aggressive is the spirit of business that wins! So dive in don’t whine and watch!