Rags to Wreckages... to Riches

What Physicist Feynman can teach Lean Startups

The Lean Startup movement gets that learning underpins all innovation – and startup success.

The lean startup concept also understands that the learning is about finding out what ‘doesn’t work’ as much as ‘what does’.

So, what can top physicist Richard Feynman teach us about lean startups and innovation? Find out…

Read more »

What is the purpose of innovation?

What is the purpose of innovation? Is it..

• To create new products…
• To create new customer demand…
• To build strong teams capable of constant innovation…

… or all three?

Read more »

Rapid system development, rapid customer development – what’s next?

Every three years we seem to undergo a fundamental shift in thinking.

We had rapid system development 6 years ago, and rapid customer development 3 years – so what should we expect in 2011?

Read on to find out…

Read more »

Myth: Selling is scary and I want my mummy!

Many (but not all) entrepreneurs feel that selling is scary, horrible and not nice!

However, this view is typically based on a misunderstanding of what selling is really about.

Yes, there are hard sales people who will flog you anything they can (actually, anything that generates a large commission) but these people tend to burn out – as do their businesses.

Instead, non-pushy people can become great sales people simply by thinking about sales in a different way. Here’s how…

Read more »

Entrepreneur Myth: build it – and they will come!

The worst mistake I’ve made – and now see others make – is to think that if I build it (a great product, web service etc…) that the customers will come.

They will not.

Sadly!

Okay, Google is an exception – but do you really want to play 1/1000 kind of odds?

Read more »

How to lose £Trillions – Entrepreneurs – don’t be afraid!

The IMF has provided entrepreneurs with a wonderful example of how to get it wrong.

But what can we – the successful entrepreneurs – learn from the IMFs failures?

Read more »

Entrepreneurs need to build flexibility or risk going bust

The competition from emerging market businesses mean that entrepreneurs in the UK and other developed economies need to grow agile and flexible businesses.

How are we doing to do this? Find out…

Read more »

Is your business investment ready?

Many entrepreneurs wonder if their business is ready for investment – so how can you tell if you enterprise is investment ready?

Find out how…

Read more »

Happy New Year Entrepreneurs – what have you pruned or cut?

The new year is with us – and so this is a great time to ask – what have you pruned or cut in 2011?

Hmm… yes, this might seem strange to ask about cutting at the beginning of a new year – but shouldn’t we be looking to expand and grow, you might ask?

Well yes, but, before you can grow, you have to cut out the deadwood or the slow growth businesses, products and services in order to focus on new opportunities or expanding those things that really are working.

Read more »

100 Rules for Entreprenuers – about the book

This video clip explains the real life, gritty experience that 100 Rules for Entrepreneurs is based on.

It explains the concept behind the book and how it can help new and old entrepreneurs learn from my mistakes.

Read more »

Entrepreneurs – don’t give up equity – until you have watched this…

Giving up equity to partners is dangerous. It will cause you major problems in the future – if your busines is successful – if you don’t get the splits right from the outset.

Find out how I split the equity on my first business – and why it became a problem.

Then, don’t do as I did!

Read more »

End of Firms? What entreprenuers need to do…

What kind of business will be successful coming out of this recession?

And, how do we build it?

That is the big question for every entrepreneur who is either starting up now – or already on the journey.

So, what will happen… and what do we do about it?

Read more »

With Much Regret and a Heavy Heart you are HIRED!*

Oops! Did I mean FIRED?

Actually, no!

As Lord Sugar’s new edition of the Apprentice gets under way this week, we have to ask ourselves why do all these thrusting young entrepreneurs want a job?

Read more »

Innovation Challenge…

Research shows that freelancers can solve many of the challenges faced by businesses, agencies or departments that are looking to innovate and grow.

Instead of just being a way to save costs, freelancers are discovering that they bring original ideas and solutions to their clients.

But does it work? Can freelancers help avoid failure and stimulate innovation?

Read more »

5 Ways to Avoid Small Business Failure and Innovate

Hurrah! There has been a shift in business thinking!

Stock investors have rediscovered Warren Buffett’s investment principle of ‘never lose money’ and entrepreneurs are now focused on how to avoid small business failure, rather than searching for growth at all costs.

We need to learn how to avoid small business failure and so that your business has time and space to innovate.

Read more »

Purpose: Are you making this strategic website mistake?

Why do you have a webiste?

Is it because everyone else has one, so you thought you should have one too?

Anecdotal research tells us that 80% of websites don’t have a clearly defined purpose. So, if you’ve made the classic mistake of building a website and are now wondering what to do with it, or even, whether it works, then read on…

Read more »

How Much Does a Visitor Cost Your Digital Business?

Do you know how much a digital visitor costs?

