All in all it was a great time had by all who attended.  We had a great set; Mike Celia on guitar, Sway on bass, Dan on keys and Ekow on the drums. Gabriel who incidentally did a post on the Flashjam the day before hopped on guitar just before Mike Celia showed up.

This FlashJam was sort of thrown together and we wanted to actually do one without a ton of planning and organization, so it was really an experiment from which we hoped to learn.  There many lessons but these are 3 really big ones we thought of for the next FlashJam.

Have Some Darn Signage

Seems simple enough right? We could have done a lot better on the signage, here is what we actually had (see above) – nothing, it’s fair to say that we forgot how important that would be given the fact that we were actually doing this in the middle of the Parkdale Village Fair.  Our dear friend Cynthia Innes from Edelman was kind enough to drop by and see us early in the FlashJam, this PR maven’s first question – where’s the signage guys? You’re right Cynthia, we’ll have that prepared for FJ#3.  She was thrilled we decided to keep the momentum going from the success of FJ#1.  Thanks for the support Cynthia!

Get A Lead Vocalist Or Include A Karaoke Component

Need I say more?! This guy just came from across the street and asked if we had a mic. We did!  Frank proceeded to sing some old favourites from Otis Redding, Elvis, Rolling Stones etc… Thanks Frank for making this such a great and fun event. Definitely having a lead singer is a  great way to draw people in but it would have been better – as suggested by Alicia’s Mom {Jo-Anne} to have a karaoke platform where regular folks could come out and sing with the band. Definitely going to try to implement this for the next one!

Get A FlashJams A-Team Van

Now that is a really bad rendering of the proposed Flashjams A-Team van but you get the point.  This would have saved us a bunch of time and hassle.  I’ll tell you why after FlashJam #3. Anybody with a van that we can use, let me know.

Although we were only able to raise a small amount – very small amount – I think it was a great working experience and allowed us to introduce the program to a lot of folks in the community; like Michael Erickson {high school teacher} running for Councillor of Ward 14, he has some interesting ideas about the community. We also got a chance to see  Councillor Gord Perks, whom Sway and I met with earlier in the week, it was great to “see” him out in the community.

I also had a great chat with a youth volunteer worker at a local community centre who said that she had a great place for us to run our programming with separate rooms and some storage, we are going to take some time to actually check out the space this week.

Another successful FlashJam! Thanks everyone that came out to support us!

About FlashJams.com
The FlashJam is akin to a flashmob – a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then disperse. The FlashJam is a group of musicians getting together to jam in a public place. The point for this particular gathering is awareness and fund raising for, at first, KUPE Arts Society and then other neighbourhood arts related non-profit organizations. The location of the FlashJam is kept a secret until 24 hours before actual event when a notification goes out to this list. To get on the list you can sign up at www.flashjams.com.

Other Posts

• A Response to Seth Godin’s Harvesting Article
• MBY 5: Teams Are Ultra Important – They Can Mean The Difference Between Victory or Outright Failure
• CHANGE: The Differentiating Strategy
• MBY Week 4: Evaluating Your Ideas & Getting Moving
• Another Semester Of KUPE ARTS SOCIETY’s Outside The Box Music Program Began This Week

It has been a while since I did an update on My Breakout Year but forgive me.  In any case, I had planned to write about generating financial projections for your new venture/business (and doing some real interesting boring stuff with numbers) but I was so inspired this weekend by a special group of women (and one man) and I wanted to dedicate this post to them, Team Purposeterous Awesomesauce.

So lets set the stage, I am one of the founders of KUPE Arts Society, a Toronto-based non-profit that teaches kids ages 7-13 to play instruments using comtemporary songs written and performed by Canadian artists.  This past week we were selected to participate in Edelman’s Little Give, Edelman summarizes it as “10 teams. 10 charitable partners. 48 hours. Hundreds of lives impacted.”

“On June 3-5, 2010, Edelman Canada’s three offices in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto will devote time, energy and their public relations skills to a great cause. The Little Give is a local charitable initiative first launched by Edelman’s Vancouver office in 2008 which saw the office partner with four charities in the Vancouver area to help make a real difference in the lives of children and youth. The initiative was a success and so the decision was made to take it national. This year, staff in Edelman’s Toronto office will be divided into 10 teams, each partnered with a non-profit partner, which will receive two full days of our time and seed money donated by Edelman Canada. Each team will be tasked with leveraging both the corporate donation and the skills the team members each bring to the table, to the benefit of their partner organization. Teams will be evaluated on criteria including success in leveraging Edelman’s corporate contribution, bringing attention to the non-profit’s mission, and making a difference in the everyday lives of the children and youth served by the organization.”

Source: http://toronto.thelittlegive.ca/

Get the picture? Got it? Good.  So the end result was that after the 48 hours our team at Edelman – Team Purposeterous Awesomesauce – won their Edelman Little Game Challenge.  You can read about the series of events here on the KUPE Arts Society blog.

Great pic of the ladies celebrating the win, where’s Yomi?

Their Challenges

This analysis is from the outside looking in (as a client) but their effort as a team was special for a few reasons:

1. Team Purposeterous Awesomesauce had never worked together before as a unit.
2. They did not know the organizations they were going to be helping (there were 10 to choose from).
3. They did not know what the ask was. (we were in essence asking them to help us find a home for the program, in 48 hours, nothing major )
4. They only had 48 hours to produce measurable results.

Why They Were Successful As A Team And The Lessons We Can Learn From Them

Despite those challenges their win was a testament to true teamwork.  They did a number of things really well; so if you are building and or leading teams for your venture you can learn a lot from their approach:

1. They are professional collaborators so they inherently understand how to work in teams - so make sure to select people who have worked or know how to work in teams
2. They really listened and took the time to understand the what and the why of our ask, and every team member bought into it - be certain, as certain as you can, that everyone on the team understands the goals and that they buy into them
3. Each team member seemed to be comfortable playing their respective positions within the team (no ego) – this is tricky and it is hard to judge but do your homework and see how your team members have operated / performed in team settings in the past
4. They understood each team member’s individual strengths (and weaknesses) – people pay a lot of lip service to this one but leaders and teams rarely take the time to understand this within each team member, but this is crucial to a team’s success
5. They delegated effectively - you will need to do #4 to do this one properly
6. They trusted each other to execute – trust is a big motivator for some folks, make sure that the team members you choose thrive on trust
7. They communicated often and effectively – can’t say enough about this one.

I am sure there was much more going on behind the scenes that we actually did not see but as the “client” we were truly impressed with how they worked together and with KUPE to effect the outcome we wanted.

Now they did not hand us a set of keys at the end of the 48 hours – and they were sure to manage our expectations at the beginning of the process – but they did do a great job of getting us closer to our goal of finding a permanent home for the program.  In the space of 48 hours, they generated tremendous awareness and support, met with and solicited the support of our key stakeholders, added to KUPE culture with their approach and delivered some measurable and actionable  results.

