Welcome To Startup Students

Good evening startup students.  Sorry about the lack of posting, I’ve been crazy busy with school, work. and my startup’s business plan.  And that’s what lead me to writing this post.  Let me quickly take you back in time to last Saturday.

Things were going great, readership on Startup Students has really picked up, school was going well, and all my clients were at bay.   I took Sunday off, then Monday rolled around.  That’s when things started spinning out of control.  I had two finals this week and needed to complete my 45 page business plan in addition to putting together a 20 minute presentation.  On top of that I was hit with two rush order projects that absolutely had to be completed according to their schedule.

I managed to survive, but was forced to neglect this blog in the process.  In fact, I think things worked out okay because I’m still getting great responses to last Friday’s post.  At any rate, today I’d like to talk about geting your priorities in order – including  saving time to accomodate for urgent or surprise issues.  Below are a few points to thing about.

• Maintain a calendar.  You can use Outlook, an online equivalent, or regular old paper.  I use a combination of Mozilla Sunbird and Notepad.  Before I go to bed I scribble down the next day’s priorities.  No particular order, I just try and get everything down.  In the morning I’ll take a look at my list and prioritize based on a couple of factors, namely urgency and value.

Keeping a schedule and not just going at things blindly is really the only advice I should need to offer, but here’s a few more…

• Ignore time wasting activities.  Stay away from your inbox, or instant messenger.  Turn off the tv and iTunes, focus on the task at hand.  It’s really amazing how much time this will save you, enough time in fact to actually enjoy those time wasters at a later point.
• Don’t bite off more than you can chew – unless you can handle keeping it down and not letting it spew all over the floor.  Don’t get me wrong, have a full plate is great – in fact I think I get more done because of it.  But there comes a point of diminishing returns where it simply doesn’t make since to take on any more assignments.
  • One option here is outsourcing.  It’s a technique I employ and it’s highly recommended.  In the coming weeks I’ll be talking about it more.
• I’m betting a good portion of you are perfectionists in at least one aspect of your life.  It’s appropriate to be a perfectionist at some things, spelling and grammar come to mind, but in general it’s a complete waste of time.   I picked up one of my clients because their previous developer was too caught up in assuring his code was 100% perfect and in turn neglected what the clients really wanted – fast and reliable service.
• Remember to resist the temptation to do small and tedious tasks extremely well, it’s the big picture that counts.  This goes hand in hand with the above point.
• Nobody ever said you have to please everybody, and in fact nobody expects you to (other than your professors maybe).

I’ve got a few more pointers tucked away, but I’ll save them for another day.  Don’t forget to share this post with others if you enjoyed it and I look forward to everyone’s comments.  Class dismissed.

Good morning startup students! Today we are going to discuss how to define your target market. You’ll find some overlap from my post on Friday about Marketing Intelligence, but it just goes to show how important these things are for young entrepreneurs.

You really want to identify the market niche you intend to serve. It’s always better to be too specific at this point, you can broaden your target in the future. Take a look at what benefits you bring to the table.

• What problems are you solving for your customers and the market in general?
• What specific needs to you fulfill?

When looking at the benefits you bring to the table, keep in mind there are two generally accepted types of benefits.

• Emotional
  • You convey hope, you massage fear, you instill love, or merely provide convenience.
• Financial
  • You assure increased profits, offer lowend pricing, save customers money, or offer extended payback periods.

Remember, the above are just examples and aren’t meant to be the only benefits.

Once you’ve defined your niche, you need to get out there and talk to your customers, similar to what I talked about Friday.

• Take part in casual conversation
• Conduct interviews and surveys
• Enlist the services of focus groups

They key point here is to just LISTEN and identify their needs. That’s all for now, enjoy the rest of your day and I’ll see everyone tomorrow. Class dismissed.

Sorry for not posting yesterday, I had a test along with a presentation of my business plan (which I’ll be sharing with you eventually). At any rate, today is the start of a new segment entitled Field Trip Friday. I had the opportunity to take part in a secret shopping of Universal Studios Florida. It was a great experience, and I learned some good pointers for completing primary research.

Primary research is a vital tool for today’s young entrepreneur as often times you’ll find the data you need simply isn’t accessible. Let’s look at a quick example. Say for instance you are interested in opening a fast service restaurant catering to the after hours crowd. You’ve developed the idea, know what you want to serve, and even have a location in mind. But without actually going downtown at 2am, how are you going to know if your target market is interested? You need to interview the individuals leaving the clubs and get a feel for whether or not your idea meshes with their specific needs.

I’ve outlined a few pointers below that I picked up today, and I think you’ll find them useful in the future. These can be applied to all types of primary research including interviews, surveys, observations (like secret shopping), and analysis.

• Determine what you want to know and how you are going to get that information.
• Identify your target market and approach them.
• Have a questionnaire in mind, with follow up questions based on the answers provided.
• Be honest about your reason for conducting this research.
• Exude the passion you have for your idea, and your interviewees will pick up on this leading to more positive responses.
• Be aware of any biases you might have going into the assesment and try not to let them play a role in receiving the information.

And since this is the first installation of Field Trip Friday’s, I’ve got a special treat for you – Show and Tell!

I’d like to introduce to you my new pet turtle, Larry David. He’s very small and still pretty nervous about his new home. In fact, he hasn’t been eating very much and I’m a bit worried. If any of you startup students have some pointers, please pass them along!

If any of you would like to showcase one of your “field trips” or participate in Show and Tell in the future, please let me know! Class dismissed.

I’d like to expand a bit on yesterday’s post with a little more detail on the intrinsic characteristics of startup students.

• Succesful young entrepreneurs see commercial opportunities everywhere they look
  • And the key here is they don’t just leave it at that – they capitalize on them.
• They tend to be extremely optimistic
  • Some might see this as a fault, but it’s my opinion that a pessimist walks around with their eyes shut and won’t have a chance to find those opportunities.

I think Mark Twain put it best years ago,

“I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one”

We can break down the characteristics even further into four distinct attributes. You’ll find some overlap from yesterday’s discussion here:

1. A sincere need for achievement
2. A desire to take risks (and I don’t mean you should to be a gambler)
3. Extreme self confidence
4. An finally passion along with a healthy dose of enthusiasm

That’s all for now, tomorrow we’ll examine the differences between two types of entrepreneurs. Class dismissed!