Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Sunday, April 12, 2020
6 effective ways to build a sustainable business
Written by: Samiksha Jain Former Staff, Entrepreneur.com
Vanitha Narayanan is the Managing Director of IBM India Private Limited. While addressing the gathering at TiEcon Delhi 2015: Balancing the Act held on 16th - 17th October, Narayanan spoke about how startups can build sustainable businesses in future.
Most businesses don’t possess a deeper understanding about sustainability. From a broader perspective, a sustainable company is one whose purpose and actions are equally grounded in financial, environmental and social concerns. But unfortunately, the road to sustainability for most businesses is not easy. Hence, below listed six ways will enable business leaders shape a more sustainable future for the company as well as their community.
1. Building your business on belief
One can change everything about your business other than your core beliefs. Building business on your beliefs is about value creation. Your business might be depending on what your beliefs are. If your beliefs are little specific, localise your business or if they are more time bound, then you must go back and revisit the business mission. But it has to be consistent with what you as a company are going to do to drive value.
2. Standing still and embracing change
When you change and act fast, you can be the biggest, boldest and brightest unicorn, but if you remain still and don’t change and adapt to the situation, then you are as close to extinction as you can.
For instance – In the 80s, IBM got as close to extinction. In fact, we were featured on the Forbes and Fortune cover along with Dinosaurs. So the idea is there’s no standing still every day. I may have a great idea which works, but it doesn’t matter how big is the idea until you actually find ways to take it to the market quickly.
3. Focus on creating value proposition
It’s not that great people don’t exist; it’s not that the technology built was not the greatest technology, but it’s about figuring your go-to-market strategy that drives value, in terms of what the client is looking for to his/her problems. So if you don’t get the timing right and if you lose touch with the value preposition, then you can get completely lost.
Don’t ever lose sight of the fact that in the end of the day the business purpose is to drive value for your customers. Focus on creating high value, high capabilities useful for people. This doesn’t mean that you need to be an expert at everything; it’s about creating value on the top end with the existing resources.
4. Growth and comfort don’t co-exist
We are not longer in 50s, 60s, and 70s era. Things are changing in the blink of an eye. IBM had gone through very uncomfortable times, and frankly speaking, it still continues to be uncomfortable. It’s no secret that our industry is going through the biggest shift ever. But it’s not just the technology industry, the shift in the technology industry are creating subsequent shifts in every industry.
For Instance – If you are a banker, your new competitors are completely different. If you are in retail, now everybody is a retailer. Similarly, if you have been in the mobile business, then you can see that it’s no longer an industry; it’s a platform, it’s a capability. So, IBM is completely changing the Payments, Retail, Banking, and Mobile industry since they all are becoming capabilities on cloud for everyone to leverage. Businesses should also focus on delivering value in innovative ways for their customers.
5. Focus on excelling in an area
It’s no longer about one company delivering value to every client at every place; it’s about being a part of an ecosystem. If you are not part of the ecosystem, then you are limiting yourself. You might have a successful start, but eventually it starts becoming difficult. Further in the bigger ecosystem, you are going to become a part of many ecosystems. In some, you might be a significant player and in others, you might be a small player. But in the end, it’s all about the contributions you are making in each of those ecosystems. So don’t try to be a big player in every ecosystem, rather look at how things work to drive the incremental value.
6. Focus on constant reinvention
When you are part of a company/single entity, then it’s all about constantly re-inventing what you do, it’s about reimaging how you do it and at the same time retaining a core belief system because you want your employees, your clients, and your partners to work with you and for you.
Source: https://tinyurl.com/ujrbwpe
Vanitha Narayanan is the Managing Director of IBM India Private Limited. While addressing the gathering at TiEcon Delhi 2015: Balancing the Act held on 16th - 17th October, Narayanan spoke about how startups can build sustainable businesses in future.
Most businesses don’t possess a deeper understanding about sustainability. From a broader perspective, a sustainable company is one whose purpose and actions are equally grounded in financial, environmental and social concerns. But unfortunately, the road to sustainability for most businesses is not easy. Hence, below listed six ways will enable business leaders shape a more sustainable future for the company as well as their community.
1. Building your business on belief
One can change everything about your business other than your core beliefs. Building business on your beliefs is about value creation. Your business might be depending on what your beliefs are. If your beliefs are little specific, localise your business or if they are more time bound, then you must go back and revisit the business mission. But it has to be consistent with what you as a company are going to do to drive value.
2. Standing still and embracing change
When you change and act fast, you can be the biggest, boldest and brightest unicorn, but if you remain still and don’t change and adapt to the situation, then you are as close to extinction as you can.