If you are building a team for your new venture (or old venture) take notes because Team Awesomesauce put on a virtual clinic on how to build, run and manage a winning team. Go Purposeterous Awesomesauce!

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• My Favorite Sites & People Online…They Should Be Yours Too!!
• Iran, You and Your Unrealized Power
• A Short Guide To Group Buying Sites For Business Owners
• If I Ran A Travel Agency Today

Last year, I did a post about Groupon.com (UPDATE: this is a referral link) launching in Toronto and just this past week the folks at Groupon have finally blessed the city of Toronto with its amazing deal engine.  As a follow-up to that post I thought I would write a small guide for business owners who were thinking about this form of promotion.  This past week, Groupon.com has definitely made a convincing argument for business owners to at least take a serious look at this form of promotion.

Offering coupons to potential customers to persuade them to come in and experience your product or service can be a great way to gain market share very quickly. Now with the introduction of sites like Groupon.com, SocialBuy.com and LivingSocial.com the process for distributing these coupons has become far simpler and more cost effective. There are virtually hundreds of sites in this coupon space that claim that they can drive customers to your store if you listed your special coupon deals with them, so how do you choose the best site for you. Here are a few tips to get you started as you start to do your homework on these types of sites.

1. Understand How It Works

Learn How Groupon Works! from The Point on Vimeo.

Groupon has done a tremendous job of helping retailers (and customers) understand the process and how this thing works. If your group buying site has one of these videos or even a FAQs page then you should read it carefully and ask as many questions as you see fit. How do you make money? When does my ad go up? How should I price my product for this promotion? Have you done deals with any of my competitors or similar products and how have they done? What are the demographics of your customer base? How many users do you have on your platform and how often do they buy? What is the overall impact of the business post offer? How do these coupons work and how do you make sure that only the actual people who buy are the only ones who show up with these coupons? Why are there other sites that look like your site?

2. Understand Their Demographic

Source: grouponworks.com

If you have been in business for a while then you have a good sense of who your customers are. Groupon actually breaks down the demographics of their users to give business owners a picture of who they will be marketing to. Pay close attention here. If this does not represent your target demographic then you may want to consider how much of an investment you want to make in this sort of promotion or even if you want to run a promotion at all. This information is vitally important when you are trying to gage the potential of this campaign, if the group buying site that you are considering does not present this sort of info, run, run far away, it is a waste of time.

3. Be Certain That They Are Actually Doing Deals

Source: groupon.com/toronto

Take a look at their track record for getting deals done and/or even oversubscribed. Groupon Toronto opened up last week Monday (April 20, 2010) and they have been doing gang-busters. For a new entrant into to a market they have done a great job so far of creating a great track record in this market. I believe that all of their deals so far, as of the writing of this post, have sold out. Sold out deals or oversubscribed deals are a great sign (for some businesses) in that it means that you will hit the number of folks you intended to reach and then some. I would caution that you should be prepared to handle more than projected, so you may have to have some extra staff on standby after your deal goes live. Also be sure to negotiate a price that does not put you out of business if you experience greater than expected volume.

4. Verify The Testimonials

Source: grouponworks.com

I am big believer in testimonials for any and everything but how do you know that you can trust that these are actual testimonials and not some verbiage generated by the group buying site itself. There is only one true way to find out – ask the retailer. Buy a Groupon or a deal on any one of these sites and go talk to the owner or retailer yourself. Build a relationship with a few retailers who have used the service and see how things develop over a period of time, ideally you would like to contact them when the deal is initially presented, then follow-up periodically to see where things are. Did the promotion work? How did they handle those new clients? How was their ROI? How much were they charged? Have they tried other similar group buying sites and how did this experience compare?

5. Gut Check: Have You Ever Heard Of Them?

There are tons of sites out there who say they can drive customers to your business but if you have been in the space looking for a group buying partner and you have never heard of them then there is good reason to believe that your potential clients haven’t heard of them either.  And thus if they are not well-known in the space chances are they are not going to bring you the type of volume that will provide good ROI.

Other Posts

• Building A Non-Profit Rockstar : The Strategic Plan
• Iran, You and Your Unrealized Power
• GROUPON.COM in Toronto? This is the Power of Crowds.
• How To Make It In America Is My New Favorite Show
• MBY Week 4: Evaluating Your Ideas & Getting Moving

Well, we are into another semester at KUPE ARTS SOCIETY’s Outside The Box Music Program and so far everything has been great…

KUPE ARTS SOCIETY is a non-profit entity formed by myself, Sway, and Brent Bain to administer the Outside The Box Music Program (OTB). OTB was the brainchild of Sway and Brent Bain and they literally started this thing on a shoestring budget – just two guys wanting to do good in the community.

Sway had the initial idea and they worked to create the program by reaching out to schools in the Parkdale area while subsequently looking for a place to house the project. From idea to implementation Sway estimates that it took them about 1 month. No business plans, no market studies, no sensitivity analysis, just the idea and identification of a need and then action to implement it.

Fast forward a couple years later and OTB is now a program run and administered by KUPE (Kids Understand Practically Everything) ARTS SOCIETY. The program has come a long way, we recently shot this short video for a recent competition, check it out

OTB has served over 120 kids and some 240 parents since inception and while we are seeing some results of our work with students we are not without some challenges.

FINDING A HOME

We are now conducting the program in a space that we have “borrowed” from another organization in the Masaryk-Cowan Community Centre. As you can imagine we have significant scheduling constraints during the semester and it is always a challenge to match up space availability with teachers’ schedules. Finding a stable home for the program would enable us to extend the program significantly – to serve more kids, offer more music classes, expand the types of programs we can offer etc.

INSTRUMENTS

The instruments were originally either donated or bought with initial funds but one of our other main constraints is that we don’t have the capability to lend the instruments out to the kids who want to practice while they are not in class.  We would really love to give students the opportunity to practice outside of the program and the kids that we serve just don’t have instruments in their home to practice with.

We are presently working on these issues but if you have any suggestions or would like to be a part of the solution, please do not hesitate to reach out to us – jarel@kupearts.org and let me know how you can help. FYI – we are working on our website and it should be up in short order.

Stay Tuned!

Other Posts

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• A Response to Seth Godin’s Harvesting Article
• How To Make It In America Is My New Favorite Show

After seeing the first three episodes, I am definitely hooked.  This show has definitely become one of my favorite shows of all time.  The story of these two young men  is about entrepreneurship, sacrifice, dreams, ingenuity, creativity, passion, guts and courage.

“How to Make It in America” follows two enterprising Brooklyn twenty somethings as they hustle their way through New York City, determined to achieve the American Dream. Trying to make a name for themselves in New York’s competitive fashion scene, Ben Epstein (Greenberg) and his friend and business partner Cam Calderon (Rasuk) use their street knowledge and connections to bring their ambitions to fruition. With the help of Cam’s cousin Rene (Guzman), who is trying to market his own high-energy drink, and their well-connected friend Domingo (“Kid Cudi”), the entrepreneurs set out to make it big, encountering obstacles along the way that will require all their ingenuity to overcome.

