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The Art of the Start By Guy Kawasaki
2. Make Mantra. Instead of a mission statement, take your meaning and make
your own mantra. A mantra is defined as a sacred verbal formula repeated
in prayer, meditation, or incantations such as an invocation of god or a magic
spell. Examples of mantras include Disney's “Fun family entertainment”,
and Nike's “Authentic athletic performance.”
3. Get Going. Start creating your product or service and commence delivering
to your customers. Forget about writing long business plans or creating
complicated financial projections. Instead build your prototype and launch
your website.
4. Define Your Business Model. Define your customers and their needs.
Come up with a sales mechanism that will earn you more money than what
you are spending.
Before you begin dwelling into the art of positioning, you must first answer the
question, “What do you do?” You must be able to provide an answer that not only
seizes the high ground but shows exactly how your organization differs from its
competitors. It is only then that you can communicate this powerful message to your
chosen market.
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The Art of the Start By Guy Kawasaki
customers.
· Long-lasting.
· Different from your competitors.
1. Explain Yourself in the First Minute. Every single time you make your
pitch, take in mind that your audience is waiting for you to answer one
question: “What does your organization do?” The next time you make a
pitch, make sure that you answer that question in the very first minute.
2. Answer the Little Man. Picture a little man sitting on your shoulder the next
time you are giving a presentation. Imagine the little man whispering, “So
what?” in your ear every time you make a point. Always answer the little
man's question. To make it even better, right after you answer the so-what
question, move into “For instance…” and provide a real-world use or
scenario.
3. Know Your Audience. Do your research before any meeting starts. Find
out who you would be pitching to and learn what's important to your
audience. You must also visit the organization's website and gather core
information about the people you would be speaking to.
4. Observe the 10/20/30 Rule. Use the following the next time you are giving
a presentation: ten slides, 20 minutes, 30-point font text. The 10 slides that
are necessary for a pitch to investors are:
a. Title slide
b. Problem
c. Solution
d. Business model
e. Underlying magic
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The Art of the Start By Guy Kawasaki
5. Set the Stage. Remember that everything and anything that goes wrong
would be your fault. Therefore, you must be prepared. Make sure you bring
your own projector and your own written materials. It might even be
advisable to bring two laptops (both with your loaded presentation) and a
memory card with a copy of your presentation just in case.
6. Let One Person do the Talking. In a pitch, it would be advisable for the
CEO to do 80% of the talking. As for the rest of the team, one or two slides
that pertain to their expertise are more than enough.
7. Pitch Constantly. The best way to achieve familiarity is to keep doing your
pitch over and over again. Try out your pitch in front of your employees,
relatives and friends.
An executive summary is a concise and clear description of the problem you wish to
solve. It also states how you wish to solve the problem, your business model and the
underlying magic of your product or service. Remember, your executive summary
will determine whether or not people will read the rest of your business plan.
Keep It Clean
Here are other tips you should use when creating your business plan:
· Do not exceed twenty pages. The shorter your plan is, the more likely it is to
be read.
· Only one person should write the entire business plan.
· Use staples to bind the plan. Forget about leather, embossed portfolios.
· Simplify financial projections to two pages. After all, it is simply impossible to
know how much you'll spend on office items in your fourth year of operations.
· Include key metrics. Remember, the number of customers you have,
locations and resellers are important to your investors.
· Provide the right numbers. Your cash flow statement for the first five years is
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The Art of the Start By Guy Kawasaki
very important.
Bootstrapping might mean passing up profitable sales that may take a long time to
collect or stretching your payments for everything you buy. This might mean a
decline in “paper” profits but for a bootstrapper, paper profits are not as important as
cash flow management.
The good news is, with this method, you will receive immediate cash flow and
feedback from the real world. Unfortunately, this method might also tarnish your
image if there are quality problems.
It is not easy to make this decision. If you feel that you would allow the people you
love to use the product or service as it is right now, then it might be correct to ship it. If
you are running out of money, it might also be advisable to ship the product and deal
with the consequences later.
Bootstrapping Tips
Here are other things to consider when you are on a bootstrapper's model:
1. Forget the “Proven” Team. When you're bootstrapping you must almost
always go for what's affordable. Keep this in mind when you are choosing
your team. Forget about hiring well-known industry veterans who would
cost you an arm and a leg on wages alone. Instead, choose young
inexperienced people with moldable talent and endless energy.
3. Go Direct. Take the opportunity to sell directly to your customers. Only use
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The Art of the Start By Guy Kawasaki
resellers once you have ensured that your product and service is bug-free.
Remember, you have to establish your product on your own.
7. Sweat the Big stuff. Save on office space, furniture, computers, and office
equipment. However, make sure you spend enough on product
development, sales, billing and collection.
When recruiting, you must look beyond race, color, education and work experience.
Instead you should focus on three factors:
Recruitment Tips:
1. Hire people better than you.
2. Remember that there are very few A players out there. Don't make the
mistake of disqualifying A prospects because of gender, race, sexual
orientation or age.
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The Art of the Start By Guy Kawasaki
4. It is best to hire candidates who possess major strengths even if they have
major weaknesses.
Although pitching plays a major role when you are trying to raise capital, the realities
of your organization are so much more important. You must offer a product or
service that is meaningful and long-lasting.
Here are some tips you can use when raising capital:
3. Clean Up Your Act. Get rid of obvious flaws in your system. Flaws often
occur in your intellectual property, capital structure, management team,
stock offerings and regulatory compliance.
6. Don't Use Old Lies. Here are some examples of lies start-ups tell investors.
Refrain from using them and be prepared to come up with new ones:
a. “Our projection is conservative.”
b. “All we have to do is get 1 percent of the market.”
c. “P&G is too old to be a threat.”
d. “Several investors are already in due diligence.”
e. “Key employees will join as soon as we get funded.”
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The Art of the Start By Guy Kawasaki
Here are some tips that can help you master the art of partnering:
3. Ensure that the Middles and Bottoms Like the Deal. It is not enough that
upper management believe that the partnership is a good idea. Make sure
that the partnership is understood by all the members of the organization.
Everyone must contribute to make a partnership work.
5. Cut Win-Win Deals. Both partners have to win. Do not enter into win-lose
partnerships.
6. Wait to Legislate. Don't ask for legal advice too early. Legal experts will
always give you more reasons not to go through the deal. Agree on
business terms on your own before you bring in your lawyers.
7. Put an “Out” Clause in the Deal. The assurance that both parties won't be
trapped into a partnership that is not working actually promotes longevity.
For today's start-ups, proselytization is the core of branding. You must be able to
create something contagious that would make people enthusiastic and eager to try
your product or service. You must be able to make other people spread the word
around.
Create a Contagion
The secret to branding is aligning with a product or service that is already gold or
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The Art of the Start By Guy Kawasaki
enhancing your product and service until it becomes gold. You must be able to
create or find products and services that are contagious. Contagious products and
services are:
· Cool.
· Effective.
· Distinctive.
· Disruptive.
· Emotive.
· Deep.
· Indulgent.
· Supported.
Branding Tips
1. Lower the Barriers to Adoption. You have to make your product or service
simple and yet effective. You must flatten the learning curve. Your
customers must be able to get basic functionality right almost immediately.
4. Achieve Humanness. Target the young and don't be afraid to make fun of
yourself. Feature your customers and help the underprivileged.
The second step of rainmaking is to be able to sell the product or service well.
Remember, as a start-up, people are not aware of your products and services. You
must overcome resistance.
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The Art of the Start By Guy Kawasaki
Here are some tips you can use to master the art of rainmaking:
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