For instance – In the 80s, IBM got as close to extinction. In fact, we were featured on the Forbes and Fortune cover along with Dinosaurs. So the idea is there’s no standing still every day. I may have a great idea which works, but it doesn’t matter how big is the idea until you actually find ways to take it to the market quickly.
3. Focus on creating value proposition
It’s not that great people don’t exist; it’s not that the technology built was not the greatest technology, but it’s about figuring your go-to-market strategy that drives value, in terms of what the client is looking for to his/her problems. So if you don’t get the timing right and if you lose touch with the value preposition, then you can get completely lost.
Don’t ever lose sight of the fact that in the end of the day the business purpose is to drive value for your customers. Focus on creating high value, high capabilities useful for people. This doesn’t mean that you need to be an expert at everything; it’s about creating value on the top end with the existing resources.
4. Growth and comfort don’t co-exist
We are not longer in 50s, 60s, and 70s era. Things are changing in the blink of an eye. IBM had gone through very uncomfortable times, and frankly speaking, it still continues to be uncomfortable. It’s no secret that our industry is going through the biggest shift ever. But it’s not just the technology industry, the shift in the technology industry are creating subsequent shifts in every industry.
For Instance – If you are a banker, your new competitors are completely different. If you are in retail, now everybody is a retailer. Similarly, if you have been in the mobile business, then you can see that it’s no longer an industry; it’s a platform, it’s a capability. So, IBM is completely changing the Payments, Retail, Banking, and Mobile industry since they all are becoming capabilities on cloud for everyone to leverage. Businesses should also focus on delivering value in innovative ways for their customers.
5. Focus on excelling in an area
It’s no longer about one company delivering value to every client at every place; it’s about being a part of an ecosystem. If you are not part of the ecosystem, then you are limiting yourself. You might have a successful start, but eventually it starts becoming difficult. Further in the bigger ecosystem, you are going to become a part of many ecosystems. In some, you might be a significant player and in others, you might be a small player. But in the end, it’s all about the contributions you are making in each of those ecosystems. So don’t try to be a big player in every ecosystem, rather look at how things work to drive the incremental value.
6. Focus on constant reinvention
When you are part of a company/single entity, then it’s all about constantly re-inventing what you do, it’s about reimaging how you do it and at the same time retaining a core belief system because you want your employees, your clients, and your partners to work with you and for you.
Friday, April 10, 2020
The Number of Latinx-Run Startups Is Rocketing. Their Funding Is Not. Here's Why That's a Big Problem
Source: https://tinyurl.com/sjkbvju
Unless we solve the "scaling gap," we're missing out on the opportunity to grow employment and GDP.
Latinx entrepreneurs have been starting companies at a record clip. From 2009 to 2019, a 34 percent increase in startups by these founders has made them the fastest-growing startup demographic, by a long shot. The number of startups by white entrepreneurs, by comparison, has decreased 6 percent.
So it would be reasonable to believe that Latinx employers--who are concentrated in growth industries such as transportation, construction, and leisure and hospitality--would also be enjoying funding and sales growth in the same proportion. But they aren't, and that's both a mystery and a shame. Only 3 percent of these founders have reached the $1 million mark in annual sales, according to the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative (SLEI), part of the Graduate School of Business. That's just a third of the numbers for the non-Latinx-owned businesses, an extraordinary gap.
-6 percent
Decrease in the number of businesses started by white founders during the same period.
The scaling and opportunity gap isn't just a problem for one demographic; it causes cascading issues across the economy. How? Latinx companies now employ more than three million people and contribute nearly $500 billion in annual revenue to the economy, according to research by Inc. data scientist Arnobio Morelix in conjunction with SLEI. If these employers grew at the same rate as their white counterparts, Morelix reports, they would contribute a million additional jobs and another $410 billion in revenue annually. That's roughly 1.9 percent of U.S. GDP.
It naturally raises the question of why these founders can't get funded at the same rates as others. Peter Maldonado, the son of a Colombian immigrant who co-founded the dried meat brand Chomps in 2012, is an example of how this opportunity gap retards growth. When Maldonado needed $1.1 million to grow Chomps substantially in 2016, no bank would fund him.
Maldonado instead raised two short-term debt rounds from friends and family, and grew Chomps to more than $10 million in sales by 2017. The staff has grown from one full-time employee--Maldonado--to 18 today, and annual sales are now more than $30 million. But it took Maldonado more than five years to be able to afford a team and an office.
You could argue that Maldonado is a model of the perseverance that marks all entrepreneurs, but that misses the point. He's actually lucky, statistically speaking, in that roughly half of all new businesses fail within five years. His could have been one of them. Seeing the problem, some banks have now begun earmarking funds for outreach to founders like Maldonado.