Source: HowToMakeItInAmerica.com

HTMIIA was created by first-time writer Ian Edelman who collaborated with Emmy nominee Rob Weiss (“Entourage”) on many of the show’s scripts – maybe that is why I like it so much. And much like how Entourage shows the struggle of guys in their twenties trying to make it in Hollywood, this story is about two guys from NYC trying to make it in business.  I have always enjoyed shows and movies about business but this one hits the mark.  The show is well-written and the cast is excellent.

Ben Epstein and Cam Calderon are the quintessential bright-eyed and bushy-tailed entrepreneurs who believe that they can make anything happen. The story picks up just after their latest failed venture – manufacturing and selling designer skateboards. As a result of the business “failure”, Ben has picked up a gig at Barney’s to pay the bills but in the first episode Cam is successful in drawing him back into the entrepreneurial dream when they come upon a roll of fresh Japanese denim.  Their new venture, Crisp NYC, a high-end jeans company was founded with a $3,000 roll of denim and financed with a high interest loan from Cam’s crooked cousin who is fresh out of jail – I wouldn’t do it, but proves how far some will go in pursuit of success.

It seems like the odds are stacked against them, with everyone telling them to run away from starting this new business but they are convinced that this venture is the one that will change their lives forever – gotta love it.  I can’t wait to see what happens in the future episodes, this will probably be their BREAKOUT YEAR – sorry had to do it.  Check out the trailer below.

“How to Make It in America” is produced by HBO Entertainment; executive producers, Stephen Levinson, Rob Weiss, Ian Edelman, Julian Farino, Jada Miranda and Mark Wahlberg; producer, Jane Raab.

Source: HowToMakeItInAmerica.com

Other Posts

• Building A Non-Profit Rockstar : The Strategic Plan
• Raising Money From Family and Friends
• MBY Week 3: How Do I Come Up With A Freakin’ Idea?
• Are Teams Important?
• Another Semester Of KUPE ARTS SOCIETY’s Outside The Box Music Program Began This Week

Click to enlarge

Source: What Matters Now by Seth Godin

Over the last few weeks,  I have spoken to a lot of you one-on-one and for you guys who I have not been able to reach out to; look out for my email shortly.

Since the beginning of  My Breakout Year, we have covered a number of topics, including getting in the right mindset, modeling great entrepreneurs and generating ideas. I thought I would give you guys an additional week to generate and explore some ideas and get caught up on the assignments. Plus, it gave me a good reason to take a step back and evaluate where the course is going and also get some of my own work done.

This week, I would like to focus on evaluating the ideas that you generated over the past couple of weeks. It’s important to start to properly evaluate your ideas before you jump in and throw all of your effort at any one idea. Now, I am not a big fan of doing a bunch of analysis; a lot of the businesses owners will tell you that they started just trying to fill a need that they identified or they just started by marketing products and services they knew well or were able to perform on their own. You can spend a bunch of time evaluating your idea but more often than not you wind up talking yourself out of good ideas in the name of doing your homework.  The best strategy, I have seen thus far, is to: 1) start with an idea; 2) do some high level analysis with friends, family and some potential clients; 3) pick a business model; 4) mapout a SIMPLE financial model; 5) test the market with a limited set of clients; 6) evaluate your findings; 7) survey; and make adjustments.  You should repeat steps 5-8 until you find something that works well for you, keeping in mind that you may have to revisit/revise/change/eliminate/reevaluate some assumptions you developed in steps 1-4.  Sounds complicated?  It’s not.

STEP 1: STARTING WITH AN IDEA

For the most part we have done step 1 which was generate the ideas.  The following addresses steps 2 – 5, the key here is to get to a place where you are actually offering a product and or service. The cycle of testing, evaluating, surveying and adjusting will come a little later and will require us to spend some time testing the market with a small group of clients.

STEP 2: HIGH LEVEL ANALYSIS

Ask Your Friends & Family and Some Strangers

Click to enlarge

Source: What Matters Now by Seth Godin

The quickest, easiest – and for some people – the safest form of initial research is surveying friends and family.  You should start here but do not worry if you don’t get initial traction with this group of folks. For a lot of entrepreneurs their family and friends probably don’t even know what they do, never mind actually buying a particular product or service from them.  This form of research may not be available to you.  If, however, you have this resource at your disposal, ask them as many questions as you can about why they would buy your product or service, why they would not buy it, what price they would be willing to pay, what product or service they use now to fulfill the need or gap that your product or service is addressing, etc.

Also, if you are in your twenties you should have a good sense of how your friends and family see you. If you know that they view you as the goofball baby brother or sister take their advice with a grain of salt. Their reaction or their feedback may have nothing at all to do with your product or service. DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED, if they refuse to buy your service or product or if they put down your ideas.

Go out to the market, ask people on the street, conduct surveys online with Survey Monkey, if you have a blog or a website or a following on facebook or Twitter get some feedback in whatever form you can. If you find that you have some positive feedback, then you can move forward. Make sure you are targeting folks who have experienced the problem that you are trying to solve; they are all potential clients / customers.

Take A Look At What Investors Are Investing In

A few months ago I wrote a post on Pitching to People with Money and what you needed to  communicate to potential investors.

I have included the video from that post (above) to give you a better sense of what investors may be looking for when investing. Do not be discouraged by any of this but I do think that you should definitely heed the advice of the Dragons.

For a simple exercise write down word for word the questions that they ask and try to answer them yourself. If you feel that you are able to answer those questions you may be a in position to really take your idea to the next level.

Get Some Concrete Answers On Whether There Is Actually A Need For Your Product or Service

If you did not generate your idea by looking at trends – even if you did originally – run some analysis to see if people are talking about or searching for a solution that you are thinking about providing.  There are many ways to look at trends, you can revisit Week 3 and take a look at the What’s Important Now section.  To summarize here are a few bullet points on places to look for trends

• Google trends
• Google alerts (enter search terms to have Google email you alerts on the topics that are most important to you)
• Twitter search
• Keyword search example
• Digg (search your keywords and see how many people are “digging” your topic)

Are people talking about your problem or issue?  Take a look at this talk from Seth Godin

STEP 3: DETERMINE THE BUSINESS MODEL

Below is a pretty good map of how you should approach the development of your business model.  This can be a bit confusing but if you take the time to fill in the buckets you will get a better understanding of how you can/should deliver your services, establish and manage your relationship with your customer and  pricing your services.