Well, if you are working for the UK Government, you will now know how much a single visitor to your website costs – and it can vary by a factor of 48,900%.

Yes, that’s right, the cost of visiting www.number10.gov.uk cost just 2p per visitor – compared to the cost of visiting www.UKTradeInvest.gov.uk which cost £9.78 per visitor.

Read more »

3 Digital Start-up Business Mistakes to Avoid

Digital business (previously called internet businesses) are still all the rage and therefore the majority of new start-up business plans are digital businesses.

But we keep seeing the same mistakes. So here are 3 errors that we keep seeing – and you should avoid…

Read more »

Point 2: Rapid Product and Service Innovation

In this 2nd of the 7 point plan for growing your business in 2010, Lewis talks about the importance of rapid product and service innovation and the three key factors …

Read more »

How digital marketing allows us to beat the jobs freeze

Recruitment freezes have spread from the private sector to the public sector across Europe and the US – they are now everywhere!

So, when one of your team leave, you are left short handed and without key skills, how do keep growing your business, make more sales and deliver better returns with less budget and a smaller team?

Read more »

How to Achieve More with Less Cash

Okay, we know the answer lies with outsourcing – but how much can you outsource and how do you do it safely?

Here are our 7 key tips…

Read more »

How Successful Enterpreneurs will Survive the Treacle Years – 5 Key Tips

What shall we call this period – between the first recession and whatever is to come in the form of substantial public sector cuts and reductions in government spending?

Shall we call them the treacle years? The years of trudging along with heavy boots – just about keeping the forward momentum of your business but demanding constant and focused effort?

Read more »

Point 1: Accept New Business Reality

In this first video of the 7 point plan, Lewis deals with three key points

1.) Tough credit terms will continue
2.) Most markets are shrinking fast

3.) There is good news – less competition

Read more »

How to Grow your Successful Enterprise – Get Agile

I recently got sent a link to the report that Ernst & Young launched at Davos earlier this year and it has some important lessons and advice for successful entrepreneurs – you’ve got to become agile.



So, how do you do that? Let’s find out…

Read more »

7 Point Plan – How to Grow Your Business in 2010

How do we grow our businesses in 2010?

We have less cash than before, and borrowing is either impossible or way too expensive.

We’ve made cuts already to our business and so have a smaller team and less staff than before.

We know government cuts to public spending are coming and will impact on at least some of our customers if not our businesses directly.

So what do we do?

Read more »

Wake up and Smell the Greek Coffee

The riots on Greek streets and the IMF inspired bailout tell us that a major fiscal storm is coming to the UK very soon – unless deep cuts are made to public spending.

And, for businesses to be prepared to handle that impact, we need to plan and implement right now.

Read more »

Successful Entrepreneurs Ditch the “Sell Your Business for Zillions Goal”

Guys – it is time to ditch the old ‘build a business and sell it for zillions’ goal!

Just as easy credit has passed into history so too have the dreams of becoming instant dot.com millionaires as a result of a few lucky breaks and some unknown buyer waving cheque books.

As most successful entrepreneurs know, it doesn’t really happen like that – unless you are incredibly lucky.

But, it is a common battle cry from entrepreneurs that they want to sell their business for £5m in 3 years time – or some similar sort of goal.

Read more »

7 Point Plan on How to Grow your Business in 2010

The credit crunch is hardly over, but at least we can now focus on how to grow our way out of the problems we are in – rather than worrying if everything was going to collapse.

So, in this new credit chastened environment, how do you, the successful entrepreneur, grow your business in 2010?

To help, here at Rags to Wreckages, we’ve put together a 7 point plan on how to move ahead and start to grow again this year.

Read more »

UK’s ‘Recovery budget’ offers modest boost to entrepreneurs

On the face of it, the UK Chancellor’s budget speech on Wednesday offered a reasonable boost to small businesses and entrepreneurs.

The budget, the last before the general election, has therefore been largely welcomed by the business community although some claim it still does not go far enough in its support for entrepreneurial and fast-growing businesses.

Read more »

Fire Old Guard says successful entrepreneur

Luke Johnson, a successful entrepreneur, wrote in the FT last week that it is important to fire your existing management team if you want your business to discover reinvention. He says that gradual revolution is not enough and that when systems are broken small steps won’t work.

Whole swathes of businesses no longer work the way they used to. Book publishing and local newspapers are at the top of the list, but other business such as estate agencies, state education, financial services are all looking for new ways to do things.

We are not looking at a gradual revolution here – we are looking at business models that no longer work.

Read more »

Business goal setting – another of my great mistakes

Goal Setting is powerful. And I’m a big fan of setting goals… but…

Like the back of bottle containing powerful chemicals – perhaps for clearing a blocked drain – they should contain the warning ‘use with caution’ and ‘discard when passed the use by date’.