There's one other gap that Latinx owners need to solve: awareness. They often don't know about resources meant to help them. Becoming a certified minority business owner, for instance, allows them access to government contracts. But the process requires lots of documentation that Latinx business owners may not have readily available. Likewise, businesses located in opportunity zones--which were created to push development in low-income areas--have higher-than-average growth rates. Though 14 percent of Latinx-owned businesses surveyed are based in opportunity zones, fewer than a third of them even know the program exists. Orozco says it's critical for Latinx owners to expand their mindsets to include large organizations like governments and corporations as potential customers, given their more relationship-oriented approach to business. Likewise, she says, "it is also important for the government and corporations to reach out and shed light on the path toward procurement."
Not every company that scales succeeds. But those that do can then boost their growth rate. Conversely, being unable to borrow and scale creates an unvirtuous cycle--Latinx companies can't scale for lack of funding, making them even less likely to get funding in the future. "If Latinx businesses continue to start small and stay small because the support doesn't exist, we'll be stuck in a holding pattern," Orozco says. "There's just going to be a new wave, a turnover of folks starting businesses and stalling them--and again not moving that needle forward."
With the economy bumping along at 2.9 percent annual growth, we need everyone moving the needle forward.
FROM THE MARCH/APRIL 2020 ISSUE OF INC. MAGAZINE
Latinx entrepreneurs have been starting companies at a record clip. From 2009 to 2019, a 34 percent increase in startups by these founders has made them the fastest-growing startup demographic, by a long shot. The number of startups by white entrepreneurs, by comparison, has decreased 6 percent.
So it would be reasonable to believe that Latinx employers--who are concentrated in growth industries such as transportation, construction, and leisure and hospitality--would also be enjoying funding and sales growth in the same proportion. But they aren't, and that's both a mystery and a shame. Only 3 percent of these founders have reached the $1 million mark in annual sales, according to the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative (SLEI), part of the Graduate School of Business. That's just a third of the numbers for the non-Latinx-owned businesses, an extraordinary gap.
The data on funding is equally skewed. Although Latinx entrepreneurs apply for loans at the same rates as their peers, only a quarter receive the full amount they're asking for, compared with half of white business owners. Maybe that's the reason that some six in 10 Latinx entrepreneurs who wanted a loan didn't apply. Some of them simply assumed it would be denied, says Marlene Orozco, lead research analyst at SLEI. The difference in funding that these founders and white entrepreneurs receive "is what we refer to as the 'scale-up' or 'opportunity' gap," she says.
In January, SLEI reported that even when Latinx business owners get financing, it's under terms that are either risky or costly. For example, 47 percent of those who apply for financing get loans that are factored, which basically involves selling their accounts receivables to a lender at a discount. This means they never see the full amount of the revenue they generate.
Divergence
In January, SLEI reported that even when Latinx business owners get financing, it's under terms that are either risky or costly. For example, 47 percent of those who apply for financing get loans that are factored, which basically involves selling their accounts receivables to a lender at a discount. This means they never see the full amount of the revenue they generate.
Divergence
34 percent
Increase in the number of businesses started by Latinx entrepreneurs from mid-2009 to 2019.
Increase in the number of businesses started by Latinx entrepreneurs from mid-2009 to 2019.
-6 percent
Decrease in the number of businesses started by white founders during the same period.
The scaling and opportunity gap isn't just a problem for one demographic; it causes cascading issues across the economy. How? Latinx companies now employ more than three million people and contribute nearly $500 billion in annual revenue to the economy, according to research by Inc. data scientist Arnobio Morelix in conjunction with SLEI. If these employers grew at the same rate as their white counterparts, Morelix reports, they would contribute a million additional jobs and another $410 billion in revenue annually. That's roughly 1.9 percent of U.S. GDP.
It naturally raises the question of why these founders can't get funded at the same rates as others. Peter Maldonado, the son of a Colombian immigrant who co-founded the dried meat brand Chomps in 2012, is an example of how this opportunity gap retards growth. When Maldonado needed $1.1 million to grow Chomps substantially in 2016, no bank would fund him.
Maldonado instead raised two short-term debt rounds from friends and family, and grew Chomps to more than $10 million in sales by 2017. The staff has grown from one full-time employee--Maldonado--to 18 today, and annual sales are now more than $30 million. But it took Maldonado more than five years to be able to afford a team and an office.
You could argue that Maldonado is a model of the perseverance that marks all entrepreneurs, but that misses the point. He's actually lucky, statistically speaking, in that roughly half of all new businesses fail within five years. His could have been one of them. Seeing the problem, some banks have now begun earmarking funds for outreach to founders like Maldonado.