If you would like me to explain, please do not hesitate to send me an email and we can setup a time to walk through this - jarel@jarelcockburn: PLEASE PUT THE FOLLOWING IN THE SUBJECT FIELD OF THE EMAIL – “MBY 4: BUSINESS MODEL EXPLANATION”

Click to enlarge

Source: Wikipedia

Here are some great examples of business models ( in some if not all cases they give you real life cases where these models are implemented):

Auction business model
Bricks and clicks business model
Collective business models
Cutting out the middleman model
Direct sales model
Distribution business models, various
Franchise
Freemium business model
Industrialization of services business model
Low-cost carrier business model
Loyalty business models
Monopolistic business model
Multi-level marketing business model
Network effects business model
Online auction business model
Online content business model
Premium business model
Professional open-source model
Pyramid scheme business model
Razor and blades business model (bait and hook)
Reseller business model
Servitization of products business model
Subscription business model
Value Added Reseller model

Source: Wikipedia

If none of the examples above fit for your business ask yourself the following questions, also let me know if you need help with this, this is the most critical part of your business so you should take care to understand this:

1. What infrastructure will you need in place to deliver your service or develop and sell your product?
2. How are you reaching their customer?
3. Who are your customers?
4. Can you get to them?
5. How much will it cost you to acquire a client/customer?
6. How much can you charge each client/customer?
7. What is the typical sales cycle?
8. Can you compete with some of the other players in the market?If not how do you differentiate yourself from them?

STEP 4: BUILDING A SIMPLE FINANCIAL MODEL

I know this can sound like a daunting task but a model can be as simple as estimates the revenue (how much money you get from selling your product or service) minus the expenses (the money you have to put out to deliver/make your product or service) .  It can also be as complex as the projections of the 3 financial statements with multiple input variables – if you don’t know what this sentence means don’t worry about it. It may or may not be important to you but you can simply start with the following example:

Revenues – Expenses = Net Income

Take a look at the revenue that you will gain from your product and service, be reasonable (realistic). Ask yourself the following questions (please keep in mind that these are just the initial questions it can get far more complex depending on the type of product or service you are delivering):

Revenue

1. How many customers can I get in the following months?
2. How much will they be willing to pay?
3. Will they be paying on a monthly basis or is it a one time fee?

Expenses

1. How much will it cost to acquire a client?(i.e. marketing, advertising, phone calls, dinner lunchs with potential clients, business cards, website, etc…)
2. How much time (man hours) will it take to deliver the service and how much raw materials or products will I need to deliver this product or service (resources)?

If you take the revenue and subtract the estimated expenses and you come out with a positive number you may have something great on your hands. You will need to look a little bit deeper though to really see how profitable it is.

Also, if you need a major asset to  perform the service or create the product – like a vehicle to make deliveries – you will have to create a balance sheet stating those assets in the future. But for now you can just figure the monthly costs of that asset (monthly loan payments, insurance, repairs and maintenance, etc) into your monthly or annual expenses.

We will get more in-depth with this analysis but try and rationalize these numbers with proven examples either within the normal course of business or through actual market research.

STEP 5: START SELLING – TESTING THE MARKET WITH A LIMITED SET OF CLIENTS

The fastest way to find out if your product or service and most importantly your business model will work is to go out there and START SELLING IT. I would recommend this approach if you have a product that you are not developing (perhaps sourcing from other manufacturers) or a service that you have experience with.  In some cases there will be some lead time but as soon as you do your initial analysis, Iwould say that you go and test the market.  See the video below from Gary V to understand how fast other entrepreneurs are moving.

There is no greater indication of market need than the conversations that you have with your potential and current clients. In this dialogue you are afforded the opportunity to really understand the need that you are trying to fill and if you are flexible and nimble you can make adjustments to your offering as you see fit – as demand grows.

It is really important to listen in this phase because clients will always tell you what they want, if they are paying you money. Use this time to refine your offering and develop a real business plan. This period also serves to keep you away from what many people fall victim to – “analysis paralysis”.

My philosophy is that if you can test the market cheaply, you should not waste time pouring yourself into a ton of market research and projections. If you have the experience and a good product there is absolutely nothing wrong with jumping right in before you have ALL the questions answered. When starting a business, many folks believe that they have to collect tons of research and spend many hours working to develop their view of the market and their strategy. Most of the time because they are not part of the market – ie. Selling. They have no idea what is actually going on, where customers are actually spending their money, what a transaction in that space looks like and the relationship that they should have with their suppliers. They spend a few months building a great looking 50 page business plan that usually proves to be worthless on day 1 of actual work.

Look, markets are developing at a rapid pace and what is true about customers today may be totally inaccurate a few months from now. The best market research, does not come from the guys who study industries but from the guys who operate businesses in that industry, these are the people who have their ear to the ground. So if you can aim to become one of those people the better off you and your new business will be.

If you need some sales lessons take a look at one of my most popular posts – What Matt Damon Can Teach You About Sales

In addition to that I would also take a look at – How To Start A Web Business And Survive – even if you are not starting a web business

Lastly, check out this vid for Gary V on the speed at which our world is changing and how everyday people (like you) are changing the way we see the world and influencing how folks are connecting.

The following may be a great assignment for you to complete for this week (or month).

1. Collect feedback from as many people are you can (family, friend, and potential customers).  IMPORTANT: Don’t totally give away your idea, and keep the actual business model a secret!
2. Decide on the business model
3. Build a financial model
4. If you can, map out a simple strategy and start selling your product or service NOW!

Send me mail and let me know how you are doing or if you have any questions.

Other Posts

• MBY Week 2: Are You Stupid Enough To Be A Successful Entrepreneur?
• My Favorite Sites & People Online…They Should Be Yours Too!!
• 3 Web 2.0 Strategists and What Brick and Mortar Can Learn From Them
• Another Semester Of KUPE ARTS SOCIETY’s Outside The Box Music Program Began This Week
• CHANGE: The Differentiating Strategy

Source: http://thisisindexed.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/card2325.jpg

So in week 1 and week 2, you prepared your mind to take on the task of creating a new venture. Now, it is time to start creating the new venture that will make this your Breakout Year!

I often get questions from clients about the process of creating ideas that lead to real life businesses.  Generating ideas – good, actionable, lucrative – ideas is difficult, but fortunately there are some resources and techniques that are available to us to make the process easier.  You can learn about virtually any industry you like for FREE, just by searching the web.  There is no excuse for NOT being able to generate ideas!  I hear people whinning all the time about not being “creative” enough to generate new ideas.  If that is your attitude either stop reading or go back to week 2 and internalize it – it is good for you man ! You don’t have to be creative to come up with something that people will buy –  just be stupid or better yet be dumb.

Source: What Matters Now by Seth Godin

The trick here is to let your mind go wild and come up with as many ideas as possible – I will show you some techniques and methods later. Whatever you come up with just write it down and move on to the next, do not erase and or edit, we will work on that in a future lesson. DO NOT ERASE your ideas, keep them, you  never know you may end up coming back to them, even the ones you think are stupid right now.

Most people edit because they believe that they will be judged and that fear drives them to inaction. It is funny, but as I was writing this particular part of the course Seth Godin wrote about this particular fear. FYI, if you have not already signed up for his RSS you should – GET IT. I get an email everyday from his blog and his daily posting are always insightful and filled with some great gems, trust me.  Needless to say it is probably the first thing I read every morning.

Here is his post on fear of bad ideas:

Fear of bad ideas

A few people are afraid of good ideas, ideas that make a difference or contribute in some way. Good ideas bring change, that’s frightening.

