The 2 Things About Your Start-up Idea That Actually Matter
Posted on | January 24, 2012 | No Comments
Regarding ideas, Google founder and CEO Larry Page has said this: “Even if you fail at your ambitious thing, it’s very hard to fail completely. That’s the thing that people don’t get.” I’ve found that all too often, founders overlook this. The start-up landscape is littered with examples of less ambitious things people don’t want. That’s why on the first day of entering Y Combinator’s start-up incubator program, each entrepreneur accepted is given a simple gray t-shirt that says: “Make something people want.”
An even better mantra for start-up entrepreneurs, I propose, would be: “Make something a lot of people want a lot.”
If you’re going to create a product or service, consider these two simple things:
1. The severity of need addressed by your product or service.
2. The number of people who have that need.
Read more here
Why Good Entrepreneurs Borrow, Great Ones Steal [VIDEO]
Posted on | January 24, 2012 | No Comments
The Whole Truth About Being an Entrerpreneur
Posted on | January 24, 2012 | No Comments
Entrepreneurship has been trending across the world big time over the past year especially and it’s no different here in Jamaica and the Caribbean. The state of things economic, the job loss, the rise in the numbers of the skilled and self taught independent worker plus access to so many people and things online – has made starting a business both necessary and sexy. This is actually a good thing. It also helps us acknowledges the fact that the nature of work and doing business has changed forever, as the world goes through this period of adjusting itself, having closed off the industrial age to now embracing and creating the new rules of the Digital Age.
With this focus on startups,, entrepreneurs, incubators, funding…comes the stories – of the young, the funded, the game changer…the hype machine that champions the entrepreneurship movement by celebrating the “winners”. This skews the big picture though, because if you read only tech blogs like techcrunch plus others business magazines, you would think it’s all coconuts with a pink hibiscus on top, because you rarely hear the full stories which includes the flops and the pivots that move companies forwards. This is actually not a good thing.
It’s important for us to know the whole truth…to read about the many startups that fail and gain the wisdom of the why, to hear from the mouth of entrepreneurs more rounded stories of their journeys – the ideas, the personality conflicts, sleepless night up with thoughts of risk, debt and doubt, the bruising from mentors, the rejection of customers, the sweetness of blowing past targets,the ideas that evolved, the dance when that first big cheque cleared from a customer or investor.
Why? because while we crave the success stories to keep us inspired, to encourage governments and investors to keep things the support growing, we have to be real about both the warts and wonders of the journey. Looked what happened when Disney and Hollywood sold us only on the “Happily Ever After” relationship story – over 50% divorce rates and in the Caribbean especially, more common law relationships with regular side orders of other men and women. Why? too many people believed that great relationships just happened to them, not knowing that they all had to work to make the magic happen and that along the way, while it can be alot of fun, their is some frustration too.
This is why for you who maybe thinking about starting up or are already on knee deep in it, I recommend watching the Foundation series by serial entrepreneur Kevin Rose and any video interviews of Rose himself. I enjoy his candidness. Have a read too of the blogs of people like billionaire Marc Cuban and becoming a regular at Mixergy.com. And when sharing your own “How I did it” story – keep it real and share it all.
Tags: caribbean > caribbean entrepreneurs > caribbean startups > entrepreneurship > jamaica
Six Lessons in Entrepreneurship for Caribbean Startups in the Making
Posted on | January 23, 2012 | No Comments
There is nothing like hearing it from someone who has done it. You get too much of a false impression when you read magazine and blogs online that glorify the very young, just got funded entrepreneurs. Truth is most people can and do bootstrap and also too many of those well funded startups….fail. That said, we’re living in a world where trying, testing your ideas and even failing is a badge of honour, it means you risked and did something better than those who’s only sport is lip service.
Read this you may see yourself in it.
” Reading TechCrunch, you’d think that every company under the sun has just raised millions in series A and is about to “change the world”. Reality is most companies don’t fit the VC’s profile to begin with, let alone actually raise capital.
I’ve already discussed how I’ve bootstrapped my company — initially because I didn’t have to raise capital, then because I tried to convince myself that I didn’t want to — only to refuse to accept what came with the territory when I came around, then simply not playing the game properly when the money was there.” More
How to Create a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend (Examples: AppSumo, Mint, Chihuahuas)
Posted on | January 22, 2012 | No Comments
It’s like the best time to start a business, to test your ideas…why? It’s cheaper and faster to do so with all of this access to people, information and technologies we now have. Even as I grow my startup ConnectiMass, I am big believer in planting seeds and see which one grow. In that spirit I am always reading blogs and I always meet up on some gems. This is one of them.