There's one other gap that Latinx owners need to solve: awareness. They often don't know about resources meant to help them. Becoming a certified minority business owner, for instance, allows them access to government contracts. But the process requires lots of documentation that Latinx business owners may not have readily available. Likewise, businesses located in opportunity zones--which were created to push development in low-income areas--have higher-than-average growth rates. Though 14 percent of Latinx-owned businesses surveyed are based in opportunity zones, fewer than a third of them even know the program exists. Orozco says it's critical for Latinx owners to expand their mindsets to include large organizations like governments and corporations as potential customers, given their more relationship-oriented approach to business. Likewise, she says, "it is also important for the government and corporations to reach out and shed light on the path toward procurement."
Not every company that scales succeeds. But those that do can then boost their growth rate. Conversely, being unable to borrow and scale creates an unvirtuous cycle--Latinx companies can't scale for lack of funding, making them even less likely to get funding in the future. "If Latinx businesses continue to start small and stay small because the support doesn't exist, we'll be stuck in a holding pattern," Orozco says. "There's just going to be a new wave, a turnover of folks starting businesses and stalling them--and again not moving that needle forward."
With the economy bumping along at 2.9 percent annual growth, we need everyone moving the needle forward.
FROM THE MARCH/APRIL 2020 ISSUE OF INC. MAGAZINE
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
Soledad Tanner: Entrepreneur Recognized
Source: https://news.stthom.edu/entrepreneur-recognized/
Thank you University of St. Thomas (UST) for Alumni’s recognition. “I serve my clients as a CFO-on-demand,” Tanner noted. “Nothing makes me happier than showing entrepreneurs and small business owners how their numbers work and creating strategies for increasing their profit and productivity".
Thank you University of St. Thomas (UST) for Alumni’s recognition. “I serve my clients as a CFO-on-demand,” Tanner noted. “Nothing makes me happier than showing entrepreneurs and small business owners how their numbers work and creating strategies for increasing their profit and productivity".
In the present pandemic crisis, she is invaluable, assisting businesses in securing their share of the government rescue funds for keeping employees through the economic downturn”.
STC Consulting is a Business & Financial Management Consulting firm that helps improve the profit & productivity of businesses. Services are CFO on demand for Corporations, Financial Management, Business Consulting and Financial Training for Business Owners and Startup Boost for Startups.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
Go Ahead and Start a Business — But Don’t Quit Your Day Job
Source: https://tinyurl.com/wfj7mm9
Written by: Dorie Clark
Of course, there are some basic challenges to overcome — making time for a side hustle, and ensuring that your new venture doesn’t violate company policy. You should double check the rules, but most often, if you’re operating a different type of business — say, freelance writing when you work for an investment bank — there won’t be any perceived conflicts.
But once you get started, the rewards of building your own business, while being fully employed, are substantial. Here are five reasons to simultaneously pursue both and ways they can enhance one another.
“Failure” can benefit your career.
When you’re making a binary choice about entrepreneurship — “Should I quit my job to start my own business?” — the financial consequences of failure can be devastating. (The mortgage must be paid, regardless.) But when you have the safety net of income from your job, you can treat entrepreneurship as a learning journey: Even if the venture fails, you’ve still gained valuable skills that can enhance your career.
That was the case for Bozi Dar, a pharmaceutical executive I profiled in Entrepreneurial You. His first entrepreneurial idea — an app to help users change their moods — failed miserably. But he became smarter about sales and marketing in the process, and leveraged those lessons into multiple promotions at work.
You’ll have more time to validate your business idea.
In the entrepreneurial world, the most important initial goal is to find “product-market fit” — i.e., identifying the right audience and the right offering that they will pay for. This process can take quite a while, and without other sources of income, your clock will be ticking loud and fast. But without immediate financial pressure, you can take the time to truly understand your customer and their needs, leading to a far better and more successful product.
Entrepreneur-turned-author James Altucher started a web development company on the side and kept his day job for a full 18 months, even hiring a dozen employees in the process, before he left to run it full-time. That slow buildup ensured he could maintain his salary level and financial obligations with the new venture.
You can more easily stake out a premium position in the marketplace.
When you’re dependent on your nascent business to generate revenue, you’ll often have to accept low-paying or undesirable gigs. Early in my entrepreneurial career, I accepted plenty of short-term projects for a few hundred bucks. But if money isn’t your primary object at first, you can be far more selective, over-indexing on unpaid but prestigious engagements (guest lecturing at business schools or giving TEDx talks, for instance) and avoiding low-margin work or questionable clients that could taint your brand later on.
