When I consider my experience as an entrepreneur over the last 20 years, my truth would be that starting and running a business venture is a challenging endeavour. That said, I have enjoyed and learned from my challenges, successes, and failures and I continue to do so to date.
1. Business ecosystems are complex and adaptive.
I look back to consider 3 Things I wish I knew when I started.
The world continues to be more and more complex, It can no longer be business as usual, and amidst a constantly changing environment, yesterday’s solution often morphs into today’s problem. The competitive landscape of today moves faster and is more complex than ever before.
One of the most valuable lessons I have learnt is coming to understand that business ecosystems are by nature complex and like any complex systems they adapt and produce emergent properties.
Embracing complexity is no longer a choice, it is the only option, Business now has to become, in effect, system thinkers rather than reductionists. This understanding has allowed me to embrace challenges with a deepened perspective.
The focal complexity aspects appearing in business ecosystems are self-organisation, emergence, co-evolution and adaptation.
Emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own. These properties or behaviours emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole.
Understanding the complex nature of business ecosystems has helped me to understand better how to improve effectiveness, manage risk, and breakthrough to new innovations.
It is essential to effectively collaborate and work together innovatively with other entities within the ecosystem to survive and overcome the many challenges it presents.
Understanding our space in its ecosystem has helped to predict our market strengths, challenges and the potential struggle for continued existence and sustenance during change.
Read: Shedding some light on Complexity adaptive systems..
2. The products or service does not have to be perfect: Skip Perfection & Launch Early
When I first started out, I always thought the first impression was everything and that our product had to be perfect before release. I feared if this wasn’t the case we would forever be blacklisted in the minds of the potential customer. As a consequence, our products suffered from delays and insufficient feedback prior to launch.
Even Apple, a company that is known for perfection and control, releases products with known shortfalls in exchange for market data and an early impact in the marketplace.
Often, the bounty of information and insight garnered from launching (or “going public”) is greater than the cost of early adopters finding a few bugs — and bringing them to your attention!
I learnt that the ‘Done is better that perfect approach was the right approach.
‘Done is better than perfect is a maxim made popular by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. In her book, she refers to the motto as a reminder to let go of impossible standards. She writes: “Aiming for perfection causes frustration at best and paralysis at worst.”
The ‘done is better than perfect approach, is a mindset that challenges perfectionism. It drives us to recognise when our product is good enough, and it pushes us to get each new project ‘out there.
The ‘done is better than perfect approach is a mindset that reminds us that the products and services we release are drafts of the next one.
Instead of trying to release the ultimate product in one go, we can release something that’s good enough, and build on it, update it and improve it as we go.
3. Get help as often as possible and surround yourself with like-minded people
While entrepreneurs usually exhibit a strong tendency toward independence, none of us can possibly know it all and building a support team doesn’t mean sacrificing our independence.
We often think the world is on our shoulders and that we have to do it all. To be successful, businesses now need to reach outside of their own ecosystem for support if they want to reach a wider audience and truly make an impact.
Entrepreneurs need support to not only survive but thrive. No one understands the ups and downs, the struggles and success, the joys and the pain points, better than other entrepreneurs. Surround yourself with ones who genuinely care about what you’re doing, and be that support system to others.
Outsourcing, if done correctly, can greatly improve the quality of your business. This said, don’t forget that you are the focus of your company. Take all the valuable elements from outside but you will ultimately be the one taking the final decision.
#4. It’s All About Value
Business begins with value creation. This should be the core reason why we start any venture in the first place, as a result, successful or not, it’s a fundamental concept to understand.
In a world of mounting performance pressure, businesses will need to evolve into movements, mobilizing many actors in a collaborative quest to discover new ways to create value.
Value is what causes people to want to trade with you. Value is what makes someone decide to take out her wallet and hand you her money because she’s going to get something she wants–something in which she finds compelling value.
Businesses now more than ever must identify opportunities to engage people around what is meaningful to them, creating value through faster learning and mutual discovery. Successful customer movements are built on two foundations:
(1) a powerful, engaging narrative and
(2) a creative space that accelerates the learning of stakeholders committed to making a difference. These well-implemented can build movements that can turn mounting pressure into growing success.
Value isn’t fixed or tangible; it rests in perceived benefit. In other words, value is in the mind of the beholder. It is an emergent property of the supplier and consumer; it cannot take place with only one or the other.
So how exactly do you generate value?
New Value
A bit more challenging, albeit some organisations do it incredibly well. Creating new value may require breaking into a whole new sector.
More Value
You can generate more value by applying one of three strategies: You can keep the purchase price the same and deliver more with every purchase; you can lower the purchase price and deliver the same quantity of value, or you can do both.
Better Value
Like more value, better value relies on expanding an existing value. But instead of increasing the quantity, you increase the quality. Specifically, you can create better value with a change in impact, intensity, or application.
It is of critical importance to pay attention to exactly what customers find compelling. Delivering on that compelling offering by finding more, better, or new value, emergent in the coming together of buyer and seller.
Robert Ikwue is an entrepreneur, founder and CEO @ The Quintrix Group.