But many people are petrified of bad ideas. Ideas that make us look stupid or waste time or money or create some sort of backlash.

The problem is that you can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad ones.

Painters, musicians, entrepreneurs, writers, chiropractors, accountants–we all fail far more than we succeed. We fail at closing a sale or playing a note. We fail at an idea for a series of paintings or the theme for a trade show booth.

But we succeed far more often than people who have no ideas at all.

Someone asked me where I get all my good ideas, explaining that it takes him a month or two to come up with one and I seem to have more than that. I asked him how many bad ideas he has every month. He paused and said, “none.”

And there, you see, is the problem.

Source: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/fear-of-bad-ideas.html

Ok, I am assuming that you are ready to get going on generating ideas (if you already have an idea expand on it); you don’t have the fear of being judged, you are in a safe place to really open your mind to what is possible and finally that you are prepared (if you show this to anyone) for someone to call you stupid and dumb, or shower you with tons of praise.  Personally, I have had a ton of very bad ideas, some I will share later, maybe .  But I don’t fear the thought of them being considered stupid or dumb.

So without further ado, here are some of the techniques I use to generate ideas – feel free to build on this list:

The Copycat Method

This is one of the easiest ways to generate ideas and is a good starting place for people who don’t think they are creative enough to come up a business venture.  The premise here is to look at a good or service that is being sold in one market, perhaps another country, and adapt it to fit your market.  There are tons of examples of this, look at the guys that manufacture and sell knock-offs of designer handbags and scarfs.  I don’t condone it but they took a product that was meant for a certain class of folks (market 1) and created a low cost alternative (market 2).  Now can you think of something that you saw in another market that can be adapted for your market.

Think of your last vacation, think of the businesses, products and services that were unique to that region.  Can you do something similar in your market? There is nothing wrong with this if you aren’t encroaching on any other company’s intellectual property. You will just be the first mover in your market and that can be a tremendous advantage to you.

Following The Money

This is one of my favorite methods for a few reasons: 1) You get an understanding of how “smart” people are thinking about trends and the viability of certain business models, the future of commerce, and buying patterns, 2) you will more than likely create something investors would be interested in investing in. By focusing in on establishing a business where investment dollars are already flowing and possibly creating a unique product or service in that space, you can lock in potential investors in the future. By contrast focusing on industries or opportunities that investors don’t like will probably enable you to access investment dollars.

VCs and other private equity investors are becoming more vocal about their strategies and are sharing publicly their view on emerging trends.  Even if this does not help you generate any ideas it is good to know where early stage investors are putting their money.  Here is an article written by Fred Willson, a  VC and primcipal at Union Square Ventures, where he discusses where he is looking for opportunities this year -  http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/01/areas-of-interest.html

What’s Important Now?

Trends are always important to watch; there are tons of resources that speak to some of the emerging trends in business and society. Here is a good place to start for 2010:

Google Trends is also a good resource for following what folks are searching for online.  You probably do it all the time but when you have a problem that you don’t have an immediate answer for you probably go and Google it.  Well there are probably other people out there who are having the same issue or trying to solve a similar problem and those “searchers” could be the market for your new product or service.

Google Trends shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. The horizontal axis of the main graph represents time (starting from some time in 2004), and the vertical is how often a term is searched for relative to the total number of searches, globally.  Below the main graph, popularity is broken down by region, city and language. It is possible to refine the main graph by region and time period. On August 5, 2008, Google launched Google Insights for Search, a more sophisticated and advanced service displaying search trends data.

Problems & Passions

Source: What Matter Now by Seth Godin

Ever see those late night infomercials for the ShamWow, Snap Capps or the Strap Perfect.  I know you have.  I am sure that the first time you saw those products your reaction was something like -” Man that is so simple, I could have thought of that”.  Well the truth is, you could have.  Those inventions are products of pain and frustration caused by some of life’s daily annoyances.  I am sure that there is something right now in your house that you wish would work better, or perhaps there is some task that you wish was easier to execute.  Well start thinking about what those problems are because if you have a problem with a similar task or product other people are probably having the same issue and would pay money for a product or service that properly addressed that problem.

Last week we also talked about being passionate and for that segment of the lesson we looked at a video of Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV.  Gary is obviously passionate about wine and he has done well building a business around this passion of his.  As you probably found out Gary is also passionate about building businesses and social media. Right now he has his hands in a ton of different ventures, some he invested in and some he started with other partners and they are all centered around those three passions of his – wine, business development and social media.  What is your passion?  Whatever it is, chances are there are people out there who are passionate about it as well.  Let’s say you are most passionate dressing your dog up in fancy doggy clothes.  Could you start a dog grooming and shopping business or a doggie clothing line for celebrity dogs?  Sure you can, I am definitely one of those people who thinks that it is possible to make money on your passions.  You just have to put in the time and effort and be creative. So start making a list of things you are most passionate about and start thinking about business you can build around that passion.

My Google Reader & My Alltop

I use Google Reader to aggregate a lot of blogs that I like to read; it is like a daily newspaper I get to read everyday without worrying about getting ink on my hands. Here is a link to the items I have shared on my Google Reader - http://www.google.ca/reader/shared/01726619218819367366. Some of the articles are interesting (or not) but all of these posts inspired some thought in me, and perhaps gave me some ideas about a present and or new venture. I would recommend setting up Google reader to aggregate information from blogs that interest you (if you have not already) Bloggers usually write about problems and or issues, so I see my Google Reader as a goldmine for ideas for businesses, one that pays daily and is constantly being renewed.  Also I would go to Alltop to setup your own account, here is mine - http://my.alltop.com/jarelcockburn.

Weird Ideas

It is always fun to see the types of businesses folks come up with.  Below are some of weirdest businesses in the US.  Perhaps this may spark something in you or give you a few ideas.   At least it may give you a good chuckle.

Afterlife Telegrams of New Athens, Illinois

Service for contacting the dead. Terminally ill patients memorize messages and deliver them when opportunity permits.

Alibi Network of Chicago

In a perfect world, you wouldn’t have to lie to your spouse/boss/parents about your whereabouts Friday night. In this imperfect world, these guys have your back.

HappyBalls.com of Cumming, Georgia

A million-dollar company that makes a single product: foam balls for car aerials.

Barefootlist.com of Salt Lake City

Members create and track lists of things they want to achieve before they die.

Climax Gentleman’s Club of New Alexandria, Pennsylvania

Drive-through strip joint.

Cuddle Party of New York City

Runs events at which adults “explore communication, boundaries, and affection” by donning pajamas and getting physical. Ix-nay on the naughty stuff.

eNthem of San Francisco

Writes full-length corporate theme songs. The ultimate in “please hold” music!

Find the rest of the list on inc.com @ http://www.inc.com/print/64

Other People’s Bad Ideas

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. It is truly rare that people talk about their bad ideas but when you have the opportunity to hear successful entrepreneurs talk about their bad ideas listen up. If you actually get someone to talk about their bad ideas ask them why they did not go through with it or even why they thought it was a bad idea. This sort of probing can reveal some interesting information about certain markets, how an entrepreneur evaluates his own ideas and some of the key things he/she looks for in a good idea.  It can also provide you with ideas as well. It may be the case that there is another way to accomplish the task their solution set out to execute or another way to solve the problem they are trying to solve, you never know.