“He was employee #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint, had previously worked for Intel (where he frequently took naps under his desk), and had turned down a six-figure offer from Yahoo. Since we first met, Noah’s helped create Gambit, an online gaming payment platform and a multi-million dollar business; and AppSumo, loved by entrepreneurs and moms everywhere. He also helped pour fire on both the 4-Hour Workweek and 4-Hour Body launches.
The purpose of this post is simple: to teach you how to get a $1,000,000 business idea off the ground in one weekend, full of specific tools and tricks that Noah has used himself.”
You are going to enjoy reading this.
On being a Connector and having Meaning & Money
Posted on | December 8, 2011 | No Comments
The Tipping Point
A Connector is a person who “link us up with the world … people with a special gift for bringing the world together.” They have a truly extraordinary knack for making friends and acquaintances. The social success of Connectors is their ability to span many different worlds is a function of something intrinsic to their personality, some combination of curiosity, self-confidence, sociability, and energy.” – Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point
I remember when I was first called a Connector I didn’t quite fully understand what it meant. My friend Kevin was on his second read of Gladwell’s book and during one of our usual catching up sessions, I was telling him about what I’ve been doing and what I wanted to do…in business and tech in the Caribbean, when he blurted out…” You are such a Connector”.
Read more
Quote of the Week
Posted on | November 29, 2011 | No Comments
“When you expose yourself to the opportunities that scare you, you create something scarce, something others won’t do.” – Seth Godin. Taken from this article he wrote on “Your Competitive Advantage”
Quote of the Week from Mark Zuckerberg
Posted on | November 16, 2011 | No Comments
There is such an advantage in doing things differently than how others are doing. That’s how you really WIN. – Mark Zuckerberg
6 things Caribbean Tech Entrepreneurs can do in tribute to Tech Visionary Steve Jobs
Posted on | October 19, 2011 | No Comments
Think Different
We lost the greatest tech entrepreneur of our time yesterday. Steve Jobs the co-founder of Apple, the company that through its people focused innovations, irrevocably changed the way we live and do business. He died yesterday at the age of 56. After I wrote my own personal tribute of how his life changed mine, I thought of how we can use how he lived and did business, to inspire us tech entrepreneurs here in the Caribbean. Here are 6 ways.
Read more
What Steve Jobs Taught a Caribbean Woman Entrepreneur About Life and Business
Posted on | October 19, 2011 | No Comments
iNSPIRED
For me, it wasn’t just about his innovations that changed our daily lives and the way we do business, but it was also his approach to life and business that made me read everything I could get on what he had done, had said, how he thought and what he saw as his mission here – ” I want to put a ding in the universe”.
The more I read about him, the more I kept reading about his laser focus; the trust and faith in his intuition, in himself; his drive for excellence and spirit of experimentation with his ideas; how he shared what he learnt about his mistakes and business failures; how he challenged the status quo fearlessly and consistently; how he challenged us to see the future through his eyes; how he changed peoples lives by creating products that made it easier for us to share more special moments with each other even while miles apart; how he changed business by creating products that made people doing what they love, able to do so more productively, collaboratively, excellently and with a greater sense of fun. When I first saw that “Here’s to to the Crazy Ones” Ad I knew I’d found a mentor to follow. He made me feel ok about being one of the crazy ones, an individual who believed that her ideas will change things.
Macintosh Color Classic -My First Apple Computer Experience
As a cub reporter at the Jamaica Observer in 1994, I wrote my first 3 award winning stories, front page leads, a series on the status of women, and a weekly column of satire that got me a couple of threats – on a Macintosh Color Classic computer with front loading floppy discs.
When I started my first tech company I bought an iBook with money from one of our first clients. On that I wrote my first business plan, did work for clients like JMMB and Digicel. It was my workhorse until it died and I promptly bought another one and kept the old one. It was too hard to part with it.
I’ve worked on nothing but Apple computers…from G4 towers, iMacs to currently my MacBook Pro, that I wrote this blog post on and on which I’m about to write a new business plan for my company – ConnectiMass. A company that I believe will change things here in Jamaica and the Caribbean, especially as we take things up a few notches to drive tech entrepreneurship. My experiences, the pivotal life moments I’ve shared with my Mac, because of my Mac. iSmile.
iSAD ? Yes, A little.
