Innovation Needs Product-Market Match

Most people define innovation as a new combination, or simply something new. Try it. Ask your neighbor for his definition and I bet he will say, “something new”. But innovation is more than that. The real definition of innovation demands the element of a product-market match, i.e. innovation needs to satisfy the needs of your market. You can make a new mouse trap that’s shinier, faster, sharper, cooler, and sleeker. But if customers won’t buy it then your innovation is a waste. The world doesn’t always need a better mouse trap.

Twuzzr Beta

I’m working on launching the beta version of Twuzzr, my new web startup. It’s essentially going to be a buzz building tool for product-based companies trying to generate pre-launch buzz. The platform will be based on Twitter. Our followers are eligible to win super sweet prizes by simply tweeting about our corporate sponsors and their products. I’m currently working on the content and page design with my business partner. We’d love to hear your feedback!

http://twuzzr.com

Follow. Tweet. Win!

The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur

The Kauffman Foundation recently published an interesting report on the anatomy of an entrepreneur. Here is a list of its key findings:

• Company founders tend to be middle-aged and well-educated, and did better in high school than in college
• These entrepreneurs tend to come from middle-class or upper-lower-class backgrounds, and were better educated and more entrepreneurial than their parents
• Most entrepreneurs are married and have children
• There is an early interest and propensity to start companies: 52 percent of respondents had some interest in
  becoming an entrepreneur when they were in college, but 34.7 percent didn’t even think about it, and 13.3 percent had little or no interest. Those from lower-upper-class backgrounds were more likely to have been extremely interested in starting a business than the average (25 percent vs. 18.5 percent).
• Motivations for becoming entrepreneurs include building wealth, owning a company, startup culture, and capitalizing on a business idea
• Not important or less-important factors: inability to obtain employment or encouragement from others
• Most had significant industry experience when starting their companies
• Early entrepreneurs and those with an early interest in entrepreneurship are different
• 60.3 percent said that working for others did not appeal to them. Responses to this question were relatively evenly distributed in a rough bell curve, with 16 percent of respondents citing this as an extremely important factor and 16.8 percent of respondents citing it as not at all a factor.

Consumer or Consumed – Economic Insights

The Nielsen Company looked at how today’s uncertain economy is shaping consumer attitudes and behaviors and how marketers can navigate this new landscape to uncover growth opportunities:

“People have come to accept the reality of the economic crisis. What’s really important is how they are changing their priorities and decisions. Consumers are really focusing on the basics. Instead of eating out, they are eating in. They are finding many more ways to save that are different than traditional methods.

“Consumers may be pulling back luxury purchases but they’re not pulling back on the media. They watch more TV than ever. And they are very connected with the media via the Internet and other cool technologies.

“How do you actually achieve clarity in the face of uncertainty. You can’t forget the big trends. They never went away. Consumers are still aging, for example. Since all your competitors can also see those trends, you have to keep innovating.”

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Google TV Ads Can be an Affordable Alternative

Can’t afford the price tag of a major TV commercial production but want to leverage the power of traditional marketing channels in your marketing plan? Try Google TV Ads. It essentially works like AdWords, except you bid on airtime instead of bidding on search terms.

http://www.google.com/adwords/tvads/

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090601/run-cheap-tv-commercials-with-google-tv-ads.html

The Difference Between Management and Leadership

Carly Fiorina, Former CEO of HP, discusses the difference between leadership and management. Leadership is all about changing the order of things and only leaders can drive change.

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EE Interview: Isaac Childs of Rustico Leather, LLC

I interviewed Isaac Childs, Founder and Manager of Rustico Leather. His experience is a compelling story that any entrepreneur can learn from.

Isaac, describe your company for me.

Rustico Leather is a Utah-based designer and manufacturer of leather goods. We have 9 employees and average just over a million in annual sales. We are currently in over 600 retail locations across the country ranging from resort town boutiques like the Sundance General store to larger distributing retailers like Barnes and Noble. We also do a lot of custom projects in the entertainment, corporate and promotional industries. Some of these clients have included Disney, Oprah, Philip Morris and many more. We also sell direct to the public through our online website and are constantly providing unique custom leather products for individuals across the country.

Rustico specializes in hand-crafted leather journals, photo albums, binders, presentation covers, pad folios, satchels and accessories. All our products are proudly made here in the USA. All our products are Handmade to order. This allows us to create individuality in each one of our pieces, creating a “one of a kind” type feel to our products. We have our leathers specially designed so that they wear into a beautiful patina with use and age. All our leather and paper is all purchased here in the US. We have roughly 84 great standard products to choose from, and we are constantly creating new and unique custom products for individuals and companies.

Okay, Isaac, let’s dig a bit deeper. What’s the value proposition?

Custom products with very small or no minimums, short lead times and surprisingly affordable prices. They are hand made in the USA. Each product is made to order by skilled artisans ensuring a “bespoke” style of service and product. This increases its value as a keepsake or gift item and is meant to last a lifetime. Our best value is that we work with a company or client to create a product that will not only attract attention to the receiver but also be kept and used for many years to come.  All our products can be personalized with names or logos of companies for added effect.

What motivated you to launch Rustico? How did it all begin?

After creating the initial journals and having pretty good success selling them to family, friends and one local shop (Sundance general Store), several friends from college and I launched a website with the intention of selling these online. Shortly afterward, Disney gave us a call to help with a press kit for their upcoming series storm stories. From there we just launched forward, never looking back.

What is the mission and vision for Rustico?