Jeremy “Shoemoney” Shoemaker is regarded as one of the top, if not the top, authority on interenet marketing. He is often very honest and open about his business, the good stuff and the bad stuff. He is in fact famous for posting an image of a check he received from Google adsense.

Needless to say that was a few years ago but he is still doing well. A couple of years ago, in true Shoemoney form, he wrote about his top 10 worst business ideas. I have copied the entire article here for your viewing, thanks Shoemoney for the authority to do this. You can visit his site – www.shoemoney.com.

FYI, if you want to learn more about how to make money online check out his Shoemoney System. Click here for signup and some vids - he is launching it soon so get in while you can…

Here is the full article, let me know if this sparks any good ideas in your head.

My Top 10 Worst Ideas To Make Money

Posted September 4th, 2006 by Jeremy Schoemaker

I think I am about 5 for 500 when it comes to successful ideas vs flops. I just watched a documentary about my neighbor Warren Buffett and he talked about how you should brag about your failures and be humble about your successes. I think my new years resolution in 2007 is to be way more humble. Do not think I have some golden touch or something that everything works out great… its just the law of averages.. try enough stuff and something will stick.

Anyway I came up (in about 10 minutes) my top 10 worst ideas to make money that totally were a waste of time and effort (and money in some cases).
And also BTW you cant read this post if you know me in real life and k thx…

10 – FireFox Forum (firefoxforum.com) – I purchased this site on digitalpoint ($800) after getting some inside information that FireFox was going to team up with Google on a per download affiliate program. Well all that happened and I think I made about 50$ the first year. FLOP

9 – BabyCalc.com – If you were about to have a baby you could go on this site and punch in some numbers then it would email you as your baby was growing and let you know what was going on… “like 10 days until you should be able to tell the sex of your baby!” or “Babys heart beat starts today” ect.. stuff like that.. I paid to have the backend developed and the site was about 95% completed (about a 1500$ investment).

Then a very close friend of the family had a miscarriage about 15 weeks into her pregnancy and told us about how she had signed up for all these baby websites and now they keep emailing her stuff and she breaks down and cries every time…. I just wanted no part of that… FLOP

8 – Pimp My Blog – I thought this was going to be teh win. I mean… you want to pimp out your blog right ? I registered pimpmyblog.org but it was burning my ass that someone owned pimpmyblog.com. I hate making a site when I do not own the .com. Sure you can do good without owning the .com but they are always going to mooch off of your hard work…. so I HAD to own it and after about 3 weeks of haggling with this guy I paid $2,000.00 for the domain.
I made a forum with Vbulletin and had big plans to implement wordpress templates and all kinds of cool blogging tools but just never got around to it =p. FLOP

7 – Omaha-Used-Cars.com – Now here we go! This is easy. Just make a used car site and charge dealers a .25cent per car listing fee right ? ehhh none interested… FLOP

6 – SMS Text Dating textdating.com/texting.com – I was soooooooo sure this one was going to be it! The concept is simple basically you subscribe to this dating website. Make a profile then you could send a message to the person from the website to there mobile phone without having to know there phone number. I had this totally done and nobody every signed up… FLOP

5 – St. Marry’s Bar & Grill – Ok this has nothing to do with the internet. After the Hooters closed down in Lincoln I tried to re-open it then when that did not work out I thought about making a restaurant called St. Marrys where it was like a church and the waitresses dressed like catholic school girls and like the nuns would be the managers and spank the waitresses if they were bad?!? Yes I know bad idea and I never really pursued it…. I like in one of the most conservative catholic communities in the country so no way it would fly… and yes i know im going straight to hell.

4 – 2 Topless Chix In A Ferrari Cross Country
What would get more looks then a brand new ferrari f430 ? what if 2 topless girls were driving it cross country ? what if you could buy advertising on the car ? seemed like a good idea… then it did not.

3 – Ads Or Not
Simple concept. There is 5 ads on a webpage only one of them is NOT REALLY A AD! Each time you successfully spot the fake ad you get some money built up into your account. – I had issues finding advertisers who were down for this =P FLOP

2 – ShoeMoney SEO Contest
I thought it would be fun contest to see if someone could outrank me for shoemoney. Id like to not relive that.

1 – ShoeMoney Petroleum Company -
(I cant believe im actually telling these in public)

Ok Follow me here -
I want to purchase a Gas Station and Give away Free Gas

The catch is like the gas would come out really slow and also you would be limited as to how much you could get per week. (Like max 50 gallons a week).

How do I make money ? EASY – I would setup paintball guns around the gas station with webcams that would let people from the internet take shots at the people filling up there cars with gas. You could charge per shot or a xxxx amounts of shots per month for a set fee. PROBLEM – I talked to a city council member about this and he told me there was a “no flying ordinance” or something rule within city limits however I could maybe do it in the country…

Anyway….. thats all for now.

Source: http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/09/04/my-top-10-worst-ideas-to-make-money/

Not satisfied yet?  Here are a few more resources:

Squidoo
http://www.squidoo.com/creatingideas
http://www.squidoo.com/creative-techniques
Questorming
http://pynthan.com/vri/questorm.htm
Twitter Lists
http://listorious.com/Scobleizer/founders
http://listorious.com/tags/business
http://listorious.com/ducttape/smallbiz
http://listorious.com/Jason_Pollock/rising-stars

Assignment 3

The assignment this week is very simple, create a list of as many new business ideas as you can.  Use the methods and resources above if you need some help generating ideas.  Lastly, as I said above, don’t start editing yourself just yet.  If it comes to your mind just write it down; no matter how dumb or idiotic you may think it is.

Other Posts

• Another Semester Of KUPE ARTS SOCIETY’s Outside The Box Music Program Began This Week
• What Matt Damon Can Teach You About Sales
• MBY 5: Teams Are Ultra Important – They Can Mean The Difference Between Victory or Outright Failure
• CHANGE: The Differentiating Strategy
• My Favorite Sites & People Online…They Should Be Yours Too!!

This may be surprising but if you intend to move forward with any entrepreneurial venture you may run up against people who may not think that your business is the smartest endeavour ever, surprise, surprise. Remember some of the greatest inventors and pioneers went against the grain and forged forward even when people thought they were stupid, or at least their ideas were stupid.

In many ways, it pays to be “stupid” or “unrealistic”. Try not to singularly engage in so called “logical” thinking. Take a look at Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, many folks thought it was “stupid” to try to sell books online but he did anyways and is now reaping the rewards of his pioneering attitude. Did you ever think that people would buy shoes online? The founder of Zappos.com certainly thought so and well we all know how that turned out.

