Firstly I arrived and saw that there was in fact free tea, coffee and buffet. Good, then! I thought to myself. Breakfast! :)
BassToneSlap were the first people talking about their business. They are a african drum workshop organised by Richard Enion. They were on Dragons Den and successfully got the £50k they were looking for, for 40% of the company from two of the "dragons". This was more than they wanted to share but in the end realised it was okay, and got some great publicity out of it.
One thing I noticed is that their business wasn't a new idea. They saw a working type of business, saw their own potential doing it and chose to do the same. I'm always trying to think of a new business idea. What I understand after this is that perhaps it's better to start with something which already exists, and do it better!
Piccy Products Ltd were an interesting business. They are simply mums and teachers (as they put it) who found a way of kids to eat the healthy foods without kicking up a fuss. Sue Amphlett and Vonny Shelley entered and won the iEXPO "Last Business Standing" (speed dating-esque) competition. Some of the reasons why is because of their uniqueness. They had a song to grab the audience. They thought creatively about their business plan; it spoke to everyone not just people who understand figures and profit forecasts etc. And they had a well thought out pitch to execute.
Shed Simove was on the program but couldn't be there. He is the Ideas Man. He thinks of funny, innuendo gifts and sells them.
Then Mike Southon came on stage to give his talk, and my life changed forever. Haha! Well, near enough. His talk was great. It really made sense what he was saying. It was funny. And he used the best entrepreneurial analogy of them all; The Beatles.
He writes for the FT and has a book out called "Beermat Entrepreneur". This is what he had to say:
Does your product sell? Would your friends buy it? If not, strangers won't!
Get a good picture of yourself...
He is the ambassador for Peter Jones' National Enterprise Academy... so he's a celebrity!
Think about your career in seven year cycles. This made a lot of sense to me. I couldn't explain it until now but i've seen it before and he's absolutely right about it...
Make a level of connection to your customers like Paul McCartney has done... but don't make them cry like McCartney does!
Find someone with the opposite set of skills to yourself.
Then he somehow managed to relate this to the Simpsons characters and it still made sense!
There are three people needed to make a business work well...
- Delivery - Product or Service (Intovert)
- Sales - Who needs it? Who's rich? (Extrovert)
- Finance - Can we make money? (book keepers and accountants)
Could be three people in the pub, talking about those things, hence beermat entrepreneur.
Seven stages of finance:
- Operate a cash business
- Use a spreadsheet
- Get a part-time book keeper
- Get a part-time accountant - you could end it here and be a comfortably small business.
- Get a Virtual Finance Cornerstone
- Get a full-time Finance Director
- Get a top accounting firm.
- Pain - what is the pain/problem that is to be addressed.
- Premise - be literal. say exactly what you want to do. local, reliable and nice - be them!
- People - who are the people in your team? it's important. what makes you different?
- Proof - friends. happy customers. references.
- Purpose - why this and not something else?
Money and Wealth (guanxi) link in with the purpose.
Wealth - treat people how you would want them to treat you. Always help, without going broke. Tell the truth!
To finish his talk he showed the new and brilliant animation for The Beatles Rockband...
Intro...
Outro...
And closed the event by summarising everything in quoting The Beatles:
And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make
Music: Fatboy Slim - Right Here, Right Now
No comments:
Post a Comment