A classic goal for first-time entrepreneurs – who are building their first business – is to sell the business for a set amount – say £5million – in 3 year time.

Read more »

Can you become a successful entrepreneur by making more mistakes?

Warren Buffett, still one of the world’s most successful investors, is good at owning up to mistakes.

He has declared on many occasions that holding onto his textile company in the 1970s was an error and that he accepts full responsibility for not listening to the advice telling him to exit the business.

Even in his latest letter to shareholders he warns that “we will make plenty of mistakes”.

Read more »

How Successful Entrepreneurs Dump the Big But Dumb Business – and Why Yahoo is Behind Google

Which is the better business Google or Yahoo?

Well, you probably are going to choose Google – and you’d be right.

But do you know why they are a better business? Again, you might say better products etc… and again, I’m sure you’d be right.

But how would you measure the difference?

Read more »

Are you Building a Big But Dumb Business?

Tom Farmer, the entrepreneur who made his money with Quick Fit, a tyres and exhausts retailer and fitter, says that the bigger you are – the dumber you are.

In Mr Farmer’s view ‘the reason governments are dumb is because they are so big’.

So size is a real problem for both businesses and institutions.

Therefore, Tom Farmer is an advocate of the low employee business, which grows by outsourcing all the other services.

Read more »

Why Successful Entrepreneurs Do Give Up…

Do great entrepreneurs never give up?

Is a top entrepreneur like a dog with a bone, and just won’t let go?

True or false?

Well, true but only to a point. A smart entrepreneur will “try, try and try again – and then give up. No point in being a damn fool about it”. (WC Fields).

Read more »

The Best Single Business Idea – “One Customer Beats Every Business Plan”

Is this the best single business idea that you will ever come across? We reckon it is pretty much up there with the best.
One working prototype and one paying, happy customer ==> testimonial + request for second product from second customer. The two happy customers and testimonials then create a third customer and so forth.

Read more »

The Economist Gets Behind Freelance Working

Even The Economist´s Schumpeter column is reporting and marginally supporting the idea of freelancing, especially for interim CEOs who are normally very expensive to get rid of (and most of whom don’t work out). The article points out that the hiring process for CEOs is ‘hopelessly inefficient’ yet ends with the old adage that The most [...]

Read more »

The Big Secret – Recruitment Interviews Don’t Work

We have a recruitment interview Breakdown – 86% of interviews fail to pick the right person for the job.
According to a Michigan State University study on predictors of performance,
Some 90 per cent of hiring decisions are made as the result of the interview, but interviewing is only 14 per cent accurate…

Read more »

Successful Entrepreneurs – Take no Debt – Follow the 3B Rule Instead

I’ve been asked to advise Liverpool John Moores University entrepreneur students on getting finance for their new businesses. Controversially, my view on finance for young entrepreneurs would be, don’t. Here’s what I would recommend: a) avoid finance if at all possible and always for as long as possible – learn to beg, borrow and barter b) focus [...]

Read more »

Dear Successful Entreprenuers – A warning…

Dear successful entrepreneurs,

Here is my warning…

Just remember if you do employ traditionally (and ignore the freelance model), here is what you will be paying for sooner or later…

Read more »

Freelancing – the Future Looks Like This… Part I

“The glue that holds the company together is trust” said Dr James Bellini, a forecaster of employment trends, and therefore not employment.

This statement stands in direct conflict with some of the comments expressed in response to my article ‘Entrepreneurs – never employ anyone’.

Read more »

Objection to Hiring Freelancers – “I Want to Hire the Best”

Okay, we’ve started the ball rolling on this website with the controversial claim that entrepreneurs should only hire freelancers…

…that you have to hire the best. … and hiring the best means you have to offer the full time employment – the best package – a full time employment contract and for CEO’s golden handshakes to welcome them and golden parachutes should they fail, share options if they don’t etc.

Read more »

Entrepreneurs – Never Employ Anyone Ever Again

Okay – here is a radical business strategy for entrepreneurs that some of you won’t like – and that is that you should not employ anyone. Please, if you disagree, please don’t switch off but take a moment to think about the argument… you can always respond below…

Work with people on a freelance and contractual basis – yes, absolutely, you simply must. You can even have an office or a factory if you must, but never sign a standard UK or European employment contract.

Read more »

Like Football – Like Business

Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal coach and ‘Warren Buffett of football’ was quoted this August as saying: “The common denominator of successful teams is that the players are intelligent. That does not always mean educated. They can analyse a problem and find a solution. “The common denominator of a top-level person is that they can objectively assess [...]

Read more »