Being “stupid” is just one characteristic that successful entrepreneurs consistently exhibit. With that said there are a number of characteristics or traits that successful entrepreneurs display and if you want to be successful as well it may not be a bad idea to adopt these traits. Adopting these traits in your endeavors can certainly take you far. Tony Robbins talks about modeling the behavior of successful folks if you want similar results and I would totally agree. So, instead of telling you about those characteristics or traits in 300 paragraphs or less, I felt it would be more fun to show you some videos of entrepreneurs (and non-entrepreneurs) demonstrating those characteristics or traits. Be prepared to take some notes, there are multiple lessons in each one of these videos. Enjoy.

SKILLED

There are many lessons in this video but pay close attention to what Will attributes to his greatness, being skilled versus talented. Like him or not he is truly providing some great advice, watch the whole video, he starts to touch on traits that we will cover later on.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/themindguru

OBSESSIVE

John Nese loves soda pop. I mean, he REALLY loves soda pop. He’s dedicated his life to the bubbly beverage. Nese owns Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in Los Angeles. He sells more than 500 varieties of soda pop. Nese is also passionate about his customers and suppliers. He tries to avoid the big names. He seeks out small producers with unique, high-quality products. He believes when people have the freedom to choose, they’ll choose the best. Nese is one character you have to meet.

DRIVEN

Maria Spika is the CEO and founder of Linqia – an online marketplace connecting key decision makers of social networks to commercial partners. The name Linqia comes from the name of a starfish called the Linckia. The Linckia is known for its regeneration abilities – they are able to re-grow arms if they get severed – now that’s DRIVEN. In this mixergy.com interview, Maria talks about her background and her philosophy on business. Take some notes, she is quite a fighter, DRIVEN.

OPTIMISTIC

This is probably one of my favorite commercials and incidentally speaks to the attitude that entrepreneurs should adopt. Be optimistic – pay attention to how the kid deals with “failure” at the end of the commercial.

CHEAP

Andy Liu is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. As an entrepreneur, he’s the Co-Founder and CEO of BuddyTV. Prior to that, he founded NetConversions, which was sold to aQuantive. As an investor, he backed Pet Holdings (which owns viral sites like I Can Has Cheeseburger and FAIL Blog), Optify and Inkd. In this mixergy.com, interview he talks about his approach to financial management in his personal and professional life. Pay attention to the desirable traits he would like to see in the CEOs and founders he invests in.

PERSISTENT

Many entrepreneurs have had significantly more failures than successes, we only usually here about the successes – so this trait is of great importance. Many feel that this is the most important trait that an entrepreneur could have.

INTENSE

Now ultimately his own pride and greed was his own undoing and I would not condone any of this behavior, but you have to love the intensity in this scene. Intensity is not for everyone but for the folks who are skewed this way being intense is essential to being a successful entrepreneur. “I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE”, you gotta love it.

CURIOUS

PASSIONATE

If you want to know what true passion is, take a look at this video of Gary Vaynerchuk at Web 2.0 Expo NY. Gary Vee is talking about building your personal brand within the social media landscape, a topic he is passionate about.

Assignment: Take each one of these traits and describe periods / events in your life when you demonstrated the above traits. It does not matter what the result was or what the circumstances were. Just document them, dont forget to send me the final document – jarel [at] jarelcockburn [dot] com.

Other Posts

• Pitching to People with Money – Angels & Dragons
• Lessons From FlashJam #2
• MBY Week 3: How Do I Come Up With A Freakin’ Idea?
• A Response to Seth Godin’s Harvesting Article
• Another Semester Of KUPE ARTS SOCIETY’s Outside The Box Music Program Began This Week

First of all Thank You for having some interest in this course and I promise to help you attain your goals.

I am glad that my Facebook status – ” I have a goal to make 5 people rich this year” really grabbed your attention. We all have a burning desire to be successful in business or rich so that we can provide for our families and live comfortably. I don’t know how you feel, but I have never believed that one can become rich or build wealth by sitting in a cubicle, or an office for that matter, slaving at a job they don’t really like and are not passionate about. How many company employees do you see on the Forbes 400 list?

The primary path to riches is, and always will be, entrepreneurship! Don’t believe me? Take a look at the Forbes 400 List, most are entrepreneurs, if not families of entrepreneurs.

MARK CUBAN

Now the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and HDNet, his riches came when he launched audio and video portal Broadcast.com with college buddy Todd Wagner. Sold to Yahoo in 1999 for $5.7 billion in stock.

MARK ZUCKERBERG

This 25 year old entrepreneur launched Facebook from his Harvard dorm room in 2004. Left school for Silicon Valley later that year; bagged an initial $500,000 investment from PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel and now some estimates put Facebook’s value at $6B and consequently Zuckerberg’s net worth at $2B.

MARTHA STEWART

Founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, once named the most powerful woman in America by Ladies Home Journal, she started a catering business in 1976, that would later lead to a cookbook and eventually more publishing and TV deals and Stewart is now reportedly worth $970M.

***

Now, these people may seem like gods, working in some other stratosphere, but at one point they were just a regular people like you or I. Mark Cuban was an employee, who hustled from job to job, Mark Zuckerberg was a college student and Martha Stewart was a homemaker. How did they actually attain success? All of their stories are different but what they do have in common is that they took their individual destinies in their hands and took action, created something that people wanted and craved, and made a business of it. They took action because they believed that they could be successful.

I have had the opportunity to be around and work with many entrepreneurs in my life and the one trait that I think is the most important ingredient, that separates the successful from the not so successful, is belief in self.

“Whether you believe you can do something or believe you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford

I am sure you have heard this quote before but for me this old phrase stands at the core of my belief system, especially as an entrepreneur. Everything truly begins with you and your attitude towards your life – today and in the future. I also love, in the book, “Think and Grow Rich” by Napolean Hill, the very first paragraph of the first chapter Thoughts Are Things reads:

“Truly, “Thoughts are things,” and powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire for their translation into riches or other material objects”

If you want to be successful, you have to think and behave as successful people do and for the entrepreneurs like the ones above, thoughts are perhaps the most important ingredients to attaining success or riches. If there is one thing that I want you to remember as we move through this year, it is that all journeys toward success begin in our thoughts; it begins with what we think is possible for ourselves. There are enough people out there who will not believe that you will be successful, the least you can do is be on your own side.  Take a look at the picture below, live it, breathe it, eat it for breakfast, snack on it, sleep with it at night, internalize it.  We will work on this in the weeks to come.

Courtesy of Ivan Amezcua

With that said, it has been about a few weeks since I put that message on Facebook and I have received great feedback and interest from all of you guys.

I have only posted the responses that came to my wall but there were far more people who replied to me via message on Facebook and my personal email. I know that to some folks the message looked strange, weird or almost foolish but I really meant what I said. I really want to make some people rich this year (or at a minimum start you on the path to unlimited success). Is this possible? Sure it is. Will you be one of those people? Only time and your effort will tell. At a minimum, this un-course and this year will set you on the path to being successful or rich, however you define it for yourself.

