January 15, 2022: Starting a Business - What are you offering the world and what is your vision

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain

So you have started the process to turn your business idea into reality, that’s a great first step however, you must continue the process.

The next step in the process is determining what you will be selling and your why (your reason for starting the business and the vision-guiding star for the company).?

We will break this into two succinct parts:

1. Part one will focus on succinct ideas to narrow down your business offering?

2. Part two will focus on the need to fully understand why you are starting your business and what is your vision for the business (your guiding star)

Part 1: Your business offering

So you want to turn your idea into reality, which is great but what is it that you want to offer the world. Do you want to solve a problem that hasn’t been solved with a service or a product? Or do you want to enhance an existing service or product? The intent of these questions is to help you deliberate this crucial subject. Decide what you will offer the world and thereafter conduct market research. Find out if what you are proposing to offer is something that the world needs that is missing or to improve upon something that exists.?

There are great opportunities in improving something that there is a demand for, sometimes we do not have to reinvent the wheel maybe we can just make the wheel more durable or better. For example the vacuum has been significantly enhanced from the initial launch to today’s present day robot vacuums.?

Remember what Henry Ford said about coming up with the Model T:?

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford

People can easily describe a problem they’re having - in this case, wanting to get somewhere faster - but not the best solution. Identifying the best answer to the problem is the critical challenge for starting a new business and is where thinking of your vision and your “why” can help bridge the gap between what you are building and what the customer needs.?

However, when thinking of your ideas, make sure you stay away from things that are intellectually protected or that have an existing patent therefore doing your research is important.?

Part Two: Your Why & Vision?

The reason for you wanting to start your own business doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as having a desire to have more flexibility with your time to spend with your loved ones or you may want to create something that you can keep in the family. Or your why can be as simple as one of the billionaire husband and wife team in China who started a pig farm to provide pig products to their community. Great things can start small, you don’t have to dismiss simple ideas. Lastly this is just the initial why, you are allowed to evolve your business over time.

Here are four questions that you can ask yourself to help come up with your “Why”:

1. What makes you come alive, what are you passionate about?

2. What are your strengths, what have you always been good at doing??

3. Where do you add the greatest value??

4. How will you measure the success in your life?

Knowing your why may compel you to take on challenges that will stretch you as much as they inspire you. Just as a boat under power can handle any size wave if perpendicular to it,??when you’re powered by a clear why, there is little you cannot do.

So now that you have your what and your why, what’s next??

The next step from our prospective is to come up with your vision statement. The vision statement can be an aspirational statement that expresses what the company or business would like to accomplish.

The vision statement can be used to guide the direction and be the anchor point of the organization's efforts. It outlines what an organization would like to ultimately achieve and gives purpose to the existence of the organization. A well-written vision statement should be short, simple, specific to your business, leave nothing open to interpretation. It should also have some ambition.

This is an example of a vision statement by Nike:

We see a world where everybody is an athlete — united in the joy of movement. Driven by our passion for sport and our instinct for innovation, we aim to bring inspiration to every athlete in the world and to make sport a daily habit.

This wasn’t Nike’s original vision statement which was: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”

As you can see their vision statement started out very simple therefore, you can keep the initial vision statement simple and change it as the company grows.

Here are some simple steps to help you write your vision statement:??

1. Define what you do as an output

2. Define what unique twist your organization brings to the above outcome

3. Apply some high-level quantification?

4. Add relatable, human, 'real world' aspects?

As you are thinking of the above steps, also remember that a good vision statement has common components:

- It is written in the present, not future tense. They describe what we will feel, hear, think, say and do as if we had reached our vision now.

- It is summarized with a powerful phrase. That phrase forms the first paragraph of the vision statement. The powerful phrase is repeated in whatever communications you have to trigger memory of the longer statement. It is not a motto or a brand tagline

- It describes an outcome, the best outcome we can achieve. It does not confuse vision with the business goal and objectives for a particular period of time. A vision statement, therefore, should not provide numeric measures of success.

- It uses unequivocal language. It should not use business speak or words like maximize or minimize.

- It evokes emotion. It is obviously and unashamedly passionate. However, it separates the hard aspect of vision in what we see, hear and do from the soft aspect of vision in what we think and feel.

- It helps build a picture, the same picture, in people’s minds.

“And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.” Habakkuk 2:2 KJV

In our next post we will focus on preparation (business plan, company structure, company culture, staffing/resources plan, skills assessment (to identify complimentary hires), where and how will you sell).

Stay Blue & Gold!!!…