Your Company is 3-Dimensional

Perhaps you think as most entrepreneurs... you create, build and sell great products. That?s all that counts! After all Steve Jobs tells us to “think different”, create products that inspire people. He is absolutely right! But to make great products you must build great companies. It?s not just about innovation, design and cross platform integration with cloud services. You need to build a value chain that takes a concept and turns it into product magic that people love. The value chain is the core of your company, it?s the machine that either works or doesn?t work.

We spent a lot of time breaking the rules and challenging the way companies designed and built products at Ugobe. We didn?t want to be a toy company and we didn?t want to be a robot company. We wanted to create our own reality, our own products that defined an entirely new product category of “LifeForms”. Admittedly we frustrated retailers (we turned down toy retailers and QVC) and we refused to give into the traditions of Chinese toy manufacturers. Ultimately we pulled it off and created our own set of rules but we also learned hard and fast about the rules you cannot change.

What are the rules of building a great company? Know your limitations and how to operate efficiently.

After costly consultants from Apple, Atari and Leapfrog we learned our company is divided into 3 core functional areas:

1. Development

2. Sales (Revenues)

3. Operations.

Sales is obviously the engine that generates revenues and pays for all things. However Development and Operations are a little more tricky since they cross pollinate with many parts of your company.

Some of the key takeaways from our experience:

1. Finance and Manufacturing are codependent and drive your cash flow.

2. Sales drives Finance but is codependent on Marketing/PR and Brand.

3. R&D and Engineering are codependent but require different types of skills and disciplines.

4. Customer Support is codependent on Logistics and Manufacturing.

Here are the three functional areas and their related departmental areas:

• Development--- R&D, Engineering, Innovation, Product Design & User Testing

• Sales--- Marketing, Retail, Brand, PR & Social

• Operations-- Manufacturing, Finance, Customer Support, Logistics & Supply Chain.