So I guess that at this point you may be asking yourself well how are we going to do it. So this is my offer: if you are willing to work hard; be creative; commit to truly believe in yourself, work towards a goal even though other people may think you are crazy, then I will commit myself to helping you achieve your goal. This year you will either start a new business or enhance your existing business.

What I will do here is provide you with the tools to become a successful entrepreneur which includes:  start-up advice /guidance, introduce you to stories of successful people, assist you in developing your ideas for a new business or to expand your existing business, help you to model out successful behavior and inspire you to ultimately take action towards your own goals.

What This Is Not About, I Promise!

Just a little story behind my Facebook status: somebody reached out to me soon after that status message appeared and told me that if those people did not make money or weren’t successful with me then I should send them over his way. I can still do that right now, so if you are interested in selling insurance and other financial products to friends and family let me know and I will give you his information. On the other hand, if you prefer to be creative and believe that you have something special to give to the world and would like to try to make a living off of it, then this is something that you will definitely appreciate.

Success is Where Preparation Meets Opportunity

I cannot do much about the opportunity or the timing of that opportunity, but as long as you show a great level of commitment to your success, I will work with you to uncover business ideas that fit your passions, lifestyle, background and resources and as for the preparation, if you stick with this you will be prepared to meet that great opportunity.There is no systematic way to become a successful entrepreneur or to become rich, every entrepreneur has a different story. Some of the entrepreneurs we will talk about and see were homeless at one point, living out of the back of their cars, some never graduated high school or college and some even have ADD or are dyslexic. But despite all of these things these entrepreneurs have been able to fight through to realize great success in their lives. In addition to that they have some similar traits and we will study and try to model those over the first part of this un-course.

What We Will Cover

This is a 52 week course (wow, that is a long time) but it really isn’t, for most entrepreneurs success did not happen within a year or maybe even two years, it happened over several years and probably over the course of several other failed ideas and businesses. The goal of this course is to show you what I know and expose you to the teachings of other successful entreprenuers. I think the best way to learn is by seeing what is possible and what others have accomplished, learning from their mistakes and applying their knowledge to your own opportunities.  I promise not to bog you down with theory but show you how things work in the real world with real entrepreneurs. The first 12 weeks of the un-course will be fairly intensive and we will cover a lot of ground (see below) and it may feel like a lot, so go at your own pace but try to keep up with the readings and the assignments. The second part will be customized to your opportunities, resources, level of commitment, stage of business, etc. We will focus on executing on the business idea(s) we generate and vet in the first part of the course, we will launch products and services, start selling to customers and listening to customer feedback and concentrating on earning our first dollar or landing that first client or customer. Please note that there are assignments that you will have to complete in the first part before you are able to move onto the second part of the course, I will let you know which ones are mandatory for the second part of the course.

Some topics we will cover in the first 12 weeks:

1. Are You Stupid Enough To Be A Successful Entrepreneur?
2. Idea Generation Techniques
3. Evaluating Your Ideas
4. The Mental Game: Get Comfortable With Being Crazy and Curious
5. Studying The Market
6. The Numbers Game
7. Start-up Strategy
8. Get It Out There – Earning Your First Dollar
9. Business Plans or the Business UNPlan
10. Reigning in Resources
11. Leadership
12. Managing A Growing Enterprise

We are going to get right into it!

Your Tools:

1. If you don’t already have one, open a gmail account. go to http://gmail.google.com and sign up, ask me if you need assistance and I will send you an invitation. We will be doing a few things on Google’s platform including: Your Entrepreneur Journal – “entrejournal” where you will keep your thoughts and feedback on the course and what you are experiencing and ways you think I can improve the course, and your assignments (yes assignments)
2. Get a Skype account, go to skype.com and download the software and add me to your contacts – “jareburn” is my username, we will use skype for one-on-one conferencing

Assignment 1:

In a document (powerpoint or word) or by video (4 mins or less) tell me about yourself, here are some items you should include:

1. your passions
2. topics that you know way too much about (does not matter what)
3. if you had your way and money was not an issue what would you be eager to wake up and do
4. your work experience – you can include your resume or your bio
5. list all of your online links – facebook, linkedin, etc and or personal / business websites
6. list your best personal or professional victories – could be landing a big account, making a certain amount a year, completing college or culinary school
7. list your favorite people, places and things
8. your biggest fears
9. biggest hangups
10. strengths and weaknesses
11. if you know why you were put on this earth you can tell me as well
12. why do you want to be rich?

For this assignment feel free to be creative and be as detailed as you can. You can submit it to me at jarel@jarelcockburn.com. Please understand that all the information you submit to me will be held in the strictest confidence and will not reused or sold in any way.

This assignment is meant as a self-assessment and personal exploration, this will provide you with a starting point for your new venture or expanding your existing business.

As always, I live on feedback so feel free to let me know how you feel about the materials.  Is there something that you like me to cover that is not on the list above?  Let me know if the comments or by email.  Don’t like anything I have talked about here, tell me why.

If you are already signed up for the course email list I will be sending extra little goodies for you during the course, so stay tuned.  If you are not on the list but would like to participate in the course, find out how here.

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• Iran, You and Your Unrealized Power
• Are Teams Important?
• What Matt Damon Can Teach You About Sales

Can’t see the video? Click here.

There is a lot in this video, but Seth talks about the three questions (around 14:16)  that entrepreneurs should address when defining their strategy. If you are trying to gain an edge or differentiate yourself, your answers to these questions are very important.  Here we go:

Who Are You Upsetting?

If you are not upsetting the way things are done now then you probably are not differentiating yourself in any way. So when you are outlining your strategy think about how your competition will be affected by your approach. Now “sticking it” to your competition should not be the focal point of your strategy, but it is safe to say that in most industries when you focus on what the customer really wants and providing great service you are going to upset your competition, chances are they are trying to gouge customers.

Who Are You Connecting?

You can focus on connecting customers to others who are passionate about your product, about your industry. Think about the energy at a Star Wars convention, that sort of passion and energy is what you should look to inspire and facilitate. As Seth says you don’t need everyone, just the passionate people.

Who Are You Leading?

As Seth so accurately points out, the primary differentiated model today is not necessarily about efficiencies – cheaper labor and faster machines , or mass marketing – where money controls the messages we receive and the products that we are exposed to, the model today is leadership. Once you are able to connect those folks on a platform, lead them, facilitate conversations, introduce them to new products that they may have an interest in, and protect them from outsiders. If you are able to lead well, you become the default “go-to” person in that industry and outsiders who may have a tangential or one-off interest in what your industry has to offer will come to you to get what they need.

The answers to these questions are different for everybody and may not apply in every industry but the principles are worth exploring. Have you asked yourself or your team these questions when outlining your strategy?

Other Posts

• Pitching to People with Money – Angels & Dragons
• MBY Week 1: This Is My Breakout Year
• MBY 5: Teams Are Ultra Important – They Can Mean The Difference Between Victory or Outright Failure
• MBY Week 3: How Do I Come Up With A Freakin’ Idea?
• Your Football Strategy & Preparation – What Business Owners Can Learn From Football Players & Coaches