When he stepped down from being Ceo the last week in August, I panicked and started to brace myself to face reality that just maybe he was on his way out of our lives. He was going to die soon. Unfortunately today is that day. While I am gutted, I take how he lived his life as inspiration to:
- Continue to Be Passionate and Be excellent at what I love to do. Bridging the gap between the information have and have nots, between the opportunity have and have nots via online media, tech events and coming soon tech startup incubation-training and seed funding.
- Challenge the Status Quo here in Jamaica, the Caribbean and the World.
- Be Fearless in experimenting with my ideas-learning from mistakes and failures and using them as springboards to other successes.
- Never, ever Settle.
- Always Think Big.
- Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.
- Think Different.
Steve Jobs 1955-2011. A Life Brilliantly Lived.
Related Posts
Steve Jobs Journey Made Me Feel OK to be…one of the Crazy Ones
7 things Caribbean Tech Entrepreneurs can do in tribute to Tech Visionary Steve Jobs
Back to School Yes. Being schooled for a very different world?
Posted on | September 5, 2011 | No Comments
by Marc Canter, CEo of Broadband Mechanics, Creator of the Digital City Project.
As everyone goes back to prep school, high school and college today…it has to be asked…are our children, our students going to be relevant and viable when they leave the current school system? As Seth Godin says..”Large-scale education was never about teaching kids or creating scholars. It was invented to churn out adults who worked well within the system.” Now that that system has changed and the world of world and the nature of Jobs have changed because we now live in the Digital Age…is our education system evolving?
Watch Marc’s compelling video on the importance of schooling people for the Digital Age, the new world of work the changed nature of Jobs.
And as Seth Godin keeps saying…”If you do a job where someone tells you exactly what to do, they will find someone cheaper than you to do it. And yet our schools are churning out kids who are stuck looking for jobs where the boss tells them exactly what to do.”
Why “International” Bloggers Have an Unfair Advantage
Posted on | June 26, 2011 | No Comments
What is your home country’s brand and unique selling proposition and how can you leverage that in your blog? What a breath of fresh air this blog post breathes into the culture of blogging from countries outside of the US, Canada and Europe. Caribbean Bloggers, take note.
If you’re in the blogging business, not being a native English speaker can be tough. The market in your home country will often be small, there may not be a culture of buying things online, and it can be difficult to find guest posting opportunities in your native language.
On the other hand, blogging in English seems like an equally bad idea at first glance: How are you supposed to compete with an army of bloggers whose command of the English language greatly exceeds your own? Even if your English is really good, you will probably need to pay a professional editor to avoid the occasional English-as-a-second-language errors.
I admit it: all that sounds rather intimidating. But don’t despair! Fortunately, we “internationals” enjoy one huge, unfair advantage for which every American, Australian, or British blogger should envy us. In fact, all the hurdles we must face shrink to nothing when compared to this major benefit that comes with being an international blogger:
Archives
- January 2012 (5)
- December 2011 (1)
- November 2011 (2)
- October 2011 (2)
- September 2011 (1)
- June 2011 (5)
- May 2011 (5)
- April 2011 (7)
- March 2011 (12)
- February 2011 (4)
- January 2011 (2)
- December 2010 (8)
- November 2010 (5)
- October 2010 (9)
- September 2010 (13)
- August 2010 (10)
- July 2010 (3)
- June 2010 (3)
- May 2010 (3)
Latest Tweets
- we r stuck in a traffic gridlock at jazz and blues. Ppl sleeping in cars or lyming,dancing..looks (cont) http://t.co/VX4paw50
- The night for high notes and sing alongs (@ Trelawny Multi-Purpose Stadium w/ 3 others) http://t.co/ZgPh4Ixl
- Very nice! RT @utenjm: ITFarm is number one for design, presentation and good use of technology (cont) http://t.co/DSkJnFVV
- RT @SiliconCaribe: The 2012 CODE SPRINT WINNER is 'IT Farming'!. They have won US $1500 and 1 year (cont) http://t.co/I9tYgegS
- U deh yah! Yeah! RT @ChrysalisCEO: The trip to #JaJazzFest has, so far, been fairly comfortable. I (cont) http://t.co/hMccIX2l