Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

Why the Lean Startup Model is Good AND Bad

Posted: 19 May 2014 06:53 AM PDT

I’m a big fan of capitalism, and I subscribe to the notion that “greed” (i.e. working for self-interest) is generally a good thing.

If you aren’t aware of what lean startup movement is, it’s basically “find the customer first and build second”.

… startups can shorten their product development cycles by adopting a combination of business-hypothesis-driven experimentation, iterative product releases, and what he calls “validated learning”.

.. if startups invest their time into iteratively building products or services to meet the needs of early customers, they can reduce the market risks and sidestep the need for large amounts of initial project funding and expensive product launches and failures

It’s a way to prevent lots of wasted time and money on building stuff no one wants by first figuring out if people will actually pay you for it.

Yes, I totally agree. Most of entrepreneurs fall into the habit of falling in love with their product or idea, building some crazy expensive prototype with all the whistles and bells…. only to get a rude awakening upon their launch that no one gives a shit. Or worse, zero sales.

This story is all too common among many (if not most) entrepreneurs who give their best with ZERO market feedback. They get disappointed in their “failure”, lick their wounds, and go back to what they used to do.

Yes, it sucks. It’s horrible. I would never wish that upon anyone, but it happens. That’s why I’m all FOR the lean startup model. Find the customer FIRST, then get them to pay (or at least give you a deposit), and build the product.

Here’s a REAL problem with this kind of thinking.

It’s great for the entrepreneur, but not so great for the humanity.

It’s based on the notion that there is someone out there willing to pay you for this. In another words, people are aware of the pain and are willing to pay you for the solution.

But the real BIG problems in life don’t have awareness… let alone a name for this problem.

Think about Google. Before they existed, if you asked anyone on the net if they thought there was a huge internet search problem, i’m certain 99% of the people would have said “umm.. maybe?”
Think about Facebook. Before they existsed, if you asked anyone if they thought there was a huge need for social network where you can upload pictures of their friend’s ugly babies (yes if you do this, trust me.. your baby is not THAT cute.. people click on “like” out of boredom or social obligation) and funny cats, they would ask you if you’re high on crack.
Think about Tesla. Before they existsed, if you asked any car buyer if they thought there was a huge need for us to have sustainable energy consumption so that we can achieve foreign oil independence, they would just look at you like a deer in headlights.

In another words, big LONG term solutions to big problems (that really benefit the mankind for generations to come) cannot be solved with the lean startup model.

And that’s where the VCs and real visionaries come into play.

They can handle longer sustinable periods of negative cashflow until the critical market acceptance makes the business model. But unfortunately, most VCs are just like these “lean startup” thinkers… their ultimate and most likely only goal: returns.

Remember that guy Elon Musk?

He started selling solar panels even when the solar market wasn’t that hot in US. He went against the grain. He started making electric cars when every person on earth thought electric cars as a business was a dumb idea. He started shooting rockets into space as a private company and of course, people said that was a stupid idea.

Often times, big, life changing, truly disruptive stuff happens when no one is really thinking about them.

Take a look at PAR program for example. If you look at all the email services, you might ask yourself, do you REALLY need another email marketing platform? If you look at it that way, no. But the difference between them and us? Our email marketing actually turns profits for our customers because we do the hard work.

In another words, if we did the lean startup “get your customers first” thing and used that as the only metric to determine if we should push forward, we would not be where we are today.

If you have a couple millions in the bank (or even hundreds of millions) in the bank to sustain the negative cashflow until you come to a point where you can “WOW” people with your product, you’re going to have to resort to investors to pay for your every day needs. (You can read my experience on raising money from investors here and here).

So if you’re RICH, give these enterpreneurs with long term big vision goal guys a chance.

Change the world for once, not just your bank accounts.

What’s the Best Way to Grow Your Blog? - DailyBlogTips

What’s the Best Way to Grow Your Blog?

Posted: 19 May 2014 05:59 AM PDT

Wouldn't it be great if there was one super-fast guaranteed way to grow any blog quickly?

Well, let me break it to you: there's not!

(And you shouldn't believe anyone who tells you there is.)

However, there are plenty of tried and tested ways to get more traffic — targeted traffic rather than uninterested passers-by — to your blog.

I'm going to run through some of the most popular here, and explain what situations each method is best for. After that, I'll explain what I'd focus on if I could only pick one of these methods.

They are:

Comments and forums (I've lumped these together because they have a lot in common as techniques)
Guest posts
Social media
SEO (search engine optimisation)

Warning: ALL of these techniques assume that you've got a good blog full of useful content. If your blog looks amateur or your posts are poor-quality, it's a waste of time trying to get more traffic. Make sure your blog is in good shape first.

Comments and Forums are Great When You're Starting Out

If you're in the early stages of your blog (the first month or two, say), then the best method you can use to grow is to leave great comments on other people's blogs and/or to post in relevant forums.

While neither of these methods are likely to bring you more than a few visitors at a time, they can definitely help you get from, say, 0 to 100 subscribers. They're very straightforward, accessible methods: it only takes a few minutes to leave a comment, and you don't need any special know-how.

Guest Posts are Great for a Burst of Traffic, plus New Subscribers

Guest posting – writing for someone else's blog — is a brilliant way to get your writing in front of readers who are already interested in your topic. My experience with guest posts is that they normally bring in quite a bit of traffic when they go live, and that quite a few of these new visitors will go on to become subscribers.

You certainly don't need to have a large or long-running blog in order to guest post: what matters is how well you can write. You'll probably find, though, that it takes at least a month or two of blogging to get the hang of creating really good blog posts.

Social Media is Great for Consistent Traffic and Staying Connected

One of my best sources of traffic for my blog Aliventures is Twitter (you can find me as @aliventures there). That's partly because I've got a fairly good following, but also because my posts get retweeted by other people. Also, some readers prefer to keep up with my posts through Twitter or my Facebook page, rather than subscribing to my blog.

The slight drawback with using social media to promote your blog is that it does take time to build up a following. (I definitely don't recommend using any service that allows you to buy followers.) While it's certainly still worth using Twitter and Facebook, if you only have 10 or so followers, you're obviously not likely to get much traffic as a result.

SEO is Great for Getting Found by New Readers

SEO (search engine optimisation) means doing what you can to help your site rank well in Google and other search engines. Obviously search engine traffic is important — for some sites, it makes up almost all their traffic, though for others, they get most of their traffic through guest posts and social media.

However, with SEO, you're always at the mercy of the search engines, and if they change their algorithms, your site might suddenly plummet in the rankings. While it's definitely worth getting to grips with the basics of SEO, I wouldn't recommend it as your only method of growing your blog.

So … what's my verdict?

If I could only pick one method to use, I'd go with guest posting. It definitely takes time and energy, but it's a much faster way to build traction than with individual comments — and you get much faster results than with social media. It's also more in your control than SEO, and the link you get in your bio will help boost your SEO anyway.

What do you think? Would you pick a different method as your top one? Do you recommend something that I've left out entirely? Drop a comment below…

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