You can fund valuable professional development for yourself.
In the early days of an entrepreneurial venture, professional development funds are in short supply: All funds go toward creating or marketing the new product. The downside, of course, is that the company leader may be unprepared for certain aspects of the job, and doesn’t have the resources to get the help they need. That’s not true when you keep your day job, however.
I first met Sher Downing when she attended a mastermind retreat I organized nearly four years ago. She was still employed as a university vice provost full-time, and used the retreat to plan out a detailed, two-year runway toward starting her own business. Buoyed by the strategic connections and choices she made during her final years in her day job, she today runs a successful education technology consulting practice.
You can enjoy your professional life much more when you’re operating in both worlds.
An entrepreneurial side hustle adds spice to what might, at times, feel like staid or repetitive activities in your day job. And while you’ll certainly want to take your business seriously, the financial security afforded by your day job helps you maintain perspective: a delay with your new prototype, or a client who doesn’t renew, may be a setback, but it’s not life and death. Working in both realms enables you to tap into the creative joy of learning and experimenting, which can often get lost — quickly — when they’re overlaid with financial exigencies.
To many, starting your own business means leaving your job and your company behind. But many of the smartest professionals recognize that you can — and quite possibly should — keep both. The combination teaches you more, and faster, than would otherwise be possible, and enables you to custom-craft a career that’s uniquely interesting and meaningful to you.
But once you get started, the rewards of building your own business, while being fully employed, are substantial. Here are five reasons to simultaneously pursue both and ways they can enhance one another.
“Failure” can benefit your career.
When you’re making a binary choice about entrepreneurship — “Should I quit my job to start my own business?” — the financial consequences of failure can be devastating. (The mortgage must be paid, regardless.) But when you have the safety net of income from your job, you can treat entrepreneurship as a learning journey: Even if the venture fails, you’ve still gained valuable skills that can enhance your career.
That was the case for Bozi Dar, a pharmaceutical executive I profiled in Entrepreneurial You. His first entrepreneurial idea — an app to help users change their moods — failed miserably. But he became smarter about sales and marketing in the process, and leveraged those lessons into multiple promotions at work.
You’ll have more time to validate your business idea.
In the entrepreneurial world, the most important initial goal is to find “product-market fit” — i.e., identifying the right audience and the right offering that they will pay for. This process can take quite a while, and without other sources of income, your clock will be ticking loud and fast. But without immediate financial pressure, you can take the time to truly understand your customer and their needs, leading to a far better and more successful product.
Entrepreneur-turned-author James Altucher started a web development company on the side and kept his day job for a full 18 months, even hiring a dozen employees in the process, before he left to run it full-time. That slow buildup ensured he could maintain his salary level and financial obligations with the new venture.
You can more easily stake out a premium position in the marketplace.
When you’re dependent on your nascent business to generate revenue, you’ll often have to accept low-paying or undesirable gigs. Early in my entrepreneurial career, I accepted plenty of short-term projects for a few hundred bucks. But if money isn’t your primary object at first, you can be far more selective, over-indexing on unpaid but prestigious engagements (guest lecturing at business schools or giving TEDx talks, for instance) and avoiding low-margin work or questionable clients that could taint your brand later on.
You can fund valuable professional development for yourself.
In the early days of an entrepreneurial venture, professional development funds are in short supply: All funds go toward creating or marketing the new product. The downside, of course, is that the company leader may be unprepared for certain aspects of the job, and doesn’t have the resources to get the help they need. That’s not true when you keep your day job, however.
I first met Sher Downing when she attended a mastermind retreat I organized nearly four years ago. She was still employed as a university vice provost full-time, and used the retreat to plan out a detailed, two-year runway toward starting her own business. Buoyed by the strategic connections and choices she made during her final years in her day job, she today runs a successful education technology consulting practice.
You can enjoy your professional life much more when you’re operating in both worlds.
An entrepreneurial side hustle adds spice to what might, at times, feel like staid or repetitive activities in your day job. And while you’ll certainly want to take your business seriously, the financial security afforded by your day job helps you maintain perspective: a delay with your new prototype, or a client who doesn’t renew, may be a setback, but it’s not life and death. Working in both realms enables you to tap into the creative joy of learning and experimenting, which can often get lost — quickly — when they’re overlaid with financial exigencies.
To many, starting your own business means leaving your job and your company behind. But many of the smartest professionals recognize that you can — and quite possibly should — keep both. The combination teaches you more, and faster, than would otherwise be possible, and enables you to custom-craft a career that’s uniquely interesting and meaningful to you.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
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