We will be the premier custom leather goods maker. Ideally, we would like everyone in America to carry or have a Rustico Leather journal sitting on their desktop, bookcase or nightstand. We want people to turn to us for high end custom projects that require great quality and workmanship.

What would you say is an entrepreneur’s greatest or most valuable resource?

Passion. Passion for the plan, product, vision or business model is probably the most important resource an entrepreneur can have. Next would be a great mentor. Unguided passion can spell disaster pretty quick.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced as an entrepreneur and how have you overcome it?

The biggest challenge I faced would probably be learning how to manage people effectively. I am not sure if I have overcome this completely but I have read a lot of books, watched others that I felt where great managers, picked their brains for info, gone to trainings and hired others that have more experience than I do.

What motivates you to overcome your challenge with managing people? What gets you out of bed in the morning?

My inspiration comes when I travel. I’m able to get a breath of fresh air and then come back and dive back into the thick of it even stronger. I really love what I do. I honestly can’t think of another thing I’d rather be doing. When the challenges seem to come in waves I just have to remember that perspective and then I’m good to keep moving forward.

What role has innovation played in the development of Rustico?

Every project we do is a variation of something we’ve already done–continuous innovations. Many of our products have been developed due to problems that needed to be solved or a necessity that required some smart solution. So in that regard, innovation is very key. While many of our products are based off old world standards (i.e. leather, paper, handstitching) being able to create and produce such labor intensive and raw products in a larger scale and affordable takes 21st century planning and ingenuity. Without constant innovation and reinvention of our products and processes we would not be competitive.

What do you wish you had known before launching Rustico? Any regrets?

I wish I had a better understanding of forecasting and knowing what to look for in a balance sheet or P&L in order to see what is happening with the business. At the same time, had I known everything I know now, I’m am not sure if we would have continued moving forward; my naivety pushed me to move forward when conventional training would have told me to stop.

Got any advice for rookie entrepreneurs?

Be passionate about your idea. Remember, bigger is not always better. Develop a process. Have a healthy tolerance for the unknown. Constantly be ready to change. Improve. Innovate.

The 10 Fatal Flaws of Leadership

Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman recently published a poignant list of attributes that “derail leaders” in the June 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review (p. 18). They are worth considering given that it’s going to take strong leadership–civil and business–to turn our country around. The worst leaders:

1. Lack energy and enthusiasm.

2. Accept their own mediocre performance.

3. Lack clear vision and direction.

4. Have poor judgment.

5. Don’t collaborate.

6. Don’t walk the talk.

7. Resist new ideas.

8. Don’t learn from mistakes.

9. Lack interpersonal skills.

10. Fail to develop others.

Think about the leaders in your life who have influenced you and made a positive impact on you. How many of these attributes did they exhibit regularly? If I were to add an attribute to Zenger and Folkman’s list it would be that the worst leaders believe leadership is about being right, not doing the right thing. This flaw is based on pride, lack of ethics and an unwillingness to recognize that even a leader is falible. And one of the principles taught by Warren Bennis is that managers do things right. Leaders do the right thing.

The Future of the Internet – Vinton G. Cert

“Vinton G. Cerf, vice president and Chief Evangelist for Google, discusses the past, present, and future of the Internet. Cerf predicts that Asia’s cultural influence will grow as the continent’s Internet penetration rates reach European levels. He says that, while IPv6 will provide enough Internet addresses to last through his lifetime, the implementation of IPv6 creates difficulties for the Internet in terms of compatibility, security, and broadcasting. Cerf describes the trends and opportunities of the Internet in the 21st century: the transformation of information consumers into information producers; the rise of social networking; the emergence of new economic systems in online games; the development of user-generated advertising content via streaming IPTV; and the transformation of mobile phones into multi-purpose devices that provide geographically indexed information. In Cerf’s view, the increasingly lower cost of storing and transporting bits fosters a new economics of digital information and the emergence of new Darwinian business models that challenge existing entities to “adapt or die.” As a result, Cerf says the Internet is an unprecedented and unpredictable innovation engine because its infrastructure enables people to invent new applications simply by writing new software on the edge of the network without having to ask for permission” (E Corner).

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Twitterers Are Getting Bored With Twitter

To tweet or not to tweet? Amazingly, this has become a pressing question of late given the astronomical hype generated around the microblogging site by news correspondents (Larry King) and American icons (Oprah) alike. And it’s apparently become a big deal when someone like Ashton Kutcher breaches the 1,000,000 followers mark. But will the popularity last? Can Twitter sustain its growth of new users or will its appeal fall by the wayside like that one website…uh, what was it called? Oh yeah, Second Life.

Twitter is in trouble. Nielson Wire has reported that “more than 60 percent of Twitter users fail to return the following month, or in other words, Twitter’s audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month’s users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent. For most of the past 12 months, pre-Oprah, Twitter has languished below 30 percent retention.” [Since this article was originally written, Nielson Wire posted an update that verified its findings.]

So what implications does this have for the droves of people still signing up to stake their virtual claim in Twitter’s popular world of status updating? Time will tell. Personally speaking, I initially climbed on the bandwagon to see what all the hype was about. That was only a few days ago and now I’m certifiably addicted. That’s right, I’m a tweeting Twitterer. I primarily use it to 1) advance a dialogue centered around entrepreneurship, 2) connect with other users interested in entrepreneurship and 3) promote my blog. But if Nielson Wire is right then this addiction won’t last and I’ll either get bored and move onto the next big thing within a month or Twitter will see the writting on the wall and develop a sustainable retention strategy.